Einmon, kellner and tschild are German dopers. An American doper in Germany is aruvqan, but I don’t know if she’s still here or will still be here in January. I’m sure that there are more, but I can’t think of any right now.
Twisty and I will try and make it over, money and time permitting.
RAR!
Am I right that our London Dopers (welcome, Tir, Twist, and Ianzin !), don’t have a real carnival-tradition? For those of you who don’t quite know what to expect, here are some pictures from the Maastricht carnaval. The pictures show much of the city streets, besides people in crazy costumes making crazy (but often surprisingly good!) music.
Carnaval does’t leave people indifferent. Some people hate it, some loooove it.
I’m going to set up two final dates and let the most votes decide. Or maybe, depending on how many people are interested, we can arrange two weekends.
So:
Who is up for the weekend of 22-23 January, when Maastricht is still its peaceful two milennia-old self, and …
And who is in for the weekend of 5-6 february, when all hell breaks loose? 
El bumpo!
I should warn the people who’d like to be here for Carnaval that the nicer B&B’s and hotels start filling up by early January. The earlier the reservation, the better (and/or cheaper)the place to stay. My fav is a B&B in the old city center, in a 17th century house. Oak beams and all that. 
And then there’s the modern designhotel “La Bergere” where the, admittedly more pricey rooms (99 euro’s for a double) each are designed in a totally different cool way. Or you could choose to stay on the hotelboat in the very center of the city. Cheap, crammed, but…on a riverboat!
Ianzin is the only one still near London! I’m an ex-London Doper meself, now living in Dublin with Twisty, who has never been a London Doper, although he has been to Londopes. 
London has the Notting Hill Carnival, which is in August, and is skeery!
22nd-23rd Jan sounds good, we have a Kendo tournament the weekend before, so hopefully we’ll be able to do both.
Oooooh carnaval. Brand bier. Drrrrroooool. Allllaaaaaaf. That’s probably going to be right out with work scedule, though. 
And I don’t do vanity searches, but will click on anything mentioning my home country to offer “expertise”.
I’m actually over in Holland for Christmas but only for a few days, most of which are taken up with family type holiday stuff. There is actually a tentative movement afoot with some of my non-Dope friends to invade Maastricht for shopping on the 27th which would be about the only day I could make it. Which will probably be an awful day for everyone else to go right after Christmas, so I guess I will just be visiting the sites of fests gone by.
Dopers who can go, should go. Maastricht is a beautiful city and a fun poster too.
Ah Pookah, its a shame you’re only here for the 27’th. Happy shopping anyway!
I looked up Notting Hill Carnival and it’s fairly similar to the Maastricht Carnaval, except the Maastricht Carnaval is in February, not August. Glitterbra’s can go over thick down coats, but it somehow spoils the effect a bit.
Another difference is that Notting Hill carnaval seems to be a show, while the Maastricht carnava is more an everybody-dress-up-and-join-in thing.
Well, so far we have:
The quiet weekend of 22-23 January
Kimstu,
Tusculan;
mk12;
**Angua ** and SO,
ianzin;
**Tir Tinuviel ** and TwistofFate,
all in very thin pencil;
Carnaval weekend of 5-6 February:
Kimstu,
Tusculan;
mk12;
Angua and SO,
ianzin;
all in very thin pencil, too;
It looks like the quiet weekend of 22-23 January is in the lead !
Any more news? Frankly I’m not much of a carnival fan, as I grew up ‘above the main rivers’.
So Tusculan, would that be a pencil-tick for you on the non-Carnivalweekend of January 22-23 ?
As long as the pencil can still be erased if need be, go ahead.
Also, there are a few good people, former dopers, at NADS who have expressed an interest. They are worried, though, that you, being the malevolent dictatorial mind we all know you are ;), would be mordicus against any non-dopers attending. Is there any chance you could in you infinite mercy find it possible to allow them to come, this one time?
Nah. I definitely need more grovelling, first.
What about this then, Maastricht; you’ve met me, and I’ll vouch for them.
If I say they’re lovely people, will that change your mind? Will you let them go then? Pretty please?
Or will that make you even more determined that they should be held at Schipol and not inflicted on the good people of The Netherlands?
Oooh, another chance for EuroDoping - I had so wanted to go to PragueDope but then got really swamped with work out of the blue. At this moment, I could make it to both weekends - I think I’d somewhat prefer the quiet one, too. Unfortunately, work obligations tend to spring up rather spontaneously, though, so I can’t promise anything. But so far please pencil me in!
Tempting, tempting…but no.
Of course the NADS-folk are welcome, too! I’d prefer a somewhat smallish group though, for the Dopers interested in my showing them around Maastricht and the not-normally-open-to-public-areas-of-the-caves. I’m thinking a maximum of ten.
And Einmon, welcome! I’ll pencil you in for the quiet weekend (which is now definitely in the lead and is on its way of becoming the definitive date)
As far as I’m concerned, people are welcome to join literally last-minute, but I think it will be hard to find a really nice B&B without at least a week’s advance reservation.
Wow, I didn’t see this thread until just now (note to self: more vanity searches). I was pretty busy for a few weeks, so I hadn’t browsed the SDMB for a while and now I see this.
You can count me in (along with my wife) for either of the two weekends, but I would prefer Carnaval. So, will there be a lot of scantily clad young women dancing to the rythms of the Trio Electricos, or am I confusing Maastricht with Cidade de Salavador de Bahia de Todos os Santos again? If I am, maybe I can ask my wife to take along some of her Brazilian friends to show those Limburgers what a real carnaval is.
I’m kidding of course. I know carnaval in Maastricht is great, and I know that the entire region parties for days. It would definitely be an interesting sight for those EuroDopers not familiar with some of our more quaint traditions!
Yay! **Mr Holmes ** and wife are pencilled in for both weekends. Let’s see if anyone else prefers the Carnival weekend, otherwise I’m going to pich the pre-carnival weekend as the definitive date.
Like I said before, even two weeks before Carnaval there’s plenty of it already going on in the streets. Festitivities start Nov 11 (11 being the Fools number) and slowly increase in the months up to February. Even in the quiet weekend visitors will get a good idea whether they would want to come back to the Fest of Fests.
Folks, we’ve picked a definitive date. Eurodope in Maastricht will be held
the weekend of 22-23 January.
Pencilled in are:
**Kimstu, **
Tusculan;
mk12;
Angua and SO,
ianzin;
**Tir Tinuviel ** and TwistofFate,
Mycroft Holmes
maybe the NADS-people,
and I believe Arwin was interested in coming, too.
Let me know if I can help making reservations. Getting a discount is the national Dutch sport, and I haven’t cut out all these hotel-coupons for nothing, you know.
With just three weeks to go, I’m proposing the following schedule:
Friday afternoon: [ul]
[li]Check in hotels / Bed & B’s[/li][li]Dinner at 't Knijpke, a 17-th century cellar with an open central fireplace. Sounds far cheesier than it actually is, and they make a wicked creme brulee. [/li][li]Evening walk around the two main squares, or just a tour of cafe’s. [/li][/ul]
Saturday: [ul]
[li]A three-hour citywalk, (with some cafe’s and Maastricht French-fries thrown in for fun) in which we’ll be following the system of walls and the two rivers flowing through the city. The smallest river, the Jeker, flows under the houses and pops up whenever you least expect it, usually to power some ancient mill. [/li][li]We’ll also visit the Hoge Fronten, (High Fronts), an extensive military system of battlements, partly underground. [/li]
[li]The afternoon can be spent as everybody sees fit. Some suggestions: [/li][li]I’ll be leading anyone interested to my favourite museum, our Natural History Museum (website in English here. It hosts the fossil of the Mosasaurus, a huge sea-dwelling version of T-Rex. The discovery of the skull of the Mosasaurus, clearly a creature that nobody would have overlooked if it had still roamed the earth in 1750, singlehandedly started the “maybe there has been more then one creation”-theory, and thus lay at the root of the evolutiontheory. The French dragged the skull back to Paris in 1796 as a wartrophy, and put it on display in the stuffy Paris Paleontology Muséé. However, five years ago an even bigger skull was found and is now on display in Maastricht. (Can anyone tell I’m proud of my city?) [/li]][li]Shopping. (the January clear-out will be in full swing)[/li][li]The Industrion, in Kerkrade (a 50 minute drive) a museum with old machinery. It has displays on how industrialization affected society. The Industrion is the kind of museum that still has your grandmothers first vacuum-cleaner on display. [/li][li]The Maastricht Bonnefantenmuseum, a provincial art-museum with a few interesting Flemish old Masters, like Breughel. [/li][li]visiting the baths of the original Spa, a 30 minute drive outside of Maastricht[/li][li]visiting one of our many coffeeshops. [/li][li]I propose meeting for dinner in a very reasonably priced, very good Indonesian restaurant. The food is excellent and they have a menu where you get to choose three of a wide selection of dishes, including halal and vegetarian ones. [/li][/ul]
Sunday[ul]
[li]Start with a quick visit (20 minutes) to the Museumbasement Derlon. During the building of this Hotel a well preserved piece of 2-nd century road, walls and wells were discovered, and they are preserved in the basement, 5 metres below street level. It is open to the public, free of charge, on Sunday mornings. [/li][li]A visit to the caves in Mount St-Pieter, extensive man-made underground limestone quarries that have turned the hills around Maastricht into Swiss Cheese. Our tourist office has orgaized tours, but I’ve found a friend of mine willing to give us a private tour through parts of the caves not normally open to the public. Bring sturdy shoes and a flashlight. [/li][/ul]
We’ll end the day with an early dinner (for those who can still make it) in my favourite Italian restaurant.
Maastricht, I was lucky enough to be sent to a conference to your fair city in 98. I really enjoyed the trip; if I can ever go again, I want to rent a bike and finish that hike I started up the Maas into Belgium, then across to Aachen. Lift a pint for me if the event happens.
Unfortunately, Bonzer and myself will be unable to make it.