2018(e)ko martxoaren 19(a), astelehena

FIRST DAY IN GRONINGEN


Sunday. First day


After a quite long journey we arrived at quarter to five. Our host families were waiting for us and most of us were very nervous but at the same time excited to see our exchange partner again. When we got home, we had dinner at a very unusual time. Even though dinner habits here are different, we really enjoyed our meal. 



Later on, most of us met up in the city where some arrived by bike others by bus and the rest were brought by car. We went to the News Café, which is located in the centre of the town, and we had either coffee or hot chocolate (which is not as thick in Holland as it is in Spain). When we had warmed ourselves up and we moved to play pool to a pool-bar next to the canal. Although it was Sunday night, it was a little bit crowded and the atmosphere was really nice. We had a really nice time and some of us even learnt how to play pool.

Monday


Our first whole day in Holland was as cold as Sunday. However, that didn't prevent us from biking to school. As I said, it was really cold and for girls biking was quite painful but still a great experience; you do not always have the opportunity to bike to school in Holland. 



As soon as we got to school, the teaching team explained the planning for the day for each high school (Durango, Logroño, Italy or France). And right aftewards, the school's Principal welcomed us with a speech and the flag ceremony. 








We got separated in teams and half of us had to do the selfie walk in the morning and workshops in the afternoon and vice versa. The workshops on Monday had been planned by Dutch teachers for us the foreigners. The first workshop that we took part in was the one about Economics and Business. We were in the same group with Italian, French, Eslovaquian people and also people from Logroño. The workshop was a little bit weird and I don't think we really understood what we were supposed to do. 

The next one was given by a Dutch literature teacher who explained to us some Dutch proverbs while we had to guess the meaning of some others. We found that workshop a little bit better than the previous one but it was still quite boring. 


The third one I think was our favourite because we were given different typical Dutch sweets to taste . First, they gave us "speculaas", which are Dutch biscuits that are usually eaten around november. They are made with lots of cinnamon and are really tasty. After the biscuits, we tried little pancakes called "poffertjes", which are a little bit insipid but still nice. The next one was our favourite Dutch sweet: the "stroopwafles", which consist of a tasty caramel syrup between two waffles. Hagelslags are also very typical Dutch sweets. They are chocolate flakes that are eaten spread on bread with butter for breakfast or for lunch. Right afterwards, we tried the drops, which is probably the most typical candy in Holland. It tastes of the liquorice and that's why most of us disliked them.
The last workshop was about Dutch culture and Dutch pronunciation. The teacher told us about typical Dutch objects such as windmills or tulips, and celebrations such as Koningday (day of the King's birthday) where people dress up in orange and go partying to canals. The teacher also showed us how to pronounce some Dutch words and some tonguetwisters.


After finishing the workshops we went to the city (by bike again) and after having lunch we went sightseeing in Groningen. We saw all the old town and shops located in the city also. Around 6 o'clock some of us went to have dinner to an Italian restaurant called Napoli, some others to a pancake restaurant and a few had dinner at home. I was with the ones that went to Napoli's and we really enjoyed the food. The ones who went to the pancake restaurant were also really happy when they left. The pizzas were really big and there was lot of pasta on the plate, so only a few of were able to finish all the food. 








After dinner we met up again and we went to play pool as the previous night. We also hanged around with people from Logroño who were really nice.



Groningen 

Groningen







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