Back to the Netherlands: Maastricht - Rotterdam - Concert

Last week I was back home again for a while. I might live fairly close if you look at the distance, but its a whole journey if you have to take public transport. To get home with a stop in Maastricht, I used a grand total of SEVEN different tickets. Partly because of the tickets I already had, party because of rules (it's not allowed to leave the train in the middle of your journey so I needed to split that ticket in two) and party to save a bit of money (pubic transport in the Netherlands AGAIN since last time I was there). This whole process also took around 7 hours of sitting in rains and busses. That reminds me again why I cant go home so often.

 

 

So, the first stop; Maastricht.

 

 

 

 

I needed to go here to arrange some paper work, so why not turn it into a small sign seeing trip with a friend? The last time I was here was in high school, about 10 years ago. The only thing I can remember is that I ordered a waffle and while the waffle maker was making it we were already too late for the meeting at the busses to go back so we just started walking really fast, leaving the waffle behind.

 

 

 

 

 

The size of the train station on Maastricht really surprised me. It is so small. I imagined it a lot bigger considering the city itself is quite big. But it's a cute and pretty station, just like the rest of the city centre is. Most buildings are quite old and the streets are paved with small cobble stones. That gives the city a very nice atmosphere.

 

 

 

 

Maastricht has is full of restaurants, bars and terraces (many a bit to many of the latter because the was barely any space to walk between all the tables and chairs). So there are plenty of opportunities to relax after sightseeing or shopping in the many available shops.

 

 

 

I did not see a whole lot because of the limited time I had with the admin things that needed to be done, but it was a nice visit nevertheless.

 

 

Next stop; Rotterdam. I have to admit that the main goal changed into a shopping almost immediately after we arrived at the train station since it was raining so much at that moment. So before visiting the main city, we paid a visit to Rotterdam Alexander, where the big shopping mall is. I managed to not overdo it (also knowing that I would have to get all the things back to Luxembourg eventually).

After some post-shopping rest we continued on to the city centre, where the weather had improved a bit in the mean time.

 

 

 

 

I was pretty overwhelmed by the huge amount of shops and restaurants available the in centre (I guess I am used to the size of Luxembourg now), there is just so much! What was also pretty cool was this new market building (building on the right on the photo below). The grey part contains apartments and in the middle there will be an indoor market (it's not open yet). The apartments of the top of the building have see-through floors (one way only) so the people who live there can spy on the shoppers all day long. I would like to go inside to see it but that was not possible yet.

 

 

 

 

For dinner we ate at a vegetarian buffet where you can tae all the food you want and just pay according to the weight of the food. The food there is so great! I had not heard of half of the ingredients, but all was very delicious and supposedly also very healthy.

 

 

 

 

Rotterdam has many art works on the street and a lot of interesting architecture. I really liked the vide of the city and I really want to visit again for some proper sight seeing. 

 

 

 

And then there was also this really cool thing I did on my Saturday night in the Netherlands. A friend invited me to go to a living room concert with some people I used to study with. It was a concert of Bart Voncken (https://www.facebook.com/bartvonckenmusic), who used to be a member of the band K-otic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1Jakp2Bh5k , seeing this video again makes me really laugh btw). This back was really popular in the Netherland when I was in high school. Bart came to the house of one person of the group with his guitars and played a private concert there. I did not know what to expect at all. But it was so very great! The songs were good, the atmosphere relax and fun and Bart was very nice and, as we say n the Netherlands, gezellig. I would really recommend this!

 

 

And these were the highlights of my short week back home.