Maastricht and Luxembourg

So, this weekend was much more relaxing then the crazy two day trip to Amsterdam. My fellow art historians and professor journeyed to the south of the Netherlands to spend Friday in Maastricht. Not only does the Dutch government reside there, but also this beautiful gothic cathedral that my professor curates. We first walked around the city, with a coffee stop which my professor paid for (the paying did not stop there), and then to a romanesque church to have a look around. My professor, Rob Dukors, is so intelligent and really made connections between iconography and Christian fables, and all other elements that surround church art. After that we went to "The Duke's" (as he prefers us all to call him) favorite cafe. He paid for that as well, and then we took off to his own cathedral. We spent about 3 hours walking around....he connected all the artwork through stories. It was very very interesting. After that, as promised, he took us out for a couple drinks....and then my friends Dana, Nicole, and I took off for Luxembourg. It took about 3 1/2 hours to get there, and we arrived around 10 pm. We got really lost, and it was clear to us that the city was built on hills....so we just walked up and down until we finally found our hostel. There we met Sarah who goes to Trinity (and plays lacrosse with someone I went to high school with), and is studying in Barcelona. We also met Poon from South Korea, but that relationship was short given her lack of english and the fact that her snoring shook the building. The hostel included breakfast, so we dragged ourselves out of bed at 8:30, and left the hostel around 9. The view was absolutely stunning...the city is literally a fortress. We walked for 6 hours (we counted)...and then found a farmers market. We bought lots of little things (feta cheese, hummus, mushrooms, bread), and had a little picnic in the grass. It was really nice out, and we just kept walking until about 5 when we were so exhausted that we had to nap for about a half hour. At night we went to an Italian restaurant (Sarah from Barcelona joined us), and then we went to a wine bar. The next day we walked forever again, but most things were closed to we decided to leave around 1ish. The train took 9 hours, no exaggeration. It was really really long and exhausting....and we were so frustrated because for some reason our route took us through the entire country of Belgium (literally...we hit Brussels, Antwerp, and every town in between), and it made absolutely no sense. They had dragged us northwest instead of just north. Everything imaginable happened...cramped spaces with sweaty, undeodorized Europeans, hit with bicycles, incidents with dogs and absolutely disgusting bathrooms. But after we got back to Well, we laughed about the whole thing. And then we stuffed ourselves with Chinese food, the only thing we had to eat that day. All in all, it was an amazing journey...although I would never want to repeat that train experience ever again.

Maastricht and Luxembourg

Luxembourg, Luxembourg