Introduction Weekend!

At this point I cannot wait to hit the sack and have a nice long sleep. I just got back from the exchange students' introduction weekend hosted by the Erasmus Student Network (ESN). It was a very busy weekend jammed packed with lots of activities. About 90 of the 110 students came to a beautiful farm called De Kievit equipped to handle overnight group functions. In addition to the family farmhouse and flat green fields, the facility had a large hall with sleeping rooms attached and a kitchen.

As the second group to arrive from the bus, we had to go sleep in the rooms above the cows! How much more Dutch can you get? Fortunately and surprisingly, the smell was not that bad. It was very clean and comfortable. Here is a link to the facility's website, although the site is only in Dutch, there is still some nice pictures. Check out De Kievit

The Friday night of arrival was a mini-tournament for the 11 mentor groups. We played against other mentor groups in really funny (and embarrassing) games like group twister, the cucumber pass, charades and trying to place a nail into a bottle by a string tied to your back. It was a lot of fun. Afterwards, we did a really cool thing that must be Dutch. Everybody got a song book and we all sang at the top of our lungs classic tunes. Now I understand why the Dekokers' must like to sing so much as Christmas - they are Dutch.

Saturday was a beautiful sunny day so we were able to play a lot of fun outdoor games like soccer, volleyball, crate race, nail hammering and ski racing. I was quite good because a lot of these games I've done before at the Duivesteyn family picnics. One of the yummiest games was the blindfolded vla feeding. Vla is a delicious form of custard/pudding that comes in milk cartons. It was quite messy.

Also on Saturday we went to a small, beautiful town called Hilvarenbeek to visit De Rose (the rose) an old brewery converted into a museum. Our tour guide was saying that at one point, this small town of less than 2,000 people had 70 breweries!! That seems a little ridiculous. The tour was very interesting though. We got to have a sample at the end but when I had one sip, I got an allergic reaction! Luckily, I had my Benadryll with me but decided to pass on any other samples. Our transport to the museum was very funny. It was by a tractor that pulled a long, covered wagon with nice padded seating. It had a CD player in it so we all got to sing along to more Dutch songs on the way at the top of our lungs. And by "sing along" I mean that I very sneakily pretended to know what I was saying by just moving my lips and adding the odd "AGGH" sound.

In my mentor group there is this really short and cute Italian girl named Elena. She is still trying to learn English and she is one of the most fun people to listen to with her high, girly voice and thick Italian accent. At one point in the day she turned to me and said in that strong accent, "You-a have-a blue-a eyes.... and-a blond-a haaaar.... and-a perfect teeth-a and-a nose. You-a are like-a Barbie!" After the laughter stopped my new nickname settled in. Now everybody in my mentor group calls me Barbie. I was quite embarrassed. On a special note to mom: I have very weirdly received an odd number of compliments about my teeth. Don't worry, I gave you full credit.

My mentors' names are Jaap, Reanne and Lupna. For this weekend, they purchased a bunch of props to make our group look the most enthusiastic. Jaap was not impressed that Reanne and Lupna made him wear that cowboy hat. Here is a picture of me with my mentors.

The most fun part of the night was when we had to get with the other people from our countries and make a presentation about your country. Not to brag here - but Canada surely represented well. We thought of some pretty sweet lines. There were 5 Canadians and one American girl so the American came into our presentation. She pretended to visit Canada and we taught her how to speak Canadian, explained Tim Hortons, hockey (the real kind played on ice), poutine and moose meatloaf. We were the last presentation and had a GREAT response. The audience was laughing way too hard.

There was a dance afterwards with lots of traditional Dutch songs and of course.... techno. I am beginning to really miss country music - it is not very popular here. The mentors especially like a certain old Dutch song about Brabant - the province we are in. My goal is to learn all the words by the end of the term.

By Sunday morning we were all very tired but had some great memories and new friends. Now I am realizing my classes start this week... oh yeah! I was starting to forget!