Good bye, Holland! (16.04)

So, it was our last day in this wonderful country. Firstly, it looked like usual day, but everybody understood, that it was not. We packed luggage, which became bigger because of presents and souvenirs, checked our plane tickets and documents and looked around the house maybe the last time. After that, we hugged and kissed our parents-on-the-week. Nobody believed that after few hours we would be at home, in Russia.
Crying, doing selfies, hugs - all of it describes our last minutes together with Holland friends. They stood and waved to us for a long time. And, I think, all of us felt sence of sadness.
The road was tedious. This week was wery exciting, but exhausting. Also, we missed our families, our friends, who stayed at Russian school. But I can say with confidence, that it was one of the best holidays in my life!

It is difficul to say something besides tiredness, but I will try. The result of our trip was great. We learned English every day, speaking with our Holland friends, found new culture and traditions, worked things out with Russian guys. If somebody asks me about new trip to Holland, I will say "Of course, I want and I will!"

Newspaper contest (15.04)

Our last day in Holland was really intense and enthralling. Russian and Holland groups took part in creative contest: we created the newspapers on the theme "The differences between our countries".                           

To begin with, we divided into 4 teams and came up with the names of each team. Then we took our places at the computer and began to discuss our ideas about the project. We had only 4 hours for the creation of the newspaper.

My  team tried to create the most interesting and colorful newspaper: one drew funny sketches while the other tried to find the most beautiful pictures for our newspaper.

Amsterdam (14.04)

On Tuesday, we had a trip to Amsterdam! Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands and it is very free city. It is home to 177 nationalities.

Workshops (13.04)

On Wednesday, we went to workshops.There were workshops of various kinds, such as: build bridges out of macaroni, learning the Dutch language, dance lessons . At these workshops we have teamed up with Dutch children to perform the tasks that we were asked. We are still quite not bad coped with the task. These lessons helped us to learn each other better. With the workshops we all became happy and joyful. My the strongest memory is a building a bridge out of macaroni. It was really fun. In this lessons, we had to think of everything as one person . First we drew our bridge, then started to glue the individual parts of the bridge, after we glued it all together. In general, we worked hard, our bridge came out excellent. I strongly advise you to attend this workshop, you will enjoy it very much.

Zaance Schans and Volendam (12.04)

Volendam is an old Netherlands town. It was created as a harbor, but now the town is just a popular tourist attraction. There are very beautiful houses and streets, but the most exciting place is a seafront. Near the ocean you can buy tasty snacks, that was made from fresh fish and other seafood.

It is pritty big and exciting town. Old boats near the seafront, old style houses and streets make our day. Imagine, that you visit an old town, for example in 16th century. This is what is Volendam looks like nowadays.

But if the town looks old, that doesn't mean that it's antiquated.

 There are lots of shops, cafeas and museums.

Survival day (11.04)

Today 11th of April. It was a first weekday in our trip and it was really hard. At school was absolutely thrilling and pleasant. School administration, teachers and students gave a lot of information about their school. So, the buildings of Netherlands and Russian schools are different in many ways. Later, we listened to different presentation from Spain students and we found out a lot of new information for us.

After school we went to Survival. It is a special program for people, who like extreme way of life. You can pass different obstacles on the playground with sticky mud and walking on tightrope above muddy water. It was really funny when we saw our friends and classmates. Some guys crawled through the pipes with dirt, others fell into water. We all was so dirty! But it bought a lot positive emotions to us. Everybody had an amazing time together and had a lot of fun.

Hello, Holland! (09.04)

Today is 9th of April and today our journey starts. Boys and girls are checking their luggage, talking about Holland, airports, road and exchange partners. Everyone hopes that it will be wonderful trip. We stay near the school. There are a lot of parents, friends, classmates. All of them want to say goodbye and hug us.

It’s time to sit in the bus. And now we are on the way to the airport. Girls are taking funny selfies, boys are talking about flight at the moment. Nobody sleeps, every person is excited.

After some time we stay at the café for breakfast, but most of people don’t want to eat. Maybe they are a bit nervous (or they don’t like omelette:D).

The time passes quickly, and we are at the airport. We see a lot of foreigners (even group of Holland people), give our luggage to airport’s stuff and check our documents. One of the most difficult parts is passed. 

 

In free time we are walking throw duty-free and watching other travelers. It is wonderful, I think, to see a lot of nations and people in one building. That’s why I like airports. In addition, some of us have never been on a plane, so, we comfort them.

Finally, we are on the plane. During our flight we are talking with the flight attendant, trying to speak English and sharing our impressions. We keep in touch with the our Dutch partners, and they say «Good flight!» At high altitude we see a beautiful view: a lot of clouds under plane, bright sun and aircraft wing. (I think, everybody took a photo of this:D)

The plane lands, we clap our hands, saying «thanks» to the pilot, but no one does it except us. Probably, it is only Russian tradition. First time after flight we keep silence. It is difficult to fly on a plane, everybody is tired and excited. We can’t believe that we are in Holland now! After the last corner we finally see them, we see our partners! We see their families and smile on their faces. They are waiting for us. We hug, get acquainted with the members of family and each of us goes to the new home!