Week 15-18, its not goodbye, its see you later!

Personal & Culture Development

It is so difficult to believe that I have been in The Netherlands now for four months and its almost time for me to say my goodbyes and head back to the emerald isle. So much has happened in the last four months and when you think of a particular event, you be shocked when you are reminded it took place back in February o something. In ways this is good as I will get to see family and friends again but it’s also sad as I will say goodbye to the friends I have made here, knowing I will not have this experience again. Time has gone extremely fast, I just hope the summer doesn’t go as fast as it is then final year of Stranmillis for me! It is funny as many of us now say, ‘It’s not goodbye, it’s see you later!’

It has been about 3 weeks since I last had a blog entry, for the simple fact that life has become quieter here in The Netherlands as some of the group have already returned home, however those that were left behind have still been having fun and working hard on our research projects. This blog will fill you in on the happenings of the last few weeks.

2.5.10-8.5.10

It’s May and many have left for home, what to do now? It is not the same around Vossenveld, especially as we have some more free time on our hands. On Tuesday 4^th May a few of us decided to take the train to Amsterdam for the day. Many of the sights I have seen before however I just went as I wanted to spend time with members of the group. We arrived around lunch time, hungry as ever so we had a typically Dutch lunch, McDonalds. We walked around the city and decided to enter into the Amsterdam Dungeons for a tour. This was hilarious as Caroline is easily scared and for some reason, the employees discovered this, making her tour a living nightmare in her eyes. Throughout the tour they use members of the public as part of their scenes and of course I could not escape and was held on trial. When I stated that I was from Northern Ireland, I was immediately found guilty which was funny as the Dutch believe all Northern Irish are good stone throwers! We also visited Madam Tussauds on Dam Square where we met many famous faces including Beyonce, Robbie Williams and David Beckham. We wanted to visit Anne Frank apartment as we had recently watched the Anne Frank movie but the queue was extremely long, however I have been before and was able to share old pictures with the group as they were quite disappointed.

Wednesday 5^th May was Liberation day in the Netherlands which marks the end of the occupation by the Nazi army in World War 2. We decided to go to the festival in Eda, which was a good idea as the streets were lined with people once again. It seems the Dutch make the most of their national holidays and celebrate in style! There were parades in the street and also in the afternoon there were different music events. We had dance music, jazz music, Spanish music and the best thing was the fact it was all live. People danced around the different stage areas, enjoying their day.

A circus arrived in town on 7^th May so on the opening night a few of us decided to go as one of the Irish girls had never been to a circus in her life before. This was an enjoyable experience, especially as the circus was mainly human acts apart from the Elephants and Camels. The elephant was performing tricks like you would have seen elephants doing in cartoons like Tom & Jerry as a child.

9.5.10-15.5.10

Nijmegen had a music festival on 12^th & 13^th May on the main street of the city with live music from DJs and bands, local and national. The first day we only attended for a small time and on Thursday the Belgian students had friends from home staying so we all decided to go into the centre and enjoy the festival in typical Dutch style, beer, music and street dancing! This was really good and is a thing I will do at home, even though NI does not seem to have as many festivals as the Netherlands does.

Our flat decided it would be a nice idea, over the period of one week, for everyone flatmate to cook a meal for the rest of the group which went down a treat, especially when the girls cooked! I opted to try to cook a dish that was inspired by our Portuguese flatmate and although it was not as nice as hers, it went down well if I say so myself. I think the boys were the most nervous about cooking but we all managed well and impressed the flat with our culinary skills. On the final night when Mark cooked, myself along with Caroline prepared a Banoffee pie as she wanted to learn how to prepare it so she can create it for her family in Sweden. I don’t think we have eaten as well over the last four months as we did this week!

It has become a tradition over the last few weeks for a few of us to go into the centre to a café on Monday and Tuesday nights to listen to live jazz music by up-coming local and international artists. This is something I would not have done at home but is an area of interest I will take home, especially as Londonderry holds jazz festivals annually and also many bars in the centre have nights for local artists. We were able to sit together, chatting, listening to music and being social with many international friends.

As a memory of our time here we decided to order personalised hoodies for members of the group that wanted one. On the front of the hoodie it states, ‘Erasmus 2010 Nijmegen’ and then everyone put either their name or a phrase that represented their stay here on the back. For instance because of my accent, people find me hard to understand when I say my name so on the back of my hoodie I have written my name the way I apparently say it, ‘Gaarrryyy’. These are a good memory to have and everyone had such a laugh thinking and reading them when they arrived.

20.5.10-25.5.10 Poland

Caroline, Jatta and I decided to book a trip to Poland to visit the students that were here on Erasmus, so on 20^th May we set off to Dusseldorf to catch our flight. We left Vossenveld at 2.30am and after a 1hour 45minute flight and a 5hour train journey we arrived in Lublin to be greeted by Klara and Alicja. I was surprised by how run down the area was, the trains and stations are nothing compared to other countries around Europe. The previous week Poland had severe weather and floods but luckily we brought sunshine with us and it was really hot over the weekend even though we did not pack for hot weather!

Thursday evening until Sunday morning we stayed in Lublin, in the east of Poland at Klara’s home, touring the cities old and new town. The city was beautiful but also felt quite run down compared to cities here in Holland or in NI. As we walked around we walked through a street that was still damaged from WW2 which was unbelievable, however they are not repairing the old theatre, 65 years later. Poland’s public transport is very run down compared to here and NI therefore I am now grateful for Translink and will never complain about them again.

On Friday afternoon we went to Majdanek Concentration Camp. This is the first time I have ever experienced something like this and it was such an eye opener. This is the oldest camp museum in Poland and one of the only camps not destroyed by Germans during the liberation. This was so interesting from a different perspective than we have in the UK, were our grandparents or parents fought in the war; however the polish people had family locked up and even murdered in this camp. The girls we were visiting both had stories of family in this camp which was interesting to hear! That evening we had a BBQ and made warm beer, a Polish drink with beer, spices and orange heated to about 80degrees. This was ok but I will make it for my friends at home also.

On Saturday we went to the Open Air Museum in Lublin which was similar to the Ulster American Folk Park in Omagh. We walked through the history of Poland and had ice cream in the old café.

On Sunday we travelled back to Krakow, the second largest city in Poland where we stayed until we were flying home again. This was a beautiful city and the weather made it even more beautiful. The old town and its history and the Jewish Quarter were explored on Sunday afternoon. We sampled Polish dumplings which were surprisingly good and reminded me on Tortellini except better.

On Monday we decided to book a tour to Auschwitz and Birkenau as this was one of the main tourist areas in Poland and I was glad we visited Majdanek first to prepare us for what we would see at Auschwitz. We had a fifty minute documentary on the bus that explained about Auschwitz and how the name came about and about the liberation of the camp. The documentary had photos and video clips from the camp in the 1940s that were created by a Soviet camera officer. Upon arriving I didn’t know how to feel, it was spooky there but the history was so great I was excited to see inside the camp. It was just like what you see in the movies and it was a dull grey day so it added to the atmosphere. Inside we saw rooms with tonnes of human hair and the smell was awful, you could just imagine the screams of people inside. We also saw rooms full of suitcases that belong to people as young as 3 years, tonnes of shoes, pots & pans and toothbrushes that all belong to prisoners. Hanging on the wall were pictures of prisoners and you could not help but look into their eyes and see the fear and tears in their eyes, it was unbelievable. We walked down the road at Birkenau railway station where the Jews were separated into workers and those that would die. It was hard to imagine this happening! Both camps were unbelievable and definitely worth visiting as they can create feelings inside that question how one human could be so cruel to another.

This was an amazing trip and made my stay in Europe perfect! Over the last few days here I will be going to the Beer factory in Nijmegen as I didn’t even know it existed until recently and we will also have 4 birthdays to celebrate and our leaving party to attend. I have had so much fun over the last few months; I would definitely recommend Erasmus to anyone who is considering it for the coming years. I wish I was setting out from Belfast once again!

Professional Development

As classes have been finished for a while now, I have been working on my research paper which has been interesting. I decided to investigate what motivates teachers in 2 different education systems and the results proved my hypothesis wrong. Teachers seem to be motivated by tangible rewards like money as much as they are motivated intangible rewards like praise. To complete the paper I had to email an online questionnaire to 10 teachers in a primary school in Londonderry and also to 10 teachers in my practice school here in the Netherlands. By doing this topic I was able to incorporate some business studies into the paper as I have not done any business studies since leaving Stranmillis. I feel that the paper was worth doing as it threw up some interesting results.

Week 14, final countdown...

Personal & Cultural

This was the last week we were together as a complete Erasmus 2010 in Nijmegen as a few members of the group leave this weekend to go back to the reality of their home countries. Many of us placed this thought at the back of our minds as I feel our group have grown extremely close in a short time which I never expected when I was setting out on the experience in January. I always knew I would make friends but not to the standard I have therefore the thought of some of them going home was hard.

This week we had our last class together, Drama so we ended on a high note as we divided into groups to create final presentations which would be shown at the certificate ceremony on Thursday. There were 7 in our group and we had so many ideas to bring forward for the presentation but in the end we decided we would make a ‘movie trailer’ entitled ‘The Dangerous 7’ that described our time here in Nijmegen. A lot of work went into this final piece and we took create pride in making it as it was enjoyable and brought back many memories for the entire group to have a laugh at. The trailer consisted of ‘spoof’ movie parts acted by ourselves, movies from our experience and pictures. We also included music such as final countdown, parachute and the time of my life and the lyrics were perfect for the group and our time together as we have had the time of our lives here together. I feel that this was one of the easiest groups I have worked with as there was no bickering and decisions were made easily which normally does not happen with so many in one group.

We decided it would be a nice idea to go out for one last meal together in our favourite restaurant, Pinocchio’s. It was great looking down the table at so many people from different cultures and backgrounds that only 3 months ago had no clue that we existed. We had English, Northern Irish, Swedish, Portuguese and Austrian, an experience we probably will never have together again in such a setting.

Thursday saw the end of the International Course at PABO, which brought a few tears to some faces. We each received a paper plate that was stuck to our back and as we moved throughout the room we would write a compliment on everyone’s plate so every person would leave with a ‘plate full of compliments’. This was a nice idea and people wrote from the heart and the things that were said I will never forget. Every country had to prepare something for the international lunch and being Northern Irish we had to include potatoes! Between ourselves and the St Mary’s girls we made a pot of Champ which went down a treat as many had not tasted this before. Everyone put in great effort for this and we ate like Kings that day. The Spanish Tortilla was delicious and my flatmate has decided to teach me how to cook it! I was pleasantly surprised by a type of Norwegian cheese that tasted of caramel, this was a good opportunity to taste different foods from the cultures of our friends as many people made things they have with their families. That afternoon we had our presentation movies from all groups. This was great entertainment and we laughed at so many incidents we had here. To end the day we had the certificate presentations with a different style. Each folder was laid out on the floor, one for everyone and each person would select one and present it to the person whilst saying something about the person to them. I believe this was a great way to end the program and many people said personal things about each other.

The long anticipated Queens Day has arrived and on Friday, dressed in a form of orange and Dutch flags on our cheeks we set off to Amsterdam to celebrate with the country in style. This was a fantastic experience, one which many of us said we would like to repeat next year as a reunion. The streets of Amsterdam were crowded with over 3million people all dressed in orange, the national colour of the Netherlands. A great day was had by all, especially sitting in Dam Square near the Big Wheel and other Amusements in the sun. I even feel this tradition should be adapted by the UK to celebrate our heritage and Queen.

Personally I found it difficult to say goodbye to those that were leaving on Saturday, especially the English girls we have grown close to and shared many experiences with here. For us it was not so much a goodbye but a see you later as visits to each others homes have been planned. For those that go further a field to Poland or Spain it was difficult as you do not know for sure if we will ever have an experience together again but how knows what the future will be.

Professional Development

As class has now finished it is difficult to think of professional development but this week assignments were given back to the group, graded with feedback. I am 100% pleased with how I have performed whilst being on Erasmus and feel my assignments reflect this. I was extremely pleased with feedback from my Teaching Report as I tried to be reflective with this as I can often find this a difficult task. The lecturer said it was a great read and the comments left were inspiring. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience here in school and I wanted this to be evident from my report. I will now be able to use their feedback to produce my final research paper for the course.

As a teacher, I will cross paths with many people, hopefully from all walks of life. It is very easy to get attached but as a professional I need to get on with it and I feel this experience will help me develop this ability.

Being here has helped me in deciding how I want to direct my professional and personal life. It was always my plan to travel but being here I now want to travel and teach English in the likes of China as everyone including the children here enjoy being able to communicate internationally via English. I feel that if I did not come on this experience I would not have decided to do this therefore I have Erasmus to thank for my newly planned future.