It must be blog update time, as I haven't written since we got back from Germany last week. That was Tuesday night and it's Sunday evening now. We've been staying in a bit for the last few days, getting over our colds and staying warm, as it has snowed some over the last two days. Yesterday morning the snow came down heavily and we made a snowman on the front lawn; that was before the flatmates went out on an off-license crawl dressed as Santa.

So, continuing on in Germany - The day after my last post, we got up super early to catch our train from Cologne to Aachen. The train left just after 7am, in the pitch dark and arrived after 8am in the pre-dawn light. We figured it was still too early to look around Aachen and we found the bus to Maastricht pretty much by accident, so we hopped on for another hour.

This took us over the border into the Netherlands and across the country towards the border with Belgium. I want to make the point here that when I got off the plane into Germany, the passport control looked at my NZ passport, smiled, stamped it and wished me a happy holiday. When I crossed the border into the Netherlands, there was no border control. When I came back through Gatwick airport after the trip was over, I had to fill in an arrival card, hand it over to a surly man who questioned me on my stay and took a thumb and finger print. I honestly can't say I understand the reason for the difference in border control procedures.

Anyway, I was talking about arriving in Maastricht, at the central station of an unexpected country at around 9am on a Saturday morning. Town was strangely deserted at this time of day and apart from a few market stall owners setting up, we were almost the only people out. Unable to understand any of the signs (changing gears from German to Dutch is hard) we headed towards the centre of town where the map showed several pretty buildings might be. We also looked for some breakfast.

We crossed over the river which I can't remember the name of and into the centre of town, which is a warren of cobbled streets. I've been making a very good effort at getting lost on this trip so far, but have so far managed to always find myself in the end. Maastricht is a very beautiful city to get lost in and every turn seems to lead to a new sight. It seems European towns are getting into the spirit of Christmas by setting up markets in all the public squares and Maastricht is no different.

We've been going into all sorts of churches and cathedrals over here; they're everywhere dotted around cities and they all have something different to see on the inside. One in particular in Maastricht with a magnificent painted ceiling turned out to house a busy bookshop.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the Netherlands and can't wait to go back at another time. Anyway, after Maastricht, we caught the bus back to Aachen and wandered through the city for a bit. The Aachener Dom is an absolutely stunning cathedral both inside and out. Also, we accidentally wandered down the wrong street and through the red light district, which consisted of a long row of windows with women in their underwear.

I'm sure my trips onto the continent are not over yet, but I'm waiting until I get the job situation sorted out before I think too much about that.