Countdown..

By now, I am back in the Netherlands. My last week in Budapest, by some horrifically called 'The Countdown' has gone by so fast. Especially, since my cousin Roel visited me for my last four days. That was so great! Also, after being back for two weeks I will post a list of pro's and cons of both The Netherlands/Tilburg and Hungary/Budapest.. some sort of reflection! However, first let me tell you about my last week in dazzling Budapest!

Saturday, 21th of January - Liszt Ferenc Ter, Budapest

The flat is clean, the laundry is done.. I am ready for Roel to arrive! I am so excited. The last two days I spent saying goodbye to some people, cleaning the flat and packing my suitcase. Now, it is time for me to start saying goodbye myself to this wonderful city and to close my exchange period in the best way possible!

First week

so it has been little less than a week since I arrived in Glasgow. It all started in the taxi, heading to my Hotel in central Glasgow. The taxi driver was a true Glaswegian, and therefore it was pretty tough to understand the guy. Surprisingly enough, the friendly man knew Eindhoven, since he had been there to see some PSV-Rangers games. My first impression of Glasgow, is that it is a really nice city with some pretty cool architecture. Moreover the Scots are very kind and friendly.

Arrival day at Strathclyde took place last Sunday. I really looked forward to meet the people I was supposed to be living with for the next five months. My accomodation is called Birckbeck Court, and thats the place usually all the international students live. I am living with 5 other guys: An American, Canadian, Mexican, Chinese and a guy from the Tsjech republic. During your first week there are all kinds of introductions, were you will meet a lot of new people as well. As far as I can tell you now, it is awsome to live with students from all over the world! This wednesday we went to a pub called the piper. The University organizes an event called: Pub night. Every Wednesday all international students gather to a pub in Glasgow. It is a really fun way to meet new people. Pub's close at 12 already, so thereafter students usually go to the common. This is a club were all drinks are only a pound!

My father in Shanghai

As mentioned my father arrived a day before the New Year which we celebrated extensively! And now I will add a picture of the speed at which we travel from Pu Dong International Airport to the outer city ring. The Maglev goes 430Kmph!!! On January first we spend the day relaxing and not doing much, I had to walk over East Nanjing Road from People square to the Bund, which on the morning of January first proved to be quite the challenge. It was crowded with people and the walk took me twice as long!

Arriving at the hotel we planned to spend the rest of the day visiting the Fake Market to show them what Shanghai has to offer. He was very pleased to find some of his watched copied and at over an hundredth of the price! The fake market is quite the experience, shop sellers calling and pulling you into their shops. The best response to give them is “Bu yao, xie xie.” Which literally translates to “Need not, thank you.” There are several fake markets scattered around Shanghai, the largest being in the Science and Technology Museum subway stop. My personal favorite is the one on West Nanjing Road, for it has the shops sorted by floors. Some of the shops have secret hidden compartments where you have to crawl through clothing racks to get to the secret room behind. And if you are nice enough you can then again go through the second compartment into the ‘ultra’ secret room. All in all it’s a lot of fun but be sure to inform yourself about the ‘real’ prices beforehand. Anyone reading this please ask me for information on any item. I think I have a vague understanding of what one should pay after my time there! (in the picture btw you can see the top floor of the market…yes, only in China)

Merry Chrismas and a Happy New Year!!!

Christmas and New Years Eve were a lot of fun! For Christmas we decided to celebrate it with a large group of people and not go out for dinner but for the first time in Shanghai cook a home-cooked-meal! We were with 5 Swedish, 4 Germans and a Dutch guy, me! So everyone set out to cook their national dish. The Swedes went to Ikea and got Swedish Meatballs and Glugg with of course mashed potato. The Germans made potato salad with Schnitzels and a fresh salad. And what did I, the Dutch guy do? I simply bought a lot of Heineken! Along with Christmas decorations and I helped out wherever possible, because I can’t really cook! So eating out in Shanghai was not a problem for me! It was funny to see how different nationalities all have their own little traditions. The Swedes watch Donald Duck episodes at 4 in the afternoon. While the Germans, when entering a home, have to spend at least 5 minutes admiring the Christmas tree. We Dutch don’t really have a Christmas tradition but my tales of this long bearded white male on a horse who has black guys as his helpers/slaves, did get everyone laughing!

Studying in Shanghai at SJTU

During my time in Shanghai, I of course also went to University. Some might forget this reading my blogs about Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Hong Kong, the constant parties and excursions I plan with my friends and fellow exchange students. However, one needs to consider something very important when on exchange. You have a lot of spare time!

When on exchange, and you travel to a country far away enough you leave everything behind. Your girlfriend, your family, your friends, your sport and even your own stuff! Keep in mind you can only bring a certain amount of kilo’s with you on the plane! So you spend hardly any time with them, this gives you so much time to do all the other stuff. Spending your days on the internet, simply browsing and looking at video’s or pictures is also over. For the internet in Shanghai was so drastically slow, it makes it so time consuming you simply leave it be.

University life is very different from in the Netherlands. The classes are hands on and you really need to prepare. Part of the grade ranging from 20 to 50 percent of the grade includes; class attendance and class participation. This means you need to answer questions and show up for class. This does not automatically count for all lectures but it does for the majority. Some teachers give out surprise quizzes, which you need to complete before you leave. Its mainly done to check attendance but the quizzes are marked and affect your class participation grade!The university takes up very little time as far as lectures are concerned. For every class there is only 1 lecture a week which consists of 2 hours in a smaller classroom with roughly 30-40 students. We exchange students always sit at the front because the Chinese students always arrive earlier than we do and occupy the back rows. They do this because most of them simply sleep during lectures. The most memorable phrase I will probably hear in my life is when our lecturer said: “And now a question for the exchange students because all my Chinese students are sleeping.” We looked back and indeed all of them were heads down on their desks!

Christmas

This week Kelly and I would go to Porto, how exciting!

First however some classes had to be attended. Monday was a quite normal day, except for the fact that our lovely Organizational Economics teacher announced a review test for next Thursday, one of the day we would be in Porto. That was a bit of a disappointment, but that test would only count for 4% of the final grade, so it could be worse.

The end

I've been putting this off for way too long, because this will mark the definite and final end of my exchange period.

I wanted to talk about how I felt after leaving South-Korea, and how I feel about the country after a while of adjusting to the life back in the Netherlands.

My friends left the dormitory and the country a day before I left, which is exactly one month ago. We had a goodbye party the evening before, which was very emotional. All the girls cried when we had to part and the entire evening was a little awkward with a 'last-time' atmosphere.
It certainly hasn't gotten much easier for me to get back into the rhythm at home. I purchased a smart phone with the sole purpose of keeping in contact with everyone there. I even made a facebook, a social network which I used to resent, but it is not the same.

I know I'm sounding really melancholic and I can imagine many people will feel as if I am over-reacting, but I can say I made some friends there who I will never forget.

Am I Chinese?

One of the assignments of our exchange is to describe the different stages we experience while being abroad. The first stage being the honeymoon period; arriving here everything is different and all experiences are new and exciting. This was very true for me in the beginning, having hardly slept on the plane I arrived at 7 am in the morning and stayed awake until the early hours of the following day! Mainly due because you arrive in an environment where you need to keep going. One needs to get registered, find your room, explore your surroundings and make new friends. This is especially difficult and exciting when you are in an environment where you do not speak the language and the culture is drastically different from what you are used to.

Arrived in Jönkoping!

Hi all,

Here is my first blog from
Jönkoping, Sweden! I arrived here exactly 1 week ago. Saturday, one week ago, I
flew from Eindhoven to Skavsta, Stockholm. Stockholm Skavsta is a little
airport, 90 minutes to the south/west of Stockholm. The airplane wasn’t very
full so I had three seats only for me. On a very long flight, this would have
been very comfortable. But also for a journey of 1,5 hours, the extra space
was very nice.

The plane arrived on time in Stockholm. When I got out of the plane, I was very surprised because there was snow! I was leaving the Netherlands with rain and arrived here in the snow.

The end of the chapter...

I am writing this blog from my room in a volunteer dorm in Hanoi, Vietnam. I never expected myself being in Hanoi doing a volunteer job in January when I first heard I was going to Singapore. Singapore just comes with many more benefits than only an amazing city to study in. Last two months I travelled around South-East Asia and that was a perfect way to make the exchange an even better, more self-developing and fun experience. My journey started in Vientiane, Laos and the first 2,5 week I was travelling by myself. From strange local buses, eating frog, watching amazing sunsets from my own balcony on the Mekong river for 2 euro’s and wonderful waterfalls to super friendly people, Laos was so so good! I met many nice other backpackers, but I was also impressed by the traditional way the locals live. Laos is very laid-back, so make sure you are not in a rush there. After 10 days I crossed the Cambodian border and went to Siem Reap to see the temples of Angkor Wat. In one word: impressive. There are so many temples and they are all so breath-taking that it is impossible to describe it. After Siem Reap I went to the capital, Pnom Penh. I dropped some tears in the S-21 museum and the killing fields, where I got an impression about the Cambodian war. It’s hard to imagine what the people in Cambodia have been through and this day was very tough for me, I was so touched by the stories and it made my love for Cambodia grow even bigger.

Episode 10: Welcome home!

Hello all,

I can tell you I safely arrived back home! So this last blog will be about the last phase of my exchange period: returning home again.

The last days in Madrid I was thinking about what I would like to do again when I would be back in the Netherlands. Of course, I wanted to see my family and friends! I was looking forward to the ‘ordinary’ things like watching TV with my sister or having a tea with my best friend. I was also curious about seeing my home village again, because it is a very small village compared to a world city like Madrid. Furthermore, I was looking forward to taste some Dutch things, such as dark bread for example.

Of course I also thought about the fact that the chance would be quite high that I would experience reverse culture shock, since I was feeling really at ease in the Spanish culture. But what exactly would I miss from Spain? Probably the whole feeling of living on your own in the city center of this beautiful city. Furthermore, the sunny weather, the nice food and of course the many great people I have met during my exchange period.

I think it may be difficult sometimes to settle back in my old life, but on the other hand: I feel happy to be with my parents and sister again at this moment! The reason for the difficulty is probably the fact that I developed myself and I thus changed a little, while generally speaking my environment did not change at all.

Mini Balkan Trip aka WOW

Amazing! This was the best final trip I could have made on Erasmus in Hungary. Ever since my last exam all the days have been great, with the trip to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia as the icing on the cake! I cannot thank my great Erasmus friends enough for all they have given and keep on giving me..

Thursday, 12th of January 2012 - Liszt Ferenc Ter, Budapest
Oh! Some things I forgot to tell you in my last blog: A week ago, I was on my way to have dinner with Ashley, Matteo and his friends from Italy. Since everyone is always late here, I was waiting on Deak Ter. Just enjoying my view on the beautiful dome of the Basilica, when suddenly three people in bright orange jackets walked up the stairs. The girl looked very familiar and when I heard them talking Dutch, I offered to help them with directions. Turned out this was Diane Valkenburg, here this weekend for the European Championships Speed Skating! Honestly, I had no idea it would take place in Budapest.. After some conversating they started the sightseeing route I recommended them and I decided to go to the ECSS during the weekend.
So, on Saturday me and Marius, who is from Nijmegen, put on our warm coats and established ourselves on the bridge behind Heroes Square. The atmosphere was so nice! Not only because of the beautiful court and fairytale buildings next to it, but mostly because half of the people there were dressed in orange!! Singing Dutch songs and cheering like we always cheer at every sports championship where the Dutch do well. When I took the Spanish the next day, to see Sven Kramer win the 1500 meter, they were so impressed by our enthusiasm and support. It was great to be there!
Also, yesterday Ashley took me to a wonderful chocolate shop near the Basilica, where we decided to choose the Chocolate Fondue. The very first one for both of us! It was a wonderful afternoon, especially because of the great conversations we had about our future, our countries and also just about silly stuff. Nice! Gonna miss her a lot..

5th december!

It’s the day before Sinterklaas, exciting …
To celebrate that, Kelly and I went out for dinner to Vivares 37 again, because it offers very good value for money. Three courses including bread and drinks for 13 euros!

Leaving and returning to Budapest!

Sorry for being so extremely late with this blog. The last weeks have been incredibly great, but also really busy. Lots of visitors, a return to home and also loads of studying.
First of all, I am happy to tell you that I scored the highest grade on five of my courses! My active attitude in class has definitely been worth it. Secondly, again, this is going to be a long, but hopefully fun, blog. So let's start!

Tuesday 6th of December, 2011 - Liszt Ferenc Ter, Budapest
It has been a great weekend! After all the preparations for the exams (making summaries, organizing notes, highlighting half of my book), it got rewarded with some great parties a we have here innd some Dutch visitors! Harm, Laurens and Linda were in Budapest and of course we hung out together. Linda was on exchange in Budapest in the fall of 2009, so it was really great to talk about our experiences.

Also, together with them, I finally went to one of the extremely big clubs Budapest! About a thousand people, a wall full of dancing women and hearing 'snuff sounds' while being in the toilet. Well, and obviously great music and all our dance moves!

Other fun things I did this weekend: a visit to a tea house where you would have to climb over and crawl under things to find a cushion to sit on, the Thai massage I got for my birthday, great

talks with AnnMarie at Sugar for her birthday.. and Sinterklaas!! Igen, igen. Together with three other Dutch girls, a German and a Britt we put enormous amounts ofcandy on the table and played the dice-game with all the presents. So much fun to see the Dutch fanaticism catch on to Emma and Lena! Having a bit of a tummy ache now though..

Friday, 9th of December 2011 - Liszt Ferenc Ter, Budapest

Wow! Wow, wow, wow, wow!! What a great two nights we just had... Okay, it does seem now like exchange is only partying. Do not get me wrong, I have been studying for about sixteen hours in the last two days, but I do not think this is the most interesting story to tell.

What is really interesting, are the two concerts we visited the last nights. On Wednesday,

to warm up, we visited the A38 boat and the show of the King of Balkan Beats: Shantel! Trumpets, an amazing female singer, jumping around, dancing, water drums, Shantel on the bar.. it was ecstatic! Just insane =D

Then, yesterday night.. the evening Emma, Geran, Annie and me have been waiting for since the beginning of this whole adventure... RIHANNA! Finally! We had heard some disappointing stories from different cities in Europe and obviously she had been very sick two months before, so we were praying the show in Budapest would be of good quality. It was more then that. It was fabulous and just out of the world! After a hour warm-up by no one less then Calvin Harris, the queen of R&B entered the stage!!! So many great costumes, an amazing staging, incredible vocal capacities.. she had it all. She made us laugh when we toasted on Nicki Minaj's birthday (Cheers to that!), cry when she went up in the air singing 'Love the way you lie' and dance our ass of on so many songs, with the fireworks of 'We found love' at the end! Amazing.. just purely amazing.

I am trying to recover now, because in a few hours my lovely friend Lotte is arriving! Cannot wait to finally see her again...

Tuesday, 13th of December 2011 - Corvinus Egyetem, Budapest

I have got only a few more hours left until my first Final Exam here in Budapest, so I will quickly write an update on the weekend with Lotte here in Budapest. It was simply great. She had already visited Linda here in 2009, so the major sightseeing was not necessary anymore. Therefore, we had so much time to just talk to each other and also to let her get to know my friends here, which was very important to me. Some of the people I met here have really conquered a place in my heart, just as Lotte has, and it was great to see them get along so well. We had dinner altogether, bought champagne in White Angel, watched Real Madrid - FC Barcelona and went to Széchenyi Bath. Just a perfect weekend. Now, time for exams!!

Friday, 16th of December 2011 - Liszt Ferenc Ter, Budapest

Well, that went pretty okay! Did not have enough time to finish my three essays in History exam, but the rest was fine =) Especially, the 'exam' for International Debate, which was watching the movie Team America with a lot of snacks and drinks on the table and the Americans under the table from laughing.

Tomorrow is Geran's birthday, which we are going to celebrate at the concert of David Guetta. Also, tonight I have organized a suprise party for her in Doboz Bar.. so hopefully that will be okay! Now, we will first go to dinner with the two of us.. tapas at Pata Negra!

Sunday, 18th of December 2011 - Liszt Ferenc Ter, Budapest

That must have been the best birthday someone has ever had and Geran deserved every bit of that. Okay, the surprise literally 'fell into the water' a bit. Even though she was extremely surprised when about thirty of our friends turned up singing 'Happy Birthday' outside in the street of Doboz, it was supposed to be ínside of Doboz.. However, there was some kind of private party in the bar. How often does that happen? This could not suppress the fun and as a Plan B we went to Pauline's flat party! After a few hours, I went to the next birthday party, which was Adam's. Obviously, I was a few hours later then the rest and that was noticeable. Everyone was exuberant and we had a great time together. Well, until I got three elbows in my face by AnnMarie, an accidental slap in the face from Adam and almost pieces of glass in my eye from a cup falling on the ground. Time to go I guess!

Yesterday night then, we went to the David Guetta concert =D First, we invited the Corvinus girls to come eat pizza all together in our flat before going to HungExpo, where the show would take place. Arriving there, we were not prepared for the three hours we still had to wait until Guetta came.. He was supposed to start at eleven, but waited until a quarter to one. Not nice. However, two minutes after the show started this was all forgotten! What a great energy does this guy have and what a great party it was!! Highlight of the night, to be seen in the picture, the minutes Guetta played to song 'Without You'.. which made us all sentimental: "I will never be the same without you.." and him ending with a light show stating: BUDAPEST ROCKS! Igen!!

Now, we are going to have sushi (again) with Kristine and Emma, to close this birthday weekend in a fairly good manner!

Wednesday, 21st of December 2011 - Liszt Ferenc Ter, Budapest

It is now almost over. Well, over.. Of course I have another month left! However, tomorrow me and Geran will fly back for Christmas and so many people will not come back to Budapest.. Therefore, the last three days have been all about saying goodbye. Last hot wine together in Szimpla, last time Morrison's 2, last time dinner together.. Snif, snif ;)

On monday, Emma, Annie, Geran and me went Christmas shopping in order to find the perfect gifts for our loved ones back home. I especially wanted to find something good for my dad, since he it was his birthday that day and I was missing it! Finally, we succeeded! At night, we went for predrinking to Lena, Anais and Yesenia's flat with about twelve girls from Corvinus and afterwards met a lot of other people at Morrison's. It was a great night, which ended with me sleeping in Mona's bed. No, not like that. I forgot my keys and my phone battery died, leading to me in search of a place to stay the night. I considered a small, sweet Chinese/Indian girl to be the best option.

Tuesday, we went to the Hospital in the Rock, which was a secret military hospital and nuclear bunker in Budapest from the Second World War on. Very interesting and especially impressive to see all the pictures of destruction in the city we now adore so much. Later that afternoon, we went to Airi to finally make ginger bread together. At night, there was the now (in)famous EILC Flat crawl, which was basically a pub crawl in flats. Everyone prepared a special drink/shot, ranging from vodka jelly to B52's. The start was a little slow, but eventually we had so much fun! I will always remember this night as one of the perfect endings to a wonderful semester!

Then, at 4 o'clock in the morning, we had to drop Annie, who had been living with us for the last week, off at the taxi. For me, this was very hard. Annie comes from Oregon, USA (yes, just above California) and the chances of me seeing her in the coming years are just very small. It is very hard to say goodbye to people you have become very close to, even when you have prepared yourself for it from the start of the semester. This afternoon, it was Emma's turn. Had a final lunch together with the three of us and then escorted her to the train. This is by far my least favorite part about Erasmus....

Tonight, we are going to have one last dinner with the EILC people (Geran is also not coming back after Christmas) and have drinks with our university friends afterwards =) Then, tomorrow, I will finally see my family again!!!

Thursday, 29th of December 2011 - Liszt Ferenc Ter, Budapest

Christmas is definitely more special when you have been away for 4,5 months! On Thursday, after oversleeping, hurrying to catch our plane and clearly seeing the Budapest Danube area from the air, we arrived at Eindhoven Airport! By the way, it was really funny to once more experience the difference between me and Geran. Her way of remaining calm is to act as if everything is normal and there is nothing special going on. My way, is to name everything we do and to make sure I fully take in every step. "Last time we close the door together. Last time we take this tram together. Two hours until we will land. Three hours until we will be in our parents' house." Haha, so I tried to remain silent and Geran tried to remain sane ;)

Then, in Eindhoven, my brothers were waiting there, each with a rose in their hands, and also my parents were there! So sweet! Geran and I said goodbye and then we drove off to Schaijk. When arriving home, my mom had prepared my requested dinner, we walked through our village (wow, you can see in between the buildings here!) and we mostly just hung out on the couch. Next day, I took my bike (!!) and went to my uncle and aunts. Lovely to see everyone again. It is strange how normal that is.

I have to admit, this holiday at home has mostly been about eating. Christmas dinner with university friends, Christmas dinner with my family, Christmas dinner with my old flatmates, Christmas dinner with my friends from high school.. Basically six days of eating! Who cares, it was so great to be back!!!

Now, I returned to Budapest. However, not alone! My brother and his friend have come with me to celebrate New Year's Eve in this wonderful city. So, now I am turning off the computer and I am going to pick them up from the airport shuttle bus they took!

Tuesday, 3rd of January 2012 - Liszt Ferenc Ter, Budapest

Totally in love with this city again!! This is not infatuation, I think this is pure love!
The weekend with my brother, Stijn, and his friend, Teun, was really great. Better than expected actually, also for them. They were surprised by all the great architecture there is here, the vibrant atmosphere and the overall beauty of the city.

We visited (if ever going to Budapest you could use the following as tips for your travel:) the Castle District on Buda side, St. Stephen's Basilica, the Operahouse, the Central Market Hall, Corvinus University, Margit Island, Heroes Square, City Park, Széchenyi Bath, the House of Terror and Gellert Hill at sunset. We had lunches and dinners at For Sale, Soul Cafe, Thai Buddha Étterem, Hummus Bar, Langos and Pariszi Department Store. We partied at Szimpla, Corvintetö and Merlin.

It was so much fun hanging out with my brother for these days after missing him for all these months. We talked and laughed so much. It was really great having them over! Also, New Year's Eve was great! A little different then in the Netherlands; less fireworks, more children with trumpets.. but great to experience this night here! Looooooooooooooove Budapest!!

Thursday, 12th of January 2012 - Liszt Ferenc Ter Budapest

The last two weeks of my Erasmus Exchange have started, which is a very double feeling. On the one hand it makes me very sad and on the other hand it makes me very enthusiastic and excited to make the most out of it! So I am focusing on that last part =D
The past week I have made my last exam and mostly spent hanging out with my friends here. Nothing too special, just dinners and drinks, but for me that is now the most important. I am going to miss them so much that I do not want to waste a minute not being with them. This does not mean we are not going to do cultural stuff anymore, on the contrary! Tomorrow we leave to Bosnia & Herzegovina!! Eduardo, Silvia, Ania, Pauline, Eddy and me will take the train in the morning and eleven hours later we will arrive in Sarajevo. We will stay here for two days and then go to Mostar. I will probably come back with Eddy on Tuesday, the others will continue the journey through the rest of the Balkans. Another reason why Budapest is so great; because of its central location it is so easy and cheap to travel. It gives great opportunities, which I think I have and will continue to exploit to the fullest! Bosnia here we come!!!