Maastricht/Valkenburg

We spent the last weekend in Maastricht, the oldest city in Holland and Valkenburg. We saw castles, fortresses, old city walls, underground caves and escape tunnels along with taking a boat ride on the river Meuse and walking through the countryside looking out to Belgium and Germany from afar.

Maastricht Government building

Old city wall

The best hotel! Anyone going to Valkenburg stay at Leto

Valkenburg Castle (what remains)

Part of the castle in Valkenburg

Drawings inside the Velvet Caves at Valkenburg, around 1800 of the king and queen.

Schaap!

The usual Sunday dinner of fries (frites). These were small orders and the right one is a Maastricht special of meat and sour sauce over fries.

The Efteling!

For Easter weekend John told me he had a surprise for me on Saturday. He told me we would be gone from 8am until 8 in the evening and to follow him onto the train. So I did, not sure where we were going for the day. We ended up in Den Bosch, near John's hometown and he said we had to take a bus b/c the trains weren't working from there. As we approached the bus I noticed it said it was going to The Efteling and I think I almost started crying with excitement.

The Efteling is a Dutch amusement/fairytale park, like Disney World. They have rollercoasters, fun little shows to go see, water rides, row boating, lots of treats and people dressed in costumes. We first went on a rollercoaster ride that was one of John's favorites as a kid. When it ended I was shocked that it was over. It was so short compared to any ride I'd ever been on before and I was only starting to enjoy the ride when it stopped. I found that many of the newer rides weren't as short as this but definitely not as drawn out as in America. We spent all day going on as many rides as possible since it wasn't so busy yet with long lines. I made the mistake of saying we should go again on the indoor rollercoaster ride which was in the dark, kind of like Space Mountain. After our second run at it we felt pretty sick and had to take it easy for a while.

Their version of "It's a small World," I think they were the originators of it.

As a kid, John literally grew up next to the Efteling so he and his friends had yearlong passes they could go anytime they wanted. They liked to sneak over the back fence so they didn't have to cross the whole park to get to their favorite rides and then they could be first. If you were caught you got a snip in your pass and if you had 3 it was taken away from you. They were very careful not to let this happen.

Sleeping Beauty's castle. You can see it's much different than Disney World's castle:)

The Havenstraat apartment

My friend John, Snooper, Arty Farty and Uiltje (owl) in our new apartment!

entering the living room/kitchen

Kitchen chairs will be painted orange and table stained darker.

pictures to be hung

the kitchen



View from the living room

Our 1980s bathroom. Double sink and notice the angle of the toilet along with a dolphin toilet seat and of course the washing machine

Bedroom. notice our copious amounts of suitcases on the closet. we even have suitcases within suitcases.

View from the balcony



Balcony looking into the bedroom

IKEA

When John and I began looking for furniture for our new apartment, we vowed not to enter IKEA and get lost in the monotony that many apartments become here. On Friday we decided to just "look around" for a few essential items and, of course, we came home with a car loaded up with boxes of furniture to build ourselves. We also said we wouldn't stay up late putting everything together since we have both been coming down with something, but like two kids at Christmas we had to do it all!




It's hard to tell, but that's me holding our new "damaged goods" black lamp in the front seat.