Diary: Wednesday 16 April

At 8:30 we met at school. Some Catalan students went to a history lesson to answer some questions by Dutch students, about habits and life in Catalonia. It was very interesting because we shared our experiences of the exchange, and we compared both countries. Then we went to the arts class where the rest of Catalan students were waiting for us.
At 9 Jildou talked about Zeist. She told us about the most interesting places and curious things of the city. After that, Charlotte explained some things about Utrecht.
When the presentations finished, we had some free time for breakfast. Some people cycled to a supermarket to buy something to eat.
After breakfast, only the Catalan students and a Dutch teacher walked to a bus station to go to Utrecht.
When we arrived in Utrecht, we went to the Dome, the cathedral of the city. On our way to the Dome, we stopped to see the sculpture of Anna Frank.
We had some free time to have lunch. At 3 we met in front of the information office, we left our bags there and we went to visit the Dome. A guide explained some important things of the cathedral while we were climbing the tower. We counted 465 steps. At the top of the tower we saw beautiful sights of Utrecht (houses, canals, fields…)
When the visit finished, the Dutch students were waiting for us to go shopping in the city. They showed us the cool shops .
Later we walked to Anna’s house, where we had dinner. Some Dutch students prepared pancakes, a typical Dutch food. After dinner, we played cards and talked. Then everyone with their partner was home by bus, train, bicycle…
This was the end of an exciting day.

By Iris, Laura and Irene Buira

Diary: Tuesday 15 April

We arrived at school at 8.30 am; all the people on their bikes.
First, some Dutch students introduced to us the life of Dutch people. They explained about their culture, their free time, behaviour…
The first thing that surprised us was that the Dutch people are considered stingy like the Spanish people consider Catalan . Also, people put the finger in the middle of the front; different from us because we put the finger in one side of the forehead.
Apart of this, they explained abouttheir traditional festivities: the Queen’s day: the people wear orange clothes because the surname of the queen is Orange. Saint Martinus: Martinus is an important Saint because people go to the houses with lights and they sing a song, then the families give them sweets if they like the song, and New Year’s Day: like here; also with fireworks…, Easter is more important than here; they hide some painted eggs in the garden and the Children look for them.
They showed us another power point with the typical meals.
We could see that they eat less than us; they eat more for breakfast and dinner, but they have dinner at 7.00pm.

After the presentations we went to have breakfast; and at 10 am, we rode to a c astle with Dutch students. We cycled 1.30 hours to the castle, there we had a guided tour of the old castle , we were told about the history and after that we saw a landscape exhibition.
At 4 pm, we left the castle and we went to a Dutch boy’s house for dinner and played cards; talked with Dutch people… and at 12 more or less we went home.

It was an entertaining day, but we were dead tired!



By Elisenda, Txell, Ester

Diary: Monday 14 April

At 6:30, when the sun rose we woke up because there weren’t any blinds and the sun bothered me. We looked through the window and we saw the beautiful landscape. All the houses were surrounded by trees and water.

At 7:30; for breakfast, we ate some bread with a lot of sauces and strange cold meats; there was also cereals with milk… They always put butter on bread. We think that olive oil is healthier than butter.
At the same time that we had breakfast, we had to prepare our packed- lunch, too. The lunch was the similar to what we ate for breakfast. They eat very little…
At 7:50, we went to school by bicycle.It took 20 minutes from our village to the school. All the people of Holland always go by bike when they have to go some place. There, bicycles have preference over cars. If you want to overtake someone you have to ring the bell of your bike. Every road has a bike path.

At 8:25, we arrived at school. In the school there was a huge bike parking. The lessons started at 8:30.

At 8:30, some Dutch students explained to us the difference between Dutch people and Catalan people.
At 9:30 we had breakfast and we went to a supermarket to buy some snacks and some drinks. We liked this school because there weren’t any walls in the playground. You had a feeling of freedom…

At 11:00, we had a drawing lesson with a friendly teacher. First we had to draw Sergi Naves and later Fina. Most of the pictures weren’t really beautiful, but we liked it… We had professional models.

At 12:00, we did a little gymkhana; we had to find some places and answer some questions about the school .In the end we found a word in Dutch that in Catalan means ride a bike .
At 12: 45, we had lunch in the playground with all the Catalan people.
At 14: 00, we did a “jambe” lesson with a friendly teacher too. First we played simple rhythms and then some people played one rhythm and the others played another at the same time. It sounded nice.

At 15:00, we had P. E. We could choose if we wanted to play basketball, football, volleyball and jump on the mat.
At 16:00, we came back home.
In the evening, we met for dinner. We ate rice with different sauces, some salad and some chips and for desert, we ate strawberries with yogurt.
Late, we played a card game together.

At 23:59, we went to sleep. The day finished.

BY Laura, Antoni and Josep

Diary: Saturday 12 April

We took the bus in Mollerussa in the bus station at midday and between kisses and hugs we left towards Barcelona, to the airport. We went into the airport and left our baggage.
Then, after waiting for two hours we went into the click-air plane which brought us to Amsterdam.
When we arrived to Holland we noticed some differences, like the weather, which was colder, or the language, really diferent from our language.
We took a bus from Amsterdam to Zeist, and when we arrived to Zeist, most of the families where waiting ther for us in their school.
There we met our Dutch mates and their parents.
Everyone went with their partner (most people went to visit their partner’s house) and almost everyone went to Jildou’s house to take something.
Later between beers and laughs we went to the street of pubs from Zeist. We were taken to a nightclub (very small, indeed but quite fun). We went everywhere by bike.

BY Roger,Sergi,Joan and Marc