Previous – the Drentsche Aa

Sorry for the delay; first I was tired and didn’t feel like blogging for a bit, and then I was in the process (still am in the process really) of switching over to Linux because I’d like an operating system that doesn’t have a stupid nosy spying algorithm in it, THANKS Microsoft. As a Windows-girlie for the past 29 years, being on Kubuntu now has been a learning curve. Like I had to format my HDD so I could play my Steam games, and it took me 3 days to figure that out. And, relevant to this blogging endeavour, I had to find a new photo editing program. There are a bunch of things Linux does well, like it starts up super fast because it doesn’t have all of Windows’ deadweight bloat programs, but apparently straightening photos is not something people commonly use; I went through a dozen programs over two hours to find what I was looking for (apparently most people only want to rotate their photos 90 degrees? What, they’ve never taken a crooked picture before?? Or else it’s some pro-level program that’s much too time-consuming to use). Windows’ photo editor previously handled it very smoothly, so I could easily straighten every photo, and I was looking for something like that. The program on Linux that does the same thing in the same way is called Shotwell (and then I still need to use Gwenview to resize them, so it’s the same steps as on Windows because I need to resize my photos in Windows in Paint). (If you think they’re still crooked, don’t give me a hard time about it, some of these angles were hard to judge. >.> )

THAT ASIDE, here’s my new favourite Dutch city. Nearly 100 pictures of it.

The following three days were the highlight of my trip! I’ve got a separate post for each day because I took so many pictures on these days. Ever since I found out mosasaurs were named for the Meuse/Maas River, and definitely since Tharash gave me a mosasaur tooth for Christmas, I wanted to go see Mosasaur Central – I mean Maastricht.

We took the train down to Maastricht, it took a few hours but hey I had fanfic on my phone. Also I kept bringing my noise-cancelling headphones on the train, and we each used them once or twice through my whole visit – Tharash said the effect for him was that everything was still audible but much further away, which was still good – but I don’t think I brought them this time as I needed space for clothes and stuff; we were just bringing little backpacks.

Maastricht was gorgeous and really interesting right from its beautifully vintage train station. The main walk into town took us past a sandwich shop Tharash wanted to try, so we got sandwiches. They were popular and busy! I was not really a fan of the sandwich once I got to eat it though, I picked artichoke tapenade which sounds great but I wasn’t really thrilled by the execution and also it had tons of arugula again. Maybe I just don’t like artichoke tapenade. Tharash liked his well enough. Anyway we crossed the historic-looking bridge and went to go sit by the river to eat our sandwiches. There was a guy fishing, and drew a crowd to watch him when he hooked something. I decided not to gawk, so… I missed seeing the fish. : P

Then we walked through the old city, and everything about it was fascinating! Since Limburg is NOT below sea level, it doesn’t need drainage canals. And since it is not built on an ancient grid of drainage canals, there is no rhyme nor reason to its street layout! I was horribly lost the entire first day lol. But Tharash led me to a former monastery which turned out to hold the mosasaur museum.

On the end of the wall is a sign that says (in Dutch) “After the people of Maastricht received the right to fortify their city from Duke Hendrik I of Brabant in 1229, an earthen defensive wall was built around the city. The first city wall on this wall, made of dark brown coal sandstone, was built in the second quarter of the 13th century. This defensive wall originally had a rampart walk and small towers. The bluestone gate surround dates from the first half of the 16th century.”

(Wikipedia says mosasaurs are… mosasaurs, not dinosaurs. But I wanna call them dinosaurs.) The museum had a big room with a 3D printed mosasaur skeleton, and a CGI video of mosasaurs swimming around, and a smaller video of excavating mosasaurs from the limestone quarry nearby. The skeleton was based on detailed scans, and modified so that it was as authentic-looking as possible (so it doesn’t look 3D-printed); they had a couple 3D-printed bones that you could pick up and examine, and they were extremely light – I guess they were hollow inside as many 3D prints are to save material. They mounted the skeleton low enough that kids could touch parts of it, which is neat, though I didn’t touch it and I didn’t see anyone else either.

In the quarry they’ve discovered many mosasaurs, and lots of stuff from the cretaceous period, and some of the carboniferous, but not so much other time periods due to the cycles of ocean sediment deposition and land erosion. If I understood correctly. Fun geological fact: Europe is tilting, I suppose from pressure from the south, and the Alps are still rising… which means the Netherlands are still falling. The pivot point is around a small town just north of Maastricht.

The path through the museum went on a nice timeline. At the very start was a globe that you could change the time period back in time and watch the continents swimming around (Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller has one too), and nearby was a map connected to the globe that would show the area around Maastricht and whether it was underwater or not lol. The globe had a dot showing Maastricht, too. Then the rest of the bottom floor had paleological fossils. Lots of shells, some ferns, some more mosasaur bits, a hadrosaurid, a gigantic turtle, and a whole tree trunk, among other things.

The upper floor had more recent things, including a woolly mammoth tusk, a giant beaver skull, a giant marmot? then as humans appeared, the exhibit took on a bit more of a depressed tone, talking about humans’ negative impact on our environments. I kind of skipped through that because I’m not going to spend my limited energy on things that I already know about. But! They also had a ‘fox cave’ for foxes – and small children only. It went through a wall and came out under an exhibit on the other side. This part of the exhibit was about showing the great ecological diversity in the modern Netherlands, I think, and they had a few dioramas set up that reminded me of the natural history dioramas in the Royal BC Museum, except smaller. There was one of a forest, and one of a pond. Probably more. This area was kind of open-ended, and even the non-diorama spaces were crammed with taxidermied birds and animals of every kind. There was even a special room just for bugs, and we looked at all the bees and beetles and butterflies. I felt like I recognized a lot of the butterflies.

There was a house attached to the museum, and the room that was attached to this floor was filled with antique taxidermies, including some squirrel/bird abomination, as well as a few vintage science artifacts. Going back downstairs there was a play area for children, a lab with big windows for public viewing where paleontologists might work on fossils, a movie theatre playing a 5 minute video on the geology of the region (which helped me understand a bit better), and you could even go into the cellar where they had made a small replica of a sandstone quarry/flint mine. Which was a bit of a preview for tomorrow and the day after.

The gift shop was pretty neat, they had stuffed animals and books in Dutch and English and little toys and crafting projects for kids and some hilarious self-deprecating stickers by a local artist. I bought a book about dinosaurs in Dutch which was written by one of the paleontologists who studied the mosasaurs, and Tharash got a paper butterfly model.

We went into the museum garden, which had first of all yet another bunch of mosasaur bones, still half-encased in stone, on display in a big glass pavilion. It started to rain slightly, but not much yet. The rest of the rather substantial garden was planted with plants that at least resembled plants from the Cretaceous. And a painted dinosaur sculpture.

Then we went back into town to drop our stuff off at the hostel. Along the way in the park was a house-sized birdcage with small pet birds inside for people to look at. I’d arranged the room, and I picked a private room for 2 with a riverside view. Tharash would probably have been fine with a dorm, but I decided I wanted privacy to properly decompress. I’m older and tireder than I was 9 years ago doing dorm rooms in Norwegian hostels. : P Anyway, the riverside view was not as impressive as expected (it’s nicer to look at the hostel on the riverbank than it is to look from the hostel’s rooms) buuuut it was like at least half the cost of staying in a ‘real’ hotel. Also the room was air conditioned, I think; at least it was substantially cooler than the hallway. The light in the bathroom was on a motion detector, which I didn’t really like, but minor inconvenience.

Then out we headed again! There were so many geese and ducks and Canada geese in the old moat. We seemed to be passing through some of the oldest part of the old town, so of course I wanted to take pictures of every centimetre of every historic building. Tharash gave me a teasing hard time for it, because he wanted to get to a certain café that sold Vlaai – Limburg fruit pie with lattice top. His parents had bought a vlaai or two in the previous week, but said it wasn’t the same as real Limburg vlaai. And the Bisschopsmolen (Bishop’s Mill) café is particularly famous for its vlaai.

And then it started to pour with rain. Tharash did not have an umbrella that day, and the vlaai café was full, so we took refuge within the mill itself, which is open to the public during daylight hours. We ate our plum and apricot pie slices, and they were quite good. I’m still not entirely sure what distinguishes them from other fruit pies with lattice tops.

Then we ventured back out to run to the Basilica. Inside, when I tried to give them a donation (I think they were fixing their roof?), I got into a rather long conversation with the front desk man, who told us there was an organ concert that night!! What a coincidence!! I love organ!! He also asked if I wanted to see the organ, but he was rather unclear about ‘how’ or ‘when’, so I left my phone number and a “please may I see your organ, I promise I’m not a TikTokker” message but we didn’t really have time for that built into our schedule, so I wasn’t really fussed when I didn’t get an answer at any point.

The cathedral is quite old; the West Crypt is from the 11th century. It also has a chapel for Mary as Star of the Sea which is visible even when the main part of the cathedral is locked up. You can buy a candle to light for prayers for 1-2 euros, depending on the size of the candle. I didn’t, I just donated to their roof. But the candles around the shrine were very pretty. It was always a shrine to Mary, but it got expanded and renamed around 1684 when a nobleman came back from experiencing a storm at sea and promised Mary he’d build her a shrine if she got him back safely. Kind of like the Romans and Nehalennia, tbh.

Then we went to the other church-related tourist attraction, Dominicanen Boekhandel (bookstore) which is a great big bookstore in a converted church! They’ve put up multiple floors in order to take advantage of the vertical space available, but only on one side of the church so that from each of those floors you can marvel at the architecture too. Many of the books were suuuuper nice hardcover editions, like the complete works of Shakespeare or the collected Sherlock Holmes stories. There was a small music section, mostly vinyls, lots of André Rieu but not a lot of music I’d listen to. There was a queer section, including the entertainingly titled “It Came from the Closet” about the influence of horror movies on queer writers, and even a manga section where we spent several minutes glancing through Komi Can’t Communicate and Apothecary Diaries volumes.

It’s an amazing bookshop and I narrowly escaped without buying anything – it was a bit all or nothing; if I’d started picking things up, I wouldn’t have stopped until I was burdened down with more than I could carry. I already have enough books on my TBR list! I needed to save luggage space! I can get them at my local indie bookstore anyway (though maybe not such nice editions, but that’s icing)! It was also rather overstimulating so I was glad to go to dinner next. But we walked a little bit more first.

There’s another medieval arch here (two actually) with a road running under it that is accessible by cars… and they go barrelling along like they’re not worried about hitting 800 year old stones, though the arch is just big enough for their cars. !?!? I would think this would be incredibly good traffic calming but apparently not!

The restaurant we picked was a vegan place called Avant Garden which I think is a very clever name. For some reason, it was really hard to find – just down a sidestreet from the Basilica – in fact, in a direct line between the Basilica and the Bischopsmolen – and while all the other restaurants, bars, and cafés on that street had ample signage and even street-side seating, Avant Garden was just a doorway? And we were the first people to show up to eat?? They hadn’t even put the music on??? (tbh I can live without music)

Anyway, they told us to sit anywhere, so we sat by the window. At some point I had to go to the bathroom, and while they’d prettied it up, the architecture of the bathroom made it clear that at one point it had been a tiny storeroom lol. Anyway I had the pasta carbonara and the ‘bacon’ tasted like bacon! Salty and smoky and the right kind of chewy. It was really good, but there was so much of it I could only eat 3/4 of the serving. So I took the rest with me, even though we didn’t have a fridge to keep it in and I didn’t have a fork and there wasn’t a time in the schedule for me to eat it later and also the hostel had a ‘no outside food’ policy (but I only found that out later that night when I actually looked at the list of house rules they gave us, and by that point I’d thrown out the food for the previous reasons). Tharash had ‘zoervleis’ which reminded me of Flemish beef stew tbh. For dessert, because I was stuffed, I just had a ginger tea (which was literally slices of ginger in hot water, I feel like I was expecting something more than that, but it was good for a full stomach) and Tharash had an Irish coffee but he had to ask for it specially as it was on the old version of their menu on the internet, but not the new version that we had at the table. But they were totally fine to make it for him.

Then it was concert time!! It was pretty good, but the first three pieces were too fast for the acoustic. The performers were a husband/wife duo, Atsuko Takano and Pablo Márquez Caraballo and they began performing together while both studying organ in Amsterdam and Den Haag which is very cool. They do organ duets, many of which they arrange themselves, which is also very cool!

J. S. Bach – Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major BWV 1068 (Organ transcription by Pablo Márquez)
– Ouverture – Air – Gavotte I & II – Bourrée – Gigue
– performed by both of them

J. S. Bach – Praeludium and Fugue in D minor BWV 539
– performed by Pablo Márquez

Joan Cabanilles (1644-1712) – Tiento Ileno de 6º tono
– performed by Pablo Márquez

J. S. Bach – Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend à 2 claviers et pédale BWV 709
– performed by Atsuko Takano

J. C. Bach – Duetto in F major
– Allegro – Rondeau Allegro
– performed by both of them

Pablo Márquez Caraballo – Japanese miniature for four hands on Iberian organ based on the traditional Japanese folk song “Sakura sakura” (cherry blossom)
– performed by both of them

So the first three pieces were too fast, and I’m pretty sure it’s the dude’s fault, because when the lady played the fourth piece it was the right speed. And then the rest of the concert was the right speed. But boy I just felt like whoever had the melody in the first Bach was constantly coming in a tiny bit too early. And a lot of the fast passages got garbled in the acoustic, it just sounded like noise. Also there were a couple funky notes that I think were also his fault. But you know what was really cool? Their arrangement of Sakura sounded a lot like the music of Alain! Or some other 20th-century French cronchy weirdness. It was not very Japanese, but it was delicious.

Also the first suite was amusing for me because… the opening overture is used in Mr. Bach Comes to Call, and then the Air is the Air on the G String… which I’ve played for so many weddings… and then the Gavottes are in Suzuki. I know most of this piece entirely too well lol. (Anyway I think it does lose something from being on organ even if it was not rushed to hecc so here’s the Netherlands Bach Society doing it with strings and harpsichord.) I think my favourite piece was the J. C. Bach (piano version here and here).

Our day still wasn’t quite done; we came out of the cathedral to lovely golden-red lighting from the sunset, so we walked around a bunch taking pictures of churches. Walked past the old city wall, and heard a brass quintet playing The Final Countdown from someone’s second-floor apartment living room.

When we finally got back to our hostel, we spent a little bit of time in the hostel bar; Tharash had some Earl Grey, I had hot chocolate.

Next – Zuid Limburg