Van Der Valk Hotel Stein -Urmond Maastricht

... Whilst I had very little time there, I really enjoyed the atmosphere and found myself desperately wanting to return to explore this little alley or that little shop, or this other part of the city one day - either that or wishing that my own Danish prince would walk round the corner and suggest I stay to be shown the city in more detail! ;) Every now and then you find a city where you feel instantly comfortable, and where you would be only too happy to stay longer, perhaps even not ...

... quite close to my head but I got used to it. I even got to ride Maud's horse and after a few laps of bouncing around like a fool I kind of got the hang of it! We heard Hugo and Maud practice in the local band one evening and on Tuesday we got to see Twan's school. It was nice to be in such a lovely town and out of the big cities. Bike riding through the woods and around Boukoul was a great change from walking! Going down into the mine in Valkenburg was very ...

... Belgian Grand Prix- what a race! Erin's first (and probably only) F1 race, it was a classic . We sat at the Eau Rouge covered grandstand - then walked onto the circuit after the race- as I walked down the Eau Rouge hill, I felt that sense of overwhelming awe to be somewhere that I hadn't had since we climbed up to the burial chamber in the Great Pyramid at Giza. Mythic. Louis again treated ...

The main reason I had decided to come to Holland in March was to celebrate my Tante Welmoed's 80th birthday with her. My cousin Judith did pretty much all of the planning and it was a fabulous party! <br><br>The guest began arriving at about noon and included friends of Welmoed's as well as lots of family. Of course Welmoed ...

... have a few drinks at the infamous "American" bar, The Highlander. We all had a great time meeting new people from different cultures and some people that remind us of home as well. I think that this semester is just as much of a vacation for her and our teachers as it is for us so she was ready to have some fun :) Saturday was pretty relaxing as well and we decided to go to the English speaking church in town that night. This was quite the experience! It ...

... Communication for my first 3 week block with Jill Tyler, a proffessor from USD. We had orientation today and got to meet the professors formally and eat together. We had pizza again (they must think Americans like pizza...haha!) I don't know what my pizza was called but it had huge chunks of onion, ham, and peaches and was suprisingly pretty good! Almost all of us students went out on the town last night and I experienced my first European club, The Highlander. It ...

... the cave too much but the one cool part was when they enclosed us in complete darkness and we had to feel our way around a tunnel...creepy. After the cave we headed back to Maastricht where we had two hours to do whatever we wanted. We were excited to do some shopping but since it was already 6 PM, all of the stores had closed already. Some of the girls decided to just sit down ...

... to shut off my alarm so i woke up at nine and decided to try and find the music shop. there's only on store in the whole town that sells guitars and it was about an hour walk over the river Maas. the store was called Daan Smith and shop owner was a nice guy, there wasn't much selection but i found a nice sounding washburn for 295 on special from 395 (Euro). he threw in a soft case and some ...

... it must be said that after riding over 50km in the day it was not a comfortable finish to proceedings, our numb bums not appreciating leaving the smooth bitumen roads for the cobbled streets of Maastricht&#8217;s centre. <br><br>We rested on our sore rear-ends for the evening at an Indonesian restaurant. Another of the drawbacks I&#8217;ve found about living in Europe is the lack of good South-East Asian food but ...

... je moest het maar iets nodig hebben en het thuis hebben laten liggen. <br><br>Maar zo, ik vertrek! Ik ga genieten van mijn jaar in het buitenland, aan het strand, tussen de palmbomen, de blauwe zee. Zoals ik het opnoem lijkt het wel een droomvakantie. Maar vergeet niet: de nieuwe taal, nieuwe mensen, nieuwe gewoonten, nieuwe omgeving, ... Hier lijkt het een avontuur dat ik absoluut niet wil vergeten. <br><br>Later meer.<br><br>Groetjes Stefanie