Living Limburg

Today marks our third full day in Maastricht. This city, dating from the middle ages, has proved to have much more to offer than we expected. Since RTC is attending a conference, I have explored a lot on my own, but we did manage to do two walking tours together. The first was a self-guided tour of the fortresses of the city. Since the city was built by the Romans, it had several city walls that were used for protection. We also took a more general tour of the city, led by a guide who fortunately spoke English. Dutch is a very interesting language, and it turns out that Maastrichters have their own dialect that is different than the Dutch spoken in the rest of the country. Fortunately, everyone we have encountered speaks English. When we first arrived, I always asked if the native I was speaking to spoke Dutch. I tried to ask this IN Dutch a few times, but it was so terrible that no one could figure out what I was saying. So I took to asking in English if they spoke English. The response would often be "a little bit" but upon further conversation it was clear this "little bit" was quite a lot. I then realized that things seemed to go better if I just started speaking English. I got this sense that some people were almost offended that I was asking if they spoke English because OF COURSE they do.

Maastricht is part of an area called Limburg, and we learned during our guided tour yesterday that Maastrichters are not necessarily like those in the rest of Holland. Maastricht is sandwiched between Belgium and Germany, and changed hands between the Dutch, French, and Spanish several times. Tomorrow we head off to Amsterdam, so it will be interesting to note differences in culture between the two parts of the Netherlands.

Observations:

Everyone bikes. Yes, there are cars, but biking and walking are the preferred mode of transportation.

Perhaps due (at least in part) to this very active lifestyle, portion sizes are huge. Last night I had a a salad with duck and bacon, and RTC commented that there may have been half a duck on my plate. For a salad. (Yes, I ate all but about two bites anyway).

I'm not sure what "working hours" are here, but people seem to be out and about almost all the time. 11 AM? Plenty of action at the cafe. 3 PM? Plenty of action at the cafe. And there is beer or wine consumed any time of day. We're not shocked or anything by this--we've been to Europe before--but it is one of the things that is so much different than in North America.

It is hard to imagine with all this lovely eating and drinking, walking and biking from shop to shop, that we will be ready to face reality in a few days. But such is life. And on that note, it is time for a beer. It is late--already 3 PM!

Next stop: Maastricht

Greetings from Brussels! RTC and I leave shortly for the train station, where we will board a two hour train to Maastricht, Netherlands. We flew into Brussels on Thursday morning, and have enjoyed our two nights here. It was a great, low-speed way to start our trip. Beer, frites, chocolate, repeat. We enjoyed a couple walking tours which covered the main sites, although we skipped big museums in favor of more cafe time.

In Maastricht, RTC will be busy with his conference, so I will be more on my own--we'll see what adventures that brings!

Looking forward

I hoped this post would include a photo of me sporting Caruso Curls, but it was not meant to be. I filled up the little steamer with water, plugged it in, and waited with foam rollers in hand for steam to start spouting out the top. I recalled it didn't take long...so when it hadn't started steaming within a few minutes I consulted the box, which said "steamer-ready in 30 seconds". Disappointment.

But on to more important things. In just four short days, we are off to Brussels! In honor of this, I went to a Belgian bakery, Manuel Latruwe this morning for breakfast.



I was in Madison two weeks ago, and we went for breakfast at Lazy Jane's. I had a morning bun as a warm up to my eggs and had forgotten how delicious they are. I have been thinking about them for two weeks. I am not kidding. RTC will attest to this. This morning that was all I wanted to eat. So I looked for a recipe and luckily found the original--from the original--Ovens of Brittany.

Unfortunately, if I started them this morning, I would not have them until tomorrow morning. And besides the issue of wanting them NOW, there is a lot on the to-do list this weekend.

Then I remembered Manuel Latruwe. And that it is Belgian. So I used this to justify getting in the car and driving over there (this is normally a bike-to location, but it is a miserable day in Calgary so I allowed myself an indulgent drive).

It was delicious, and I even managed to save RTC some. However, if he stays at the office too long he may be out of luck. I can only let that stuff sit in a bag on the counter for so long.

Road trip part 3: flooding and things I discovered

The last leg of our journey was pretty uneventful, other than some serious flooding.



I like the shadow of the Uhaul in the photo. This past weekend, I helped my family move, and they had a much bigger Uhaul. It made out 14 footer seem like a pick up truck.

One of the boxes that I moved was labeled "keepsakes". I wasn't entirely sure what was in this box, so I sorted through it once we got home.

The Richard Caruso Molecular Hairsetter:



A NKOTB poster from 1990:



As you can see, I thought it was funny to put it up. RTC was not as amused as I was. Unfortunately, we forgot to take it down when we had a friend over. He now thinks we are bizarro.