Maastricht Carnival: to beer or not to be here
January 26, 2008 1 Comment
“Nowhere in the world have I come across the magic that is Carnival in Maastricht. The people, the music, the atmosphere, the sheer joy of life make it a magical celebration”, says British expat Maxine Self, who is also the first international member of ProBeerDers, one of Maastricht’s many Carnival ‘drunk’ bands. [continued...]
Winter days in Maastricht: a photo-reportage
December 20, 2007 1 Comment
Rosanne Rademaker shares her impressions of Maastricht in winter time. Visit her photo-reportage.
Academia in Maastricht (part 3): Lost in translation
December 10, 2007 Leave a Comment
Are academics are stuck spinning their wheels? Crossroads writer Rosanne Rademaker continues her investigation into the world of academia in Maastricht with a portrait of Paul Stephenson, a 33-year-old British lecturer in political science at Maastricht University. [continued...]
Do you speak Mestreechs?
December 3, 2007 2 Comments
Maastricht is undergoing a profound metamorphosis. Local media are full of articles and editorials discussing the image of the city, its identity and its future. Maastricht is no longer a small town in a forgotten corner of the Netherlands, but a beautiful and vibrant provincial capital with international ambitions. [continued...]
Academia in Maastricht (part 2): the life and times of a Polish-American rebel
November 6, 2007 2 Comments
In her search for the answer to why academia – and academia in Maastricht in particular – is appealing to some, Crossroads’ writer Rosanne Rademaker speaks with Polish-American assistant professor Tomek Grabowski, a Polish-American “rebel” in Maastricht. [continued...]
Academia in Maastricht (part 1): “A good quality of life and a university: the perfect combination of things”
October 23, 2007 1 Comment
An ex-lover once asked me why on earth I wanted to become a researcher. He scolded me for aspiring for a life in academia. According to him all academics are stuck spinning their wheels, writing papers that are only being read by fellow academics. Worse still, he believed none of this knowledge ever made it back into the real world.
Ulterior motives aside, his claim covers little ground. Surely advances in science continue to influence societies on a daily basis, in countless ways, both good and bad.
Nonetheless it touches upon an interesting question. What gears people towards a life in science?
Crossroads’ writer Rosanne Rademaker speaks with Marco Zinzani, an Italian researcher at Maastricht University to find out what drove him into the world of academia. [continued...]
A bystander’s question
October 9, 2007 1 Comment
With the semester in its initial phase, Maastricht’s student population is in the ‘design your life’-craze again… an annual recurrence, as close observation suggests.
And with enormous piles of new students freshly arrived from high school or from the usual year abroad, the demand for self-definition and identity is outpaced even by the demand for IKEA furniture. [continued...]
Maastricht: Living in a fairy city
October 2, 2007 3 Comments
Maastricht appeared to me from the very first minute as a little fairy city when I arrived here by train in June 2007. It was the picture of a city that is being loved by its inhabitants and thoroughly taken care of. [continued...]
Momentous Dutch encounters in Hungary
August 29, 2007 Leave a Comment
It’s been two months now since my partner and I moved to Maastricht, but it is in our native country Hungary that I had my first contact with Dutch people. I was working last year for an international Human Ressources company in Budapest and the place was exceptionally multicultural: our trainers came from the USA and Europe, my colleagues were English, Irish, Israeli, Polish, Swedish, French… and one of my bosses was Dutch. [continued]
Let’s stick together now
August 22, 2007 6 Comments
When I told my husband that I wanted to write down my thoughts about the Dutch word ‘mee’, he looked baffled. “What is there to write about?” he wondered out loud.
My sister in Paris was just as puzzled: “How am I supposed to pronounce this ‘mee’ anyway? To be honest, it sort of reminds me of a flock of sheep!”
Well funnily enough, after living sixteen years in the Netherlands, I have come to view this small and perhaps inconspicuous ‘mee’ as one of the most important words in the Dutch language. I even think that learning to use it has helped me understand some typical aspects of the Dutch way of life! [continued...]
Spinning my way into Dutch life
August 2, 2007 Leave a Comment
“Why do you bike indoors when the South Limburg countryside is so beautiful?” a Dutch friend once asked me when I told him about my spinning addiction at the local gym. “Don’t you feel claustrophobic in a room packed with sweaty strangers and all that loud music?” [continued...]
Maastricht through other eyes: International students speak
June 20, 2007 4 Comments
They are everywhere. You might have seen them on the bus, biking around or having a beer on the Vrijthof. In fact they might live next door, in a rented room. Sometimes they seem like a swarming plague taking over the town. They are the international students at the University of Maastricht.
For a week I followed six of these specimens, learning more about them, their habits and their personal histories. Becoming one of them wasn’t too difficult… and here comes my secret: I’m an international student too. Keep on reading to know what these peculiar people think and do in Maastricht and find out about their dreams, their regrets and some of their advice for the city. [continued...]
Drug tourism in Maastricht – what is all the fuss about?
June 15, 2007 1 Comment
“You live in Holland, oh you must be smoking a ton of pot” is the typical thing I hear when I tell Canadian friends that I live in Maastricht. And I tell them no, I barely know any Dutch people who smoke. I think pot is more visible in Vancouver than in this snazzy shopping town. But I’m obviously missing something since 1,5 million drug tourists reportedly come through Maastricht every year to buy weed and drive home. [continued...]
Lions Club Maastricht Mondial, May Fair 2007: a photo-reportage
June 11, 2007 3 Comments
photo: Stuart Woodburn 
The Lions Club Maastricht Mondial this year held its annual May Fair for expatriates and their families at Kasteel Limbricht on Sunday 3 June. [See photo-reportage by Stuart Woodburn and Herman Pijpers...]
Mugged in Maastricht
May 12, 2007 2 Comments
Crossroads writer Danya Chaikel tells of her experience with the Maastricht justice system.
I have lived and travelled in many cities around the world and when I came to cobbled streets of Maastricht I felt safer than ever before. I really couldn’t imagine there being much crime in this picturesque ‘village’. My naiveté was crushed on 11 January 2007 when I was attacked and robbed on a bike path off Cabergweg.
[continued...]
Queen’s Day in Maastricht
May 4, 2007 Leave a Comment
Every year on Koninginnedag (Queen’s Day), 30 April, the Netherlands celebrates the Queen’s official birthday. Street parties and other events are held all around the country. This year in Maastricht, a large “vrijmarkt” (free market) was organised in the StadPark (City park) and many music bands performed for the public. [more photographs...]
Ladies’ night out at the Africa Centre in Cadier en Keer
March 4, 2007 2 Comments
Apart from being your faithful editor, I am also a member of the International Women’s Club of South Limburg (IWC). Our latest monthly meeting exceptionally took us to the Africa Centre (Afrikacentrum) in Cadier en Keer, just outside of Maastricht. [continued...]
A day trip to Venice
February 26, 2007 Leave a Comment
We decided at the end of October that we would book flights to a nearby European destination on one those el cheapo airlines that advertise scarce-as-hens’-teeth seats for one euro cent. We had a good excuse; our baby sitter would celebrate her birthday in the middle of December, which we thought would be a good time to travel. We settled for Venice, but did not tell her, keeping it a surprise. [continued...]
Carnival parade in my village
February 20, 2007 Leave a Comment
When we moved to South Limburg and heard that Maastricht was THE capital of carnival, we were initially more worried than excited.
I had not particularly enjoyed my first encounter with carnival in the Netherlands back in 1992. At the time, my Dutch husband and I lived above a pub in Hoogland, a village near Amersfoort in the centre of the country, and I remember how the stench of stale beer had permeated the air for weeks after the three days of madness. [continued...]
My fifteen minutes of fame with Radio France Internationale
February 11, 2007 3 Comments
“We’ve been able to set up interviews with mayor Gerd Leers and Professor Luc Soete, and also with a student from the University of Maastricht who has just written a book about the Maastricht Treaty, but we are still very keen on interviewing you as well,” the young journalist from Radio France Internationale said to me on the phone. “I’m sure you’ve got many interesting things to say about Maastricht as a European city,” she added. [continued...]
Red lights and the city
February 1, 2007 3 Comments
I assume much has been said about living in Maastricht and having a car.
A lot can be said anyway, mostly about the availability of parking spaces, which practically is non-existent.
But it is not only that. It is also…
The traffic lights. [continued...]
Expatriate community: From Vancouver to Maastricht: Working Holiday Problem
November 11, 2006 2 Comments
“Alien Police”, “MVV”, “Residence Permit”, “SoFi Number”– just a few terms I’ve come across during my quest for work in Maastricht.
It started last August when I successfully got a “Working Holiday Programme” Visa glued into my Canadian passport from the Dutch Consulate in Vancouver. I remember thinking that everything was set: “Great, now I can work in the Netherlands, no problem”.
How naïve of me! Jumping through the bureaucratic hurdles in Maastricht to secure a job has been an utter nightmare! [continued...]
Expatriate community: “Maastricht needs an international network for expatriates”
October 13, 2006 1 Comment
Ulrike Heigl describes the needs of the expatriate community in Maastricht and offers a few suggestions.
My arrival in Maastricht in January 2002 was acclaimed with a big party on the market square and even some fireworks. Well, to be honest, it was not really my presence that the city of Maastricht was celebrating, but the inauguration of the Euro. The new currency and I arrived here the same time and I felt proud to have moved from London to the most European city of the continent, at least in my opinion. [continued...]
The steep and thorny way to Naturalisation Day
August 27, 2006 2 Comments
Around this time last year, I had almost given up hope about succeeding in becoming Dutch. The Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) at the Ministry of Justice was on the verge of rejecting my application for naturalisation. The only option left for me was to obtain a new residence permit and pass a new Dutch language diploma as fast as possible, in the hope that in view of these documents, the IND would accept to reconsider my case and only then decide about my fate. [continued...]
