Il mio Overseas a Sydney, Australia (Gen-Lug 2007)... e il mio periodo di Tesi all'Estero a Rotterdam/Utrecht, Olanda (Ott 2007-Mar 2008)!

UTS in NL/2 – Going around

On the next day the people moved to Delft to go on with the invasion in the city where the Dutchman moved a short time before the unexpected “visit”.
They split into two groups, one travelling by train and one by car (the legendary German car coming from Potsdam). Delft was conquered.

However, after having visited the city centre of this lovely town, it was already time for a part of the German troops to pull out. In this vintage picture you can appreciate the same people you have already seen in Rotterdam, except one. He was taking the picture from the train that would have brought him back to the German border.
The day went on with the survivors moving up north to Amsterdam, the Dutch capital city (even if the Royals live in The Hague). But the invaders were too tired and after a great evening meal they had to rest for a while on a bench.
However, after a while they were ready to patrol the popular city centre. Lights of any colour at any corner. They could find a lot of strange stuff. The idea was to confiscate everything, but it would have been an unfair battle in this part of The Netherlands.
Thanks to a night train everybody could return safely home at around 3. The following morning another Italian had to leave, but the remaining people managed to meet again on Monday night. The invasion was close to the end. The Germans and Italians lost again and had to go back to their countries, the mysterious French remained a few more days to check that everything was ok, the Italian spy was sent off the county and had to leave it within two weeks. The Dutchman was safe and could go back to the tiny Delft with his girlfriend. History repeated. And maybe will repeat again. We’ll see! :-)
As said at the beginning of the first post, the invaders were French, German and Italian people. To be more precise, here it is the composition of the troops:
French troops: Guillaume
German troops: Nico, Timm, Tobi
Italian troops: Silvia, Simo
Their names will always remain in the piece of history describing the UTS revival in The Netherlands. After one year, good friends were still there together!

Postato da: DexterH46 a 16:09 | link | commenti
holiday, amsterdam, uts , delft, netherlands

New Year’s in the Dam

For the last day of the year we want once again to Amsterdam.

We left Rotterdam in the afternoon because we knew that it would have been a very long day! Walking through the streets in Amsterdam made the time flying away. Here the square was still quite empty… but it was still more than 7 hours from the midnight, as you can see from the screens.

After a couple of hours we were back to the Dam. More people were there and it seemed we were about to celebrate the New Year despite actually we had to wait more than five hours.

Quite soon it was time to have dinner at an Italian Restaurant. No matter it was “Italian”, but Dino’s was absolutely better! While my friends, the two girls from Pesaro and the other two Italian boys, decided to take a pizza, I tried something different: Lasagne (served at roughly 200°C). Not the best decision, but my friends had not to celebrate more than me!

After leaving the restaurant (where we tried to stay as long as possible because it was raining outside) we spent one more hour in the area and at “elevenish” pm we were back in The Dam. The area was really overcrowded in any direction: you could just turn and see that hundreds (I would even say thousands) of people were filling any place.

Then something strange happened. They started a show on the stage and when it was 2 minutes to midnight we started to prepare our champagne with calm. I think that more than 2 minutes passed –and in fact, to be honest, many fireworks started to paint and brighten the sky from the surrounding areas. But only after three more minutes (so five in total) the countdown started on the screens. Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, … a big 2008 came out!

And then, before a massive quantity of fireworks started from behind the stage, the wishes to everyone, written in Dutch. The same I am wishing all of you… happy new year! Or, better… GELUKKIG NIEUW JAAR!!!

Our celebrations ended in a private party quite near where we danced, drank, chatted and so on... at least for one day (plus one night) I didn't think about my bad exam and bad health... I am sure it will be enough for you that we were back in Rotterdam the following morning at 8! :-)

Postato da: DexterH46 a 00:12 | link | commenti (5)
holiday, amsterdam, party, netherlands

Amsterdam – Day # 1

On the 28^th we had to rearrange our plans and we stayed in Rotterdam. Actually I was sick so I remained at home (waiting for the two latecomers) while the others strolled out around Rotterdam. I studied a bit for my last exam since when we arrived on the 27^th I got the news that I hadn’t passed it and that I had to retake it in January (which means one more flight back Italy and then to The Netherlands).

So nothing exciting (at least for me) on the 28^th, but luckily the day after I felt better so I could join the others in the trip to Amsterdam. The team was complete, and this is a picture (taken by me, the new Oliviero Toscani) with all of them in front of an upcoming train (just to remember the reason why I am in The Netherlands!).

The first thing we wanted to see was the Heineken museum and plant. We walked for roughly 20 minutes (which became 1 hour with all the stops in the shops) and then we finally saw the building! We got closer and closer until we reached the entrance and... damn!!! It was closed because they were renewing the place and we had to wait until April!!!

After this delusion we headed to something that couldn’t have been closed without advice: the Van Gogh Museum. We had some food before entering (there was a nice girl selling them just in front of the museum) and then we got into the building.

We could appreciate the entire story of Van Gogh, the popular Dutch painter, through some of his masterpieces (unfortunately at least two of them were on loan, one in New York and the other in Korea). In the museum there were even some works of other painters, as my favourite Monet.

Then we headed to the Anna Frank’s House, but on the way we stopped at the Amsterdam Hard Rock Cafè. Here we waited something like 15 minutes to be served. Actually we would have waited even more, so we decided that we had no time to lose and went away. But in the meantime we had already taken some pictures, and in this one you can see me pointing my finger to Radiohead, with Oasis behind me (of course both bands are in pictures!).

We finally got to the Anna Frank’s House when it was already dark at night, time was something around 6pm. We visited the whole building carefully in the remaining hours before the closing time. It was chilling to see how Jewish were considered and treated during World War II. It was even much sadder to see the life they had to live and the way it finished for many of them. A place where everyone should go with the hope that similar stories will never happen again. We also saw the secret passage mentioned in Anne’s memories and everything is described in her diary. Unfortunately it was not possible to take pictures, so to have a true idea of it... you must go there.

As soon as we went out we headed to the Dam, where two girls from Pesaro, Elena and Cinzia, were waiting for us to go out for dinner together. We met them and had our meal together. Jack risked to go to the hospital for a burning throat (maybe his food was too much spicy!), but then everything solved well, we spent the night in a pub in the Dam after having visited a couple of them in the central area of Amsterdam. At 1.40 we took our train (yes, NS provides one train every hour at night as well!) back to Rotterdam.

Postato da: DexterH46 a 20:37 | link | commenti
holiday, amsterdam, netherlands