Weekend (at home) in Maastricht

Hello All,
It's Sunday evening which, according to Mama Joyce, means time for another blog post.
Thursday I had an exam for my "Globalization and Transferability" course worth 100%.  I studied hard both on my own and with the other Canadians, and I feel pretty good about it.  Ron met me at the university after the exam and we went out in the Market Square area for a nice dinner.  We then met up with the rest of my classmates (both Canadian and Dutch) to celebrate being done our January course and one of the girl's birthdays.  We had a few drinks at a place called "Kiwi" and it was nice to show off my handsome husband to all the Dutch students.  (I am the ONLY one married in my program in Holland and they all seem to think we're pretty young.)  We then rode our bikes to the next place and went dancing, except Ron and I found it very crowded (and I tend to get pushy on the dance floor if someone is "all up in my space" - ask Heather and Katelynn about going out during our Halifax days.  Actually, I probably learned this behaviour from Heather...but I digress.)
Friday we spent the day hanging around our apartment then went out for a date night dinner in the downtown area.  We found a place featuring Latin food that we quite enjoyed and would return to.  We had heard about a bar called "Take 5" that ended up being right next door to our dinner spot, so we checked it out for one drink, but neither Ron or I were feeling it, so we headed home on our bikes.
Saturday we met up with Jeff (one of the other Canadians) and Goga (his roommate from Georgia...not Georgia, U.S., but rather Georgia the country).  We wanted to explore the Fort in Maastricht, but found out it's only open in the summer months.  Instead, we opted for a self-guided walking tour with the help of a brochure that Jeff picked up at the tourist information building.  It ended up being more of a non-guided walking tour, but we got to explore all the nooks and crannies of our beautiful town.  The downtown area is split in half by a canal and we explored the West side, which both Ron and me as well as Jeff live on.  Downtown Maastricht is covered in windy cobblestone streets that form more of a maze than a grid, but the walking tour made us familiar with parts of town we hadn't had a chance (or reason) to discover yet.  We also found a cathedral that had been converted to a 3-storey bookstore, which was a pretty cool use of the building, if you ask me.  We bought a Lonely Planet book on Switzerland in preparation for the upcoming week.  We spent Saturday night in and watched the documentary, Freakonomics, (based on the popular book) and both enjoyed it.
Today we went to the St. Pietersberg caves on the South West side of the city and embarked on a group tour.  The tour was in Dutch but the guide translated a few things into English for us.  The "kazematten" (underground tunnels) are a labyrinth of underground passageways that took almost constant work for a few centuries.  The tunnels are dug out of soft limestone and consist of 8,000 passageways measuring over 80km in length.  Maastricht has had a strong appeal to foreign rulers thanks to its stragetic position alongside the Meuse and, because of this, the city has been attacked on numerous occasions throughout the centuries.  The passageways served as a place of refuge for the inhabitants of Maastricht during wartime where they stayed for months at a time and had become so civilized as to build wells, a bakery, and a hospital ward inside the caves.  At other times, battles took place inside the caves (including a huge explosion in 1794 which created a huge undergound dome and an unwelcome visit by Napoleon.)  Many walls had intricate charcoal drawings depicting various subjects.  At one point in the tour, the guide told everyone to put their right hand on the wall and she would walk forward with the lantern without us following her.  She walked for about a minute or two as we stayed holding onto the wall in the pitch black.  You couldn't even see your own hand in front of your face.  We then had to find her by following the wall in a line in the darkness until we could see the light.  (Thankfully, she picked an area of the caves where it went straight for a bit...otherwise we would still be stuck in the tunnels and you wouldn't have this blog post to read!)
It's now Sunday night with means a new episode of Top Gear and homework.  Ron and I are both trying to work ahead a bit tonight as tomorrow we are driving to Switzerland for a vacation!
More to come probably mid-week from Switzerland.
Love,
Robin and Ron

 Some of the cobblestone streets and old buildings in Maastricht

 An everyday sight in Maastricht

 Ron sitting in a window well of an old building

 Climbed the steps up this wall to see a beautiful view of the city

 It's Holland people, everything's under water

 Still "self-guiding" on our walking tour

 Goga, Robin and Jeff on the streets of Maastricht

 Save a horse, ride a cannon?

 Bookstore in a cathedral = awesome!

 Hydrating before going into the caves

 Waiting for the tour to start

 Creepy entrance to the labyrinth (complete with creepy orange-haired tour guide)

 Underground passageways

 A map of the tunnels 

 More tunnels to give you an idea - all of these were with flash on, we couldn't see much without a lantern right in front of us

 Charcoal drawings on the cave walls

More charcoal drawings on the cave walls