FIRST FEW DAYS IN MAASTRICHT

Well, we’re settling in to our new digs in Maastricht after a bit of a bumpy start.  The driver, who the Eertwegh’s (our hosts) had arranged to pick us up at the airport, didn’t show up.  We got into Brussels airport  at 9:45 p.m. and, after spending about $25 trying to phone the neighbors and get on line to try and contact the Eertweghs in Mexico, to no avail, a young couple let us use their IPhone and we were able to contact the neighbors who connected with the Eertweghs in Mexico, who gave us the phone number of the driver.  He finally arrived at one in the morning and we arrived at our new home just after 2 a.m.

Needless to say, we were exhausted and after sleeping in late, tried to hook up the computers and the Vonage Line only to discover that the converter was broken.  The neighbors have been terrific. They had to come over to tend to the new lamb that had been born the previous day and try and force the Mama to feed her…we’ve included a photo of the little one who has now been taken away by some folks who are well versed in bottle feeding lambs who have been rejected by their mamas.  So….we got all the dirt on how to feed the sheep and the hens , rooster and peacock and info about the house and then, they so kindly offered to go find us a new converter.   So a few hours later we were completely operational.

Our New Friends

We named her ZLO the Baby Lamb

The weather the first day was grey and rainy (thought we were in Seattle) but we ventured out in the car the ten or so blocks to the market, stocked up and made dinner at home.  This house is like a Japanese museum.  Irene Eertwegh owns a Japanese shop/gallery in downtown Maastricht and all the décor in the three story old brick home is Japanese.   From the initial photos that we see on the Swap site, we thought they lived in the country but their home is actually at the end of a city street of row houses with this incredible back yard area where all the animals live, and with a vegetable garden and beautiful patio full of bonsai  plants. 

We are now feeling more comfortable with our surroundings  and , I fear,  have become bicycling fools.  The Eertweghs left us their bikes to use and we did a practice run today to the little downtown area of this part of Maastricht and are going to take on the trip to the old part of Maastricht the end of the week  to see the Friday Market.  It’s, apparently, about a 25 minute bike trip and we got good directions from John, the neighbor.  Parking is very expensive here and it seems like everyone uses their bikes for transportation.  From what we’ve seen of Maastricht so far, which is very little, it looks beautiful.

We’ll have more to report by the weekend.  We’ve included a few photos of the Blue Lagoon that we took on our way to the airport in Reykjavik.  As we hadn’t had the chance to go there during our stay, Barbara, the daughter of the woman whose apartment we were using, was so kind as to take us to the airport and insisted that we had to see it before we left.  It was really quite amazing







The photos don't really show how very blue the hot water is