To know Maastricht you can check wikipedia but if I could resume in some words:
- Old city => I mean paved street, traditionnal architecture, it looks like a nice small village which became a city with a lot of students.
- Bike => Like in all Netherlands you MUST have a bike... and a lock... cannabis is not the most lucrative way to make money in this country.. bikes are number 1 ;) (and I'm sorry for some people but I'll not speak a lot about drugs, because I don't smoke, and if you are not smoker too, don't worry there are a lot of people who don't smoke).
- Student / School / Travel => It's not about Maastricht but yes it's an important part, you can do a mix of these three words. Students (and new friends) for sure, School and Travel will depend of your courses, generally exchange students, here, have a lot of works... but don't worry you will always find some times to do parties and travels ;)
I hope that will be enough to make you want to come here. :)
To speak about this map, point by point: (scroll down to see the map)
Residences: You have Three choices it will be around 300-500€
1 => Teikyo Europe (here you have to say "The Guesthouse"), it's an old hospital (not so old, you can still find some doctors and special departments in the building) which was reassigned for students. It's really clean and secure, close to the school and center. => I will do an article about it
2=> Avant Garde Residence, cheaper and not so clean and spacious (compared to Teikyo), this year there are a lot of french so there are automatically a good ambiance ;) I'm joking there are good ambiance everywhere :)
3 => Search for an apartment in collocation, with some others students or in a Dutch family, you have to search by yourself... an advice: you can use Facebook, write "Maastricht" with some keywords in the search bar and you will have a lot of pages and groups.
If you really need some cheap appartment you can maybe search in Belgium, it's quite close, I don't really know.
Schools
I don't have a lot of things to say actually about schools, mine is "ABKMaastricht", you could find all department of art in this building (design/ interior architecture/ textile/ Scenography/ ...) It's a really good place, an article will arrive also.
Main Square
You have two places: => Market Place (under the A), it's the biggest one, you could find a Burger King (I know french want to know this detail ;) ) and some others restaurant, actually I don't go a lot to this place so you can understand that the next one is better :)
=> Vrijthof [vraïtof], you could find two streets, one with the stores and one with the bars... You will know this street.
Supermarcket
You have three famous supermarckets in this country: C1000 (Cthousand), Albert Heijn and Aldi. Next to Teikyo you have the choice with these three supermarckets but you can find some others in the city of course.
I think it's enough, I will add some details if it's necessary but you can understand that the city is most on the left side of the river (actually I go on right side only to go to the train station, sometimes to go to Avant Garde or to go to some bars (only 3 times)... you can also find a cinema next to the "Y" bridge, all movies and series are in english subtitled in dutch.. this is why, I think, many Dutch speak English very well, even if they claim the opposite. ;)
I will speak about the accomodations and more particularly the Guesthouse.
To directly have an idea you can go to this link and click on "Go to direct offer and check availability":
You can check the dates, if you want to do a real reservation you need to create an account (log in=>new registration) and to search again for availability and then when you click on your choice you will have a checkbox "reserve this house" (or something like this if I remember well).
Copy-cut is faster and it's clear so I found this: "Short Stay Maastricht. (Brouwersweg 100).Maastricht hospital was once located in this building. The rooms are spacious and furnished and the monthly rent ranges from 369 to 512 euro per month (depending on the size of the rooms; shared rooms are possible), which includes a cleaning service, wireless internet and 24/7 on-site security. The online booking fee is 75 euro." link
My advice is to don't take a big room for you alone (I think it's 500€ single room) because you will not have connection with others students and it's not so big because you will have a small kitchen in your room so you will have less place than a "small single room". Indeed this old hospital is divided in different building... the M building is the best ;)
After you can share a big room but you can have some surprises (bad or good) so it's your choice.
The entrance:
A single room (around 300€ I think):
Tennis and basket fields: You can borrow tennis rackets/ balls or basket balls for 1€.
Common Kitchen:
Common bathroom: On one floor there are around 15 peoples and you have 3 common bathrooms, it's really clean and you will always have 1 free, there is no problem.
And common room and Dinner of the floor ! You will meet people from all around the world..
PS I would like to show you this video:
Hello,
today I will speak about ABKM Building which is the Art department of ZUYD university.
ZUYD University website with all departments: international.zuyd.nl
ABKM website with all "art courses": www.abkmaastricht.nl
Personnaly I did Interior Architecture, but if you want to do an erasmus semester you have to check with your school if there is an erasmus program on the courses you want. Personnaly I wanted Product Design but the erasmus program was only on the second semester and we could do an erasmus program only on the first semester... so first of all, be sure it's possible to study what you want to don't have any surprise 2 week before to move. And secondly all these classes are not specially on this Art building, for exemple "Communication and Multimedia Design" is not on ABKM building but on the "classic" building with International business courses. (that just mean you will not have all the tools of the building or you will need to move everytime).
As you can see on the photo, it's the perfect place to learn what is Interior Architecture in Netherlands and what kind of architecture they are doing ;)
The building ( Maps):There are two parts connect with a bridge.
The first building:
There are 4 floors: -1:workshops(wood and steel) / 0: Product Design / 1 Interior Architecture and "Printing workshop" / 2: Textile Design
PS: the Printing workshop is a place where you can bind your book, create stamp, do serigraphy, etching,...
The second building:
On the other part it looks more "classic", I mean you have classes with tables and chairs :p but it's still really great. You have some places like photography, informatic (mac or pc), library, secretary, large size printing, videos editing and a lot of others places... It's open but not too much... some places are opened to all the students of the building and some places are reserved for students who are studying the thing. And for exemple the studio photo is open to all the students but it's reserved for photograph students so actually it's quite hard to find some times to use it.
Classes and Courses
For Interior Architecture we have an entire floor, four big tables and each table is for each years student. We are around 10 students by class.
Teachers give us a book (not in english, that's the surprise) with all projects you have to do in the block (3 months). At the end of the block you have to prepare all your projects (print, book, maquettes,...) on a table and teachers will come to put a mark.
You have class everyday from 9am to 5pm approx.but actuallly you don't really have courses. You stay on the big table working on your projects and teachers are coming, person per person, to speak with you about your project and your progress. So classes are in dutch but finally all teachers are speaking with youin English so, finally, Dutch courses are not really a problem because we don't have a lot of real courses. And, for sure, teachers will be nice with you to find an arrangement.
The way of living in Netherlands is different (from France), you don't have a big break at midday and generally you eat 20 minuts and you go back to work directly because Dutch people eat the dinner sooner than us (around 18h-20h). It's why you don't have any break on thursday, you just eat a small thing during the class (don't worry it's not a hard day, its just a question of rythme).
Materials
On the entrance of the building there is someone who sell a green card, it's 10 €. After you can buy or borrow what you want by using this 10€ green card in the building.
You can buy wood, steel, paper, cardboard, charcoal,... for a cheaper price than in a classic shop.
You can also borrow tools or print by using these cards: camera canon 600D (2,5€/day), macbook(2.5€/day), tripod, print in A0 around 10-20€... BUT you can't borrow, to give an exemple, the Hasselblad H3D for 10€ because you're not studying in photography :p (if you don't know what is it, it's not a problem for you ;) ) in one semester I think I used 5 green cards and two of these was only to print in A0 (20€=2cards)
Classic Printer: You can find a lot of printer in Zuyd university and you have only one way to use it, you need to go on this website:
You log on with your student account, you put 10 or 20 € and after when you will be on a computer of the school you can send a document to the printer, go to the printer, log on with your student account, confirm to print, and log out. It's around 0.25cts/page so you have time to use the money.
Around the school you have 2 Art shops.
So you have to understand you have to pay everything for the school (maquette, drawing, printing,...) they just pay, normally, when you are visiting some places. We went to Rotterdam, in a museum close to Dusseldorf, in a Philips building to Eindhoven and we visited some projects of Mies van der Rohe.
I think it's enough actually, I said all the tips to know to don't be lost ;) I hope it will be helpfull. And for sure the others students could help you ;D They are shy in english but actually they are really good so don't be afraid too :)
Maastricht is in the south of Netherlands, it's actually a really good point to come and also to visit a lot of countries, indeed you have three big train stations/ airports: Liège - Bruxelles (Charleroi) - Eindhoven (you also have an airport close to Maastricht, I never used it but you can check it too).
Maastricht is in the "middle" of Europe (I mean where you can find a lot of different ways to travel) so you have some great choices, for exemple I already visited Antwerpen/ Amsterdam/ Rotterdam/ Brugge/ Budapest/ Eindhoven.. I will explain later for tickets and trips ;)
To speak about the city if you are french you can watch this video: Journal TF1
If you are not, you can check the other article about "Maastricht, the city" :) (not yet)
I like to give links and informations, so today it will be this one: Have some dreams :)
Hello,
Last message I think to complete this blog, all the tips I could give you... not enough to create one article on a subject so they are all here.
Travel
Train ticket:
- You can find some special offers for train ticket in some shop like Hema, C1000... it's a "Dayticket" for 15€ and you can use it to travel where you want in Netherlands for only 1 day.
- If you are in group you can use the next link to have some special prices (between 4 and 10 people):
http://www.ns.nl/reizigers/producten/losse-kaartjes/groepsretour.html
The bus is really expensive (2€50 if I remember) so if you need to use it everyday be sure to have this card, you could use it for the bus and the train:
http://www.ns.nl/en/travellers/ov-chipkaart/menu-ov-chipkaart/get-to-know-the-ov-chipkaart
If you want to know which bus to take and at what time just go on google maps if you didn't know it. You write the A and B point you choose your way of moving (bus) and they will explain everything :) You also have "9292" it's an application on your smartphone.
Bike:
If you want a bike just go on facebook:
bike: https://www.facebook.com/groups/216524551852144/?ref=ts&fref=ts
you could find everything:
furniture: https://www.facebook.com/groups/127275693998770/?ref=ts&fref=ts
books: https://www.facebook.com/groups/buybooks/?ref=ts&fref=ts
The ESN Card
Almost everything about student life is made by ESN (Erasmus Student Network). So you need the Erasmus Card (5€) and you can have it at the Guesthouse. After if you want to know everything about parties, travels and good deals, just follow this page:
https://www.facebook.com/ESNMaastrichtNL?fref=ts
They organize each year some travels=> Prague/ Big Balkan roadtrip/ King's day in Amsterdam/ Belgium trip and some (bigger) parties like pubcrawl/ BusParty and the famous Cantus (don't miss this one ;) )
Recycling
In Netherlands if you recycle your plastic bottles or beer bottles you can have money back, it's 25cts/ plastic bottle and 10cts/beer bottle so you can keep them and after some weeks have some money. We used it in our floor, you can imagine for 15 people you can easily have enough money to do a dinner in common ;) You have some machines just next to the supermarket to put bottles inside.
Bank account
You can take a bank account at ING, I thin for free.
Or you can keep your credit card, normally you can use it everywhere. But the mastercard is really hard to use into the shops, you can just go to the ATM, take a lot of money and use it slowly. Be sure before to leave your country, with your bank, if you will have some taxes with your card abroad. For me, to give an exemple, I could go to the ATM only three times per month (without taxes) and I could use it on shops, thats mean almost never with my mastercard.
Sim card
If you want a local number you can get a free sim card at the ESN office and after you have to put some money inside (I never tried), or you can get a sim card from T-mobile to have, for exemple, only 3G and use what's app or facebook with all the students. Or maybe your local number is enough. To give an exemple, as a french student, I am using SOSH orange and, actually, I can send sms for free in Europe, so it's was enough for me.
I will complete if I remember some other things
