Overall Reflection

These two weeks have been a roller coaster ride, but it has been one of the best roller coaster rides of my life. To be able to go to totally new places and experience totally new cultures with fifteen awesome people was nothing short of spectacular.

            Before last semester, I had never really thought of education as something I was interested in. And while my career plans of being a journalist have not changed, education is in the back of my brain as a curiosity of mine. I took a course on educational policy history last semester and I saw how outdated and inefficient our system in the US can be. Now that I have seen other systems firsthand, I know that to be true and the system in America can certainly use some of the lessons we learned overseas.

            Amsterdam was my favorite city. Not only was it beautiful between the architecture and the water, the culture was something unlike anything I had ever seen. It was both fun and educational.

            Still, I loved each and every city I visited and I hope to come back sometime soon. Maybe I won’t have to stay in a hostel in Brussels next time.

January 18th and 19th - Brussels

We left for Belgium early on the 18^th (Happy Birthday Mom!) to visit a primary school in Genk, Belgium. The highlight of the school, and perhaps the trip, is what they call a schnoozle room. It is a room in the school that teachers can take kids if they’re having a bad day, just to rest. But the best part is that it had a heated waterbed. Lord knows how much I would have misbehaved if I had that at Greenwood. The school also had a Chuckie Cheese-esque ball pit and play place. My dream school.

            It was then off to Brussels on the coach bus, which I slept on yet again. I woke up when we arrived at the hostel and my stay there was, well, interesting. I am sitting in the airport now, showerless for two days because I didn’t have a towel, not to mention how repulsive the showers were. The beds were okay, but the security was horrible. My friend Dana had his phone and computer stolen while he was asleep and of course they weren’t found. It was just an uncomfortable situation that I wish was not the last stop of the trip. The city was very nice and the food was great but the lodging made the trip end on a sour note.           

            But speaking of the food, I had mussels which was my goal in the city. And yes, they were amazing. I also had waffles, bought chocolate and ate frites, so I covered all the necessary bases.

            I didn’t get to see the Mannequin Pis which was the only thing I knew about the city coming in. It certainly wasn’t my favorite city but I would not be opposed to coming back.  

January 17th

We got to sleep in again on the 17^th before presenting our projects to the class. David and I did ours on food and drink and we used Prezi which is a presentation tool. It’s kind of hard to explain but I highly recommend using it (prezi.com). We “toured” each city in our presentation and discussed what was good, what wasn’t, what was cheap and what was worthwhile. All of my classmates’ projects were very good and I thoroughly enjoyed watching them.

            We went directly to dinner after the presentations and had, yet again, a five-course meal at the hotel. For as little as I like fish, this meal was delicious. Two of the courses were fish courses yet it was one of the best meals I had all trip.

            I packed up that night because the following day was going to be a long one.

January 16th

We finally got a chance to sleep in on the 16^th before going to our last school, Porta Mosana College which was a high school. Somehow I was still tired at the school despite actually getting a good night’s sleep the night before. This school was the closest thing I saw to an “American” high school. Our guide, Guido, was super funny and showed us some cool video clips to go along with his brief lecture.

            The rest of the day was free time and we did some more exploring in Maastricht. I probably had a million frites throughout the trip but the best ones were at Friture in the heart of Maastricht. We checked out some local shops and stuff. Really, it was an uneventful day but, in retrospect, that’s not a bad thing.

January 15th

We gathered early to leave for Germany on the beloved charter bus. As an aside, I think I was awake for a combined total of 30 minutes for all of the bus rides. I consistently got refreshing sleep on that bus. Anyway, Aachen is a city right near the Dutch border and it is a medium sized German town. We got off the bus and went to the EGS Annaschule which was a Protestant Primary school but would be considered a public school in America despite its religious affiliation. The lady at the school reminded me of Professor Umbridge from Harry Potter. I don’t know why.

After the school we went to an amazing lunch of soup and sandwiches before briefly walking the city. We went into a large, ornate church and some local stores before heading off to the Three Country Point.

We were only at the Three Country Point for about ten minutes but it was cool to be in three countries (Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands) at the same time. After, we went to the only American WWII cemetery in Holland. It was really moving and cool to see in the snow and our guide was informative and engaging.

We then headed back to Maastricht and all the guys ordered in that night and we just chilled the night away.

Monday, January 14th

We got back to our castle, sweet castle late last night and got assigned new rooms. David and I now have a really modern looking room that has a hidden bathroom and an awesome view of the grand entrance of the castle. I woke up early this morning to go to Maastricht University where a few of us attended a lecture. Most of the group went to another primary school but the liberal arts majors went to this program that was mostly political science based. It was long and I was tired but it was cool to experience a college lecture at another school, especially one in Europe. We mostly talked about democracy and how the principles of democracy play out in the EU. After, we checked out the business school and walked around Maastricht a bit. We are back at the hotel now and I am about to nap before we go to Rene's home for his birthday party.

We are going to Aachen, Germany tomorrow which is just over the border, about thirty minutes away, I believe. I am eager to go to Germany for the first time because that it where much of my ancestry lies. For now, I am going to get some shuteye.

Paris - January 11th-13th

(We were not obligated to write about Paris in our blogs but because I am such a diligent student, I will anyway.)

We got in to our hotel around 4pm on Friday the 11th and quickly unpacked before heading out into the city. Our hotel was situated at the end of the Gold Metro line, about 25 minutes away from the city center. As this was my first time in Paris, I was blown away with how beautiful the city was. In fact, it was so pretty that they didn't feel the need to keep it clean because the ornate buildings and monuments made up for it.

Here are some of the pictures I took from the trip:

We went to the Louvre on Saturday just to see the highlights. None of the guys are real art buffs but I'm glad I went and saw the unimpressive Mona Lisa.

We went into Notre Dame on Friday night and it was really cool to see mass going on while tourists filed in and out. They were burning incense and playing the organ. I did not expect them to let us in but I'm sure glad they did.

Obviously, we went to the Eiffel Tower and took all sorts of pictures like the one below.

The language barrier in France was much greater than in Holland. After seeing the Eiffel Tower on Saturday, we got lunch at a nearby cafe. A few people in our group ordered a single order of escargot but the waitress misunderstood and brought three orders which would have been 36 euros. After a ton of awkward laughing, we finally got one of the orders knocked off the bill, but still, the situation showed the language barrier at its finest. It was okay because the croque madame sandwich at this cafe was out of this world good. 

The French people were definitely not as patient with us as the Dutch have been. Not even two minutes after we arrived at the hotel we were told to quiet down. Granted, we are very loud as a group in general, but this time I did not think we were too boisterous. 

The nightlife in Paris was excellent. There are a ton of bars and pubs to choose from and we found one we liked so we went back a second time although everywhere in Paris was expensive. Then again, Europe has been expensive in general. 

Although the trip was short, I am very satisfied with the amount of Paris that we saw. I cannot wait to go back sometime in the future.

Thursday, January 10th

Once again, we were up and at it early to visit the BS Amby school in Maastricht. After a briefing with the principal of the school we were free to roam the school in pairs. I spend a good portion of my time in the gymnasium playing ball with the kids. It was awesome for me because I got to run around and have fun with these kids even though we could not verbally communicate (they usually learn English by fifth grade). There was one kid in particular that just was talking away in Dutch to me and although I couldn't understand a word he said, he just kept on talking like we were the best of friends. I noticed that the kids had a lot more freedom in the gym and the teachers did not mind us playing with the kids at all; in fact, they encouraged it. I'm not sure this would be the case in the US, especially these days.  Amby seemed like a typical primary school and the inside was beautiful. I think it was recently renovated.

The rest of the day was rather uneventful as we were leaving very early for Paris the next day.

Wednesday, January 9th

Ahhhhh, finally caught up to today.

We visited what is called PABO, a teaching college slightly north of Maastricht. We were given an overview of the school's philosophy by a lady named Ingrid who showed us around the building. It was certainly not a sprawling campus like Maryland, but rather one huge building that was very modern inside.

The first class we visited was a drama class that was surprisingly fun. He had some Dutch students pair up with us to do some improv exercises with the focus on how to teach drama to kids. The activities ended up being really enjoyable and the Dutch students were once again great at English. After drama, our group split up into two and some went to a Math class and some went to Music. I lucked out at got Music - much better than arithmetic. That was also great and I'm not even exaggerating about this. In music, we were tasked with taking a simple song and teach it to the class as if they were small children. Naturally, my group had a song about potty training and I used my few years of subpar piano playing to accompany the class in "Little Tommy Tinker." The album is coming out next month featuring Dana Hansen on the claves.

We left the school just a few hours ago and we are just relaxing back at the hotel right now and we are going into the city tonight. I am eager to see what the rest of the trip has in store for me.

Tuesday, January 8th

We had a 7:30 wake up call for breakfast before checking out of the Botel and leaving for the Derde Dalton Basisschool, a primary school pictured above. It was in the very southeast of the city and it is traditionally one of the better performing schools in Amsterdam. The principal of the school was named Mario and he was quite the personality. He was very candid and relaxed with us. The coolest part of the trip was the fact that we were lead around the school by 12 year old Dutch students who all spoke flawless or nearly flawless English. Most of these kids know four languages by the time they're in high school and, frankly, I'm jealous. The foreign language education system in the US is very flawed, but it is impossible to truly learn a language when you cannot easily immerse yourself in it due to the geography. In Europe, students can easily travel and because of that, outside influences are much easier integrated. 

After the primary school, we quickly got our luggage from the Botel and bussed from the north, Amsterdam, to the south, Maastricht. I would have loved to see the country as we drove through, but in typical Danny fashion, I fell asleep for almost the whole ride.

Our hotel, as I mentioned before, is incredible. Here's the view of the grand entrance from my room:

And this is the crest above the fireplace in my room as it was the tower of the castle back in the day:

There was an awesome formal dinner last night with four courses, each better than the last. I am definitely not hating being here. The boys did some local exploring last night and we found a bar who served a beer called Brand Dark that honestly tasted like Coke. It was a very low alcohol content, but man, was it good. We met some locals on their Tuesday night darts league and then we just hung out at the hotel because we had another school to visit in the morning. 

Monday, January 7th

We woke up early for breakfast on the 7th before heading out to seemingly the only restaurant on on our side of the harbor, Kantine. We had a lecture from Rene in their upstairs meeting room where we learned about the Dutch education system and an overview of Dutch culture. The piece of information that stuck out the most to me from the lecture was the weight placed on the CITO test that students take after their eighth grade year. It essentially determines their future for the rest of their academic lives at a young age. While the American SAT is very important, it is merely a chunk of the whole picture, not 90 percent.

After the lecture, we went downstairs for lunch and I did my best to finish off all of the smoked salmon sandwiches at Kantine.

We left for the ferry to take us to Central Station and eventually the Anne Frank House. While the museum was not big in size, it had an enormous impact on me because I am the grandson of two holocaust survivors. You could read the words from Anne's journal and physically see the bookcase that she was referring to or the room she was in. It took us about an hour to walk through and I am really glad I went; if I didn't, I would have regretted it.

That night, the whole group, all 15 of us, did some exploring. We covered what seemed like all of Amsterdam even though it clearly was not. We successfully navigated the bus system and found a few good places to consume a moderate amount of 18 and over adult beverages. Don't worry Nana, it is legal here.

We made the last boat back to the Botel but we had to sprint at one point to get there. Once again, we had an early morning ahead of us.

Sunday, January 6th

We landed in Amsterdam around 8 AM on the 6th but we must have taxied over 20 minutes to the gate. I intended to sleep for most of the seven-hour flight but only managed one hour, of course. So we landed and gathered then left for the train that would take us to the ferry across Amsterdam Harbor to our boat hotel aka Botel. It amazes me how many forms of transportation you can take here in such a short period of time. We walk, ride ferrys, take buses and take the train systems in Amsterdam and Maastricht. Watching the amount of bikes, scooters and motorcycles get off these ferrys in Amsterdam is a show in and of itself.

We quickly checked in at the Botel and left for the Canal tour that gave us a huge overview of the city. It was awesome even though I was unbelievably tired. I got a bunch of cool photos from that one.

After the tour we were starving and our guide/teacher Rene just sort of stumbled across a place called PastaBar that he had never been to and it was great. Either I was starving or it was one of the best Hawaiian pizzas I've ever had. We went on a city walk at that point and Rene took us to many of the main attractions such as the "I AMSTERDAM" sign and the Shopping District (don't worry we walked through the Red Light District later. Honestly, it was nothing special).

That night we all attempted to stay up to watch football. We ate at the hotel bar but between the lack of quality links and my lack of sleep in over a day, I crashed, of course. I can't say I was upset with the results the next morning. We had an early morning the next day and I was glad to get over 10 hours.

Sorry this has taken so long...

Hi all,

Sorry it's taken me this long to get my blog started but I have been without internet for the past two-ish days in Maastricht. For some reason, my very green room does not have any access (the only such room in the place). I am staying at a beautiful castle run by hospitality students at a nearby college called Chateau Bethlehem. The cool thing is that each room in the hotel is totally different. There's a room with a full kitchen, a room that it covered in blackboards so you can write on the walls and a room with a swing and hammock in it. My friend from freshman year, David Clark, and I are staying in the aptly named "Green Room:"

This study abroad trip is through the School of Education and we are comparing and contrasting the Dutch, German and Belgian education systems to that of the US. After taking an education policy history class this past semester, I gained more of an appreciation for educational history and theory, so this trip intrigued me ... the location wasn't too bad either. 

I am here with my fraternity brothers David Weiner, Dana Hansen and Tom Sless, as well as David Clark and Tom's friend Matt Ellis. Everyone on the trip seems to get along just fine and I've really enjoyed meeting everyone else here. Over the next two weeks, I will be in Maastrict, which is in the south of Holland, Paris this weekend, Aachen, Germany and Brussels.

I am going to make a different blog entry for each day, starting with Sunday the 6th. Hope you all enjoy!