Carnaval!!

Carnaval...the time of year when you don't work, you don't go to school...but you do dress up as anything you can think of (NOTHING was off limits) and your age doesn't matter. From infants to the elderly, everyone is decked out! We went to the parade on Sunday and also the the traditional raising of the Mooswief. The Mooswief is a tradition in Maastricht, and is a woman who sells vegetables on the Vrijthof Square...a large representation of this woman is raised up a pole to signify the official start to Carnaval! (It was kind of anti-climatic, but oh well...). We saw hilarious costumes...my favorite was someone dressed as a shower curtain! They were inside, and the shower curtain went all the way around them...to get another beverage etc, they'd simple slide open their curtain and then close it again. Bah ha ha...I found that to be quite amusing. (Pictures are up on Shutterfly!)

We dressed up as traditional looking Dutch girls...mainly because they were cheap costumes! I've become rather fond of my hat...and have forgotten to take it off when I'm in my room. It is also quite the nice shield from the snow!!

I leave here in about a half hour for the Maastricht train station! We're taking the train to the airport Charleroi (right outside of Brussels) where we'll be flying to Budapest! The plan is the same as my last post, so I won't repeat...but I'll be getting back around dinner time or a little later (MY TIME) on Monday! Look for pictures and a new blog post sometime on Tuesday...as Monday night I'll be catching up on homework!

Hope everyone had a good Valentine's Day (no one here celebrates it...guess it's an American thing?) and has an enjoyable week! I'll be back, blogging away, before you know it!

Cheers!

Paris Trip's Top Ten Fun Facts

As you might have guessed, or even enjoyed reading, these Top Ten Fun Facts seems to sum things up well. We had quite a few hilarious moments on our Paris trip, and I thought it only seemed fitting to add a Top Ten for them all.

1) Setting one alarm isn't a good idea. Setting two alarms IS a good idea. Setting the alarm for the right time IS a good idea. Having your phone on loud, so to be alerted about alarm issues IS a good idea. Haha - we started off the trip with a slight hiccup, but we ALL learned that it was good to be aware of the above. :)

2) When tired, one will revert to the only languages they naturally speak. I only know two languages, with Spanish being my second. Apparently, when one gets tired, one reverts to using the language they know instead of the language they should be. Example A: asking for a chocolate croissant "por favor" instead of "s'il vous plait". Rather embarrassing.

3) Bring the extra batteries you packed in your PURSE, not back home in your bag. Or, when you're at the top of the Eiffel Tower, you will have no back-up batteries. Fail.

4) Always bring comfortable, warm pants to sleep in. Or, perhaps your roommates, whom you never met, will open the window when they arrive home at 4 AM and create an ice-box feeling in your room. This is not fun, especially when you're not wearing warm clothes. :)

5) Certain cultures will always do the same thing for pictures. You can tell it's a European taking a picture when they simple stand there with a solemn face - no smiling. You can tell it's Americans when they take a jumping shot in front of a monument. And well, when you see the peace signs coming out...well...we all know our Asian tourist friends love the peace sign.

6) Crepes are EVERYWHERE!! The restaurants that sell them are all conveniently located next to all the big sites, so the tourists, weary and hungry, look over and think - YES, CREPES! Like we did. Didn't matter how much they cost - we would eat them. Score for them. Score for our stomachs. Fail for our wallets. :)

7) Pride Points. Pride Points are one of the best things you can do to make a trip more fun. Instead of betting money, or food, you bet pride points. The amount you earn is up to the discretion of your peers that are present. If you lose, you go negative. If you win - well, you get your amount of Pride Points. Example...guessing exactly what time it is on the dot, without any help would be 50 Pride Points. Falling off your chair, for whatever reason would be a -40 Pride Points. If you're having a boring day - start the Pride Point game with your friends. Guarantee to make your life better, and funnier.

8) Booking trains the day of, or two days before a trip = expensive. Booking trains weeks in advance = cheap. Noted.

9) Some of the best things are free. I don't mean the places we saw, though those are OBVIOUSLY cool. I mean the four hour conversation we had amongst the four of us, covering every topic we could think of. Cost nothing, and not only was it great, but it was a wonderful way to really get to know more about the people you're with. One of the best parts of the trip.

10) Nutella makes everything better. If you don't know what this magical substance is...it's like a chocolate spread that you can put on anything you wish. The consistency of creamy peanut-butter. It's AMAZING on crepes. But if you buy yourself some Nutella, know that you'll end up eating it ALL. But, it's worth it. (Note...in the picture above...the crepes have Nutella on top. Glorious.)

**Next trip up on the docket is a Triple Tour...flying out next Monday evening (no school due to Carnaval) to Budapest where we'll be until Thursday morning. Thursday we take the train to Vienna, and we'll be there until Saturday morning. Saturday morning we take the train to Prague, and we'll be there until Monday - when we fly back home. SO very excited, and it's almost the same group as in Paris, just no James this time, as he'll be in Barcelona with a different group. Flights and hostels are booked, only the trains left to take care of. More details to come as it gets closer!!

Paris - The City of Light

I was SO excited to begin my exploration of Europe (outside Maastricht, of course) in Paris. I love art and couldn't WAIT to see some of the amazing historic landmarks that call Paris home. Our group consisted of Carolyn (MN), myself, Theresia (Sweden) and James (Canada)...just as planned. We left EARLY on Sat morning, and despite a slight hiccup with the train/alarm malfunctions, we made it to Paris in one piece. We checked into the hostel, which was only about a 10 minute walk from the train station, and then headed out for the day.

Our hostel was in the northern part of Paris, so we had to hike down to the central area to see all the 'big' sites. We stopped for some lunch on the way, little pizzas and a mini pastry for the road. We hit the Louvre first, and our first glance of the glass pyramid had us all excited! We took quite a few pictures out front before we headed into the pyramid, and down into the museum. We found out that European Union students got in for free - which I found quite ironic. (The Minneapolis Institute of Art is NOT free...but the LOUVRE WAS! Nuts!). We immediately set off to see La Joconde (french for Mona Lisa). It's a ways into the museum, so we got to see quite a lot of famous art on the way. I recognized a few from Art History, which was really fun. We finally found the Mona Lisa, and I won't lie, my heart rate definitely increased. It's so insane to see something that you've heard about since you were little, and has been around for so long, as well as has quite the mystery AND history about it. Was a terrific way to start our Paris weekend! We looked at the statue room and then headed out to see Notre Dame.

The cathedral is on an island in the middle of Paris, but it's hard to tell it's an island at all. Everything is so closely packed together, you don't really realize you're crossing that many bridges. I was surprised by how light the stone was, but was not about how majestic it seemed. We walked around the inside (also free!) and it was surreal. So calm, with people EVERYWHERE! The area where people sit, called the nave, had people scattered everywhere in seats. Some praying, some gazing up at the magnificent architecture and some simply people watching. My camera was a bit inept at getting some decent pictures, but it WAS pretty dark - so at least my pictures capture that.

After Notre Dame we took a crepe break. Mine had nutella and whipped cream on top. SO GOOD! We became official crepes fans after that! Getting our second wind, it was off to the Eiffel Tower - which was on the far West side of Paris. (Notre Dame is in the Central area of Paris).

We could glimpse the Tower, but it seemed like we weren't ever going to reach it! When we finally did, and stopped to take our first pictures, it lit up for the night! It was so beautiful to see against the dark sky - one of the most beautiful pictures I got of all the weekend! We went to go wait in line, and as the VERY top was closed, went up to the next best thing - the second level. The elevator goes up at an angle at first, then rises vertically the rest of the way. I was a little freaked, I'll admit. The top was FREEZING but an amazing view of the city. We were able to walk around and take pictures from each side. We didn't stay for long as it was REALLY COLD and quite windy. We then headed to a little French cafe to grab some dinner and rest our legs. I got bœuf bourguignon (basically a beef stew) that I only knew about from the movie Julie and Julia, haha. It was delicious, filling, and warm - the perfect thing to end the day. We hailed a taxi, and were lucky enough to have it drive right around the Arc de Triomphe (though our driver was a bit of a maniac, especially in the roundabout around the Arc!). We hit the pillow around 10/10:30, wiped out.

Sunday we were up and eating breakfast by 7:30/8 (which was some great coffee and croissants with apricot jam - the hostel's complimentary breakfast) and off on the train to Versailles! It took about an hour to get there and we all were still a bit sleepy. We spotted a Starbucks on the way to the Palace, and stopped for some java. The caffeine was necessary. Coffee in hand, we headed to Versailles. (We then lucked out AGAIN as Versailles on the first Sunday of the month is free!) We toured the inside first - and saw all the State Rooms (including the Hall of Mirrors, Throne Room and King and Queen's respective bedchambers) and then went out to explore the extensive gardens. Statues were everywhere, and the garden was HUGE! We just walked around the main walkways, but there were numerous little off-shoot type mazes all over. We took an great picture in the front of the gardens - which you can see above. We grabbed some paninis for lunch as we walked around and then headed out.

Next on the list were the Catacombs of Paris. We took our metro from Versailles part of the way to the Catacombs, and then walked the rest. (It's in the southern part of Paris.) We had to wait in line for about 45 minutes, and munched on some delicious French candies while we waited. :) Once inside we all got a little creeped out as we descended the stairs and began walking down the stone tunnels. It reminded me of the fortification tour in Maastricht, but here we were walking into an underground graveyard - so a bit more creepy. We had to walk a ways before we even entered the area with bones. The bones were stacked up, very tightly packed to about 4.5 feet high. They were even stacked to make designs with the skulls. All you could really see were skulls and femur bones, and it looked like the other bones were stacked back farther towards the walls where you couldn't see. Supposedly over 8,000 people are buried down there, but by the looks of all the femurs, you'd guess it to be a lot more. At one point we lost the people in front of us, and behind us, and became a little freaked that we had gotten lost. Lost in the Catacombs, mind you. We were VERY relieved to spot the shadows of the people ahead of us a few minutes later, haha.

We grabbed some snacks and then decided we'd attempt to walk back to our hostel. This was quite the feat as we were in southern part of Paris, and had to walk back up to the northern part. We took our time, but were very relieved to spot our hostel in the distance. After a stop at a little grocery store for some food - we headed in to eat and relax. Our dinner was a bit of a hodge podge (red wine, crusty bread, cheese, BBQ chips, Pringles, orange flavored chocolate and chocolate waffle cookies) but it was filling and a great end to a wonderful weekend. Our group of four had some great conversation as the wine was consumed and no topic wasn't touched. Off to bed around 11/11:30.

Monday was simply travel-home day. We caught a train around ten and enjoyed the comfortable chairs and the view out the window on the way home. We walked home from the train station as well, getting home a little after 1.

All in all it was a great trip - lots of fun! It was amazing to see the sites of Paris in person, and we got some great pictures to remember it all by. My Shutterfly site has ALL my pictures if you'd like to look through them. Can't wait for the next trip!!!

PBL - what is that??

It was QUITE difficult to get myself into the mindset of school again this week...as this Winter Break lasted so long. Having a whole week last week of just frivolous activities made this week of class that much harder. Nevertheless, it still had to happen. So, I figured I should explain a bit about how classes work here.

Maastricht uses a teaching method called Problem Based Learning (PBL) and is the INTENT of most U.S. 'discussions' that are held jointly with lectures in classes. BUT - here they actually focus on the PBL and NOT lectures. Let me explain. The courses are structured with reading text, articles, and completing problems in advance - depending on the topic - so that you are fully prepared to discuss when you arrive at tutorials (their word for 'discussions'). Tutorials are two hours in length and the focus is literally discussion. The tutors who lead them say very little, if anything, and your grade depends very heavily on how much you contribute and discuss the ideas of that week. The idea is then that you truly LEARN the material, as through discussion and debate you understand the topic on a deeper level. You aren't simply commiting terms to memory. Lectures are held very minimally, and in some courses, not at all.

Also, they use a block system here, not a semester system. I'm taking Block 4 currently and will also be taking Block 5. Block 1 starts back at the beginning of the academic calender in the Fall. Each block goes for about 7 weeks and then is followed by the week of exams. I'll only be taking two courses in each block, but with as much reading and preparation that is required, it won't feel like a lighter load by any means. Needless to say, this semester won't be easy or necessarily hard, just different.

I'm taking Consumer Behavior and Management Accounting for this block. CB is in my major of Marketing, so I feel more comfortable and interested with that class. Accounting I like - due to my like for order and neatness with numbers - but that's more under Financial Accouting. Managment Accounting is more real-life, about the theoretial basis of accounting, and how businesses must base decisions off of it. This class will be more out of my element, but I hope to learn a lot in the process.

On a side note - today I made a cheeseburger macaroni of sorts...which turned out not half bad...but got me thinking. If anyone reading this has some SIMPLE but GOOD recipes that are made using JUST a stove-top - I'd love to hear about them! I have no oven, microwave or freezer, but DO have a fridge. I need to start learning what to make other than spaghetti and grilled cheese. :) Your suggestions are welcome!

Tomorrow is my off day, as I've mentioned before - so groceries, more Paris planning, and "me" shopping are all on the docket. Oh yes, AND studying. :) More to come later this week...

Eating Like the Dutch

I went to a 'traditional Dutch dinner buffet' last night, as part of the exchange student activities (like the fortification tour). Wasn't sure what to expect! It ended up being two different stews, as you can see in the picture. The darker brown of the two was my favorite. Was a beef that tasted like it had been soaked in cloves. Was almost addicting! I would definitely eat that again!! The other more muddy brown stew was okay. Had a strong veggie taste and less of a meat-y taste, but was still good. The salad - well, their salad tastes like our salad, ha. And they LOVE fries here - so it wasn't too big of a surprise to see them at the buffet. I had a Pepsi with my meal - as it came with it - and included a pic of how little the bottles are! AND you can't just order a water here to avoid having to pay for a beverage, water comes in similar bottles and costs money. All in all, was a very filling dinner! I sat with two Scottish girls, a Canadian, and the one male U of M-er at Maastricht. We had a good chat throughout dinner.

Classes started today! But I lucked out and don't have class on Mon - which is GREAT for traveling! I do have class on Tues, Wed and Fri with Thurs also being an off day. Thurs will probably end up being my study day.

Paris is a go! I'll be traveling with Carolyn (MN) and Theresia (Sweden), and possibly others that manage to book in our same hostel. The hostel is officially booked for us three and we have our big sights somewhat planned out. We're heading out early Sat, like I mentioned (because I have class until six on Fri, boo) so that Sat can be used as an all-day sightseeing day. Will be staying until late-morning on Mon. The 'big' sights we want to see are the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre, Arc de Triompe, the Catacombs and Versailles. We're still planning out what days to hit which sights, but are thinking Sunday will be mostly Versailles. Monday will be more of a laid back morning to people watch and then meander home. I plan on taking LOTS of pictures!! Can't WAIT!

Hope everyone that wanted to, has been able to access the Shutterfly picture site. Feel free to add your comments to pictures! Haven't done a Fun Facts list in a while, and I have three new ones:

1) Sunny days are pretty rare. There's only been sun for a few hours this whole week - otherwise it's overcast, raining, or snowing.

2) If you thought fries were an American thing, you thought wrong! They LOVE fries here!! But, they eat them a little bit differently. The traditional way to eat them is drenched in mayonnaise, drizzled in a spicy ketchup and sprinkled with onions. I haven't yet tried this concoction, but will have to soon.

3) European's idea of dancing is NOT American's idea of dancing. It's not uncommon to see people out on the dance floor, right after they arrive in the pub. They just move to the music, and dance all by themselves. This would NEVER happen in a bar in the States. You can tell who the Americans are because we all just stare at these people dancing, look around awkwardly, and just kind of stand there, haha

Shutterfly Site with Pictures!

As you may have noticed, there's not a ton of pictures that I can put up on here. Due to that, I've created a Shutterfly website, where people are able to view ALL my pictures, make comments, etc. These will be the same pictures that are up on Facebook - so this is mainly directed at those who don't have access to my Facebook pictures.

The website is: http://studyabroadthroughpictures.shutterfly.com/

BUT - you may have to get an email invite from me to be able to access the site, I'm not sure. If this is the case, please email me at vosex007@umn.edu and I'll make sure to send you an invite. I'm not sure of who all is interested in viewing this site, or email addresses of said people, so if you are interested, please don't hesitate to email me!

On a side note - I'm in the process of planning my first trip! The plan is to head to Paris next weekend...from early Sat morning until mid-day on Monday. More details to come, but looking into hostels and train tickets today. Can't WAIT!!

Fortification and Exploration!

Today I took a tour of the fortifications (tunnels) that surround Maastricht. The city was a great location to cross the Maas river, so enemies tried to invade the city frequently. We toured the tunnels and got a bit of a neat history lesson. The tunnels were built as far back as the Roman empire...and have been expanded on for centuries as the city grew. We toured the tunnels that were built more recently - in the 17th and 18th centuries. They were even used during the World Wars, as safe havens during air raids. They were also used during the Cold War as bunkers to hide in from chemical weapons etc. Was very neat! The tunnels were about 5'5" high, so everyone was ducking - haha, except me! Yay for being short!! I've included a picture from the tour.

Then, my friend Carolyn and I (she goes to school with me at the U) decided to explore Maastricht a bit more. We wandered around, glancing at the map only once. We went in lots of the little shops, including a pastry shop. She got a delicious waffle that's covered in powdered sugar, and I got a round puffy pastry with chocolate on top. As I bit in for my first bite, I discovered it was FILLED with cream, as it basically exploded. Had cream and chocolate from my chin to the bridge of my nose. Haha, not hard to picture. I'm sure to all the other customers I must be quite the amateur. There has got to be an easier and less messy way to consume a cream filled pastry. I just laughed and continued to eat, having to stop frequently to wipe the cream and chocolate from my face. But it was worth it.

We explored a bit more, looking into some shoe shops, some floral shops, and a cheese shop. We asked for a tasty Dutch cheese and got a few slices to take with us. We also stopped in a bread shop and got a roll for each of us - to eat with our newly purchased cheese. We walked around a bit more, but as it had started snowing (and we were pretty chilled), we headed home.

We met some more exchange students in the lobby of our dorm building where we'd hoped to eat our little dinner. We ended up learning how to play euchre - which was quite fun. We lost, but I feel it may be the first of many games to come. It's very similar to pfeffer or hearts, with two teams of two who sit across with one another. I then headed back to my room to relax for a bit. [Still no roommate.]

The plan is head out to a pub later tonight for a few drinks with some other exchange students...but as many people have been out for the past few nights, tonight should be pretty relaxed. More to come tomorrow - as I'm attending a traditional Dutch buffet dinner. I'm sure I'll have lots to report about the food, and pictures of it possibly too.

**Sending birthday wishes to a Miss Marcy Koch back in Mankato, all the way from Holland! :)