Sunday, May 19th Our trip to the Netherlands started on Sunday afternoon when we traveled to Ede by train. Eight people from our school attended the meeting, which means five students (including me) and three teachers. Once we all gathered on the train we had a five and a half hour long travel together and fortunately didn’t have to go by plane. After the teachers stayed in Arnhem, where their hotel was located, we arrived in Ede in the evening and had a nice welcome by our host families. My host Danielle had already been to the first meeting in Germany last year, which is why we already knew each other. Danielle and her mom picked me up and we drove to her home, where I got a little tour of the house. After having dinner and talking about the upcoming week, a few of Danielle´s friends came over to welcome me as well. We had a nice “Girl talk” while relaxing in the Jacuzzi and I already felt very welcome. Henrieke
Monday, May 20th The next morning we got up at eight in the morning and after getting ready, having breakfast and preparing lunch we left the house for our first day. As expected, we took the bicycles to school and drove together with Nele and her host Marloes. At school we went to the auditorium and had the first chance to get to know the other participants from the five other countries. We already knew many of the Dutch students so it was a very familiar situation. The principal welcomed us and after that, the Dutch students showed us around their school. We saw the two buildings of the Marnix College with many classrooms, study rooms, the cafeteria, etc. The school wasn´t very different compared to the Christian Gymnasium but it had a very futuristic look though. Around ten o´clock we came together in a big classroom and the main Dutch teacher gave a little introduction. We started by listening to a presentation of the Dutch students about fun facts of the Netherlands. Afterwards, we wrote down hopes and expectations for the week such as: "Learning more about other cultures" or "Meeting new people". After that, the different schools started talking about their actions on the day of silence. We and especially our teachers were a little surprised about that task so Nele and I ended up giving an improvised presentation about the day of silence at our school. After a small break, the Dutch students talked about a questionnaire they did with several politicians and we faced the topic “European Dream” At noon it was time for a lunch break and we went back to the auditorium for eating and talking. Back at the classroom, each school presented their European Dream and after discussing the aspects, the school day was over. We went to the city center of Ede by bike and struggled a little bit with the funny and chaotic bicycle traffic but still made it JWalking around Ede and learning something about the city`s history was our first activity. The program was over at four o´clock so we (the German students) and our hosts went shopping a bit and ate a sweet treat called “Tompouce” (very sugary and delicious). In the evening Danielle, Marloes, Nele and I went to the grocery store in Bennekom where we bought ingredients for our cookies and I got my favorite Dutch things like Hagelslag, Stroopwafels and Roze koeken. We baked the cookies at Danielle's house, enjoyed the time together and had a lot of fun. At the end of the day, my host family and I had dinner with their American friends, who came to visit the Netherlands. Henrieke
Tuesday, May 21st We started the day with a 10 minute bike ride through the city at 9.15 am. I really liked to ride the bike there, because of the well-developed cycle paths, which made it much easier than in Germany. At 9.30 am we met the other students in the classroom. Everyone had to choose a word he finds really important for the European dream and explain why. Afterwards we formed groups of 6 with one member from each nationality. Now we worked on mini mind maps with our chosen words in different variations. It was an easy task so we had a few minutes to talk with other students about their experiences with the exchange project. After that we had a short break for 30 min in which we went to the cafeteria to have a snack and talk. Then we all started working on the big mind map. It was really hard to find a compromise everybody could agree with, but after a long discussion until 12.00 am we finally made it. We drew this final mind map on the schoolyard of the junior building with chalk and the Dutch teacher recorded everything on a video. It was a lot of fun to draw artwork with so many students. Now it was time for lunch so we went to the cafeteria again. Working on the speeches in little groups was also really hard. We had to find a personal, polite but also demanding language. We weren’t able to finish it, because we came to our next point in the program: the rafa-rafa game! We split up in two groups and one group had to go to another room. The groups represented two different cultures and every culture had its own traditions, so every group played a little game with different rules. In my group everybody got a bean, in the middle sat the leader of the group. If you wanted to play you had to ask another person with three foot stamps, if he also wanted to play with you he touched your arm. Then you had to sit down and one person put his hands behind his back and changed the bean to one hand, now the other player had to find the bean. If you found the hand without the bean three times in a row, you shouted „RAFA-RAFA“ and then the group congratulated you. But you weren`t allowed to ask the leader, he only invited you with foot stamps and it was a rule that he is always right. If you did something wrong you were ignored or you had to leave the room. Then a few students changed to the other group to find out their rules/traditions. They came back and explained what they saw. First we needed a few moments to understand all the rules and I wasn`t sure if it was possible to find out these rules but it worked very well. The game showed how people feel when they join a new culture without any knowledge about it. It was possible to find out the basic-rules but not every little detail. In my opinion this is a very good game to show how different cultures can be and that it is often easier to explain the most important rules or traditions, so you feel much saver when you join a culture. At 4.00 pm we went to the center of Ede with some exchange students and had some ice-cream. We met another group there and talked. My host and I went home to get changed afterwards before we went back to meet the others to play lasertag. We had a lot of fun and also my Dutch exchange student told me that she got to know the other Dutch students much better. Our day ended with a delicious pizza at a fast food restaurant. I chose a pizza with “geitenkaas” (goat cheese) and it was very difficult to order it because I didn’t know how to pronounce it correctly. Finja
Wednesday, May 22nd I woke up at 8 o`clock. After that I had breakfast and drove to school by bike at ten past nine. In school we worked at our speech “Our European Dream“. We worked in five groups with five or six people from different nationalities. From 10:40 until 11:10 we had a break. We sat in the auditorium (cafeteria), ate something and talked about our different cultures and languages with each other. After our first break one person of each group and one person of each country went to a different room and worked on the final speech about our European Dream in 2035. The other people worked in groups with people from their own country. We had the task to create questions for the politicians, who came to vistit us for a debate in the afternoon. At 12:15 we got T-Shirts with the logo from our Project (Welcoming Diversity at School) on it. For the T-shirts we had the task to write one word on it. This word had to describe the European Union for us, for example “Community” or “Open Minds”. From 12:30 until 13:15 we had a lunch break. After the break we listened to the final speech and finished our T-shirts and those who were done cleaned up the auditorium. Around 14:30 the politicians arrived and we started the debate with them. Two of them might become members of the new European Parliament (Raquel Garcia Hermina-van der Walle for D66 and Henk Jan Ormel for CDA) and one was from the city hall from Ede (Ellen Out for Groen Links) At First the Politicians told us about them and their parties. After that we presented our speech and in the end we asked our questions. An example for a question is: “The Climate crisis is a big topic nowadays so we all know we have to change something. Do you watch your own ecological footprint? Or did you already change something in your life to safe the environment ?“ The day ended at 4:30 pm and after that my host and I went home. At home we played a game with his mother and his younger brother. For dinner we had lasagna. In the evening we talked about the differences between Germany and the Netherlands and had tea. At 22:30 I went to my bedroom. Fenja
Thursday, May 23rd On Thursday, we woke up at 8:00 am and slowly got ready. Before my host and I had breakfast, I talked with my host parents. For breakfast I had “bread”, which is more like our German toast, with Hagelslag. Hagelslag is a typically Dutch spread. We left our home at 8:50 am and went to the train station by bike. This took us roundabout 20 minutes. The bike paths are pretty good in the Netherlands because they are easy to understand and very safe for the ones who take the bike. But sometimes you had to cross the street with the cars and now I know why you never cut the curves! We tried to find a place for our bikes but there were so many bikes that this wasn´t easy. We met all the other students and teachers at the train station. It took 45 minutes to get from Ede to Amsterdam. First we walked to the Dam, which is the central place in Amsterdam. It is surrounded by very old, national important buildings like the royal Palace of Amsterdam. After Mr. Fooy told us something about the plan of this day, we got 45 minutes of spare time. Then the students from Spain, Italy and Germany walked to the Anne-Frank-House with their hosts and their teachers, where we listened to a 60 minutes introductory of the story of Anne Frank. For me was it was not that interesting, because in the German schools this is a very important topic and even more for our school – due the fact that the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen is close to our school, which means that I´m very familiar with Anne Frank and her story but I think for the other students, who are not from Germany, it was helpful to understand the whole issue. We had 45 minutes to walk around the house and see how the Franks and their friends had to live. I found it very impressive how calm it was inside the house. Nobody talked, nobody whispered, the only thing you heard was the sound of the audio guide, when it noticed that you were in a new room. I didn´t use mine because I wanted to try to understand how Anne Frank must have felt, when they were hiding and not allowed to talk and I think it was a right decision because this has made the whole story even more significant for me. After that we went to Madame Tussauds but it wasn´t that big, so we were already done after 35 minutes. Then we had some more free time until 6 pm. We went shopping and ate something. In front of the train station we took another group picture before we went back home. At my home, I ate with my family and then the father tried to receive German TV so I could watch Germany’s next Topmodel with my whole host family which was a lot of fun. At 11 pm I went to bed. Nele
Friday, May 24th On Friday we didn't have to be at the Marnix College until 11:10. At school we looked at the selfies we took at Madame Tussauds and explained why the characters we took the selfies with are our multicultural heroes. Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela, for example, were there. In addition, we checked if the expectations and hopes for this week were fulfilled. After that we took a group photo where everyone put on their T-shirts with their personal expectation for the European Dream. Afterwards we drove to a large sports facility by bus. There we played golf in groups of four. In the evening we went to the Pancake House and ate pancakes. We had to say goodbye to some friends after dinner, others we met in the evening at a small farewell party. The week ended way too fast. Lisa