As you may already know, I wrote a research paper that was (somehow) selected for presentation at the European meeting of the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management—wonky, nerdy, economic-data driving researchers who love ‘p-values’. The conference happened to be centered on migration as a study of analysis, and well, despite my lacking said math, I happen to have a bit to say about asylum adjudication.

So the conference is in idyllic college town of Maastricht, Netherlands. And you’re asking, where is Maastricht? It’s about equidistant to Brussels and Koln, a city of 100,000 or so in the Limburg region in the south of the Netherlands. And, fittingly, the city is split down the middle by a river, the Maas—see how that works?—and, more to the point of my being there, is home to the many faculties of Maastricht University (UM).

Maastricht is not the kind of city you’re likely to visit on your Perillo Tour, but it’s brimming with the European charm (read: cobblestone streets, drinking beer from cans on the street, BMWs for taxis) you likely went to Europe for in the first place. Because the UM is mainly English-speaking, the town is friendly and easy to negotiate. Because it plays host to university kids, it’s also a bit easier on the wallet than much of Europe. The University brings a certain amount of traffic and culture—art museums, regular train service, 24-hour food carts—but still prides itself on not being Amsterdam (xenophobia, weed as cultural tourism, prostitutes). Two hours by train away, Maastricht is decidedly more austere and inward than its’ big sister to the North, but the result is a clean, safe, education and culture driven community that runs on a heap of coffee and books. Travelers that meander to Utrecht, Holland’s arts university hub, will find similarities between Utrecht and Maastricht, but where Utrecht paints and sings and creates, Maastricht types and leafs through Kant.

My presentation itself went well, despite my worries. I did stay up the night before at my hostel (totally a swanky and full-featured hostel, I must say) and tore apart my entire powerpoint to build it back up again. I awoke disheveled, noticeably addled, the combination of reading American law decisions searched for on Norwegian Google and prosecco from our conference social the night before. A rockstar professor confided in me, at the peak of my anxiety to present, that the objective was trying not to put people to sleep or be the worst. I’m fairly animated so the sleeping wasn’t a concern but objectively offering up a lousy talk was still a possibility.

In the end, people liked it. I presented in front of professors and graduate students from all over the world—and managed to hold my own. I celebrated by tearing open a pack of stroopwafel and people watching along the pedestrian bridge over the River Maas. A deep, contemplative, sigh. This is the life.