Parlez-vous Anglais? | Dutch Diaries Week Eight
Maybe for the first time ever, I’m living in a place that experiences all four seasons. Growing up, there were two months of summer surrounded by nearly ten months of winter, with a couple weeks of seasonally-confused transition in between, and over the past few years in Berkeley, the term “season” refers more to the length of the days than the weather. Fall has always been a loose concept, in which I partook in the form of pumpkin-flavored everything and getting excited about wearing the same sweaters I wore most of the year anyway. However, Maastricht has finally shown me an authentic autumn, giving me the chance to truly rejoice in outfits of boots, sweaters, and scarves, orange-leaf-littered cobblestone streets, and endless mugs full of tea (which now has to be brewed with water boiled on the stovetop since someone stole the electric kettle from the common room, but that’s another story). Needless to say, I’m loving and embracing every last cliche.
However, as September turns to October, marking my second month here, I’m learning that the spookiest part of spooky season is the unrelenting rain. When the forecast consistently shows nothing but little grey rain clouds, and every commute to class is accompanied by downpour, well, life can start to feel just a little soggy. You see, while I love experiencing fall as more than just a shoulder season, I needed to see a break in the clouds for more than just a few hours.
So, we decided to find the sun, a mission that would take us to the south of France (just three bus rides, a plane, and a train away).
The Weekend | Het Weekend
The weekend featured a quick three-day and two night stay in France’s oldest and second largest city, Marseille, and while we were expecting something a little more charming and more… clean. While Marseille is probably the only city that hasn’t made me want to up and move immediately and definitely will not be topping any lists of must-see destinations anytime soon, the weekend we spent there was full of jokes, laughter, adventures, and misadventures, making it my favorite trip so far.
Our first evening in Marseille was a mellow one, with my new travel buddy, Gabby, and I heading out to a dinner of tapas accompanied by a glass of prosecco after a long day of trains, buses, and planes. Not feeling up to the long walk from our Air BnB to the Old Port of Marseille, we hopped on Lime Scooters, dodging in and out of rush-hour traffic as we traveled in what we hoped was the general direction of the beach. Laughing through our obvious missteps, we probably enraged a few drivers and broke plenty of traffic rules until finally discovering that our scooters could be ridden on the bike path along the coastline. With the expanse of blue sea on our right and blue sky above us, we scootered up the coast (written in italics for no reason other than the verb “to scooter” makes me giggle), becoming Lime’s newest— and probably most enthusiastic— customers.
The second day, we leveled up from Lime scooters to adventure by foot, namely, a nine mile hike from the adorable seaside town of Cassis. Our 15 kilometer tour took us along the most picturesque coastline I have ever seen, to three separate Calanques (which are narrow, steep-walled inlets with rocky beaches and the crystal clear waters of the Mediterranean), each more beautiful than the last, before looping back to the Cassis harbor. We didn’t want the day to end, and had we not already paid for a second night in Marseille, we probably would’ve extended our day trip.
The following day, to reward ourselves for climbing the equivalent of 150 flights of stairs the day prior, we decided to hop on the train to the other close-by city of Aix-en-Provence for crepes, macarons, and other touristy things instead of sticking around Marseille. I would continue to stress what a great idea this was, but I think the macarons can speak for me on that one…
Our stereotypical French foods were delicious, the town was adorable, but we were exhausted. The train station McDonald’s coffee wasn’t quite doing the trick, and after already buying tickets for and missing a bus (that we aren’t convinced ever existed in the first place) that day, we decided to head to the airport a little early, knowing we would have a long night of travel ahead of us.
Sunday | Zondag
After sleeping in to compensate for arriving back home at 2:15 am, the search for Maastricht’s best study spot continued with spot number six, Koffie, a place rumored to have the best coffee in town. While I do still prefer the place around the corner that is patrolled by the owner’s Aussie pup for obvious reasons, I didn’t turn down Koffie’s frequent flyer stamp card when it was offered to me. Variety is the spice of life, after all, and with only two weeks left of the first block of classes and deadlines for final assignments creeping up, any cute study spot with good coffee and fast internet that lets me camp out for a few hours is welcome.
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday | Maandag, Dinsdag, en Woensdag
My weekdays in Maastricht consisted of what most of my weekdays spent in Maastricht do: studying, class, studying, laundry, trip planning, and coffee. However, to embrace my first real fall and the rain that only let up for half a day, I decided it was time to further my European assimilation. I bought my first pair of Doc Martens, and have worn them every day since. I’m definitely making this statistic up, but I swear when I’m wearing them people are, on average, 86% more likely to assume I speak Dutch and 43% more likely to deem my terrible attempts at saying basic Dutch phrases passable. These boots, I’m telling you, they’re magic… and they keep my feet dry too, a notable advantage over the one pair of vans I’ve been wearing for the past two months.
My little shopping outing gave me the excuse to hang out in the city center between classes, which just happened to line up with a break in the rain and reminded me just how lucky I am to live in this beautiful storybook city. I can’t imagine walking through those streets and feeling anything other than a sense of awe for how my life has brought me here (thanks Mom and Dad).
Thursday | Donderdag
As I’m sure you’ve picked up on if you’ve been keeping up with the Dutch Diaries so far, Thursdays tend to mark the beginning of a new weekend and usually the beginning of a new adventure, bringing me to all new destinations full of new characters and new experiences. This Thursday was no exception, as I headed off to the city that my middle school self swore I would live one day to visit one of my best friends from Berkeley, wearing my new boots, of course.
Here now, writing this post, I can confidently say that my middle school self would not be disappointed… and the weekend’s adventures really have yet to even begin.
