Untill I took part in my exchange student experience, for which I spent 10 months living with a host family in rural Oregon, United States and went to high school there, I really looked down upon my own country when it came to landscpes, nature, cities and other things to see. I always thought that Holland (or the Netherlands more properly) was a way too small country to live in and be able to see a lot of beautiful things. It was for that reason that I always had the urge to go abroad. I didn’t really matter where, as...
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New Zealand is a country that is somewhat of a fairytale for a lot of people. Depending on where you’re from of course, but often it’s the ‘end of the world’ and getting there takes a good deal of patience on an airplane. But once you’re there …. well you never want to go back! Before I got to New Zealand (NZL), I didn’t really know what to expect. Of course, I’d bought a guidebook (Insight Guides really is the best 1 out there!) and read a bit into it but other than that, it was all a bit of...
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Amsterdam is really one of those cities that people from ‘outside’ tend to have a strong image of. When I was living in The United States as an exchange student (2007-2008), all the highschoolers thought I was so cool because I smoked weed all day in Amsterdam, and all the prositutes would just come up to me to offer work, and especially don’t forget that I must be lesbian too and wear wooden shoes all day with a bouquet of tullips in one hand while holding a can of beer in the other. I was shocked by the fact that...
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Many of you will probably have a particular image of the Netherlands, or more common, Holland, in mind involving windmills, tullips, cheese and some of you even think of the wooden shoes. Well, you were right! As a Dutchie I can confirm that most of those cliché images you might have in mind are true. We are a country covered in beautiful colorful tullips with an occassional windmill here and there but far from all of us eat cheese of let alone wear wooden shoes. I am one of those people that detests cheese (unless it’s in a melted-pizza-like form)...
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