Trier to Maastricht via Luxembourg June 12
This day way pretty much a blur of travel. It was raining...again (the Europe weather has really been stink). I got up early to catch the train to Luxembourg and then got on the wrong bloody train and had to get back off at the first stop (i'm lucky it was a local train not some superfast international express train) and then back to Trier again on the next available train. Yes the locals did look at me strange (especially since the stop was a quaint little burg that had probably never seen a backpacker before), and yes i did miss the train to Luxembourg by a mere 2 minutes. Bugger with a capital B.
Anyway i got there in the end to find out that Luxembourg is a gorgeous city – especially the one bit i managed to explore – called Um Bock ? where they have these cool medieval networks of tunnels whose name starts with C (sadly i can't remember what they are called and i left my lonely planet section for lux at my grandma's place). L'bourg really has a pretty old town and i was gutted that i was only passing through.
One thing that proves this is a small world – i bumped into a Portuguese guy that i had met at the Koblenz hostel literally on the street in Luxembourg (in the 2 short hours i was there). Crazy! Either that or he was stalking me.
The train trip from Luxembourg city to Maastricht was very long. Passed through rolling countryside with quaint little farming villages – honestly don't know where all of Europe lives when so much of it is farmland or forest (which is totally cool and very scenic of course).
Borders of countries are pretty seemless here – only noticed we were in Belgium and the Nederlands because Virgin kept texting me to remind me that i was roaming and what the rates were (like i want to be reminded!). Oh – and the signage at the train stations changed – sort of.
Got to Maastricht at about 6 in the evening and stumbled my way to the info centre to find that my hostel was only a few 100 metres from there (yay). Although i still managed to walk in circles a bit to find the place which apparently “you can't miss” despite that it's right on the edge of the river and surrounded by trees.
StayOk Maastricht was a really hip place to stay though – very modern and funky. there i met a girl from Utrecht (i think that was it), originally from Suriname. Her name was Elfie and she was very friendly. we went and got some dinner together at a very nice restaurant (expensive but still nice to actually eat with someone else in a restuarant). Thankfully i had Elfie as a translator cos i very nearly ordered lambs testicles. Not much more to say about Maastricht as had to leave early again the next day but it seemed like a nice place (Elfie, who'd been there for a week seemed to think so anyway).
