Interesting Introductions

Today was the end of the introduction week of my degree. After all of this I feel like I know my classmates a whole lot better.

On Wednesday we went to the Chambre du Commerce to hear lots of presentations concerning entrepreneurship in Luxembourg, followed by a nice lunch with some good good dessert (and lots of coffee since the day started quite early). After that we took the bus to Delphi, a company that develops and tests parts of cars. We got a great tour through all the testing areas and even are slightly dumb and girly questions about cars got answered. It was a great day for seeing some possibilities we have in Luxembourg for our internship and for after graduating.

On Thursday we did a very rainy treasure hunt. This ended up being more of a tour from the Luxembourgish guy in our group with some a drink in between and some more drinks after. In the evening Marina, Jaqueline and I went to explore the nightlife of Luxembourg. And I must say that for girls it is great, because we always get free entrance and at the place we went the drinks were free for girls (I had to be told several times because I could just believe it). So this as a success!

On Saturday we had our integration weekend where we had to be at the train station at stupid early to go to Trier for some rope climbing. After some team building (we were a great team, if I can say so myself) we went up in the trees. I totally failed at the climbing all and fell down, but I did make the pirate cross (ahoy!). It was pretty epic. In the afternoon we did some hiking and wine tasting, before we went back to the hostel to eat. After dinner it felt like it as midnight, although it actually was 8.30pm. Hence why most people were being sensible by going to bed early. Me and a small group however got into some good conversations and suddenly it actually was midnight. Oops.

The last day of our intro we had to get up early again to do some boat racing in a massive kind of row boat called a 'Dragon Boat'. With twenty of us rowing we went super fast. We were lucky it was sunny because we all got slashed on a lot (mainly by our own peddles). After this we took a coach back to Luxembourg and I could bare;y stay awake until I made it home. There I collapsed on my bed instantly for an epic epic nap.

All in all it was a good week.  


XOXO

At the Chambre du Cemmerce

Very important; the lunch

During the hike

Entertaining ourselves with some dancing

The view

Rope climbing in action

Treasure hunt

Hiking

Back to School

Yesterday was the day, my first day back at school again.  finally got to meet everyone from my course and find out what the exact program for the year would be. Just before leaving I found out that the girl in the room next to me is on the same course as me, so I already found a travel buddy. We managed to make our way to the LBA (not Leeds/Bradford Airport, but Luxembourg Business Academy) in time and found the right fancy corporate building after only two attempts. My degree shares one floor of the building with a Master degree in finance and we have our own small and modern lecture theater and several small group working spaces with computers and white boards. 

My fellow students are all great and I am really looking forward to get to know them better. If I believe the students from last year that came and talk to us, the other students ill become my closest friends since we all will be studying and working on projects all the time. They basically told us that our life is over. So... that sounds promising. 

But I do have to admit, the schedule looks absolutely crazy. A good kind of crazy though. I feel like I am properly going to get drilled for doing an internship. After this year I must be some kind of super  woman!  

Tomorrow we will visit the Chamber of Commerce because they are sponsoring my course and are closely connected to it. There will be all kinds of speakers, discussions and I should not forget to mention; a lunch is included! It's a bit of a shame it all has to happen so early and that I have to get up at stupid o'clock and still sound interested and interactive. But as long as I make it to the coffee reception I will be fine. 

XOXO

Guess I ill use my on methods...

All those languages!

Let me explain you something about the Luxembourgish language situation. In theory, they speak three languages here; Luxembourgish, French and German. Often they seem to ditch the Luxembourgish and print information bilingual in French and German. But because most people in this country (indeed, more than half!) are foreigners, they can't escape English. So quite often you will find this added as a third language. Because the biggest part of the immigrants are Portuguese, the information is sometimes printed in Portuguese as well (four languages surely is not enough).
In the supermarket it even gets crazier. Because there they have Dutch language floating around. On many products the language on top of the list is Dutch. And the self check out tills even have a Dutch option. Always nice to read some of my good old language.

But, you may wonder, how do you know what language someone is going to speak to you? well, that is a big mystery for me I can say. To be honest, I think that the people from here are just guessing as well. In buses the writing always randomly either German or French. Although there is this one supermarket that makes it a bit easier for us. Every till has a list of flags corresponding with the languages that the cashier speaks. So you can choose in what language you want to check out. I hope to see a little Dutch flag soon so I can make sure I won't forget my own language. Meanwhile I am practicing my German and french as much as I can. I will start my German course in October and am still looking for a course in beginners French. The other day I ordered my drink and asked for directions in French. I was super proud of myself I must say.

As far as my Luxembourg life goes, I have done all of the registration things I can do at the moment and am waiting to receive a zillion letters and cards in the mail. I have been teaching my first zumba class last week and have been to my first student party this weekend. They do do some good parties here!

XOXO

The nice little streets in le centre-ville

The bridge to the city center

a teeny tiny train track for kids, so cute!

You can walk on this bit of city wall and have a view over the valley (but the view from the bridges is lots better!)

Bienvenue a Luxembourg

So yesterday i finally moved to Luxembourg. I immediately got the chance to get acquainted with the siesta style break time of things, since the accommodation office is shut between 12noon and 1.30pm. Since we arrived about 5 minutes past noon, we got to wait the entire break and by the times I moved into my room it was 3pm. That day I didn't do much more than unpacking. That evening I immediately had a meeting with someone from the place where I'm going to be teaching zumba. It's a bit different than I expected but there is good hope. By some big coincident the boyfriend of the other zumba instructor turns out to be one of my professors (you could also blame the size of the city for this..), so that was pretty cool.

Next day the real work started. I can honestly say I did a lot.

• I met up with my old flatmate from Leeds for Lunch and he helped me find some of the important places
• I managed to take the bus from my house to town (wuhay for having a bus card) and walk back
• I found out there are lots of dutch stores here. There is even a Hema that sells all kinds of Sinterklaas food, whoohoo!  
• I manged to tell the cleaning lady my room number wrong in French. I obviously needs a LOT of practice. So from there on out we started talking in German. I can only say that I will need the German language course I am going to sign up for. 

I got myself:

• registered as a resident of Luxembourg City 
• A new bank account
• A Luxembourgish phone number
• A library card
• A German book about summer love that is probably meant for a 12 year old
• A French book about pirates for 9 years and older
• A French book about magic cats in the dance school (7+ )    
• An application form for some French version of Burger King, clearly aiming for the stars here...

Tomorrow there will be more exploring. And also some zumba-ing!

XOXO

FYI: The start is were I live and these are the countries surrounding me. I will probably be in either of those in less than half an hour by car. So yes, it is possible to live in a smaller country than my own. 

This lovely view lies in between my house and the city center. It looks like a great place to go for a run!

Bye Bye Britain

I can't believe how fast the summer has gone by. In these two months and a bit so much has happened. I moved out of  my house in Leeds and became homeless for a while. In this period of homelessness I worked for EF for six weeks, first four in Oxford and then two in Rookesbury, a private school in Wiltshire, in the South of England. 

These six weeks have been quite mental. My job turned out to be a 1,5 times full time job which I did six days per week. It was so demanding in so many ways that I had no time to think about my own life and worry my usual worries. It felt as if I was living in a parallel universe where real life did not matter. At that moment real life consisted of meal tickets, bus schedules, making calls, improvising lessons and repeating everything at least three times. I feel like I have become more grown up since I had the responsibility over 26 kids and was forced to be authoritative at times (which I apparently am capable of). At moments where both offices I had to deal with told me that I had to ask the other office, I just made a decision myself, since clearly neither of them knew what to do. I improvised so much of the planning that I got quite good at it at the end. I must say it saved my life to be teamed up with a fantastic course leader (the people who travel along with the students and come from their country) from France. This way at least we could laugh about all the ridiculousness together.
Going to Rookesbury after four weeks of Oxford was really nice since it turned out that the reduction of size of location also meant a reduction of stress and hectic-ness. There were only four other teachers, two senior staff and six course leaders, who luckily all turned out to be great people. Teaching children who barely understand English is a big challenge though. The way I was talking to them felt a bit ridiculous at times, but it was necessary. I ended my time in Rookesbury with a staff night where we went out for tapas and wine and ended up night swimming at two pm (oh, forgot to tell you, the private school came with a private pool!). It was a pretty epic experience.

I ended my two years of living in England with three days in Birmingham because I had to wait for my Eurostar ticket to be valid. It was great to stroll along the beach and do absolutely nothing for a while.

When I got the train back it felt sad to finally really be leaving England. 

But now it is time for a new adventure abroad!

XOXO

I got to go to Wicked for free, such hard work!

Sophie and me in Fareham

Staff night

Me and Emily with our horse Kenny

Everyone from the Action Acting group

Recreation of Up

London!

Dressing up in white sheet "togas" for the Olympics disco