Getting settled in Maastricht

Our train ride to Maastricht went smoothly. Again, not having to lug around those extra 3 bags was really great luck. We got off the train and only had about a 5 minute walk to our apartment. Our landlady greeted us and finally we were in our new home.

It's bigger than we both expected, and we're both really happy with it.

We had to stick around the apartment that first day because our bags were going to be delivered between 2 and 7pm, so we unpacked what we could, and when the bags came we unpacked everything else. The great thing about your whole life being in 8 bags, is that unpacking doesn't take long. So when we were done we took a walk.

The streets were decorated for Christmas still which made our beautiful neighbourhood (Wyck) even more beautiful.

We have since taken many walks and found all the essential places: we quickly found where to get food and house stuff and spent the first week going back and forth many, many times to these places. Getting a furnished apartment is great, but it gives you this illusion that you already have everything you'll need. We forgot to get dish soap probably three times. But we're mostly there now. 

The Kruidvat is our version of a Shoppers Drug Mart and there's a good one super close to our apartment, and there are two major grocery stores within a 7 minutes' walk: Albert Heijn and Jumbo. So far we've found that the Albert Heijn doesn't have bacon, which is weird, but has better meat in general, and the Jumbo is less expensive on some things. It will probably come down to where we happen to be when we need groceries/which direction we want to walk in. The Albert Heijn is on our side of the bridge and the Jumbo is just on the other side of the river, on the way to the city center and market squares. 

I thought for sure we wouldn't have an oven, but we would have a microwave. This prompted an obsession with making brownies in the microwave, which are delicious. Turns out, we have a (toaster) oven and not a microwave, which throws my mug brownie obsession out the window. But it does mean I could bake proper brownies...if I had any baking supplies. Those are next on the list of things to get. We don't even have a measuring cup right now. Luckily, we've gotten by without the measuring cup so far. Especially with the delicious waffles for sale on every corner in the city center, and the fries just down the street. 

So far I've learned that North American mayonnaise and sour cream are junk. The European stuff tastes WAY better. Fries and mayonnaise every day I say (and anything the requires sour cream)!

With how delicious it is, I don't understand why we can only find the tiniest little sour cream containers in the stores, they're about as big as those single serve yogurts you can buy. Luckily the price matches the size so we'll just have to buy a few at a time. 

So, Maastricht is as beautiful as we were told it would be, and I think we're really lucky with the neighbourhood we ended up in. I can't wait until the weather is nice and we can walk around and really enjoy being out in the beauty. 

View of the Sint Servaasbrug, the oldest bridge in town.

An old archway that used to lead to a bridge. 

 A view of the pretty buildings on the way to the city center.

The pretty Maastricht train station. 

More pictures of our apartment and the town - for those of you who don't use Facebook - are here:

https://goo.gl/photos/Z6femwU2eNoiUJam8

https://goo.gl/photos/4zQqvvGe7k68RSYb6