Getting to Know My New Home

      I arrived in Maastricht on Friday, January 13th. It feels like ages ago now. I arrived and immediately had a welcome meeting where we met everyone. There's 12 of us. 6 guys, and 6 girls. 8 from UC Berkeley, 2 from UC Santa Cruz, 1 from UC Irvine, and 1 from UC Davis. 6 from Southern California, 5 from Northern California, and 1 who is originally from Germany. We are a good group. Lots of personalities, lots of differences, but we mesh pretty well and I enjoy their company, which is good because I've spent my entire last 2 weeks never leaving their sides.
     First things first, they showed us where we could go to the grocery store thats super close to our dorms. Then we came back to set up our internet. A few of us were STARVING so we set off to find some place to eat. We hadn't seen anyplace but the grocery store and were too hungry to try and figure out which direction to walk to find food so we settled and got expensive, not very good Chinese food. I went with Kheng and Erica. It was nice to start to get to know them. Then we came back and hung out in one of the communal kitchens in the other building and met some people from last semester. I was still a little jet lagged so I peaced out around 11 but it was a great first night in my new home.
     Next day we went on a practical city walking tour. It was great to see how to get to more places. Maastricht is lovely. I really like it. It's the perfect mix between old and new, and quaint and "metropolis". I knew from the first day I was going to like it here.

Park in the middle of town

The "Hellpoort"

It was a little shocking walking around the stores and everywhere and realizing that everything was new and nothing seemed familiar, except the occasional H&M. I expected it but I guess I didn't expect it to the extent that it is. It's been fun trying to figure out what things are, deciphering labels, ordering vegetarian food. I'm definitely getting the hang of it though!

The City Hall

Sunday everyone was jet lagged so they all slept in. I unpacked and started to get settled and finally relaxed for the first time since I left home. It was quite pleasant. Around 4 we decided to stop being lazy and we all went on a walk to explore Maastricht a little bit more. Get used to it. It was nice to get to know everyone a little better.

The old Bridge and the River Maas that runs through the city center

Monday we had our first real day of orientation. We had another welcoming where we met the rest of the staff in charge of our program. And they fed us this weird jelly cheesecake. The crust was amazing. Then we had Dutch Lunch, which is, as our Program Director Severiene explained, bread with stuff on it. They LOVE their baguettes and sandwiches here. I've had more baguette sandwiches in the last 2 weeks than ever before. They have great sandwiches though. Yum. Then we went on a historical city tour and got to see more fun sites like...

This old bread mill. Still need to go to this bakery.

Tuesday was more orientation. We had our first lecture on Dutch Culture. It was pretty interesting, and in the afternoon we went on a biking tour. Our tour guide, Cor, was the same guy from the day before. He's quite old but has so much energy. Very entertaining. He showed us the rules of the road in Maastricht and then took us to the outer bounds. Which is amazingly beautiful. I unfortunately don't have any pictures cause I was too busy being amazed and biking. But it was lovely.

Sunset over the Maas.

Next it was off to Amsterdam!