Peat Bogs and Beach Trips

Week 19 (30/05/16 - 05/06/16)

This week feels like a repetition of last. With this term coming to an end it means assignments are starting to pile up and in order to avoid the situation I was in last term I am really trying hard to do a little every day. Class carried on as normal this week. In "Active Learning" we were doing our finishing touches for our BREXIT lessons as they will be taught in school next week, which is a slightly daunting task. However I am looking forward to the experience of teaching secondary aged students. We continued are attempt to master a little of the Dutch language in preparation for our only exam in 2 weeks time and we made our final excursion with "Places of Memory". For our final trip we visited a local open air museum dedicated to showing the plight of peat workers during the 19th century. This was interesting to see especially with Northern Ireland's on history with peat. We were also amazed by the living conditions the workers and their families had to endure. We finished off our trip with a visit to a local bar which was dedicated to the leader of the workers strike at this time. Here our tutors bought and enjoyed a drink with us in the sun which I think just shows the informality of classes here in the Netherlands.  

Family of 8 lived in this house

A look inside the home

Peat from Ireland

As a mid week activity just to get out of the flat Lucy and I decided to brave the Dutch cinema. At home we would generally go to the cinema once a week with it being one of my favourite pass times but I've avoided it here so far having not wanted to deal with the Dutch subtitles. However having missed some major releases in the past months we decided to give it a go. The cinema itself was grand and after 10 minutes of the film you don't even notice the subtitles anymore, however their snacks were not up to scratch. Much to Lucy's dismay they only offered salted popcorn and much to both our dismays their drink of choice was Pepsi, not Coca-Cola. They also seem to charge different ticket prices depending on the film and how long it has been in cinemas with our own tickets costing us a near extortionate price of 10 euro each. Overall it was a nice way to pass the time but I don't think we will be visiting the cinema in Leeuwarden again.

On Saturday Lucy and I decided to take advantage of the great weather and make a trip to the beach in Den Haag. This is somewhere in the Netherlands that I've been meaning to visit since almost my first week here. However rather than walk the city and see the sights we decided to just hit the beach and relax. We arrived about 12.30pm and fortunately there is a tram stop right outside the train station that takes you directly to the beach which is otherwise a 1 hour walk. Here we got slight worried because, although warm, there was a tremendous amount of fog coming in from the sea but this actually subsided after about 30 minutes and we spent the rest of the day sweltering in the sun. Unfortunately it turns out we're not great with sun cream and both ended up getting badly burnt but you live and you learn.

Looks like a holiday resort

First sand castle of the summer