Dykes and Bikes: A Semester in Amsterdam: Netherlands vs. Hungary and A Weekend in Maastricht

Last Tuesday our program was able to get us tickets to see the Dutch national soccer team play Hungary in a Eurocup qualifying match. It was a blast. The Dutch team had played the Hungarian team only a short while before this game and had demolished them 5-0, so we were expecting a similar outcome to this game. However it was far from a blowout. In fact, the Hungarian team scored first only a few minutes into the game. The Dutch team quickly responded and went up 3-1 before the half, much to the pleasure of the crowd. It looked like it was to be another blow out win, but the Hungarians regrouped in the second half and went on the offensive scoring two quick goals to tie it. With less than 20 minutes remaining, the Dutch team scored two goals in quick succession for a final winning score of 5-3.

The atmosphere in the stadium was not nearly as intense as I had imagined a national soccer game to be, but it was still very entertaining listening to the crowds chants. An interesting note is they only serve non-alcoholic beer and beverages at soccer games here, not that I blame them. People were crazy enough without needing any extra intoxicants. Below are some pictures from the game.

Sea of orange

Very cool stadium exterior

Heading up to our seats

Warm-ups

The lone Hungarian fan section

The Dutch team on the offensive

Tie game!

Final Score.

This past weekend IES arranged an excursion to the beautiful border city of Maastricht in the southern most province of Limburgh. Maastricht sits right on the border of the Netherlands and Belgium and has been an important location since Roman times because of its strategic location on the river Maas. Southern Dutch culture is different from northern Dutch culture in many respects. To start with, the dialect of Dutch spoken in Limburgh is quite distinct from northern Dutch and is actually considered a minority language. The people who live in this area are also considered "burgundian" due to their love of food and drink. There is good reason for this as Maastricht is considered the food capital of the Netherlands, as we got to find out first hand.

Saturday was beautiful and warm (70 degrees!). After arriving at the train station we dropped our luggage off at the hostel we were staying at, then went on a brief historical/orientation walking tour of the old city. We then had the opportunity to taste four kinds of delicious Dutch pies; two types of cherry, an apricot pie, and my favorite, a rice pudding pie. The crusts were thick enough that they could be eaten by hand.

After the delicious pie tasting we had free time to explore the city on our own. I can not emphasize enough how beautiful this city is. An interesting note about Maastricht is that it is full of old churches and Cathedrals, but because of the trend towards secularization among the Dutch population most of them are not used as churches anymore. Instead they have been converted for other uses including a kids' funhouse and a very cool bookstore.

Church converted into a funhouse

This church is now a stunning bookstore.

After a lovely day of wandering the city, we rejoined with the group to enjoy an amazing three course meal at a local restaurant. The steak was probably the most delicious steak I have EVER had.

On Sunday we took a bus across the Belgian border to take a tour of one of the hundreds of quarries that snake under the Belgian and Dutch countryside. This particular quarry was only a hundred or so years old, but some of them are over 500 years old. It is currently actively used by mushroom farmers. Another quarry near by was used during the Cold War as a NATO bunker. It was shut down in the 1980's, and has just recently been completely cleaned out.

Below are some of the more bizarre sites in the quarry.

After our tour of the quarry, we were treated to taste fresh mushroom soup that was made from mushrooms just picked from this cave. It was very good. Even though the weather was cold and drizzly, we embarked on a lovely hike through the Belgian countryside back to Maastricht.