Out of four countries represented — the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and England — the Dutch won this year’s Stratego World Championships, held in Maastricht. With six victories and four draws Pim Niemeijer of The Netherlands became the new individual Stratego World Champion. Last year, Steffen Annies of Germany won the Stratego World Champion of 2009, the year before, Pim Niemeijer had won it.

And then we also wrote about a women’s championship, also won by a Dutch woman in Kiev back in 2008.

There are also Computer Stratego World Championships held around the world and there’s also my co-blogger’s time-old classic of placing all five of his bombs around his flag.

Stratego is a Dutch game published by Jumbo that was distributed internationally by Milton Bradley, giving the impression that the Americans came up with it, if you read Wikipedia. Read more about Stratego history with pics galore on Ed’s Stratego Site.

(Links: ad.nl, isfstratego)

At Maastricht University in Maastricht, just a few kilometres away from both Belgium and Germany, Trouw claims the Germans keep to themselves and so do the Dutch. The main reason is that stereotypes prevail: the Dutch like to party a lot and are considered lazy, while the Germans actually want to be studying and are too serious. Those are excellent reasons not to hang out together, although not convient for collaborative school projects. The article says the Germans don’t ‘integrate’ and that’s a loaded word to use, they didn’t ‘immigrate’, they just ‘don’t mix’.

Even though there are foreign students in Enschede, Groningen and Nijmegen, half of them are German, which doesn’t give an international allure to any of the establishments. A student council representative explains that it’s easy to mix with international students (non-German), but much less with Germans. No explanation is given and that’s odd.

And then apparently the Dutch “are annoyed at the level of Dutch the Germans speak, as it is not good enough”. Isn’t that usually a given? That’s cold.

Non-German students in Maastricht came for an international atmosphere and have ended up in the middle of a Dutch-German group, forcing them to try and blend in with both. “Maastricht should not make promises it can’t keep: don’t call yourself international when all you have is Dutch and German students,” said one student to the newspaper.

Anyone from Maastricht, expats, students, Germans have anything to add? Don’t mention the war for no reason or make stolen bicycle jokes in the comments please.

(Link: trouw.nl, Photo: a shopping street in Maastricht)

On Wednesday 6 April around noon, the Maastricht train station had to deal with some unrest when passengers were asked over the intercom to evacuate the station. It took station employees 10 minutes to figure out that it was all in error. So what did they tell people? They basically made up a story about a hacker breaking into their system.

Apparently a women’s voice in English told passsegers for more than an hour to leave the station. The employees told people a hacker was responsible, although the system had a malfunction, pure and simple. A spokesperson eventually explained that the station was busy installing a new system, which had a malfunction.

Interestingly enough, ‘serious’ news channel RTL4 ran with the hacker idea and are still claiming that is the case.

(Link: limburger.nl)

Last night, a group of young artists hung up their own works of art in three major Dutch museum, the Groninger Museum in Groningen, the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht and Museum de Fundatie in Zwolle. This act of protest was meant to draw attention to the fact that not just established artists should be in museums, but young, up and coming artists as well.

This morning the Bonnefanten Museum (shown here) said that they found a large black-and-white photo in the old art wing, while de Fundatie found a small colour painting among its collection. Both museums were closed at the time and neither of them has any idea how the art got there. Employees of the Groninger Museum saw a big object in their security cameras and when they went to check it out, the big object had disappeared. Spooky.

So besides this stunt making the news and all, it also tells me how useless the security actually is at all three museums.

(Link: depers.nl, Photo of Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht by Peter Zoon, some rights reserved)

It’s not carnival or ‘Alaaf!’ yet, but I just came back from a smashing night of DJing at the 125 jubileum of Maastricht’s Bonnefanten Museum and felt like writing about Maastricht. Just imagine a party in four huge rooms with some 700 guests accompanied by food, drinks, a live band, musicians and DJs, and the entire thing having to be cleaned up in time for Sunday’s museum opening.

Yes, Maastricht that hidden jewel of a fun-loving yet classy city way down in Limburg near the German and Belgian borders is very different than the rest of the country culturally and linguistically, the two being linked and all. For Jasmijn, a Dutch student from Gelderland who must get around in a wheelchair, she writes as if she had ‘immigrated’ to Maastricht for her studies.

Jasmijn likes the ‘relaxed attitude’ (translation: more ‘Latin’ like) of Limburgers, as here in Amsterdam you have to make an appointment with most people just to grab a beer and the fact that they generally speak of things ‘indirectly’ (translation: more politely) rather than blurt things out like they do here in the Randstad (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague area).

Read about Jasmijn’s cultural experience in her own country.

(Link: Crossroadsmag.eu, Photo: a Maastricht carnival prince, 2008)

Down South in soft-spoken Maastricht, Limburg, the police raked in a cool EUR 2.5 million from Belgians caught for traffic violations last year, 37,417 of which were speeding violations.

And what about the Dutch on the Belgian side? An estimated 15,000 Dutch people brought in EUR 1.5 million according to the Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws, which is a lot less.

The amusing part is that Belgian Limburg has twice as many speed cameras as Dutch Limburg (Yes, both countries share the name of a province).

As an exercise in pure unfounded speculation, the Belgians have more physical room to get their motors going whereas in the Netherlands you’ll miss four exits if you bat your eyelids too long. Germans often get caught speeding into the Netherlands because slowing down is not fun and takes time. When you’re going a roaring 220 km for like an hour (been there, done that, yes it sucks petrol fast), slowing down to 50 km feels like going backwards in time.

(Link: blikopnieuws.nl, Photo by Wikipedia user Naaldenberg, some rights reserved.)

On 14 July, world-famous violinist and orchestra leader will be presented with a postage stamp booklet featuring him with his violin, walking the dog (!) and what not on the main square of Maastricht, Het Vrijthof. On this very square, he will be performing an open air concert for the fifth year in a row, although this time it will be the 30-year anniversary of his frilly-dress, pastel-clad Johann Strauss orchestra. And yes, he’s from Maastricht, Limburg and speaks Dutch with that special softness that my main co-blogger does.

Although André Rieu is unquestionably the Waltz King in the eyes of the common man, he grates the nerves of many a native for his obvious kitsch factor, campy music and his perfectionistic ways. He annoys classical musicians, saying that they are jealous of his success, has been seen on Dutch reality television yelling at his employees for not being fully committed, and has been known to keep the tighest of reigns on this business, considering his immediate family runs it. The latter seems to make perfect sense to me.

Either way, the man is a huge Dutch star and probably deserves a stamp or two. If my grandmother were Dutch and still alive, she would have called his music “beautiful music” and been bang on.

(Link: trouw.nl, Photos: ezdun.com)

Last month, three coin treasures were found in Groningen during archaeological digs. Don’t get all excited though, as a coin treasure is defined as anything over five coins, or as Blackadder character Baldrick would have it, some coins. The biggest find was a collection of half-stuivers, stuivers and double stuivers (a stuiver is the Dutch equivalent of a shilling or a nickel) in a jar, estimated to be worth three monthly salaries at the time they were minted, reports Blik op Nieuws (Dutch).

So who gets the loot? After a find of celtic silver and gold coins near Maastricht two years ago, archaeologist Wim Dijkman of the city of Maastricht told Z24 (Dutch): “According to the law, half of the estimated value goes to the owner of the land, the other half to the finder. Since this find has become an official one, the finder is the city of Maastricht.” That find was estimated to be worth several hundred thousand euro, and since Maastricht wanted to keep the coins for its own collection, it had to pay the land-owners from its own purse.

(By the way, the coins in the picture were found in my own wallet and are not an official treasure.)

Maastricht beer producer Wieckse, perhaps best known for its white beer, has started a website that will show you how sunny it is at many sidewalk cafes in the Netherlands. Called zonneradar.nl, the website also tells you where you will find the sunniest sidewalk cafe in the Netherlands of the moment. White beer is especially popular during sunny weather, according to Wikipedia, because it lacks the distinct hoppish flavour that is present in other beers.

Weather woman Helga van de Leur told Bright (Dutch): “The weather in the Netherlands isn’t as bad as people often think. Research shows that two-thirds of the population underestimate the amount of sun hours. You just have to know where it shines.” Not in Moscow, right now.

Convincing someone of a false memory could change their long-term eating patterns. It could even be a way to fight obesity and help people who are overweight. Researchers from the Universiteit Maastricht have discovered that making simple suggestions to someone can change their eating patterns. For example, telling someone that they got sick as a child eating a certain type of food would put them off that food months later.

This picture features good old greasy poutine, typical French Canadian junk food I used to actually serve at one of my first jobs.

(Link: hbvl.be)