Home in Maastricht

A couple weeks into our stay here, our feet firmly planted on the ground, and I hope this is the start of our blog being off the ground. Amidst cobblestone streets and a dizzying array of flowers, cafes and choices of cheese, we seem to have settled in. We've not been great about communicating where/what we're doing thusfar, so here's a life in Maastricht 101. (Hopefully this gets the word out sufficiently that I won't use the lame Q and A format again!)
So where are you guys anyway? Maastricht is the oldest town in the Netherlands, in the part of the Netherlands that dips way down south. The footbridge we cross the river Maas on each day was built in 1300. The bookstore/cafe we frequent is converted from a church built in 1292. There are lots of old Roman ruins around here, as the Romans founded the city. We're only a few kilometers from both Belgium and Germany. Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris and Cologne are just short train rides away.
And why are you there? Ryan is working at Medtronic in Heerlen, about 20 km down the road towards Germany. This is at least a year assignment. So far he loves the folks he works with and has gone to London to do some auditing for another Medtronic office there. Let's hope there's more travel that Ellie and I (Laura) can tag along with. (South of France? Norway? Italy? We'll see . . .)
What's life like there? People speak mainly Dutch and their second language is English, so it's easy for us Yanks to get around. We live in the center of the city, so cars are more a nuisance than a convenience. Ellie and I have fabulous wheels--a purple cruiser bike (3 speed!) with an enormous kid seat on the back and basket on front. Ellie named it Pancake. We ride everywhere, in the sun or in the rain, which seems to visit at least once a day most days. There's a very big cafe culture here-you can find Dutch folks drinking cappuccino, eating pastries and smoking cigarettes all hours of the day, filling the cafes that seem to make up 1/2 of the city. Other epicurean highlights are cheese, bread, chocolate and beer. Expect plumper versions of ourselves upon return.
We've been fortunate enough to make a couple friends; especially important for Ellie are her new friends Kai (3) and Emerson (1). I joined the Maastricht Int'l Playgroup and met some more mamas yesterday. Ryan has been out with a work friend to an Irish pub playing Tuesday Trivial Pursuit in English. Laura has done a lot with a mama friend and got to the new Harry Potter movie last weekend. Also, in our current apartment (we'll be moving to our permanent one in a couple of weeks) we're right next to a park. So, in some ways, life is quite similar to our Memphis life of work/caretaking/socializing. But we sure miss our friends and family!
On Tuesday we had our final day of orientation to Maastricht and we requested a tour of the countryside. We went hiking around a tiny village in Belgium. The colors of green, punctuated by wildflowers, were breathtaking. Our guide told us he thought the area looked like the Shire, and he was right. The farmhouses seemed out of Hansel and Gretel. A gorgeous brick bridge, that was really an ancient aqua duct built by the Romans, crossed the valley below. And church spires dotted the hills and valleys. We walked up and down hills and woods and pastures and stopped at a cafe for pancakes with fresh local fruit and cappuccino. We could get used to this. There's some question as to whether we'll be able to find it again, but we're getting more confident in just venturing out.
It's such a gift to be a stranger, to be so obviously in the posture of a learner. People give you a lot of grace and hospitality, which makes it easier to give it to yourself. Obvious differences aside, I find so many similarities between living here and in Tanzania--language learning, slowing down, a friendly street scene, walking (or biking) instead of driving, exploring nooks and crannies, new table jargon and etiquette ("do you want your water with or without gas?"), and even just little things like hanging out our laundry or not being able to find cereal in the store. (But we've got meusli, which is better anyway.) It's also so different to be a guest with Ellie. Certainly my days of carefree bus trips, fly-by-night travel and venturing into the club scene are gone. But in other ways, Ellie makes us more approachable, more easily understood and regarded with kindness. Thankfully, people seem to love children here and are quite tolerant of wiggles and fortissimo singing of the ABC song while eating out. We're excited for our guests to come and enjoy all of this with us. Ellie's up from her nap, so I'd best grab her and go to our park. Love to you all.