The Netherlands: The First Weekend

There's about a week's worth of lag on the date of these blogs due to my habitual procrastination.

I settled into the hostel on Wednesday evening, having lost track of time.

Thursday morning, I woke up bright and early to participate in Orientation activities with other exchange students here at Rotterdam School of Management. We all met in the "T" building and listened to the regular pep-talk by the exchange coordinator, after which we assembled in the gym for introductory activities. We had two acrobats coming to teach us exercises and we also had a "conflict management" guy trying to make us play games such as "Place yourself on the Map".

Thursday night was spent in Dordrect, at a hostel about half an hour away from Rotterdam by bus. There was an "international cabaret" on that night where representatives from each country put up a show of some sort for entertainment. The Nordic countries gave a pop quiz to start off the night, Germany talked about everything they'd invented, and the United States demonstrated a game of beer pong. As part of the Canadian group we sang O Canada, recited some facts about Canada, and taught people some Quebec French.

Being in a place of relative isolation, we decided to hike on Friday afternoon because we were located in a Dutch national park of some sort. Apparently some beavers inhabited the area and were building dams. How Canadian. It was disappointing that we didn't actually see any beavers. Only wood carvings and museum displays. That night I got the first taste of Dutch nightlife. We went out to a bar after dinner at a Mexican restaurant, drank Tequila shots and copious amounts of beer, and danced the night away.

We went exploring Rotterdam on the weekend. The city has quite its unique charm. Many of its landmark buildings were destroyed during World War II and modern skyscrapers appeared on our path at random intervals. With its criss-crossing trams, bicycles, small European cars, and confusing street layout, navigating the city was not an easy task. We visited such landmarks as the EuroMast tower and went around the Central area for drinks.