Crossroads writer Danya Chaikel tells of her experience with the Maastricht justice system.

I have lived and travelled in many cities around the world and when I came to cobbled streets of Maastricht I felt safer than ever before. I really couldn’t imagine there being much crime in this picturesque ‘village’. My naiveté was crushed on 11 January 2007 when I was attacked and robbed on a bike path off Cabergweg.
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Crossroads writer Gina Wuppermann looks at the Dutch equivalent of preschool, known as “peuterspeelzaal” (literal translation “toddlers’ playroom” or “playschool”). [continued…]

Every year on Koninginnedag (Queen’s Day), 30 April, the Netherlands celebrates the Queen’s official birthday. Street parties and other events are held all around the country. This year in Maastricht, a large “vrijmarkt” (free market) was organised in the StadPark (City park) and many music bands performed for the public. [more photographs…]

Anniversaries are, by definition, special. The 60th birthday of the Genootschap Nederland-Engeland (Netherlands-England Society or GNE) branch in South Limburg, however, was extraordinary. This jubilee, with its rich and entertaining program, will last in the memories of the people who attended it for a long time. [continued…]

For those of you who are desperate to know what I sound like, here’s the link to an interview that I gave on April 4 about Crossroads and my life as an expatriate in Maastricht for the website Maastricht Moet Je Horen. [continued…]

Feeling somewhat confused or disappointed after several months in a new country is not unusual… Sometimes it may be a relief to receive some help in unravelling one’s clew of thoughts. Crossroads looks at the inside of a coaching practice. [continued…]

I can’t really remember when exactly I first saw a computer, or when I began my relationship with them. What I do remember is when we bought our first computer. It was an Apple, way back in 1987. We were living in Sri Lanka and were, proudly said, one of the first expats to acquire such advanced machinery. [continued…]

If you are a lover of Spain’s culture, its language, its traditions and its cuisine or if you are a Spanish expatriate feeling a little homesick in Maastricht, Círculo Cervantes is the organisation you are looking for. [continued…]

Maastricht Debates is a new project in Maastricht aiming at organising debates once a month on issues of international cooperation and globalisation. With two events under the belt, project coordinator Huub Mudde offers insight on the progress so far. [continued…]

Apart from being your faithful editor, I am also a member of the International Women’s Club of South Limburg (IWC). Our latest monthly meeting exceptionally took us to the Africa Centre (Afrikacentrum) in Cadier en Keer, just outside of Maastricht. [continued…]

We decided at the end of October that we would book flights to a nearby European destination on one those el cheapo airlines that advertise scarce-as-hens’-teeth seats for one euro cent. We had a good excuse; our baby sitter would celebrate her birthday in the middle of December, which we thought would be a good time to travel. We settled for Venice, but did not tell her, keeping it a surprise. [continued…]

When we moved to South Limburg and heard that Maastricht was THE capital of carnival, we were initially more worried than excited.

I had not particularly enjoyed my first encounter with carnival in the Netherlands back in 1992. At the time, my Dutch husband and I lived above a pub in Hoogland, a village near Amersfoort in the centre of the country, and I remember how the stench of stale beer had permeated the air for weeks after the three days of madness. [continued…]

Are you interested in British culture? Or maybe you’d like to meet fellow expats living in South Limburg? Genootschap Nederland-Engeland (Netherlands-England Society) is a Dutch organisation hosting events related to British culture across the Netherlands and it might be just what you’re looking for. [continued…]

“We’ve been able to set up interviews with mayor Gerd Leers and Professor Luc Soete, and also with a student from the University of Maastricht who has just written a book about the Maastricht Treaty, but we are still very keen on interviewing you as well,” the young journalist from Radio France Internationale said to me on the phone. “I’m sure you’ve got many interesting things to say about Maastricht as a European city,” she added. [continued…]

I assume much has been said about living in Maastricht and having a car.
A lot can be said anyway, mostly about the availability of parking spaces, which practically is non-existent.

But it is not only that. It is also…

The traffic lights. [continued…]

Your partner comes home and tells you: “It’s official, we are transferring.” The “we” includes himself, yourself, and your nearly-there-but-not-quite-crawling child. This occurs as you have finally overcome those post-natal “baby blues” sufficiently that you don’t have a panic attack every time you leave the house. [continued…]

“Alien Police”, “MVV”, “Residence Permit”, “SoFi Number”– just a few terms I’ve come across during my quest for work in Maastricht.

It started last August when I successfully got a “Working Holiday Programme” Visa glued into my Canadian passport from the Dutch Consulate in Vancouver. I remember thinking that everything was set: “Great, now I can work in the Netherlands, no problem”.

How naïve of me! Jumping through the bureaucratic hurdles in Maastricht to secure a job has been an utter nightmare! [continued…]

Maxine Chan recently returned to Toronto, Canada after living in Maastricht for ten months during an academic exchange at University College Maastricht. An interview with Crossroads.

Crossroads: How do you look back on your year abroad in Maastricht?
Maxine: It was a very transformative time in my life, but an overwhelmingly positive experience. With it being my first time living abroad and my first time in Europe, this was a very big deal to me, so I tried to take advantage of all of the opportunities I could and make the best of the situation. I like to think I mostly succeeded; I have few regrets about the experience. [continued…]

On a recent afternoon while waiting at a bank in Maastricht, I noticed a couple seated next to me. The man was looking through a Dutch newspaper and suddenly turned to his partner: “It looks like there is some kind of jazz event going on”. I realised that he could not read the paper except for the word “jazz”. [continued…]

Ulrike Heigl describes the needs of the expatriate community in Maastricht and offers a few suggestions.

My arrival in Maastricht in January 2002 was acclaimed with a big party on the market square and even some fireworks. Well, to be honest, it was not really my presence that the city of Maastricht was celebrating, but the inauguration of the Euro. The new currency and I arrived here the same time and I felt proud to have moved from London to the most European city of the continent, at least in my opinion. [continued…]

Around this time last year, I had almost given up hope about succeeding in becoming Dutch. The Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) at the Ministry of Justice was on the verge of rejecting my application for naturalisation. The only option left for me was to obtain a new residence permit and pass a new Dutch language diploma as fast as possible, in the hope that in view of these documents, the IND would accept to reconsider my case and only then decide about my fate. [continued…]

Léon Frissen has just completed his first year as the Queen’s Commissioner of Limburg and acts like a fish in water. “Limburg is the Netherlands’ most European province and I feel like a true European, professionally and personally”, he says. [continued…]

Graciously offered by the Maastricht-based International Women’s Club South-Limburg for Crossroads’ readers: the Newcomers Handbook, a practical guide for all newcomers in Maastricht. [continued…]

Take a walk around the Guesthouse Universiteit Maastricht’s campus near Annadal, and it is quite likely that you will hear nearly every language imaginable – except for Dutch. [continued…]

The city council of Maastricht wants to set up an international association, where employees from abroad can meet each other. The initiative focuses not so much on staff from large companies, for whom a great deal has already been arranged, but on employees from institutions, including the Universiteit Maastricht’s research institutes, the Japanese private university […]

The treaty of Maastricht gave European citizens the right to vote and stand in local government and European Parliament elections in their country of residence. So how are EU expatriates in Maastricht going to make use of their right to vote on March 7? [continued…]

There are 370 Polish citizens living in Maastricht and not all of them are illegal workers or car thieves as public opinion sometimes portrays them. But how did they end up settling in Maastricht? [continued…]

“We are foreigners in Italy and we are foreigners here in Maastricht”, these few words uttered by Carmelo Riggio, co-owner with his brother Bernardo of the Italian restaurant ‘Il Giardino’, simply explain the common feeling of Maastricht’s Italian community. [continued…]

Location, historical links and EU involvement make Maastricht the most European Dutch city, says Gerd Leers, who was announced the best Mayor in the Netherlands in a recent opinion poll. High on the list of “things to do” in order to elevate the city’s international profile, the Municipality has put prolific Euregional cooperation, greater synergies with Maastricht’s international institutes and surprisingly enough - a mentality change.

Gerd Leers:
For a long time Maastrichtenaren behaved as if there was nothing beyond Maastricht. „There is Maastricht and all around it are peasants“ - people really used to say that in Maastricht - „peasants“ being the outsiders. This illustrates the predominant local mentality of the 1960s and 1970s. Today Maastricht must - without losing its character, its beauty and qualities - open up to „outsiders“. This is a process which is already taking place and is quite advanced but I think it can go even further. Maastricht must become truly international. [continued…]

“When my husband was offered an overseas position with the U.S. Government, we all jumped at this chance for adventure. […] What none of us knew was that, at times, this dream could feel more like a nightmare.” Mary Haggerty, who moved a year and a half ago from Denver, Colorado, to a small town in South Limburg, is not the first, nor alas the last, expatriate wife to have gone through spells of despair while trying to get adjusted to strange and new surroundings, far from friends and family. [continued…]