Chinese dinner and dumplings

Sijing is our fellow Infonomics student and we always wanted to try some typical Chinese food, but home prepared not noodles with chicken from some fast food. The year is over and Sijing prepared dinner for us. Let's eat!

Sijing, the chef cook, source: my picture

After some discussions about possible date, we set up the final date for Friday. But then on Wednesday I was at a chocolate experiment and I got some missed calls from Erwin. I called him back and he so like that the weather forecast is bad for Friday and that we will have the Chinese dinner that day. I went directly to his place and we waited for Georgi. Georgi does not ride a bike so he took bus, but me, Alex and Erwin rode to Sijing's place. I wasn't there before but it was on the other side of Maastricht. I was curious where she lives and what she will prepare for us. Well, it was a great day anyway, I was in a great mood, because I found the supervisor for my master thesis and also earned some money during two experiments and Chinese dinner made my day just awesome. Some days are just really great, aren't they?

IESN Traffic Light Party

Traffic Light Party organized by IESN at the end of September in Studentcafé De Beurs. Let's go out on Thursday and party!

Traffic light party, source: my picture

People from International Erasmus Student Network organized thematic Traffic Light Party and as I had nothing else to do, I joined. The theme sent a clear message – your relationship status. Like on the traffic light, you were offered at the entrance 3 colours – green, yellow and orange. Green signalized that you are single, orange people are off limits (well, there is a saying that boyfriend is not a fence nor an incurable decease, but let's leave this now) and yellow… how knows, maybe secretly in love with someone or in complicated phase or a romance. Quite easy, no need to get a special outfit. I hoped that my fellow Czech exchange students would join me, but I didn't manage to convince them. The party was scheduled to start at 10 p.m., so I was there like 10.30, at the entrance picked up green bracelet in exchange for my ticket I bought for 2€ at the ESN office a week before and I entered the pub...

Maastricht – Eindhoven – Prague – Náchod and back

I have a week free from university, so I decided to go home and visit my family and friends. Let's fly to the Czech Republic from Eindhoven, but this time not to Brno but to Prague. As the route is almost routine, I had more time to look around and observe the world around me.

Welcome in Eindhoven, source: my picture

At School of Business and Economics is the exam week followed by the resit week and I didn't have to repeat any exam from previous period, therefore I had a free week. In my case not exactly, because I still needed to solve a take home exam with due date on Friday July 15, but there was no need to be in Maastricht for that. Since I want to stay in Maastricht in July, going home for a week seemed like a good idea. I prefer flying with Wizzair, as Eindhoven in close, it's fast and it's cheaper than going by bus. Even if you book the bus ticket more than a month before, one way bus ticket cost me the same as return with a plane. Crazy. The only problem is the departure time for flights to Brno (8.30 a.m.), but that is not the case of flights to Prague. Plane takes off at 12 and there is enough time to get to Eindhoven from Maastricht with a train. Great.

Going home for Easter and my first couchsurfing experience

I got a bit of free time after my exams and it is good to go home from time to time. Unfortunately I had only one weekend for this short visit, but even in a short time a lot could be done - especially when it's Ester.

Couchsurfing logo, Source: www.couchsurfing.org

This time I do not want to write separate articles about trip there and back, as I already described flying to Brno and travelling with the Eurolines, so I will only focus on what was new. I should start with how I planned the trip. Flying is the cheapest and faster way how to get to Maastricht and back, but I was going back with the bus. Why? Well, the same reason why I stayed only one weekend in the Czech Republic. Change of plans – I needed to be at the university on Tuesday, April 10 at 9 o'clock as I had some duties scheduled. Before I knew this, I had a plane ticket booked from Brno to Eindhoven on Friday March 13. This would mean one whole week for meeting friends and arranging some administrative stuff. As university changed my time schedule, I needed to adapt and therefore the bus back. I wanted to seize Monday at least, as it was Ester, so I rejected taking plane in the morning and in the afternoon, as getting to the airport also take some time. Bus goes at 17 and at 23 o’clock. The second one would allow me to enjoy the Monday, but it arrives to Eindhoven at 12 o'clock which would be too late. Actually, looking at the whole picture, there are a lot of possibilities, how to get from the Netherlands to the Czech Republic. Nice Now you know what I had to go through while planning my stay home.

Salsa dancing lessons on Tuesdays

I got a link from a friend offering free salsa introduction lesson. I decided to check that out as dancing lessons would be nice to attend. After the first lecture I can say that from now on, my Tuesday night is the salsa night.

Salsa Brisa logo, Source: www.salsabrisa.com

Let's dance Salsa! I never danced salsa before but why not give a try? Niki posted link on her profile and I checked the website of www.salsabrisa.com. They have also an English version which is pleasant. Not that I have any problem with understanding basic written Dutch but still, I appreciate that. The website stated that the first "Open lesson" started at 8 p.m. I was not sure what I should expect, but they wrote that no partner is needed. I hoped there would be more girls than during my last dancing course of Zouk, but later about that. The location of the lessons is near the Hoge Brug on the left side of the river in club D'n Hiemel, which is about 10minutes biking from my place. I also found another Salsa lessons in Maastricht, but the place was a bit far away, so I wished that I would be satisfied with this one.

ESN – Maastricht City Tour, dinner and beer

City tour in Maastricht organized by Erasmus Student Network (ESN) from the Maastricht University, is one of the first action provided for the exchange students in order to organize some activity for them before the school starts.

Coctail bar David, source: my picture

After INKOM 2011 when I spent my time with regular master students I was interested about events for Erasmus students in Maastricht if there were any. I did a bit of search and found website of Erasmus Student Network in Maastricht – ESN Maastricht. This organization helps incoming exchange students and also prepares some events so those people who are new to the Maastricht University would not feel lonely and can enjoy their exchange semester. Of course anybody can join and have fun, events are not limited only for exchange students. Regular students are also new to Maastricht and not everybody joined INKOM so discovering city with group of international students is great idea in my opinion. There are of course Introduction days for regular students as well as for exchange students, but it's a bit different and I will write later about that.

Short summary of my winter holidays

Christmas break is over and it's time to get back to Maastricht to continue with studying at SBE. Today I will talk about the time I spent in the Czech republic and than about my superb weekend in Maastricht before period 3 started.

My favourite Maastricht University hoodie, source: my picture

I was home for three weeks and now it's time to return to Maastricht University. I really appreciate the fact, that all exams are written before the Christmas break. I could enjoy my holiday and relax. On the other hand, waiting for the results has an opposite effect – getting more and more nervous whether I passed and how. As I didn't fail any exam in the first period, I had now 3 weeks of free time. As I only visited my country – Czech Republic – for a few days at the end of October, I was looking forward to seeing my friends and family again. Christmas is an ideal time for stuff like that and after spending the New Year's Eve with my university buddies, time was going faster than I realized. I enjoyed great Czech beer, which is one of the things that I really miss in Maastricht. I spent during last two weeks quite a lot of time in pubs despite the fact that I am definitely not a big drinker.

Growth, Well-being and Quality of Life

Guest lecture with promising title by Prof. Dr. Christoph M. Schmidt, but was it really that good? It really depends, but I had definitely more fun in a pub afterwards, even I again couldn't drink any beer because of my eating experiment.

Prof. Dr. Christoph M. Schmidt, Source: scope-economics.nl

There were several guest lectures since the beginning of the semester, but for some reasons I haven't visited any of them so far, mostly because of my salsa lectures. Also my fellow Infonomics guys wanted to come, so we agreed to go into a pub after the lecture. For those, who know my economic believes, might be a bit surprise that I even wanted to spent my time at this lecture, but I was also expecting something more let's say descriptive and theoretical and then it's a good topic for discussion.

Prof. Dr. Christoph M. Schmidt introduced himself as the president of the RWI in Essen and a member of the German Council of Economic Experts, which is a group of economists that gives advise to the German government. At that point started to be a bit worried and hoped, that we will focus more on economics than on politics. Sometimes he managed to. Well, I mostly liked his comments about results from some research.