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!