Dildo on campus
Quickly purchasing a dildo between lectures? This option was recently introduced at the Science Park in Utrecht, sister newspaper DUB reports. Spar University supermarket has joined forces with EasyToys, a company that sells sex toys. Since last week, a pink rack filled with vibrators, lubricating jelly and cock rings takes centre stage in the shop.
Spar also stocks sex toys at four other campuses in the country. In doing so, the supermarket capitalises on recent research by Rutgers & Soa Aids Nederland. This shows that ‘the first time’ for youths takes place later and later: whereas in 2012, this was still at the age of 17 years, it is now 18.7 years. So, during one’s time as a student.
Aside from their intimate purpose, these toys also stimulate something else: lots of discussions – with occasional giggling – writes DUB. So, are the sex toys selling like hot cakes? According to a member of staff, plenty have already been sold. Among students, however, responses are different: “I would be more inclined to buy one online. I don’t want to be recognised.”
Beautiful history
Good news for everyone who was rained on for the umpteenth time this week. No, the sun is not suddenly going to shine, but all that rain did yield something wonderful. The fierce rainfall revealed an undiscovered system of corridors on the Tongerseplein. It is located just outside the well-known Kazematten (casemates), a defence network of corridors and bunkers.
Jos Notermans, chairman of the Menno Coenhoorn foundation, which is dedicated to maintaining the historical defence systems, finds it “very special,” he says to RTV Maastricht. “It is very possible that nobody has been in the corridors since the closure of the fortifications in 1876.” The network will be investigated during the coming time. In 2022, a subsidence due to rainfall also revealed a small piece of history. That concerned an old bridge over a filled-in branch of the Jeker river in the Looierstraat.
As coincidence will have it, there was other memorable news for history lovers too this week. The ArcheoHotspot was opened in Centre Ceramique last Saturday, De Limburger writes. Everyone can help archaeologists and volunteers there by selecting old shards or studying other archaeological finds. Anyone who has dug up anything interesting, can bring that along too.
Flying is cheaper than a room
In some Canadian cities, there is a dire shortage of rooms too. It is so expensive to live in Vancouver that a student came up with a cheaper solution: he lives 700 kilometres away and flies up and down.
It costs student Tim Chen 1,200 Canadian dollars (a little over 800 euro) per month to fly from Calgary, where he lives, to Vancouver twice a week. In doing so, he saves 900 dollars per month; the rent of an average student room in the Canadian university city is 2,100 dollars (more than 1,400 euros). In comparison: in Amsterdam, the most expensive university city in the Netherlands, you pay on average 948 euro per month for a room.
Partly due to the overheated housing market, the Canadian government – just like the Dutch Parliament – wants to curb the influx of international students. The latter will be reduced by 35 per cent next year, and in some provinces by even more.