Off to the land of Vlaai and stinky cheese

Since Jeff managed to get a week off at the same time the kids are out of school, it's clearly time for us to get ourselves out of town again. This time we set our sights on Limburg, southernmost province in The Netherlands, and more specifically the city famous for its Belgian influence, confluence of old and new architecture, and its treaties: Maastricht.

In our typical, painstaking fashion, we spent at least half an hour researching the city and planning the day. Okay, we spent hours perusing the Museumkaart website to see what attractions were, well, most attractive, but we didn't really start until yesterday. That didn't leave us much time to become experts on Maastrichtian history, but we did find some summaries of the highlights that we read in the car. (Should I be admitting, much less memorializing these things? Are we so spoiled with the riches of our environs?)

In my (ahem) exhaustive research, I did discover that the only cemetery for American soldiers in the Netherlands is located just outside Maastricht in Margraten. We put it on our list, but unfortunately ran out of time to see it. It's incredible to me to think that there are 8,301 American boys buried in the polderlands, and even more incredible to realize that that staggering number is such a small fraction of the total wartime casualties on this land. The omnipresence of the effects of World War II is deeply affecting and has permanently changed my understanding of both history and the European psyche. But I digress.

Jeff and I went back and forth with each other as to whether we should visit the Roman catacombs (his vote) or take a tour of an old coal mine (my vote). As usual, because I have the most patient and accommodating husband on Earth, I got my way. I actually would have enjoyed the catacombs as well, but was more than a little deterred after reading two separate reviews by tourists who described going there during the posted opening hours and having to bang on the door to summon a caretaker who then refused to let anyone enter, even the group who had reserved a time. So off to the Valkenburg coal mine we trundled.

We bought our tickets and sat down on this bench here to wait for the appointed time, in the meantime dazzling Dylan with the largest Mosasaurus jaw ever found. Unfortunately, we quickly found that the promised English-language tour was, well, nonexistent. The only time they managed some English for us hapless tourist types was to warn us that we might want to cover the baby's ears because they were turning on some really loud machinery, then it was back to Dutch-only. I actually comprehended a pretty significant portion of what was said, but not quickly enough to relay it to the rest of the family. The poor kids tried their best to stay attentive, but there's only so long you can look at rock walls and big machines without having a clue what's going on, and this tour was a good, solid hour of time we could have spent walking around downtown Maastricht on a gorgeous spring day...

It was cool and all, but I think I have learned my lesson. Next time, Jeff wins.

After emerging from the mine we did have time to go to the Museum of Natural History, which was smallish and evoked the collecting fetish of the Victorian era elites with its countless taxidermy specimens of everything from fetal bears to Chinese pheasants. It also, however, held another mosasaurus jaw and a few other dinosaur skeletons, and that was enough for the budding paleontologist among us. Aislin and I enjoyed the live animals, but I have to say that she enjoyed these bees far more than I (that's a hive behind her)...

While Jeff and the kids lingered inside, Avery and I enjoyed the garden outside which shares a canal with the university's music department. Listening to the students practicing violin, flute, voice, piano, and more brought back such happy memories of all the college practice rooms I haunted in Gambier and Chicago. Nothing like having the free time and the wherewithal to go down to the music school and play for hours on end, except having the good fortune to happen upon other people doing the hard work for you.

Then it was back through the cobblestone streets of the medieval district of the city (Dylan got a little tired, as you can see) and on to stroll the riverfront outside the old city walls. The goslings and ducklings were out, and there were plenty of meandering curves, random sculptures, and old climbing trees to fill the rest of the afternoon. We had enough time to enjoy a little picnic next to the petting zoo and listen to French-language radio for a while before hitting the road back north. It was so picturesque that I'm having a really hard time picking out just a few images to put up here.

It would have been completely uneventful, but this evening is the beginning of the April 30 Koninginnedag festivities, so the A2 got all tangled up with the people leaving work early to get started with the merrymaking. Because a.) the kids had been so good, b.) we were all getting a little hungry, and c.) we had imbibed enough culture today that we felt it might actually counteract any ill effects, we decided we would treat the kids to a stop at a McDonald's. We decided to eschew the traffic of the A2 for a little jaunt through nearby s'Graveland, where our GPS promised a McDonald's within mere kilometers of us. Looks like we should buy the updated maps because, after driving the wrong way down a verboten bus lane (culminating in a tortured five-point turn with a bus waiting) and then making several circles through one-way alleys and some guy's driveway, we were forced to conclude that the promised golden arches must have closed their doors. By this time, s'Graveland was starting to block off roads to make the entire downtown a pedestrian zone, so we thought we should probably make our escape before we ended up spending the night there. Thankfully the arches are nearly as ubiquitous here as in North America, so it was a short ten minutes to the next set. Playplaces at interstate exits: a little piece of home abroad.

Needless to say, all the running around and so-called food had the intended effect and we had a carful of sleeping children long before we reached home. Not too shabby for a half-hour of planning.