Maastricht Center for Transatlantic Studies: A Student Report

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Christine Holt
6 years ago
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1 Maastricht Center for Transatlantic Studies: A Student Report Ever since my dad told me that he went round the world at eighteen on his own and saw the opening of Disney world, visited Fiji, and got his passport stolen in Afghanistan, I have always had a wish to travel. I always had a desire to go to new places. As of yet though I have only been to a limited number of places Holland being one that I have come to every year with my family to see relatives. Maybe the fact that my mother is Dutch gave me a much more international perspective on life. I did not have the same desire as the rest of my friends to live in the same street all their lives, right around the corner from their parents, and settle down at 23. I wanted to see things and meet other people to find out how they saw the world. When I picked a university I made sure it was far away enough away that I couldn t just come home whenever I was scared or alone; I would have to embrace where I was, as I knew even though travelling is exciting and interesting, it is also scary. But I would have to feel the fear, and do it anyway. This was also true of coming to the Maastricht Center for Transatlantic Studies for one block in the spring of I knew I was going to be the only student coming from my university and I would be coming into a group, largely made up of Americans who had already been together for two months. Overcoming fear was the main motivation for the journey. I also felt that I was not like other British people, the stereotype of the tourist who gets up extra early to put the beach towels by the pool, before the Germans can. I wanted to come to Maastricht to learn more about the Dutch culture and to find out what it is really like to live in another country, at the same time as meeting other students from abroad. I also wanted to be able to speak Dutch properly. I have realised since coming here that I may not be able to achieve this by being in an English-speaking environment all the time, but I feel like I am more aware of other languages. In England there is very little exposure to anything other than English just because it is separated from the continent. Being able to come here was initially a bit difficult to organise. I would have loved to have been here since the start of the semester, but as it is, I had to work much harder than everyone else at home to get my work done before I went away. Two months here would have been better but one month was all I could manage and all I could afford. Out of all my friends at university there is only one other who has studied abroad this year. Simon left in February to study in Australia until September. He had been sending me s about his exploits down under and was constantly asking me when I was going and telling me what a good time I was going to have. Hearing this made me excited but very nervous about my trip abroad. I think people were quite surprised and maybe jealous that I had wanted this enough to go. Comments I had were along the lines of wanting to do something like this but being too lazy to accomplish it. Now I felt like I was ready to go. Packing for the trip was difficult but ultimately comical. Flying on Ryanair, well known for being one of the cheaper airlines, I was only allowed 15kg of

2 luggage and 7kgs of hand luggage. This meant I spent the whole afternoon weighing my pajamas and other essential items. The whole thing was quite surreal. When my dad came in to see what I was doing, he told me that the pocket balance I was using was the same one he had carried round the world with him to check the weight of his bags. After I had tried to sleep, I had to sit in a car for four hours to drive down to London. I thought I was just tired but didn t realise until I was nearly onboard the plane that I had a fever. It was 3am in the morning, standing on Stansted airport feeling very anxious not knowing what exactly was ahead of me. Once I was checked in, I was looking forward to sitting down with my parents for a drink, but I was shepherded through departures, just quickly saying goodbye. As they walked away, I knew that there was no turning back. One of the things I was most worried about was the fact that my non-english speaking auntie and uncle were waiting to meet me at Eindhoven airport. Having not slept for 24 hours, having a fever and then having to speak a foreign language I wasn t fluent in was not what I had imagined what I first heard of the MCTS experience. Ten minutes before getting on the plane I took some tablets and prayed I would feel better. Thankfully I did, and at 6.45am I boarded my aeroplane with 50 Newcastle United football fans, bound for the game that evening with PSV Eindhoven. 45 minutes later we landed in Holland. After leaving my book on the plane, I finally made it through passport control to be met by three kisses on the cheek and a barrage of incomprehensible Dutch. The trip down the motorway was interesting as I struggled with my Dutch, but after a while I realised that I understood most of what was being said. We stopped at a service station and my auntie insisted on feeding me even though I d only just eaten. Even though I was in Holland now it didn t feel any different from home, maybe because it took no time at all to get here. Finally I fell asleep in the car. When I awoke I was in Maastricht. When I arrived at Teikyo University, it was very similar to what I had imagined. I was given my key and walked down the unfamiliar hall. It was completely deserted. I looked round my room and then went to find any sign of life. There wasn t any. I had arrived when all the other students had gone off traveling. It wasn t the best arrival in Maastricht but now it feels weird thinking that I haven t been home since before that day. The day after I arrived I wrote this is my diary: I really feel like I am on another planet. It s horrible when you don t feel like you belong and everything is strange. I don t think I ve ever felt so alone. There is nobody here; this is really is a lonely existence. This is what it feels like to move to a foreign city alone. But I know I am going to have a good time here. It can only get better. Adjusting to this new environment was hard. With no other students anywhere to be seen when I arrived, I had a sense of dread deep inside me. The first day I arrived in Maastricht without my hairdryer, which meant I had to go out alone, in this unfamiliar place to try to find an electrical shop. I went completely the wrong way, walking through unknown streets looking for any

3 sign of salvation. After forty-five minutes I was successful and returned triumphant. The following day I finally met some other students. They seemed nice but at the same time I thought they were so American; and I don t think they understood what I was saying. Later that day I got to meet a few other people. It was so awkward at first, as it always is when you meet people for the first time, but what struck me was the bizarreness of it all. Here were these reallife American university students, the kind you see in teen movies, talking about where they lived and where they d been, throwing around place names like Chicago, California, Texas places I d only seen on TV. Here I was, a girl from a tiny village in Staffordshire in the middle of England sitting with them, talking to them. And their names were like none I d ever heard. I d never met anyone named Zack, Brooke, Keyon or Shannon before. I knew this was going to be interesting. The first week I spent in Maastricht, I spent wanting to go home. Receiving s from my friends and phone calls from my parents did not help the homesickness either. But gradually the city became less alien and more like a place to call home. Even though I have been a full time university student for two years, I was not used to living in halls anymore. This environment reminded me very much of when I first came to university, staying up all night and then off to lectures the next morning. I had calmed down a bit in my second year, and so was not as used to this manic lifestyle. As my introduction to the nightlife in Maastricht I was taken to the Highlander (a Scottish pub) and the Shamrock (an Irish pub), both of which were the least Scottish and least Irish pubs I had ever been to. During the second week Ruth and I decided to try and bike to the Belgian border, just to say we d biked to another country. The weather was gorgeous, and I felt so free, biking in the glorious sunshine with the wind behind us, first passing through the cobbled streets of the old town, then out towards the river, leaving the spires behind us and heading towards the countryside. We realised later that we had taken the long route to the border, and so decided to stop in a small village called Gronsveld, for some chips at a Spanish restaurant. One thing that has typified my Maastricht experience so far is the combination of cultures that I have been exposed to. Here I was, biking to Belgium, from Holland, with a Welsh girl, sitting in a Spanish restaurant. From there we carried on to Eijsden but gave up on finding the border. Later when I told my mother where we d been I found out that she d stayed in youth hostels in both Grosveld and Eijsden, in And there I d been thirty-five years later, and not even realised. One thing I felt I had not done enough since I had been in Maastricht was actually go into the city. For the first week I lived in the complex. It is very easy to just spend all of your time here; you can live your whole life in this building. You eat here, sleep here, classes are here, everyone else is here so it is very easy to not feel the need to leave. But there was a whole city waiting, and I wanted to see it. One Friday I decided to go to the market, early by

4 myself. It reminded me of the market in Doetinchem in the east of Holland where my mother used to live. She would take me there on the bike whenever we were on holiday there. It was then that I felt like I was part of the city, and not just another foreign student imposed on the city, but not actually immersing yourself in it. I now felt less of a tourist and more of a traveller. I walked around the streets for the rest of the day, taking a few photographs and watching the boats on the Maas. That evening my two Dutch aunties came to pick me up and drive me two hours north to visit my family. This was one part that I was not looking forward to. Even though I felt slightly alien to all the other American students because I came from a different culture, at least I spoke the same language. My aunties spoke no English, so this was the real test for my teach yourself Dutch course. At first it was so difficult. I understood most of what was being said, but it took me a long time for me to put a sentence together in my head. The next day I was frantically driven to see cousin after cousin, offered a drink and a piece of cake at every house, while catching glimpses of Johan-Friso, the son of Queen Beatrix, getting married on TV. After that I was driven to Doetinchem, and I felt like no time at all had passed. It really did seem like yesterday I was there. And finally we sat in T hoekje, the same café we visited every year to have a drink and a fancy ice cream. And I sat, and watched the people go by. Holland was starting to feel like home. I decided to stay for another month in Maastricht. It was not a hard decision to make. The time I had spent here was one of the best but also one of the hardest months I had ever experienced. But I knew that I wanted to stay, I could not go home and forever wonder about what could have been. I was starting to know these people. I couldn t just leave. I have been here for nearly a month now and it s hard to believe that I would have been leaving this city tomorrow. It made me realise that my time here is not a permanent thing. It will come to an end, but now thankfully it will be later rather than sooner. I have come on a Maas cruise, as that was one place in Maastricht I had never been before. My only experience of riverboat cruises was an excursion on the Rhine from Etten in Germany to Arnhem in the Netherlands with a group of German pensioners, and my family, of course. When we arrived in Arnhem, we seemed to bump into them wherever we went, including McDonalds where we found them ordering in German to a bemused waitress. So this is not my first boat trip but my first on the Maas. As we sail away from Maastricht and under the Kennedy Brug I can feel the wind in my hair and hear the gentle lapping of the waves. It is very windy and quite cold but it doesn t matter. The only drawback is maybe the loudspeaker blasting out Dutch, English then German facts about the sights we are passing. We sail by some swans as we reach the entrance for the St. Pietersburg caves. Some people leave the boat, but I m carrying on. This boat trip reminds me of biking to Belgium a few weeks ago, following the river all the way. That was one of my favorite memories of Maastricht so far, even though I got a sunburn that lasted for two weeks. It was so hot and everything looked beautiful. I hope I never forget that day.

5 It s so nice to see the countryside after being in the city all the time. Although Maastricht is not a smoking metropolis, I am used to seeing grass and trees and cows! I hope that this isn t the last time that I am able to sail down the Maas. If I have realised anything since being here, it is that I need to come back again, one day. Now I know why my mother came here so many times on holiday. Now I know what all my friends are missing out on. I don t know why they have no desire to go abroad, except on holiday to lie on a Spanish beach. I know now that I won t return to my low paying stressful holiday job. There are so many better things I can do with my time. We pass the highest part of the Netherlands, just on the Belgian border; 168 meters above sea level. It s strange to think that there are no hills anywhere, that outside the cities every direction you look is the same. Fields and fields, separated by the Dykes and the skyline dotted with trees and faraway churches. It is so different from home and it is strange to think that this could have been my home if my parents had decided to stay instead of move back to England. The wind has dropped now. We pass the Lichtenburg ruins, destroyed by the French in the eighteenth century, as the informative, but slightly annoying tape tells me. Maastricht has seen so much conflict, sieges, battles and invasions but it still stands. I don t think I ve ever lived in a city with so much history on show. A child comes onto the deck and says hello. We have turned around and are heading back towards the city. We pass a caravan park and countless pretty houses dotted along the bank of the river. The Dutch flag flutters in the wind as we slowly come back into civilization. A few weeks ago when I took that memorable bike trip, I passed some apartments that I liked, and genuinely thought about moving there after I had finished university. But now I m not so sure. Just as this place has lots of good sides, it also has some down sides. Paying for toilets, people having no idea what a queue is, and the food will slowly make me obese. It might be a good place to come for a couple of months, or maybe a year, but it could never be forever. It s strange how something can be so familiar but also so different. I thought I knew about Dutch culture, but at the same time I knew nothing of actually living there, of spending more than a holiday here, like every day stepping into the world, greeted by bikes and yellow number plates, or driving on the wrong side of the road, or having a biscuit accompanying every cup of coffee. The only way you can get to know a culture is to actually become part of it, if only for a brief time, and leaving it might be sad but going home become much more of an adventure. Returning is always much better if you have totally engaged with the place you re in, and not forgotten about home, but just to realise that it is still there. It will carry on without you, just as it did before, just as boring as it was before. I have really enjoyed my time in Maastricht so far. It has been a rollercoaster of emotions and I fell like I have done more in the past month than I did in the past year. There have been some great events, I ve met some wonderful people, I ve lived in the oldest fortified city in the Netherlands and I ve been on a cruise on the Maas. I have seen things and experienced different cultures. I never thought I would be in Holland for Queens Day, and walking round Maastricht with a blow up orange crown on my head with a Mexican,

6 Hungarian and Polish guy. I am so glad that I still have a whole month here before I return to my life. I am so sad as some students leave tomorrow for good and I know I will never see them again. But I m glad I m still here. So if I could sum up my experience; it s been weird, but it s been a pleasure.

Bài tập chuyên đề Các thì trong Tiếng Anh có đáp án A. Use the correct form of verbs in brackets.

Bài tập chuyên đề Các thì trong Tiếng Anh có đáp án A. Use the correct form of verbs in brackets. 1. In all the world, there (be) only 14 mountains that (reach) above 8,000 meters. 2. He sometimes (come)