Maastricht

From London we took a train under the English Channel and through bits of France and Belgium to Maastricht, in the very most southern bit of the Netherlands. We have several several friends from school working for DSM, teaching, and post-doc hunting in the area. 

Nancy and Hendrik took us on a tour of Fort St. Pieter and the caves underneath it. The fort was pretty neat, especially if you like cannons and sympathetic claustrophobia, but the caves were the highlight. They were carved by farmer/miners over centuries and now there are thousands of tunnels with over 80 km total length. At one point our guide took the lanterns off around a few corners to let us see how dark it was. We all walked along with one hand on the wall and one on the person in front of us until we caught back up with him. It was really neat and surprisingly spooky.

At the St. Pieter cafe overlooking Maastricht with Nancy and Hendrik.

Depth map of the local geography.

The mine walls had charcoal paintings of former local fauna and events of historical significance.

The nice thing about a mine, as opposed to a cave, is that you can decorate the place without (further) defiling nature.

Map of the mine, I think we followed the blue line. The fort is up behind our guide's wrist.

On Sunday we visited David and Juliana and took a stroll to Germany. The countryside was all beautiful and green, covered in cows and diced up by little streams. We walked for a couple of miles to get our appetites up for the smoked pork with fried veggies and broiled cheese on this neat contraption whose name is escaping me. It was so tasty. And I had a lambic. 

Everyone but Juliana, just barely not in Germany.

 Not pictured: delicious spicy Thai, acid-meat, french fries with everything, vlaai, crepes with jam, yogurt from a box with jam, coffee table bouldering, Chrononauts, SpaceTeam, and a proper game of Resistance for the first time in forever.

Easter eggs

Brian and I visited friends in Philly over the weekend and did some egg dying. This reminded me that I want to try out batik dying sometime this summer. The egg dying was hit and miss until JP pulled out her fancy tape. The pair that we masked turned out awesome. I really like how the blue dye bled under the tape.