Alarm clock at four o'clock. Went to Olomouc by car, from Olomouc to Prague by train. Then we got on a plane and headed to Amsterdam. I went by plane for the first time in my life so I was fascinated by the taking off and the clouds outside the window. The coffein from my morning coffee stopped working so I was falling asleep all the time. My host family picked me up at the airport and took me home to Rotterdam by car. We spent the first evening in a beach restaurant at sunset. The wind was blowing from the sea and I was really cold - but it was worth it!
I was pretty scared of the first day with my new family. During the breakfast they asked me about few things in English and then they were talking in Dutch, laughing at family inside jokes ... and singing. One of them started singing and the rest of the family joined them. Fortunatelly after the breakfast we went to a picnic in a park with the rest of our group. With bikes of course! In Netherlands you can see some cars, people travelling by subway, bus or train but you rarely meet a pedestrian. Most of the people go always anywhere by bike.
It was a beautiful day on Sunday, the sun was shining and we were talking and stuffing our bellies with all the goodie that the Dutch people brought - stroop waffles, sweet pastry, licorice, donuts ... |
| Picnic |
MONDAY
In the morning only the czech group met at Emmauscollege (our host school) for "dutch for dummies" lesson, where we learned few basic dutch words and after the class we went by train do Gouda. We visited st. John Baptist church there (the longest church in Holland), cheese shop and typical dutch Stroopwaffle bakery, where we baked our own waffles. In spare time, me and my friends went for a lunch at La Place - amazing dutch restaurant, where the food is made from 100% natural ingredients, where everything looks fresh, colourful and everything tastes like heaven.
TUESDAY
On Tuesday we cycled across Rotterdam. We stuffed our bellies in Markthall - that's the newest bulding in Rotterdam and it's FULL of food. Then we visited an exhiubition of czech artist Krištof Kintera "Your light is my life". I love modern art, because I think it's really creative and you can think whatever you want to about every exhibit and everyone can find his own, different sense of it. That exhibiton was exaclty like this, but some of the exposed subjects were quite scary - like child, who faces a white wall and you see just its black hair. This exhibit was (fortunatelly) out of order - otherwise it supposedly bang its had against the wall. Creepy.
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| Markthall |
WEDNESDAY
We presented our projects in the morning and then we went to the Outdoor Valley. I wasn't looking forward to this activity at all but in the end it was perhaps the best thing of the week. Outdoor Valley is kind of rope center, just with a lot of mud. In the beginning we had to make a raft, on which we had to get on the other shore of the river, where the other tasks waited for us. I (with my big talent for this type of activities) ended with legs in mud already at the first "attraction". But after a while, most of people fell from head to toe into mud with freezing water, deep about half a meter. In the end we were supposed to come back on raft, but we decided, that we will swim - that wasn't maybe the smartest idea, because the water had about 12°C and altough the air was quite warm, when we got to the shore, we couldn't even feel our body.
In the afternoon, we were supposed to go to a Zoo, but the trip was cancelles. So we went to a beach. Then we spended the evening on roller-skates at Skate Fever - I was really looking forward to this part of program but it disspaointed me a bit at last, because the space defined for skating was really small, so we were just skating as idiots around and around.
THURSDAY
On
Thursday we went to Amsteram. First we visited the Rijksmuseum, that I
wasn't really charmed by, because as I said, I prefer modern art, so I'm
not really into "netherlands art from the golden age". Then we rent bikes and we went for a city tour. In Rotterdam big part of the city was destroyed after World War 2 and everything was build newly. In Amsterdam there are lot of old houses, the architecture is interesting overall and also the city has just amazing atmosphere on its own. I'm just quite sorry that we cycled again, because I couldn't even take a photo of some places, like park we visited. Which
is really shame, because the parks there are becautiful and they're one
of the things, that charmed me the most in Netherlands.
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| Amsterdam architecture |
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| The best classmates + my host "sister" and the best English teacher ! |
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| Our lunch .. |
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| .. and a dessert |
I had a sore throat since the middle of the week so the trip to Kinderdijk mills felt like a suicide for me. The weather wasn't very nice at first, but about noon the sky cleared and we got great view from the Euromast lookout. In the afternoon we just packed our bags, we said goodbye to our host families (some pairs were almost crying whereas some pairs were glad they won't meet each other anymore). In the evening we took a train to Amsterdam where we spent our last night in a hotel Ibis.
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| Kinderdijk |
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| Euromast view |
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| Hotel |
SATURDAY
We departed from Prague about eleven o'clock in the morning. When we were comming closer to Olomouc, everything started making sense to me and I started feeling sad,, that the whole exchange is over. And knowing, that perhaps I won't see any of these people anymore, after all the time we spent with them .. felt just incredible. Anyway it was an extraordinary week and I don't care I'm lying sick in my bed, with laptop, hot tea and a bunch of tissues. Regardless of the negative moments the exchange program was something I will never forget about ♥
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