Maastricht (Outer Space and Underground)

The final days of February have coughed up some insane experiences and some insane weather and, due to the vigour with which I exposed myself to both, I too am now coughing up some interesting things. I’ll spare you all those details and instead run you through the week’s activities which included a visit to the local food markets, the NASA gallery, a voyage down to the town of Maastricht and a quick pop in to Belgium and Germany (simultaneously I might add!). See below for details on how I conquered time and space...and how I ended up in a graveyard.

The Neighbourhood Food and Flea Markets in Westergasfabriek is a dangerously convenient four minute ride from my apartment. I cycled down with some Uni friends. Combining my passions: fresh homemade food, vintage shopping and exposed metalwork these markets run once a month and that is probably a good thing because I would spend every day there if I could.

Overwhelmed by the food stalls peddling about 20 different world cuisines, Daniel makes a pragmatic decision to buy the entire mud cake. You can tell by the grin that he regrets nothing.

Post-Market Füßball at a cool little Blues bar called The Garage.

(photo credit goes to Solveig)

This week the Sonic Acts Festival was happening in Amsterdam. A group of my Art History and Film Studies friends bundled me off to NASA (which stands for New Art Space Amsterdam... I went to a gallery not Mars) to check out this short term installation called ‘The Dark Universe’. It was mind-blowing. A combination of outer space footage, sound tracks, and controlled hallucinations from strobing lights, smoke and vibration. Pictures seemed a little pointless, so I’ve made you this short film. 

Sorry about the quality- blogger and my camera aren’t friends.

The next morning I jumped on a bus with some other UvA exchange students and headed south to Maastricht. Fun Fact #1: Maastricht is the oldest city in the Netherlands. The Romans hung about there in first century BC and started digging for limestone in between expanding the empire, raping, pillaging etc. We went down the limestone mines. It rocked.

Fun Fact #2: During WWII about 7000 people lived down here so they decided to decorate a bit...

...but miners, tourists and wooly mammoth enthusiasts have been decorating these mines (all 22,000 galleries) for nearly seven centuries.

 Oh hey there graffiti from 1551...

Mel, Pip and (ghost) Renee looking tense after the lanterns were all turned off to show us the meaning of pitch black. Not my cup of tea.

Thissss is more my domain. It’s actually the roof of a bookstore. Granted it’s an old church converted into a bookstore/cafe. Before that it was used as a bicycle carpark which just goes to show that Maastricht has more 13th century masterpieces than sense.

Staying on the cultural thread, we also undertook a traditional Dutch ‘Biercantus’ which is essentially group karaoke with compulsory sculling of beer in-between songs. Those that do not obey the rules get ‘punished’ by the Dutch student leaders. The beer is free and unlimited. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

The Aussie/Kiwi gang. Who managed to get ‘punished’ twice. Racism. 

On the final day we stopped by a WWII war memorial. (Finally the thumbnail photo is contextualised!) Even though I’d been to outer space and underground this week, seeing these eight thousand white crosses standing in the fresh, falling snow was the most other-worldly experience of all. 

Final stop was the Dreiländerpunkt (where three countries meet) with Miss Netherlands, Miss Belgium and Miss Germany feat. Sarah the snowball assassin. Then it was back on the bus and home to bed.

Don’t I look well...