Day 350 (can you believe it?!?!?!)

A week from today I leave Maastricht.  A bit over a week after that I leave Europe. Man has that come around fast. I mean, not really of course, it has been almost a year, but it feels like particularly the last few weeks here have been set to warp speed. I remember achingly counting down weeks and days for other milestones (Brett coming, 100 days til I get home, the start of the last study block etc.) but now it seems I can't keep up. It feels like just minutes ago I was saying "one month left"!

My last post went up as the first of my friends began the slow dribble out of this bath-town with the student plug pulled out. Now the bathwater is almost completely gone and the drain is making that weird squeaking noise as the air tries to escape down the plumbing! There is literally NO-ONE here this weekend. I went for a walk around the guesthouse perimeter the other day (on my way to throw out the first few of MANY more bags to come of rubbish, old clothes and collected crap that needs to be excavated from my room before leaving) and of the 80 or so flats in these large buildings (which house 2 people each) there are about 5 occupied. And walking past an empty flat where friends used to live and knowing they're not inside is a surprisingly lonely feeling. I feel a bit like Will Smith in that movie "I am Legend", the only person left on the planet it seems sometimes, like some airborne disease wiped out all the people here while I was on my last holiday and I've come home to find the landscape unaffected, but EMPTY!

The only two people left in the guesthouse whom I know (Nakita and my roomie Emma) are away on last-ditch weekend trips. Nakita and I technically leave on the same day - next Friday, a week from today - but she goes home while I make my own last-ditch attempt at a "Summer" with 8 nights in Croatia. While I'm there Emma leaves and then its all over. I'll come back to Maastricht for just a couple of hours to check out of the guesthouse and grab any extra packing and then the looooong journey home begins. Catching that last bus from the guesthouse to the train station is going to be an odd combination of excited butterflies, melancholy and mild panic I think!

After all this jetting around Europe the past year I'm rather used to one or, at a pinch, two hour flights to most places. I have become spoilt. And now I'm facing about 20 hours in the air, separated by a 16 hour lay over in Kuala Lumpur (a far inferior airport to waste time in than say Singapore, which has a free movie theatre!). And before I even think about getting on the flight home I have to fly from Croatia to Germany and then get a train from there to Maastricht. That's about 6 hours travelling, plus a train from Maastricht to Amsterdam airport is another 3 or so... which means over four days I'm looking at about 40 hours traveling time and a whoooole lotta waiting.... The upside though is saying goodbye to budget airlines. If I MUST be trapped on a plane for so long, at least Malaysia Airlines is going to feed me, entertain me, attend to me and provide me with all sorts of unpaid for extras :D

In the meantime, this last week is going to be a mad rush of:

• finishing study (which I have come to describe as an annoying mosquito near the back of my ear - not exactly hard but annoying and I wish it would just go away)
• the continued dismantling of the flat (which I began a few days ago but can't yet bring myself to put away all the things that make this place home and face staring at 4 white walls and empty cupboards again like it was when I arrived)
• last minute catch ups with friends (I said "doei!" to my dear Dutch friend Iris last night, with an open invite to Australia)
• dealing with bureaucracy (I apparently have to deregister with the city administration, give back my ID card, close my bank account, check out of my accommodation... etc etc)
• and general panic attacks (have I packed everything, have I seen everyone, have I been everywhere i want to?!?!)

And then, like that, it will all be over....

Days 286 & 287 - Right Royal Weekend

286 (Fri) Konninginnenacht
The entire world (it seemed) was anticipating a certain royal event today – the wedding of British Prince William and (commoner!) Kate Middleton. But in fact the Netherlands throws a major royal party on this day EVERY year – Queen’s Night (or Konninginnenacht). This then leads to Queens Day the next day (or Konninginnedag). Basically it’s the equivalent of Australia Day back home, but on crack! The Dutch really do love their royal family, evidenced by enormous posters of their Queen, Beatrix, on a number of buildings. (She also makes a royal visit to a couple of towns each year.) Generally though, its just a chance to be patriotic and have some fun!


Givin' some lurv to Queen B


Queen B looking over the crowds at Museumplein


More Dutch patriotism

We decided to spend the night and day in Amsterdam where, unsurprisingly, the biggest party happens. Now, Aussies do green and gold for our national day, we might hit the beach, have a BBQ and possibly sing or listen to the anthem at some point during the day. The Dutch do Orange – the kind of Orange prison gangs wear (and indeed there were revellers dressed in orange prison-style overalls!). In fact, they get dressed up in ALL SORTS of costumes, face paint, accessories (think glitterbril [glitter glasses], orange afro wigs, blow up crown hats etc etc.) and run around in the streets dancing and singing to infectiously cheery Dutch tunes (or Dutch covers of popular songs, which are hilarious) and of course drinking and eating all things Dutch (think frites met mayo, broodje wurst [basically a hot dog], Heineken, suikerspin [fairy floss] etc.) And so that’s pretty much what we did!


The ubiquitous blow up crowns



FRITES!


BIER!

The train ride up on Friday night was mildly hectic/full, but not as bad as we had expected considering the hordes descending on Amsterdam. We only put on about half of our crazy Oranje get-up for the first night and headed into the club district where it was nuts – outdoor stages, people dancing on top of tram stops and on tram tracks(!) and generally Dutch orange madness. We also visited a shots celebrating the occasion with drinks such as ‘Dutch Delight’ and ‘Pumpkin Pie’ (it’s orange...). The real excitement  though came when a drunk Dutch guy tried (only half-jokingly, but thankfully unsuccessfully) to throw me in a canal!


A taste of the Queen's night decorations all over the city


SO many balloons!

287 (Sat) Konninginnedag
Our Queen’s Day started about midday. Out the window of the bus on the way into town we started to get an idea of what to expect as whole families rode past, decked out in range, flags and feather bowas flying being their bikes! The event spreads out over the whole city, with street parties and markets, music blaring from everywhere, food and drink stalls, event stages and park picnics. Everyone’s in a pretty good mood, but we noticed there weren’t a lot of kids around. Another observation was that its most certainly a Dutch event - while there were quite a few tourists, and we saw the odd tourist group or bus, the event is definitely a local thing. We were always surrounded by Dutch accents and language, the music was mostly in Dutch etc etc. And in typical Amsterdam style, not only were the streets PACKED but so were the canals. Quite a few people hire canal boats for parties, which caused major traffic jams under some of the canal bridges. There’s no real point to the day other than to have fun, be Dutch, wear Orange and maybe contemplate the royal family. It was also great for touristy photos. And you’re all aware how much I love an excuse to get dressed up!


An idea of the crowds ... are you sensing a colour scheme? :P


Canal traffic jam!


Amsterdam through Oranje coloured glasses!

The only downside to the day was getting home. After a day in the sun, drinking and dancing, we were knackered but it took about two hours longer than usual to get home by train because of the masses of people using the system. But nothing a good sleep in the next morning couldn’t fix. So now I feel like I’ve experienced the two most Dutch events during my exchange – Carnival (which I still haven’t blogged about now that I think about it! Eek – stay tuned) and Queen’s Day.... so I suppose you can just call me Lauren van Oranje!



(P.S. photo credits to Kathleen, Katie, Nakita and Emma, as I FORGOT my camera for this one!!)

Day 254 - Hup HOLLAND Hup!

Day 254 (Tues) My Euro 'football' experience

Now I’m more of an AFL girl than a soccer fanatic. At home I really only go to the soccer if the tickets are free! And I regularly put Brett and my mother to shame with my complete lack of knowledge or interest in the players or the rules. BUT this was not going to stop me from experiencing a real European ‘football’ match. And so, with the excited encouragement of Nakita (Sydney ) (who has been desperate to see a match since we landed on foreign soil) it came to be that I found myself on a coach, with her and Andra (Canada), headed for Amsterdam’s Ajax stadium to watch none other than our new adopted ‘home’ team (and almost world champions, need I remind you) take on Hungary. Apparently it was some sort of ‘qualifiying’ match for some European competition next year, but it didn’t really matter to me…

The bus ride there was an interesting experience in itself as we quickly realised it was full of vocal American students (vocal about being American that is) and the rest mostly Canadians and one or two other stray Aussies. It was a three hour ride but the driver only turned some music on about half an hour out from the stadium. So in the meantime we were serenaded by the American ‘choir’ sitting in the back half of the bus and their trusty portable speakers. We were all decked out in orange – such a flattering colour that we had to buy most of our gear as, really, who OWNS orange clothing – while the finishing touches (think faces covered in dutch-flag-coloured face paint) were added on the way.

  

on the bus - pre face painting

We arrived at the stadium about 7pm for 8.30pm kick off. There were already hordes of Dutchies streaming into the stadium complex, dressed head to toe in their national colour. They’re much more creative than us Aussies who usually just chuck on an Australia jersey or a flag around the shoulders and maybe a fake tattoo on a bicep or two or some sort of zinc-face paint design if we’re particularly feeling it. Instead, the Dutchies were walking around in DIY costumes made of fake orange fur, hats with lions heads on top (the team symbol… I think!) or full body lion suits, one guy even had this crazy hat/wig on made of these wobbly organge jelly spikes!! So needless to say it was an entertaining atmosphere as we made our way to our ticket gate – stopping for  Grolsch on the way. And its lucky we did because Ajax Stadium is 100 per cent alcohol free inside. Now this is probably not such a bad idea given the propensity of European soccer fans to beat each other to a pulp over the slightest disagreement(!). But what we found really odd was the stadium operator’s decision to offer alcohol free beer inside instead! (which by the way apparently tatsted awful).

the stadium

crazy Dutch supporters who crashed our photo

the Grolsch!!

Regardless, alcohol was not necessary to enjoy the night – the on-field action was far more engaging than expected and I probably would have just spilled anything I was drinking over the guy in front of me (who happened to be a Hungary supporter). Our group was RIGHT up in the nose-bleed section, sort of behind one of the goals but in the corner. And our two rows of English speaking, flag waving, over-excited student-tourists certainly drew a bit of attention from the rows of Dutchies behind us.

As for the match itself, Holland scored about 13 minutes into the first half and the Oranje crowd went nuts. The paper flags we found on our seats were out and the Dutch songs were sung (we just kind of yelled). Unfortunately though that was as much excitement as we were treated to in the first half – while the inaction led to a lot of Mexican waves, clapping to various beats and more Dutch singing (and some abuse!) The second half was a complete turn around. True to form, I missed the first goal of the half (by Hungary!) because I looked away for a split second. And then before we knew it Hungary scored again! Nakita was going nuts because she had decided Hungary needed to score to get the Dutchies fired up so we would actually have a game on our hands. And was she right or what? All up there were seven goals scored in the second half, quite a few in quick succession. We were up and down constantly, jumping around, waving our orange flags and yelling "Oh Ja, Oh Ja" and “Hup Holland Hup” cause apparently that’s what you do...

lining up for the national anthems - first time we'd actually heard the Dutch one I think!

some of the action

At the end of the game the final score was 5-3, we’d all lost our voices and even the three Hungary fans in front of us seemed to be satisfied with an exciting game (keeping in mind Holland thumped Hungary 4-0 the week before). Getting out of the stadium seemed to take a while but really it was all very well organised. No time for a celebratory beer on the way out though as it was back to the bus to get home. The game finished about 11pm so we didn’t make it back to Maastricht until about 2am (needless to say the bus was much quieter on the way home) and then we still had to cycle home from where the bus dropped us off!

NB: Ironically, Australia also played just over the border in Germany that night and they won too. So it seems both my ‘home’ countries did alright :D