Between the morning and evening rehearsals our host mother and her niece (who was the host mother to two of the other choir staff members) took us for a quick afternoon trip to Maastricht in the Netherlands. Now, this is not the first time I have visited this particular city; concomitant to my studying abroad in Florence seven years ago my friend Mallory was doing the same thing in Maastricht. I tried to locate the pictures from way back then but remembered they were on my camera that got stolen by a GYPSY!
At any rate, it was nice to visit again and at least say hello to the city for Mallory.
A view of the city and the Maas river (hence the name Maastricht)
Apparently Ed thought there was an even MORE beautiful view to be seen…
… ME!!!
A handful of businesses around the city can be seen with a royal crest above the door. This signifies that they are authorized to serve the royal house and we saw two such buildings on our tour:
The royal florist (with Ed in the doorway) and hairdresser (with me in the doorway)!!!
Vera also took us by a shop I know my granddaddy Dan would have loved:
PEANUTS!!!!!!
These two churches dominate one certain part of the city. There’s some story bout the two of these churches but I for the life of me can’t remember what it is…
Maastricht is also home to the CHEESE-tastic Andre Rieu, leader of the Johann Strauss Orchestra and the Josh Groban to middle aged Nederlander woman across the country.
Every year he has a ginormous concert in this square and unfortunately we came a little too early.
I couldn’t leave the city without stopping by and grabbing another Belgium waffle (albeit from the Netherlands); this time I went to the exact same place that Mallory took me for my first one all those years ago.
I was a little terrified the man behind me was going to take mine!
Artist: Barbra Streisand/ Album: Color Me Barbra
Bonus anecdote!: Vera explained to us when crossing the border that women from Belgium used to go to the Netherlands and smuggle back butter (apparently it was some good shiz back then). In order to do so they would sew secret pockets in their dresses and once the police figured out they would stop the women and make them wait in a really really hot room until it melted all over their clothes. Oh you crafty, cholesterol hating Dutch!
Now if you only had a picture of Andre eating an waffle it would be cheese-tatic perfection.
ReplyDeleteTwo things:
ReplyDelete1. I have tears in my eyes reading this post. I blame the pregnancy, but if I were honest, it probably is not related.
2. When I saw the picture of that waffle store before I read the paragraph, I was thinking that was the one I used to go to every so often....ok, weekly...ok, twice a day.