When I first started Beyond Beirut, I promised myself I’d keep it running, that I wouldn’t care about how many people visited the site, or no matter how uninteresting my life as a graduate student abroad would become, I’d still find something to write about. We all know that this is exactly what happened. Right? Truth…
Tag: Netherlands
It’s Finally Happened: I Have a Bike
I can’t think of a better way to kick off 2012 in the Netherlands than by two things: blogging again and buying a bike. Yes, you read right. After four months of living in the lowlands, and being hell-bent on refusing to even get on one, I finally managed to gather my nerves together and…
Back to Beyond
Sometimes, you have to give up the things you like to make way for other things that you might detest but really have to get through. In my case, in the past few weeks, I had to give up blogging to work on a health technology assessment project for my Health Economics class that I…
Being At Three Places At Once: In Pictures
I’ve been writing a lot lately about Beirut, being Lebanese abroad, and things that remind me of home, when I do in fact have a wealth of adventures to share. It’s just that you have to bear with me a slight bit while I figure out what is the exact approach I want to take…
Bad English Has Many Purposes: Discovering the Hell-Buddy
I was on the verge of falling asleep yesterday in my class on Innovation and Quality Management. No wait, that’s not right. I was asleep, but with my eyes open. It has everything to do with the fact that I now do my finest studying after midnight and nothing to do with the fact that…
The Unofficial Song for the Netherlands, In My Opinion
The Dutch national anthem Wilhelmus is beautiful, both musically and lyrically, as well as historic. Wikipedia, my always trusted source for last minute research, states it is most probably the oldest national anthem in the world. And I’m pretty sure that the Dutch know and sing this with pride and dedication. Unlike most of the…
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: Getting to Maastricht
After a very long week, and an even longer 24 hours of using almost every common method of transportation, I’m finally at my desk in my new apartment in Maastricht, blasting some music and enjoying a cup of coffee on my first full day here. And it’s been raining and cloudy all morning long even though…
Things and People I Never Knew Were Dutch
Even though I published a list yesterday dealing with several companies I never knew were Dutch, I have to admit once again, that it was too brief . So in the spirit of that, this list will focus on little random items that originated in the Netherlands. Honestly, I could go on and on. Edam…
Companies I Never Knew Were Dutch
I have to admit this: before I had this very crazy idea of going to the Netherlands to do my master’s degree, I had absolutely zero interest in Dutch culture and quirks. Which should make you wonder what exactly drew me to going there. Sure, I always knew that the Netherlands is the land of…
You’re Going To The Netherlands? -The Reactions
Like I explained in a few posts, not everyone welcomed the idea my studying in the Netherlands with open arms. In fact, there were plenty of reactions ranging from the hilarious to the incredibly clueless and of course, the genuinely concerned. Now I know, the reputation of the Netherlands is far from spotless, but it…
Beyond Beirut 