This past weekend IES hosted a trip to Maastricht, The Netherlands. It took us four hours to get there (by train, bus, and train again) and then we walked 15 minutes to get to our hostel. We stayed at the StayOkay hostel, which is very close to the city of Maastricht. Maastricht is very much smaller than Amsterdam and feels more like Brussels and less like a Dutch city. I really enjoyed walking along the cobblestones and getting brief glimpses at the river that runs beside the city, which our hostel was overlooking. Our coordinator, Chantall, gave us a short tour of the city and then we had a pie tasting. It was a bit cold that day, just like everywhere else. I’m slowly starting to wonder whether or not Spring will actually come! Flowers are gradually blooming, but the sky just won’t clear up and give us the sun.

The most interesting part of our overnight adventure to Maastricht was the cave tour. There is a system of manmade caves underneath Maastricht that are hundreds of miles long! Our tour guide let us see just how vulnerable we would be if we got lost without light in the caves and it would be impossible to escape. It gets so cold in the caves that even if you can’t find your way out and wait for someone to find you, a human can’t survive without heat in the caves after two days because of hypothermia. During World War II, The Netherlands stored over 600 paintings in the caves in a special climate-controlled vault so that the Germans could not bomb them.

After the cave tours we literally walked to Belgium. It was a beautiful hike and it turned out to be a beautiful day. Everyone was out walking their dogs (did I mention I miss my pets at home?) and going for runs. Once we got to Belgium, seeing a few more cave entrances along the way, we got some ice cream and it (almost!) felt like summer. I can’t wait!

Location: Maastricht, The Netherlands