A Musical Night, Part One

Last night we all went to a concert from this fairly unknown band called Zorita. The have a very folksy latin sound to them. I did not think I was going to enjoy them as much as I did, and would have never heard about the concert if not for Jake. There are some videos on the way, but for now here are some photos.

Alice in Wonderland

On Monday, my friend Augusta told me that she was buying a ticket to see a UCM version of Alice in Wonderland, my curiosity was piqued and so I asked her to buy me a ticket too. So last night we went at 9:00pm. At first I thought it would be like any other play where you would sit down and watch people act on stage; I could not have been more wrong. The whole play was set up like a walking tour where we would go through the UCM building and scenes would be acted out at different stops. Not only that but the actors made the play extremely interactive. Alice acted as our tour guide and would tell us to hurry up to catch the rabbit. The tea scene was a really fun one too. We all sat down around the table and the would be running around saying "no room, no room," pretty much telling us to fill in every seat. All in all, I have never seen such a fun play acted out. It was humorous and just made you feel all around happy. 

Tea Party

Belgian Craziness

Ever since I arrived in Maastricht I have had people tell me about how Belgium has not had a government for months and now it is in the news. It has been more than 250 days since Belgium has had a functioning government. I cannot imagine a country not having a government for that long or this not being a bigger story around the world, at least when it first happened. Either way here is the article to real more about it from a more reliable source, i.e. the Associated Press.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_belgium_record_party

A Day of Football

After spending some time in the Netherlands, I finally got to play some football (i.e. soccer). My friends Olivia and Timo both invited me to play at this park Sport Park West, which was surprisingly close to my place. The park itself was gorgeous. It had giant turf fields where anyone could kick around or just play. At the same time it is a little sad because there are not many places in the U.S. where there are such nice football parks. Americans place a higher priority on American football, basketball or baseball, so soccer can barely get any time or respect. Anyways, we also met this ten-year old boy named Mathias who just finished a game with his travel team. His English was rather good, so I asked him why and apparently his dad lives in California so he goes to visit once in a while. In the end it was a nice experience to play some football with some friends while abroad.

FC Barcelona vs Arsenal FC

Tonight we all went out to The Shamrock to watch Barca play against Arsenal in the Champions League round of 16. Last year Barca gave them a beating in the quarter-finals, with Lionel Messi even scoring the four winning goals against Arsenal in the second of two matches. Both teams played a great game tonight but unfortunately Arsenal was able to pull off a win. Barcelona scored first with David Villa's goal through the legs of Szczesny in the twenty-sixth minute, and then finally Arsenal got on the board in the seventy-eighth minute with a fabulous goal from Van Persie. Lastly, Arshavin scored the last goal in the eighty-third minute. Over all the game was a good one. What I enjoyed the most was watching the match with a bunch of Spaniards who were decked out in Barcelona jerseys. The one caveat about Spaniards is that they travel in packs. Like the Spaniards were only with Spaniards and did not seem to be with people from other countries. 

Anyways, I had a ton of fun watching the game and just hope to watch a game in person while I'm here. I might just watch a Dutch game or travel to Germany for one. The Bundesliga is supposed to have a pretty good league. 

Here are photos from the night. My apologies for the slight blurriness on some of the photos.

 

 

Marc. A Spaniard who lives on Olivia's floor and we saw at The Shamrock.

 

Alex the Arsenal fan.

 

More Spaniards.

 

Arsenal just scored a second goal.

Timo's Finish Man pose. 

Bookstore in a Church

Last week I was looking for a bookstore to purchase a book for my Philosophical Ethics class and came across this amazing store near the Vrijthof Square. The store is part of the Dutch chain Selexyz, but is interestingly located inside an old church called the Domincanicanen. I've found myself stumbling in when I have some free time and nothing else to do. They have a nice selection of Philosophy and Political Science books, and a nice stock of the Oxford UP Very Short Introduction series. There is a decent chance that by the time I leave I will have bought a book from there. Here are some photos of the store all together. 

Missed Opportunities

I am literally forty-five minutes away and completely missed this amazing chance to see some of the craziest sneakers around. Plus I would have been able to check out Eindhoven since the last time I was there I didn't have the greatest experience (getting shortly stranded on a bus and rushing to the airport). Hopefully I don't have any miss out on any more dope events like this. 

Classes Start, Day of Shopping and Dutch Words of the Day

I had my first class in Maastricht yesterday (Philosophical Ethics). I was getting a bit nervous about going back to school after not being in school for so long. All we did yesterday was introduce ourselves. The professor also gave a short lecture on the transitions between different eras of philosophy (i.e. Greek, Medieval, Modern and Post-Modern). The whole thing honestly felt like a repeat of all I've learned at HWS. I kept thinking to myself I know this, but not pompously saying I  don't need to be here. I was actually glad to have a refresher on all that I've learned.

Today I also went shopping in Maastricht for the first time. After having walked around the city a bunch I've seen a bunch a stores that I wanted to check out but never found the time until today. I was mainly looking around for a nice pair of jeans and some shirts, and maybe a pair of shoes if I came across the right ones. I perused a bunch of different stores, and found no jeans and only really found some nice shirts in a few stores. The jeans were a problem mainly because the fits were just so different. Finally I was able to find some nice jeans at H&M. Honestly, it's probably the best pair of jeans I've ever found. They're dark, and the fit is just perfect; I even wanted to buy two sets just to have another pair. 

Dutch Words of the Day:

Kinderen - Children

Dames - Ladies

Paskamer - Fitting Room

Heren -  Men (although literally it means "lords")

Pre-Carnival at the Markt and Sunday Session

Today we went to the pre-Carnival celebration at the Markt. It's like a warm-up for Carnival which is in the first full week in March. It's suppose to be kind of like Halloween, where everyone dresses up in costumes and go wild for a few days. Afterward, dinner was had at Scott's studio just off the Markt, and then we had some drinks at at cool bar called Take One. The place is run by this old couple, who are really funny. Piet, the owner, joked around with us the whole time he was taking our orders. I'm not much of a beer drinker so at first I didn't want anything but the owner pushed me into. I ended up buying a blueberry flavored beer, which wasn't bad. 

 

Us rushing to the Markt to catch the pre-Carnival parade.

 

The Markt

Alex and Mike, The Australians.

 

 

An appelbollen that Olivia ordered. It was delicious and thanks for sharing it with us all.

 

The blueberry beer I ordered.

 

Piet, the owner.

Maastricht Nights

Here are some photos of one of the first nights out Maastricht. We originally wanted to go to a jazz bar called Take Five, but it was packed. Then after walking around for an hour we decided on another bar just down the alley and after that we went to another bar in the Vrijthof (a major plaza close to the city center). At the second place Timo had a somewhat insightful comment about the aesthetics of other cultures. I must also apologize for the blurriness of some of these photos. My camera has been acting up and I don't yet know what's wrong/how to fix it.

 

 

Duvel.