We left from Pisa to Amsterdam in the afternoon on the 29th of March.
The day after it took 2 hours by bus to go to Bakkeveen, the place where we were going to stay for the whole meeting.
The Dutch students were waiting for us, then Hans the headmaster showed us our bedrooms. In the campus there were a conference room, a restaurant, a football field and two buildings with about ten bedrooms and a living room each.
We brought our baggage in and then everybody introduced themselves.
They use to have dinner earlier than us, at about 6.30 pm or 7.00 pm. It was strange for us during the firsts days, but it wasn't annoying.
After dinner we had a concert of a Dutch school band. It was exciting, we danced all together and we started getting to know each other.
On the second day, the organizer Hans separated the students in 2 groups. During the morning one group played fantastic and funny games in the football field such as team activities and games with Frisbees, while the other group went on a guided tour in the fields near that place. In the afternoon the groups swapped activities. It was interesting but it was rainy so we couldn't really enjoy it.
On the 1st of April we visited Leeuwarden, the city where the students who took part in the project attend their High School “Montessori College”. They explained to us how they work at school. They have many lessons where they do practical activities. I think it's a good thing because pupils can express their imagination and mainly learn real, practical work.
The day after in the morning we had a stop in Zaanse schans, where there are typical windmills, then we went to Amsterdam again, at the Riiksmuseum.
On Sunday, the 3rd, after visiting Hindeloopen, a typical village, where we saw the ice-skating museum, we went to a “Tropical swimming pool”, it was amazing and we had a lot of fun.
On Monday we went to the Stenden University, were lots of foreign students go to study tourism or how to work in a Hotel. Then we made a simulation of a PBL session, which stands for problem based learning. I think that University offers many ways of learning and many opportunities to the students who want to work in the tourism field.
The day after we discussed in international groups about the school system in each country, so we thought about the many differences from one country to another, and what we have in common.
After that each group made a project of their ideal school system, trying to solve the main problems we found out during the discussions.
We must say that every day after dinner each country made a presentation about their school system, and another country organized a game. We played our game on Friday evening, making a quiz about different topics. The day after we had the presentation about our school system.
The last day, we woke up at 4 am, because we had to take the flight early in the morning.
We can say that this exchange has been wonderful, we enjoyed all days, and we found out how the people live there. There were many differences, each country has different customs and traditions, but we all are students in the same say, and we worked together to improve the school in Europe.
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