666

After breakfast we walked to downtown Maastricht and had an orientation with the Center for European Studies (CES) people. The campus is very cool and modern, surrounded by 400 year buildings on all sides. 

They served coffee and a pie type pastry called Fly (sp?). Their coffee is so much stronger than American coffee but very good.

After that we went to the student food court at the university and got lunch. My appetite has been weird since I got here, so I didn't eat much. However, the food was very good. A tomato and cheese sandwich on a baguette and a salad that had cucumbers, onions, chinese ramen noodles, and walnuts in it. 

Funny quotes of the day:

Taylor: Did you go to the bathroom? Where was it?

Alexa: Yea, its over there by the door.

Taylor: Did they charge money? 

Alexa: I dont think so. If they did, I just stole a pee.

Christina: I don't really feel like I'm in Europe, I just feel like I can't read.

The second one is funny because all the dutch signs look like English so you can read them  and kind of know what they mean but they are spelled all funky. 

Example: beer is bier, soup is soep, wine is wijn, kalf is veal, crab is krab, and pepper is peper.

Another random fact is that instead of 911 for emergency calls, the Dutch use 666. Creepy.

After lunch, we split into two groups. One group did an above ground culture tour, and the other group, which I was in did an underground tunnel tour.

From the university, we followed a lady who worked for the university across town to the entrance to these ancient tunnels. I guess they were from the age of the musketeers, when the French and Germany were fighting over Maastricht. The tunnel systems were used as hiding and protection and they have shooting apertures out the side. d' Artagnan, one of the three musketeers died in these tunnels. The tour was designed as kind of a scavenger hunt to find your way out. If you got lost, the longest distance through the tunnels is 14 kilometers and the shortest was 6 kilometers. We got lost. It took us over 3 hours to get through the whole thing.

Our group of 6 girls only had three flashlights between us and other than that it was complete darkness. At the end of the tour, we walked about 15 or 20 minutes back to the guesthouse. My feet literally felt like they may fall off.

The good news is that I love my boots I bought, they have been plenty warm and very comfortable for walking. 

Bad news is I forgot my umbrella. Another thing I need to buy. 

We got refreshed and then went to a ESN (Erasmus Student Network) dinner. ESN is a organization that helps integrate exchange students. We walked to a restaurant in the city center, where we had yet to go. The city center was amazing. It was very lively and so many restaurants and bars all surrounding a huge square with a big pavilion thing in the middle. Apparently during Carnaval the city center is so full of people that you can hardly even walk through. I also saw my first coffee shop (marijuana bar..its legal here). Don't worry. I didn't go in.

The dinner was amazing. I had a salad with Brie cheese and a baguette. We sat with an ESN leader named Nina who grew up here. She was so nice and helped us learn a lot about the city. There were probably about 15 Baylor students that went to the dinner, some stayed back at the Guesthouse and ate there. There were also exchange students from France, Spain, Canada, and the U.S. 

They then taught us a drinking game called a Beer relay, but I, along with a lot of the other Baylor students didn't play because we were too worn out. Team France ended up dominating. 

With the Maastricht guys coming in second, and Team Texas (Baylor kids) coming up third. 

We then walked back to the dorms and met some of the other students who had just moved in to our wing. A bunch of them are from UNC-Chapel Hill and Indiana. A few are from Brandies, and Virginia. I also met a guy from Colorado College who went to Golden High School. Small world. 

We hung out in our dorm and I finished unpacking and then we headed to bed. I felt a lot more rested this morning then I did yesterday. Maybe I'm finally adjusting to the time change.

This morning we had breakfast and are leaving for some more school orientation stuff in about a half hour. Then we are going to the train station to activate our Eurorail passes before our trip to London tomorrow. 

Then we have the afternoon off, which will give us time to go into town and hopefully get those adapters and a cell phone. 

I don't know what tonight is going to look like.

Then we leave bright and early to go to London. Ill try to update before then, otherwise I'll post on Sunday night here.

Love you all. Miss you!

With luv (and Dutch Hooked on Phonics),

Taylor