Day 1 of 364 - Thurs 8/4: Hallo Maastricht!

    

Word of the day:     Hallo en welkom   (Hello and welcome)

Amsterdam at 6:15am on Thursday and the FUN has begun!! It has been a loooonnnggg day or 2!?! I have already lost track of time with the change in time zones. 15hrs of travel time, but with the time difference a full 24hrs from the minute we got to O'Hare till the minute we stepped foot into our new apt.

We flew from Chicago to Minneapolis (damn tax purposes), had a 5hr layover, flew to Amsterdam (there for 15mins), and took a 2.5hr train to Maastricht where we were greeted by a car service for our less than 1/4mi drive to our apt. Though I am not complaining since we had 4 suitcases and a few other carry-on bags and would have had to tackle cobblestone sidewalks.

Hallo Maastricht! 

Once at our apt, we found out it wasn't quite ready bc there was a slight mix-up as to the order to prepare the apts for new tenants, so the painters were still painting our stairs. We got in a few hours later after taking a nap and shower at the "ready" apt which turns out to be the other couple's we know coming here in a week.

                      

Later in the day we did walk around the town and then even enjoyed our first beer (Steve) and a glass of wine (me) while sitting outside on the patio of a restaurant located in the Vrijthof Markt.



On another note... You may also be wondering why 364 in the blog title??? Well, it corresponds with the number of days we will be here. I guess staying 365 or more puts us into a different tax bracket when you are an ex-pat so we must return to the states by then. And no, no extra travel on our own is allowed in Europe. We must be back in the states.

Till next time...
Sarah