Brussels was a lot of fun, despite the fact that it was snowing! That was a huge surprise to me. Apparently this part of Europe experienced its coldest easter in 40 years. So when I started walking to the bus stop on the 21st morning, and i say huge white chunky things falling to the ground, for a while I was convinced it was hail. I could have turned around and gone back to my dorm, but I was being optimistic and hoped that Brussels would have better weather. Turns out I was wrong. It seemed like every time I left a building it would rain harder or start snowing. But I still managed to get a lot of sight-seeing done. I went to the Grand Place (that is what is in the first picture), which is this amazingly beautiful square, but it is very very touristy. It was just full of people with cameras, taking an insane amount of pictures . I went to the Cathedrale des Saints Michel et Gudule, stumbled onto some other pretty churches, went to the Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, and a bunch of different palaces. I also made the horrible walk to the EU area and got to see the EU parliament (2nd picture) from the outside.
I also ate some belgian waffles and fries and bought some chocolates. Despite the weather, I was glad to be in Brussels, because I think I really needed to be in a louder and bigger city. Even though I know I am not from a big city, Agra feels bigger than it actually is because of the crowds and the loud people, and I miss that sometimes. Also, walking around in Brussels I also overheard someone on the street say the following sentence: "We have just been walking around this place like donkeys". But it wasn't in English, it was in Hindi and that made me really happy. I also got to speak some French while I was there. Somehow I managed to not look like a tourist, because a bunch of people came up to me and were asking me in French where the entrance to the museum was, or how to get to place X,Y or Z. That was exciting, and I just responded in my horrible French that I did not know. I got back from Brussels completely drenched and freezing that evening. It was still a great trip.
All of the traveling that I am doing right now is with other Mac people. For whatever reason we all tend to hang out with each other more than anyone else. Samatar, when he was here in January, said that we were a really "cohesive" group. Actually so far most of the friends I have made here are either mac people or people in my hallway C4.00 (who are all great), but I don't feel the urge to really extend my social circle here for some reason . I think its partly due to the fact that coming to Maastricht wasn't really about getting to learn about Dutch culture. So it is hard to say that I have learned a lot about the Netherlands in the last 2.5 months, if you can actually learn a lot about a place in that much time, but I have realized some stuff about Europe. One thing I like about being here is that you can relax, and not be ultra-competitive and stressed out 99 percent of the time. So even though we have quite a bit of work, its nothing compared to Mac.
What else? I cannot really think of anything profound I have to say about Europe right now. Also in the last week of my class I got to learn that India is world's largest producer of bananas and mangoes and the second largest producer of sugar. Now, I knew about the mango fact, but the other two - I had no idea. I don't know why. We did this project on the international trade of bananas, and it was fascinating. If you 45 minutes to spare you guys should check out this npr interview. Its about bananas:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19097412
Apparently if nothing is done to stop it, the panama disease might destroy the main type of bananas, which is currently the only banana suitable for export. So you in Europe and US might not be able to eat them. Scary, isn't it?
So Dutch Words: this time I have two because I didn't have one last time-
Koekjes: any guesses? - Cookies
Alstublieft: This word along with dankjewel (thank you very much) is the dutch word you will hear the most in this country. Literally it means : There you go, but it is sort of similar to s'il vous plait. It is pronounced: ashubleeft.
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