Holland VIII

For me, travelling means to go to another place. It’s not necessary to be far away where you live. When I say this, it means to visit a place, to know the culture, history and things like these. You will say: “yes, but if you travel to a place near you live, the history and culture will be the same”. I will answer that you are right, but I will ask if, in your city, you go to the museums or to the parcs, the theaters or others importants places like these, every day.

It’s not necessary the answer, I know it. For me, travelling is to go to the places where you never go, to visit the places that you don’t visit every day or to be in the streets that you never are. I promise you that, if you go to the nearest village of the place that you live, you will find things that you don’t have in your city. When you are travelling, is more important the feeling that you have than the place where you are.

To resume, for me travelling means to forget all the problems and to relax myself.

Holland VII

Monday 11^th April. This day was the last day of the exchange. When I brought the suitcase downstairs it seemed heaviest. On the table there was a big breakfast. I had the best breakfast of the exchange. When I finished, I helped Floor (Thom’s sister) to bring the dishes to the kitchen and when I returned to the living room, in the floor, near my suitcase, there was a small box with a letter to my parents. With the letter there were some postcards of Van Gogh. I said thanks to all the family and goodbye because, maybe, it was the last time that I saw them. Then, the father took his car and he brought me to the school while Thom went by bike. When we arrived, I said again goodbye to the father and thanks for all and I went with the rest of the people.
We had the visit of Utrecht. At 8:30 the bus arrived and we went to the center of the city. When we were there, we made two groups. The first group went to visit the Dom tower while the second group had free time and after, both groups changed the activities. I was in the first group with Marina and Oriol V. The Dom tower is the highest tower in Holland. When we arrived to the tower’s top, the views were fantastic and I made some photos. When we went downstairs, the second group was going up. Then we had free time and we visited the city. When the second group joined us, we went by tram to a place where we did one hour and a half of climbing. After the climbing, we returned to the school and we had a party to say goodbye to Dutch people. At 5 o'clock we entered to the bus and we went to Schiphol, the Amsterdam’s airport.
These days were the happiest days of my life and I will miss all of them.

Holland VI

Sunday 10^th April. This day was the relaxed day. I said this because Thom said me that on Sunday we would stay at home with nothing to do. We got up at 10 o'clock. I had a shower and, when I went downstairs, Thom was having the breakfast. When he finished, he went upstairs to have a shower and I sat in the sofa to prepare the questionnaire that I had in my English homework. After 10 minutes, Thom went downstairs again with his Xbox. He started playing to “Halo” while I was doing the questionnaire. I spent 15 minutes to do the questions and when I finished, Thom and me played together with the Xbox. When we had been playing for half an hour, Thom's mother said that he had to take the dog to the street. Thom said “0k” and I went upstairs to take the jacket to go with him. We went around the neighbourhood. We made a walk about fifteen minutes in a small forest near the house. The landscape was incredible, but  I forgot my camera at the house. This made me a bit angry, because I couldn’t do some beautiful photos of the views of the village and the forest.
When we returned home, Thom said me if I wanted to go to a party in Calvin's house and I answered yes. In this moment, Thom remembered that, the day before, we left the bikes in the harbour, when we sailed with Wessel’s boat, and we had to take its. Thom’s father said that he could bring us to Calvin's house and took the bikes but, before, we had to show him where we left the bikes. Thom said yes and I agreed too. We took the car and we went to the harbour. Then, we put the bikes in the car and we went to the Calvin's house. There, we couldn't stay much time, only two hours, because at 5 o'clock we had to go to a restaurant with Thom’s family, to have a celebration in my last dinner in Holland. At 5 o’clock, all the family went to pick us and we went to the restaurant “Colonie”. The food was very good and the decoration was fantastic (I put a photo of it). At 8 o'clock we returned home and I prepared the suitcase, because the next day I returned to Barcelona :'(.

Holland V

Saturday, 9th April. We were in the middle of the exchange and these were the funniest
days of it: the weekend. Officially, it started on Saturday but, for us, it started the day
before, with the party in Thom's house.

I went to bed at 2 o'clock but, only six hours late, at 8 o'clock, I got up because we had
met with Roger, Wessel and his family to go to Utrecht with the Wessel’s family boat.
After the breakfast, at 8:30, we took the bikes. When we started to ride, I asked Thom if
the harbour was far away of the school. He said "No, is near the school". When I heard
this, I got scared because for him, every place was near the school. It was correct: we
had to cycle for and hour and I finished frost. When we arrived to the harbour, the ship
wasn't there and we had to wait for 10 minutes. At last, the yacht appeared, big and
nice, and we went to Utrecht. We went around the main channel of Utrecht. We were
talking and, Roger and me, making photos of the views. We had lunch in the entrance
of Utrecht. At 5 o'clock we left Utrecht and we returned to Neuewegein with the yacht.
This was one of the best experiences of the exchange. Wessel’s family were fantastic
and the feeling of to be in a ship in a city like Utrecht was fantastic. The trip was from 9
to 5. When we arrived at home, we got to the farm of Emilly and we had another party.
It was in another house and, this time, I wasn’t tidying but I arrived home at 2 o'clock
and I was very tired.

Holland IV

Friday, 8^th April. At 7 o'clock we got up. I was a bit tired and I had a lot of problems to leave the bed. When I went down the stairs, in the table there was a big breakfast waiting for me, but I wasn't hungry, so I only ate cereals and milk. Thom's mother said that I didn't eat a lot. I didn't answer but I think that she was true. We had to go to Amsterdam, so we had to be very punctual. We left the house earlier than the day before and we went alone to the school. When we arrived, most of the people were there. In few minutes the bus arrived and we went to Amsterdam.
 The trip between Utrecht and Amsterdam was about one hour, but we were talking or listening to music and it seemed shorter. In Amsterdam, the first building that we visited was Anne Frank’s house. It was a big disappointment. I don't know how to say it: I expected that the house was more impressive, but the house was poor and dark. I didn't like the visit. In the Anne Frank's house only entered the Catalan people and the Dutch were waiting for us outside. When we finished, all together went to the Rijksmuseum. It's a big museum of paintings. There, we had to make a portfolio about one topic and my partner choose the war. We spend one hour and a half in the museum and after it, we had free time. We had to meet in a meeting point some time later and in this time, I went with Marina and Oriol and our partners to the McDonald’s. I think that for the Dutch people the Mc is like a church. They always wanted to go to Mc to drink or eat something. After the obligate visit to the Mc, we went to the meeting point. We had an organized trip around the channels of Amsterdam. We went in a big boat and, during one hour and a half, we were making photos of all the things that we saw in the channels and in the streets.
After the visit, we returned Thom’s house because we had to prepare a party there. I had a shower and then, I helped Thom’s father to make a fire place, the mother to put the food on the dishes and Thom to put the chairs in the garden. While we were doing this, Claudia and Anna came with their partners to help us.  At 9 o’clock the people started to arrive to the house. The party had to end at 12 o’clock, more or less, but I went to bed at 2:00 because first, I was helping Marc to found the key of his bike, that he had lost, and after it, I was tiding up the garden with Thom and his family.   







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Holland III

Thursday 7^th April. I had to get up early. After wash up, I went downstairs to the dining room. There, in the table, Floor (the sister) and Dirk (the father) were waiting for me and Thom (my partner) for to start the breakfast, cereals and milk. The school started at 8:30 but we left home at 8:00 because we had 3 km of cycling (3 km are more or less 20 minutes by bike). During the trip we met with two other Dutch guys. The four we went to the school. When we arrived I saw all the bikes in the parking one next to the other and it was incredible. The parking was enormous. We made the same groups of the day before and we had a class of Dutch. There we have to represent one conversation in Dutch. The Dutch student’s laughed a lot with our Dutch but I wont to see them speaking Catalan or Spanish. When we finished the interview we did one activity of Europe. The activity consisted into to draw the map of Europe. With my partner nothing happened but there were groups that the maps were for laugh or cry. After the activity we had a few time of break and after we had two hours of P.E. The activities of P.E. were fantastic and a bit tired.

When we finished the classes we cycled faster as we can to the house because we had met in some minutes in the center of Utrecht. We arrived a bit late and we didn't found the other people after to search them for 10 minutes. We found the group of Marina, Anna, Oriol, Xavi,..... and their partners. With all the boys we went to the McDonalds while the girls were shopping. After 45 minutes the girls came to Mc without anything, so they spend 45 minutes to saw clothes. When we met all, we had to return at home because we had to have dinner and to go to the swimming pool. We arrived to Thom's house at 7:00 o'clock and in this time we had to be to the swimming pool so we had to dinner in 20 seconds. After it, we took the bikes and we went to the swimming pool. We arrived at the same time as Marc, Ari, Xavi and Alex and their partners. The swimming pools were fantastic, like an aquatic park. For them, these types of swimming pools, are normal. I had a great time there. When we returned at home I was so tired that I fell down to the bed.

Holland II

Wednesday 6^th April. That day was one of the worst parts of the exchange because I had to get up at 3 o’clock, but I was happy because it meant I was going to Holland. At 3:45 we had to be at the door of the high school. So like you could guess, I didn’t sleep that night and the day before I had badminton training, so I was tired.

We arrived at Amsterdam's airport at 9:00 am. There, there were the Dutch P.E. teachers. With them we took the bus and we went to the school. There, all the Dutch students were waiting for us. When we left the bus the greetings and tears of happiness began. We were until the teachers said that we had to go inside. We entered to the hall of the school and we saw what the people said about the school was true. The school was enormous. After stayed some minutes in the hall we went to a class to make games to refresh the memory about what we had learned of our partners. Then we saw some videos of Nederland and we prepared the activities of the next day. After it, we went home and we left the suitcase. In a few moments we were going with some other students to a channel near the village. After it we came back to the house and we had dinner and we watched TV. We went to bed at 11 o'clock.

Holland I

This Wednesday I’ll go to Holland. I’ve been waiting for this moment since my dutch friends of the exchange left Barcelona. I’m very nervous and  I think that the two days before we'll left Barcelona, the classes will be boring and the teachers will fed up with us.

The exchange will be during five days, in a village near the city of Utrech. We'll left Barcelona on Wednesday, at 3:45 am, and we'll arrive on Monday at 12:00pm. There, in Utrech, we will spend the days with our partners and we will visit some importants places, like Anne Frank's house or some museums. This weekend I will prepare the suitcase, but I'm sure that in Tuesday I'll  forget something and I will have to make it another time.

In Holland, I spect to have a very nice days and to enjoy a lot the trip. I hope that all the people could have a nice trip and the echange will be perfect.