We left for Maastricht and Aachen at 6 in the morning, a time at which I’m usually sound asleep or still up. Needless to say, I had a hard time looking forward to anything about the day. Additionally, my allergies gave me a hard time and so I ended up closing my eyes and listening to my Creative Zen throughout the whole three-hour drive there.

We had an appointment at 11am with a local realtor who had specialized on assisting students. I had decided that this was going to be the least comfortable part of the day; strolling around with an important looking businessman, having my dad talk shop back at him. The main focus of our trip was to find me a place to stay that was both affordable and inhabitable. Unfortunately, neither was accounted for by said realtor.

I’m not sure if that is just the way it is in Maastricht or if we just happened to go with the wrong realtor and the wrong websites prior to our visit but of the three places that lay within my budget (below 500 euros/$780 a month, all expenses included), only one looked remotely nice. And I’m not talking luxury here, I’m not talking about special extras - simply a nice enough place that anybody would want to live in.

Don’t get me wrong, the realtor was essentially a great guy. He was young, friendly, good-looking and spoke almost flawless English. So did his colleague who was even younger and drove us around town to look at the different apartments. But the places itself - I WOULDN’T HAVE WANTED TO STAY THERE IF PAID FOR IT. Let alone spend such a ridiculous amount of money on it.

At the third place, the current student living there stumbled upon us in a robe out in the hallway. I’ll spare you the details BUT IT WAS NOT A PLEASANT VIEW.

So, apartment-wise Maastricht was a disappointment. But the city itself was as beautiful as ever. The calm, broad river, the old bridges, all the cafés and restaurants and clubs and bars, the expensive designer stores next to cheap tourist spots - it’s so perfect, it’s worrying. I posted more pictures here. They are, however, low quality because I took them with my cellphone.

I had made an afternoon appointment with a landlord in Aachen - also known in the English language as Aix-la-Chapelle, by the way, which is confusing because, really, that’s actually French. She was going to show me two apartments of different sizes but in the same building. Although I had been so worried about Aachen being an hour away from Maastricht by bus or train and had considered it my last option, all that went out the door when my parents and I entered the building. At first glance it was already in such better condition than anything we had seen in Maastricht and at a cheaper price, mind you!

The two apartments themselves, though, didn’t look all that great either. They also didn’t have connections for a washing machine which was an important point because I won’t be able to drive home that often and so I’m going to have to do my own laundry. There were at least ten other people there with me to look at the places and they seemed a little more enthused than I was. I also liked the bigger one of the apartments - especially compared to the dumpholes we had seen in Maastricht - but it still wasn’t good enough. If I was to rent a place in Aachen, it had to be close to perfect because just the distance to Maastricht University was downside enough.

So my parents and I went on to the last option for the day. I had contacted this girl named N by email when I found her ad that she had posted just a day before and we agreed that I should come by to take a look right away.

And what do you know? Sixth time’s a charme, right? Her apartment is perfect for me. It’s right next to the Aachen Cathedral, as in ALMOST PART OF IT. And it’s tiny tiny tiny but it’s already furnished since she is leaving all her stuff behind because she’s returning to the place in March 2009 after spending one semester in Chile. This is great for me because it gives me half a year to see whether it’s a good thing to live this far away from Maastricht without having to spend any money on furniture or other necessities. Maybe by next March I will have made friends in Maastricht and we will want to all move together into a bigger place - who knows, right? This way, I’m not bound to sign a two-year contract and right from the start I have everything I need. I’m just more flexible that way.

The above graphic is both proof of my fer0sh PSP skillz and the layout of the apartment. It’s of course not very detailed and probably not very accurate but it gives you an idea. It’s a very cute place in a great building which, I think, is actually part of the original cathedral compound but it’s been fixed up, of course. Most of her furniture is from Ikea and so, obviously, I liked it instantly. There are a few things I found out but don’t care about (there’s no television, for instance) and a few things I do care about but haven’t found out yet (like, where I can find the next bus stop and how far it is to a grocery store and the train station) - but I’ll go back to Aachen next week and sign the contract and talk to N about the rest.

It’s so exciting, MY FIRST OWN PLACE! I hadn’t expected to actually find something yesterday but I’m glad it did work out that way.

On our way back home, and we drove back right after leaving N’s place to be back in time for last night’s Euro half-final Germany versus Turkey, we got stuck into a major traffic jam 10 kilometers (6.5 miles) long. There was no going back or forth. Four huge trucks had collided and lay across all four lanes, two drivers had to be air-lifted to the hospital and they announced on the radio that it was going to take until 9pm to clear the way for traffic. 9pm - at the time that was four hours away. 9pm - the game would have been on for 15 minutes. And after 9pm; after they had cleared the autobahn, we still would have had three hours to go! It was almost sickeningly devastating to just sit there, unable to do anything.

After about an hour, someone had the idea to get off the autobahn through a rest stop and although nobody knew if that would work, everyone - except all the big trucks - followed. Thing was, that now everybody was driving, or rather crawling, down those backroads and straight into another traffic jam who had emerged because police had closed of the end of the original jam and bypassed traffic this way as well.

So basically, THERE WERE THOUSANDS OF CARS WITH ANGRY PEOPLE IN THEM WHO WANTED TO GET HOME TO SEE THE GAME BUT IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO MOVE EITHER WAY.

We ended up having to listen to the first half of the game on the radio which was torture. Whoever thought that listening to a soccer game would be a satisfying experience must not be a person I’d want to spend time with.

But as we all know, all in all the game was great and I found an apartment so I’m not complaining, in case it seemed like I was. Oh, official moving in date is August 1, by the way.

So there’s tons of time left to be irresponsible and waste time. Goody.

I decided to do more cross-stitching again. I had started on this 39 by 49 cm (15 by 20 inches) piece, a picture of a tradtional African tribe woman - or, at least, what the Western world typically likes to imagine they look like. The material alone cost me 60 euros (90 dollars). It has beautiful warm and earthy colors with a streak of aqua blue in it for the woman’s hair decoration. I really love it. Although, I kinda wish I had bought a different picture; it was the same size but the colors weren’t as bright and dominating. It was the portrait of an North American Indian kid.

I’m not sure if I’ll like this one put up on a wall somewhere just because it is so colorful and bright. It hardly matches with anything. But then my friend J showed me a picture she drew over the course of a couple of months. It’s a Mediterranean scene painted in acrylics and it looks unbelievably real. As if it was a photograph, almost. It’s awesome.

And so I asked her if she’d paint me a picture to hang next to my cross-stitch project. Maybe if I’d have a whole wall in these colors, it won’t look as crazy out of place. And it would also be nice to have something made by her in my own apartment once I won’t get to see her every day anymore; a nice conversation piece. In a Hey, remember when I asked you to paint this for me? sort of way.

She already agreed to start on my painting as soon as all our exams are over which will be around the end of April. Now I don’t know yet when exactly I’ll be moving out - my mom has been looking for apartments in Belgium because they’re much cheaper than in the Netherlands or all the way over in Germany. But I’m thinking I should start working on my African woman cross-stitch again so that by the time J’s painting is ready and it comes to the actual situation of moving into my own place it’ll be ready to frame and hang up on a wall.

On the other hand, I’m still totally caught up in Pillars of the Earth - I just can’t put it down. Plus I’m supposed to be studying like, right now and later on, before dinner, and at night and on my way to school. And anywhere in between. Crazy educatioal politics that force people to go beyond eveything that’s good and holy to graduate from goddamned high school!

Oh by the way, ONLY THREE DAYS TO GO.

Easter is just around the corner. In fact, several people wished me Happy Easter! today - on Good Friday which, as any good Christian knows, is when Jesus is believed to have died at the cross. Now, I’m not a good Christian - or any kind of Christian at all, actually - and so that’s about as much as I know about this day.

Which is why I’ll go on to talk about something I do know a thing or two about: decorating. Easter certainly isn’t as big a deal as Christmas over here and for as long as I can remember Easter Sunday is the day for my brother and me to receive a new pair of socks next to some chocolate Easter eggs and we go and have dinner at my grandma’s house and that’s that.

Easter, around these parts, only lasts two days and like Thanksgiving in America is mostly used to inhale unbelievable amounts of exquisite food. Naturally, we don’t put as much thought in decorating since, basically, nobody gives a shit and, really, what does Easter have to do with bunnies, anyway? What Santa is for Christmas, the bunny is for Easter and as you well know, I despise commercialized holidays.

So here’s this year’s Easter decoration: tasteful and low-key.

When I say tasteful and low-key, I mean I cut some twigs in the backyard, put them in a vase, colored some eggs with watercolor and stuck ‘em right on there.

Don’t you just love Spring and the beauty of nature, blooming right before one’s eyes? Just looking at these pictures makes me feel so small and appreciative of the wonders of the universe. I’m serious, too.

But remember what I said before? About hating the Easter bunny because it’s an insult to Christianity? Well, I kind of actually honestly don’t really feel that way. In fact, I have to tell you something.

There’s an Easter bunny living with us around this time of the year.

His name is Fridolin and he’s just hanging out at the edge of our dinner table. He’s a very relaxed Easter bunny.

He is very much at peace with himself which I am not and sleeps a lot which I do, too. He is so relaxed because in this household, he doesn’t have to fear crazy hypocrites and goody-goodys trying to make him feel bad about his existence. Here, he is Fridolin the Easter Bunny and he can be for as long as he damn well pleases.

Happy Easter, everybody!