Monday 2 November 2015

The last 4 weeks (sorry for that)


Hi all!!

Firstly I need to apologize for not making this post earlier, a few people have commented on my lack of a new post so sorry for that!
I've done a lot this past month. I have been to Amsterdam for the day with a bunch of other exchange students, had a couple of tests at school and a week of holidays which I spent down in Limburg with my host family and been to Zeeland! But firstly, Amsterdam


Amsterdam was amazing. It's such a big city with lots of traffic/congestion which gave it a really awesome atmosphere. We went on a canal cruise and despite that sounding boring, it really wasn't. It was great to see the capital for a non-ordinary angle. Those cannels have a lot of history which was great to learn about (because history is cool). We also had a chance to walk around the city and see some of the sites. All the buildings there are very impressive and lots of them are from the 'Golden Age' of the Netherlands which was about 17th Century. I thought that they were very large, which is non that normal for Dutch buildings as there isn't much space in this country per person. So to see these really old, massive buildings was a bit of a shock. Now a number of people will be wondering if I went to a Coffee Shop . The answer is yes I did. We had to actually go looking for one because I had really no idea where they all are. But I didn't actually go inside said Coffee Shop so sorry to all those who are now disappointed

It would be good to note now that due to me not checking something quite as thoroughly as I thought I had, I lost all my photos from Amsterdam. I only had a few videos which I took, so here is one




The test week I had at school was pretty cruisey in terms of tests I had to do. I had 2 Maths tests, an English test and a Physics test. Now as you'd expect, the tests were in Dutch. So that pretty much made everything (except the English test) really hard. But I got a 5.1 for one of my Maths tests, and I didn't understand about half the test so I'm pretty happy with my mark. I got a 8.4 (I think) and a 9 for English which gave me overall mark of 8.6 which is really good. My other maths and physics marks are best left unsaid. But I can't really complain about them because I didn't understand the majority of the tests

My holiday in Limburg was amazing. Limburg (for those of you who don't know) is the southern most region of the Netherlands. It boarders both Germany and Belgium. It is a really old part of the country (in terms of history) and it has wanted at times to be part of Germany and Belgium instead of the Netherlands. But that is a different story (my history on the subject is also pretty bad). While in Limburg I went to Maastrict. It is a really cool city, lots of old buildings in the city which have really nice architectures. I'm not 100% sure but some may date back to Roman times. I also saw parts of an old castle which once was Maastrict in the middle ages. It's impressive what those people were able to do back in the day without hydraulics and modern machinery! They also have lots of old churches down there which are really impressive and one I went in to had been converted in to a book store which I thought was a great use of an old building. Something else I was able to do on my holiday was go biking underground. Basically in Limburg there has been large scale mining in years gone by (and still some now) and as a result there is a huge network of tunnels underground and you can go biking there. I'm glad I was wearing a helmet otherwise I would have a lot of bruise on my head
While I was down near the rest of continental Europe, I also went to Belgium and Germany! I didn't get to see much of Belgium because we just drove through it but we went to Aachen in Germany for one evening to have dinner and have a look around. I love that about Europe, everything is so close and you can go to another country easily. We actually got lost going to Germany on the start of our holiday, but anyway ;) That's Europe though

Photos of the trip are below. The last 2 ones are from Aachen. The rest are from the Limburg area of The Netherlands, in no particular order




















More recently, last weekend I went to Zeeland. Now as I'm sure all Kiwis know, New Zealand was first  discovered by Europeans in the 17th century and the discoverer was Abel Tasman (a Dutch guy). He named the entire country after a province in the Netherlands (Zeeland). After going to both places, I can see the resemblance somewhat. The sea is everywhere and the plants on the coast are similar to the ones at Golden Bay (where Tasman first went in NZ). Anyway history lesson over as you already know it all (unless you are someone from my school reading this then you probably didn't even know who Abel Tasman was until now. Feel free to ask me more about NZ history if you see me around :) ). Some photos of Zeeland are below










Anyway that's all from me for the moment. I will try a lot harder to post every 2 weeks, I'm sorry I haven't been doing that very well recently

To everyone in NZ, hope you all had great last days at school and I hope exams go well

To everyone in the Netherlands, I hope you are getting use to my accent and to me. I am loving my time in this country and thanks everyone for being so great to me (holistically). Also please speak more dutch to me, but speak slower! It sounds like you mush 3 or so words together so I think it is just one word I don't know! I want to learn your language but it is one of the hardest things I have ever done, so it takes a lot of time and effort

To all my other friends in other countries, Hi! Hope you are all going well and life in your countries is good!

Tot later!

Andrew - A kiwi in The Netherlands



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