OCEANS AWAY

The graduate

Filed under University

I wanted to blog about my short trip back to Maastricht for my graduation just for the sake of documenting it somewhere, and today is probably a fitting day, seeing as I’ll be in the NL again tomorrow and on Saturday. But, that being the case, I’m pretty stressed tonight and have zero patience for blogging so here’s a bullet-point rundown:

• The ceremony took place in an old theater in the oldest part of the city. There was plush red velvet and golden ornaments and tiny little balconies and bad lighting and wooden floor boards and heavy turquoise curtains and a mirror hall and statues. It all seemed a little run down but beautiful; historic, versatile, unique, underappreciated, special. JUST LIKE MY ARTSY BA PROGRAM. It was perfect.

• One of the students gave a surprisingly insightful and funny speech about what defines Maastricht’s arts and culture students that had a comforting “We’ll all be alright.” vibe about it.

• We had a fancy three-course meal at a restaurant at Maastricht’s Vrijthof, and the waiter made me try this fruity beer mix drink which, against all odds, turned out to be AWESOME.

• Some prof from the arts and social sciences faculty sang two songs (about Maastricht and our BA program) WHILST accompanying himself on the keyboards WHILST having to click “next slide” for his own PowerPoint presentation. As you might imagine, this was unintentionally hilarious. But also sweet. (The song about our program was actually really good.)

• We stayed at the cutest and creepiest bed & breakfast I have ever been. I dare anyone who’s planning a weekend in Maastricht to stay at Tom & Kitty’s B&B and tell me you didn’t at some point wonder whether they were hiding some awful things in their basement.

• Although my class was in fact a little bit bigger, we were but 45 students at the ceremony. Cozy!

• My brother was there. People ALWAYS have fun when he’s around. Plus, he didn’t HAVE to give up his weekend for this stupid ceremony and yet he did.

• The weather was nice and I liked being back in Maastricht. I realized, though, that I don’t miss this place as passionately because I was never really close with any people there (as I had been in Sweden and KY, by contrast). This makes a huge diference. It’s a beautiful city but my bond to it isn’t as strong, and so being away doesn’t hurt as much.

I’m going to parts of the Netherlands in the next two days that I’ve never been to before, for work. Should be interesting – and I will, of course, blog about it. Sweden posts are to come as well because THAT place, I’ve got bonds with.

Have a great weekend!