Days 36 to 40 - Week One in Maastricht

Day 36 - Home sweet new home!
FINALLY off to Maastricht via train from Amsterdam (2.5 hours). After my earlier "turtle"comments about having too much luggage I'm smugly pleased to report that the Dutch girl who picked at the train station me up to show me my place was surprised I had "only one" bag. Many other girls have arrived with two jumbo suitcases plus...! Took the bus to my new digs, about 15 minutes from the centre of town - 3 university housing buildings in the same street, each a long building of adjoining two-bedroom units. Have my own room and share bathroom (no bath), kitchen (no oven or freezer) and laundry with my roomie Tess who's 22 from South Korea but speaks great English (I'm beginning to wonder who doesn't!) She arrived a couple hours after me - giving me just long enough to wash the Contiki out out of my clothes(!) and walk to the supermarket bout 5 mins up the road (which, I discovered later, is about another 5 minutes from the Belgian border!!! I repeat, I can WALK to Belgium from my house!) Not knowing where we were or who else was in the surrounding rooms, Tess and I made our first sharehouse dinner (pasta of course) and hit the sack.

Day 37 - O (what a) Week!
With no bikes as yet, Tess and I bussed to town to start INKOM = Dutch O Week, similar to home but on a larger scale - DJ parties with 5000 students, beer companies as sponsors, opening by the Mayor of Maastricht etc. Despite the rap, the kick off was a bit of a fizzer - a "fun" parade which turned into what felt like a prison march through Maastricht! Luckily there was beer at the end. Managed to leave my assigned group of students (8 Dutch, 2 German ... and me - guess what the common language was?) to buy towels and a quilt(!) in the avo before a 1 euro per beer pub crawl through town. Was starting to feel like I fit in ... until it was bike riding time. People here ride EVERYWHERE. And, being in a group of Europeans, they all pretty much had bikes but me, which meant riding, not walking. Apparently its common here to hitch a ride on the back of someone's bike. Fine if you're the 50kg, 5"2' German girl in our group with no bike. Not so fine for the ... shall we say "broad" 5"10' Aussie with limited balance! Needless to say an awkward and painful (think what its like to sit on a metal grate on the back of a bike on cobbled streets) experience!

Day 38 - "Are you Australian?!?!"
Today I was approached by a Dutch girl exclaiming "Are you Australian? Wow!" I replied "Am I that much of a freak?!" which prompted her to assure me "Oh no, we just don't see many of you". Aussies abroad ... endangered species? Hrm... But the fascination with Oz continued later in the night at an improv comedy show for new students. The Dutch comedians (performing in English, naturally) asked for someone who had an interesting story about travelling to Maastricht and before I could help myself I blurted out "I was stuck on a bloody plane for a day!" and soon found a bloke with a microphone under my nose. They asked the usual - what are you studying/what do you do (journalism), what did your parents say about you leaving (good riddance! have fun) and finally what do you miss most about home which prompted me and quite possibly the only other Australian in the room to simultaneously yell "Vegemite" (Sorry Brett :P). As you can imagine, explaining what exactly Vegemite is to a room full of Europeans took some work but eventually these comedic geniuses were ready to perform "Lauren's journey to Maastricht". I took a video which I'll hopefully post, but the gist is: My hippie parents (Dad, they put you in a skirt!) send me off to Maastricht. On the plane I watch "How to Train Your Dragon" and put the concept of this movie to use during my stopover in Malaysia where I tame an out of control dragon with ... you guessed it, Vegemite, as a treat. When I arrive in Maastricht I realise there is no English speaking newspaper there and plan to start one. Funnily enough Mr Vegemite is in town looking to invest profits from the massively popular product in Europe. We do a deal and my life is complete here in this happy university town editing the Vegemite times!

Day 39 - Pimp my bike
Two days of hitch-hiking by bike was enough to motivate me - today was operation buy-a-bike day. After traispsing around the city on foot looking without success I gave up and hired one ... only to find new wheels that afternoon! Murphy's Law. Good timing though as one of the INKOM activities that day was "Pimp your bike". Originally a white bike, my new friend Iris came up with the genius idea to paint black splodges and make it "The MOO Mobile". We even found an INKOM promotional seat cover which just happened to be in cow print. And oh was it worth it, being able to ride MY new bike with the group. Its first destination - BBQ dinner, Dutch style. Now, it wasn't like an Aussie BBQ (no 'dead horse' in sight Dad) but was actually quite tasty with this overly creamed/mashed potato salad and coleslaw but not with mayonnaise... :S Unfortunately I did not fare so well on my first cycle home at night - it POURED and I got soaked. On the upside it still only took 15 minutes. The next day I asked a Dutch guy what you do when it rains - his response: "ride faster"!

Day 40 - Beer, glorious beer
This afternoon I experienced a Dutch event which must be seen to be believed. Called Cantus, it involves holding a "song book" in one hand and a beer in the other, belting out Dutch songs and literally throwing beer over everyone in sight. Everyone is drenched and stinky by the end of it and the floor is disgusting. But they seem to love it. I think its a waste of beer frankly! Later that night was the final INKOM party - Heineken Night - featuring (apparently) famous Dutch DJs. Really it was just a flash back to the 90s, playing spice girls and five etc. The funniest was an all-male rock group who did a cover of Britney's "Hit me Baby One More Time" - equally funny was watching the Dutch blokes in the crowd go nuts for it! Apparently 90s pop is still popular in Europe ... who knew?!

Observations: The beers here are too small. It's harder than you'd think to buy a bike. But the bike lanes are so well set out. The whole lane is painted red and pretty much everything has to give way to bikes. DJs in clubs play only the "good bits" of songs and then skip to another, usually without any attempt to mix. Licorice lollies called "chalk" (bc they're white and look like chalk) that taste sweet and minty and salty all at once are actually quite delicious.
Mistakes: Not getting a bike sooner - seriously, you're a social outcast without one! Not laminating my map before I got rained on while riding.
Mini victories: Learning about 10 sentences in Dutch so far!
New Dutch I've learnt: "Hoi Hoi" - yes they actually say this, it means hello, "Ik wil bier, astjulbliff" - I'd like a beer please! and "Ik hep un vriend" - I have a boyfriend :)