This past week my dad came to visit me in Maastricht. It was his first time in Europe so I had to teach him the basics about Europe and its people (I’m not a good teacher about this since I have been in Europe for about two months now, but I know more than he does). The plan for the 8 days my dad was in Maastricht was to show him around the city of Maastricht, go to Brussels for the day, and then the big trip was going to Amsterdam for the weekend.

When my dad first arrived, I showed him around the city. I took him to the place I was staying and also took him out to dinner. I do not eat out often at Maastricht as most of the money I spend goes towards traveling. It was nice experiencing eating out in Maastricht as I usually do not eat out much while in Maastricht. I did take my dad to a breakfast place where I frequent a lot: Bagels and Beans, which is my favorite breakfast spot in Maastricht. I took him on a Monday morning and we had breakfast together. I always get the Good Morning Bagel deal, which is a choice of coffee, orange juice, and. a bagel with cream cheese and strawberry jam for less than $10. I also tried their cheesecake (even though I said I needed to go on a cleanse, but I ordered it anyway) and it was the best cheesecake I had ever had (sorry Cheesecake Factory). That was the main event of the day with me and dad. I had class and homework to do so I left him and my dad ended up exploring the city for the rest of the day.

Tuesday was the Brussels day trip. I did not have class on Tuesday so I was not having to miss any class to go to Brussels. We took the train to Brussels, which went smoothly and arrived in the late morning. I showed my dad around the city, but of course we were in Brussels for the waffles and chocolate. We spent most of the day shopping for chocolate and eating waffles from different places across the city. That was the main events of our time in Brussels, as expected because you go to Brussels to explore the beauty of the city, but you also primarily go for the waffles and chocolate.

The rest of the week in Maastricht was uneventful and I kept to my normal schedule. It was not until Friday when I saw my dad (after dinner on Thursday night) and we took the train up to Amsterdam for the weekend. It was my first time going to Amsterdam and I was excited to see what it had to offer. After getting to Amsterdam, we checked into our hotel and spent the afternoon walking around the city and eating pizza. That night, we ate at a fancy Italian restaurant in our hotel, where I tried limoncello for the first time and I had the best tiramisu of my life (after eating pasta and potatoes). On Saturday, we did a canal tour of the city and that was beautiful. We saw parts of the city we would only see once on our trip and got a history lesson from our tour guide about the canal history and the history of Amsterdam as well. After walking some more around the city, we got ready to go to dinner at a two star Michelin restaurant. The people working there had to adapt the menu so I could have something vegetarian, which was nice. I ended up eating artichoke salad and gnocchi for dinner, which was one of the best meals I ever had. The meal was topped off with ice cream with rum, interesting, but I would not recommend. On Sunday, we ended our trip by visiting the Anne Frank house and the Van Gogh museum. Then I went back to Maastricht and my dad stayed in Amsterdam before heading home the next day. The travel home was eventful, as I had to switch trains at a random station for no reason and I missed my bus stop heading back to the guesthouse and ended up in Belgium, where I had to power walk home because my Uber didn’t show up.