viktoritilburg

I spent last weekend in Cologne. The trip there was organized by Mo, one of the I*ESN mentors. We were 21 people going to his hometown early Friday afternoon. It takes three hours to reach Cologne from Tilburg and we needed to change trains in Venlo and Mönchengladbach.

Friday night started with a trip to RheinEnergieStadion. Going by tram from Barbarossaplatz to the stadium took way longer than I expected it to. We split up once we got to the stadium as we had tickets in different sections. I was in the same section as Aslan, Michael and Mark. We had heard from Mo that our section was close to the away fans, so we decided to support 1. FC Köln before entering the arena and bought scarves. But, when we reached our seats we realized that they were not seats in reality. We were surrounded by supporters of Borrussia Mönchengladbach. Michael and I decided instantly that it would be much more fun to become Mönchengladbach supporters. They have a richer history of Swedish players than Köln as well, so I did not mind at all. Borrussia Mönchengladbach won with 3-0, which is huge for an away team in a derby. A cultural observation is that the amount of police officers and cars at this game was absurd. Every away team tram leaving the stadium were accompanied by at least ten police cars.

We went partying with most of our group at a student club called Das Ding. Not everyone went to the game so this was a nice way to meet up with the people who went to the Christmas market at Neumarkt. The party went on a little bit longer than what is good so unfortunately a few of us did not leave the hotel with Mo, our expert on how to make the most out of Köln. So, when I left the hostel with the Canadian guys Julien and Mark. We sat up an appointment to meet up with Mo and the others at the Dome. Unfortunately we did not find each other, and it turned out that the three of us were all out of call credit. We saw some parts of the city that day anyway but it seemed like the others had a better time than us. Anyway, we went to the ESN Glow in the Dark party Saturday night where most of us had a good time.

Since the city tour people had not been able to climb the tour of the Dome Saturday, we could join them for that during Sunday. It was a stunning view from up there, and I can’t help to feel amazed that it is possible to build building like that without cranes. We went back to Tilburg at 4 pm and the most entertaining part while going back home was between Venlo and Tilburg. Everyone was very tired and every single joke was an success no matter how bad it was. And then we had Aslan’s stories of Kazakhstan. I had a great weekend and I would like to once again thank Mo for organizing this trip.

I will participate in Harkfestijn tonight. Harkfestijn is a Beer Drinking Relay in teams of five people. I am participating in this annual Merlijn event with Deadwalkerz (Doodlopers). Consisting of VDM, Bobbie Ruijs, Ennik, Stefan and yours truly.

Houdoe!

Grattis på födelsedagen min älskade Ninni!

I would like to welcome all af you the readers that have found your way here through my article in I*ESN Magazine, I hope you liked it. This is by far the longest blog post this far and is not recommended to read if you don’t have a lot of time. There are lots of videos and other fun events earlier in the blog.

Most of the events the last couple of weeks have gone unnoticed on the blog so far. Last Tuesday I cooked with my fellow Swede Johnny and the Finno-Swedish (in lack of a better translation) Henrik. Finland used to be part of Sweden, and some people in Finland are native Swedish speakers. Henrik is one of them so we decided to make him part of our team. That was a necessary decision since we wouldn’t have been able to serve 40 people just the two of us. On the menu was Köttbullar med Potatismos, Lingonsylt och Gräddsås (Meatballs with mashed potatoes, lingonberry jam, and cream sauce). We served pancakes for desert with either strawberry or apricot jam, or nutella. Nutella were on the menu, because Johnny is living in the part of Sweden that really is closer to Denmark than to Sweden, I objected. People seemed to like it even though the nutella wasn’t Swedish enough in my opinion. I really enjoyed doing the cooking; we were busy for 2.5 hours, while everyone else was enjoying themselves. This was actually the first time since I arrived in Holland that I cooked. Then again, cooking just for me doesn’t give as much joy as cooking for many others. There was no theme this Tuesday, but I made something up as usual anyway, I wonder why Joep has got the same smile as my mask.

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I had a good time at LG; I mostly hung out with Captain and Michiel. Only two of us remember why it was so fun though. That person had one up on me from the precedent week though, so it was fine. I posted a text for the I*ESN Magazine last Friday. It will appear here eventually as well, but I would like everyone to read what Paul has been able to fit in it as he balances being editor of the magazine besides with his pursue to complete Amsterdam Marathon October 13.

We had French food the week before cooked by some girls from group 10. I don’t remember what the dish was called, but it was some kind of gratin. There were two versions, and I really enjoyed the one with pork, the vegetarian dish that I was told that was the original dish wasn’t as good in my opinion. That is probably just a question of taste as I prefer to have some kind of protein in everything I eat.  It was 80’s and 90’s theme at Lamme Goedzaak, and my mentors looked like siblings.

My parents visited the Netherlands last weekend. They arrived Friday, rented a car and drove down to Tilburg. They lived at Mercure Hotel at Heuvel, so they had a really central location here in the city. We went looking for something other than sandwiches for lunch as they would like to have warm lunch that isn’t another broodje, just like I usually do. We didn’t find anything like that so we ended up having hamburgers at Heuvel. I introduced them to some parts of the central city and showed them my room. My mother considered my flat being pretty dirty, but she considered the room alright. We discovered that my flat mates had decided on creating a cleaning schedule so the dirtiness may be reduced in the future.

Then we set off west towards Zeeland with the car to explore the country. We stopped in Roosendaal on the way as for my parents to be able to find the way to my football game the day after. It wasn’t that difficult finding the way concerning we had a gps-device, although without it we would have encountered huge problems when we went into cities this weekend. We wanted to just stop for coffee, but ended up having pancakes at Estaminet Pannekoeken Carrousel in Roosendaal. My father told me that it reminded him of when he was in Ermelo with his football team 30 years ago, when his coach had insisted that they should try some Dutch pancakes. After that stop we proceeded west through the typical flat agricultural landscape of the Netherlands. We ended up going all the way out to Vlissingen, where we drove into the city for a look. The city seemed like a really nice destination for a longer trip as it is a little cute city by the Northern Sea. Here is a picture of my parents in Vlissingen.

I played my first game with Merlijn’s Saturday 1 team Saturday August 24. I came in as a substitute with 30 minutes to go when we were trying to turn 0-1 around away against DVO ’60 from Roosendaal. Tobias scored the equalizer pretty late and we didn’t have any clear chances after that. We really should have won as DVO ’60 was a real kick and run team that let us dictate the game fully. Their 1-0 goal late in the first half put us in a difficult position, so we were both disappointed and also a little bit relieved, that we at least got a point, when the final whistle was blown. We were still leading our division also. We celebrated it by creating the Top of the League Monument, while having beer at Merlinello. Tom, Ennik, Bartels, Björn and Besters poses in front of it on the following picture. The night ended at the Live Music Bar, where it was too crowded that night.

I joined my parents at Sunday as well, they had had their last night at the Mercure Hotel, so we headed north as they were staying in Amsterdam for the rest of their journey. I was very tired as it was a pretty late night and slept a little in the car. We left at 9 am, and were planning on having some breakfast for me along the way as they had had their hotel breakfast and I were still hungry. We didn’t find any suitable places in Utrecht on a Sunday morning so we ended up having brunch at a Shell station outside of Amsterdam. Then we proceeded up north towards the bridge north of Ijsselmeer that is built to protect the Dutch from the water. We could notice that there is water everywhere in the northern parts of the Netherlands. My mother was particularly excited when she saw boats seemingly sailing in the middle of a field. We stopped in the picturesque little city of Heerenveen, that the former Djurgården and Heerenveen-player Abgar Barsom once described as the worst shithole he has ever been to. I would not say I agree even though life there seemed pretty slow. We drove to Amsterdam then. I would not recommend driving a car in central Amsterdam if you don’t know the city as it is pretty complicated even with a GPS. We managed to find my parent’s hotel at Damrak, as central as it can be in Amsterdam. The hotel wasn’t very nice though, but you don’t go on a city vacation to stay in the hotel anyway. Then we drove to Schiphol to drop of their rental car and I got on the train back to Tilburg.

The way I prioritize football over many other things has not often been appreciated by people around me. I tend to try too combine playing football with whatever else I've got to do to the extreme. When its not possible to combine, I tend to prioritize playing football even if it is just a training. I would have liked to play poker and go bowling last week; however both those events were scheduled during my football practices. I arrived late to both of them and got to see some of what went on anyway. Goeiendagschotel proved to be the leading mentor group in poker as Party Mentor managed to win the tournament.

My weekend was great. I went to Spoordijk where I have quite a few Dutch friends for dinner, fries and frikandels. The frikandels were apparently not cooked properly but it was still edible even though it looked pretty disgusting. Then I went to Koning Willem II Stadion with Jasper and Levi. We beat Sparta from Rotterdam with 2-1. The atmosphere was better than at Rat Verleigh Stadion. No, Matthijssen I’m not bullshitting you, but you are welcome to bring me for a Saturday game in Breda. The Willem II cult hero Arjan Swinkels had a head injury in the first half so we ended up being there for way longer than expected as we had to wait for the ambulance. I bought a Willem II jersey, pictures of that will come in 2 weeks when we have played Den Bosch, or even earlier if I decide to go for FC Eindhoven away. The night ended with the International party at Café Philip.

I played for both the first and second team of Merlijn this Saturday. We got 6 points after 2-1 against VVC’68 2, and 7-1 against TVC / Breda. I played one half for the second team and 25 minutes for the first team, were I definitely should have made use of one of my four massive chances, but dissapoingly no goals this weekend. We ended up at BP at night; Niels ended up having a few to many beers, the pictures of that are not for the blog. Here is a double adje schoen as both Jan and Ennik spilled beer.

The weekend ended with a trip to Rotterdam which I decided on 2 hours before the kickoff off Feyenoord- ADO den Haag. Feyenoord lost 0-3, but the Kuip is the best stadium I’ve been to in Holland. The temperature was tropical, thereby my lack of t-shirt. Feyenoord’s new Swede John Guidetti were a big disappointment, as he is one of the biggest mouths in Swedish football. I had two hours in the city as well, and I'm definitely going back for a more planned trip there.

That is all for now, there will be more videos coming up this weekend.

Houdoe!

Summer is back in Tilburg. The last week has been the warmest since I got to Tilburg, and it is almost October. It has been above 25 degrees the last three days. So, I have been studying in Wilhelminapark the last two afternoons. Today I am sweating on the roof terrace studying and blogging, the temperature in the sun is definitely a few degrees above 30 degrees.

Some of you have been asking me why I haven’t blogged in over a week. There are multiple reasons for that, but the main reason is that I am enjoying the last summer days of 2011. Dan told me that the reason that we’re having this weather now is, because “the summer sucked”. I doubt that, since the temperature here has constantly been higher than back home apart from the weekend when Ninni was here. This is how my roof terrace usually looks like.

This upcoming weekend is all about football. Willem II – Sparta at Koning Willem II Stadion tonight with Jasper and a few of his friends, followed by the monthly International Party tonight. Both Willem II is heavily underperforming compared to their tradition. Willem II was knocked out of the cup by an amateur team last week, and killed my wish to see Ajax at Koning Willem II Stadion.  I will play double football games with Merlijn 1 and 2 tomorrow. Sunday isn’t scheduled yet, but it is likely that I’ll go to Rotterdam for Feyenoord-ADO den Haag. Hopefully any of my friends are up for it; otherwise I’ll go on my own and meet up with Michiel after the game. He is in Rotterdam this weekend to record some songs he wrote for his band The Sheep. They were the support act for The Dandy Warhols on their European tour a few years ago, so I suppose they are really good.

Another massively important event this Sunday is the last day of the season for my Swedish team, IFK Täby. We need to win the home game against the already relegated Storskogen, while Vaxholm loses to Roslagskulla to avoid relegation. I have never been relegated in my life, and I really hope we will avoid it this time. It looks difficult though, I’m confident that the guys will win their game, but I don’t have much faith in Roslagskulla’s work ethic, even though it is a derby for them against Vaxholm.

Houdoe!

I’ve got lots of stories of my adventures waiting to get told, the only thing that prevents me from telling them to you here on the blog is lack of time. So now I will tell you about my first Saturday in the Netherlands. While we’re on the topic of stories, I will write a guest column in the second issue of the I*ESN Magazine. Keep your eyes open for that. Possibly there might be an appearance of some sort in the student magazine in Tilburg, Univers, as well in the future.

Saturday, August 20 was my second day in Tilburg. I didn’t have any friends here, and few necessities to encounter. What do you do in such a situation? What would I do? The people who know me know that I would try to catch a football game. That was also what I did. The most important thing that day was buying a bike so that I could participate fully in the upcoming TIK-week. I managed to find a nice bike at the weekly Saturday market in central Tilburg. I paid € 100 for the bike and a lock. A little bit expensive, yes, but I don’t regret it for one second as the bike is still perfectly functioning.

The football game this Saturday was in Breda, a city situated 15 minutes by train from Tilburg. Rat Verleigh Stadion was unfortunately not very close to the train station as I had to take a bus to reach it. When I arrived to the stadium I remembered something hidden in my mind. After an absurd amount of FIFA and Football Manager games in my life I have come into contact with the club a few times. What I remembered after some visual stimulation was that NAC Breda is a team that wears Yellow and Black and they are proud to call themselves rats! The rival team of my beloved Djurgårdens IF is called AIK, and they could practically be a twin club of NAC apart from that the black color is more important than the yellow in AIK’s case.

I managed to buy tickets although you needed a club card to buy tickets. The man who was before me in the line let me buy a ticket connected to his card. NAC was playing Groningen, a club from northern Holland. Sometimes together with Heerenveen called Southern Scandinavia by Dutch people, for their tendency to buy Scandinavian players. Groningen had a few now as well, but only one Swede, their captain Petter Andersson. Munten was needed to get drinks within the stadium, I later discovered that this was a common phenomena in Holland, but it was strange to me then. The atmosphere in the stadium was surprisingly good. It reached its climax while the home team went from 0-2 down to a 2-2 draw during the second half. I really liked the experience there even though people at the stadium weren’t impressed when I told them that I am an exchange student in Tilburg. The rivalry between NAC and Willem II is strong.

Since were speaking about Black and Yellow rats, I would like to give you a short report on the situation in Sweden. Djurgårdens IF and AIK are two of the biggest clubs in Sweden in both of our national sports, football and ice hockey. The derby is called Tvillingderbyt, the Twin Derby since the two biggest clubs of Stockholm were founded in the same year, 1891. There was a Twin Derby in football yesterday. Djurgården were before the game 13^th in the league while AIK were 2^nd. We won 1-0 after a great goal by Kennedy Igboananike, and made AIK lose the title to Helsingborgs IF. The Twin Derby of hockey takes place tonight.  Unfortunately we’re one down in the first period as I write this, but that is not likely to be the result. I‘m going to the mentor dinner followed by the 80’s and 90’s party now, more coming up tomorrow.

Houdoe.

I was visited by Ninni this weekend. I went to Luchthaven Schiphol Thursday night to meet her up. Her flight arrived twenty minutes early so when I arrived by train she already stood there waiting for me. It was a fantastic feeling to meet her again even though it had been less than a month.  We arrived with the last train of the night back to Tilburg. Ninni was surprised about the amount of bikes parked by the central station when we arrived. We then had a walk back to my room tired after both having had a long day. Ninni got up before 6 am and I had four classes during that day.

We went to the university at Friday to do some sightseeing and to help Lauri find out whether his laptop or his recharger was broken, luckily it was the recharger. We met Aslan at the university riding his bike without any troubles. Actually he only needed one more training session after the one that you can see on the blog until he was able to cycle to school. Then we went into the city to check it out and had lunch at Miller Time Café. After going home for some rest after having cycled and walked the entire day, we went to the TGIF event that I*ESN had at Café Extase. My second time at Extase, the first was the Glow in the Dark party, great memories. Ninni got to meet some of my friends at Extase while we were having a few drinks.

Then we went to Griekse Restaurant Zorba along with Paul, Frank and Aslan for some meat. Paul and Frank told us that this was a restaurant that they went to on a regular basis even though they hadn’t been there in a while. Frank had to study after dinner so he went home. The four others of us went across the street to the relatively newly opened Live Music Café to listen to music and drink drinks for a few hours. Aslan went home after that, which probably Ninni and I should have done as well, because we weren’t at Café Kandinsky more than 15 minutes before we realized that we were too tired.

Saturday morning started with a little bicycle trip to Merlinello. I love playing football and Ninni likes watching me do it a lot, so it was a simple decision that I was going to play this weekend as well. I played with the second team this week as well and we won with 3-2 against Kogelwangers from Willemstad, even though we were playing with only one real defender. I scored two goals early in the second half. I am currently ‘Vizier op scherp’ (I have no idea of how to translate it), of all teams of TSVV Merlijn with 2.5 goals per gameJ. The first goal of the game was scored by Paul (not the same Paul as above). The coach of the first team Hans asked me before the game if I could play their game as well, but after consulting Ninni, who didn’t consider spending 5 hours watching football in a day being the best of ideas I passed. They ended up winning with 8-0 anyway and are top of the league after being relegated last season. We didn’t go out Saturday night; we visited the local Döner restaurant instead and watched a few episodes of our favorite series True Blood.

Sunday was the coldest and rainiest day I have had in Tilburg this far. We rightfully stayed inside the entire day except for a necessary boarding pass printing trip when there was no rain; unfortunately the rain started falling down again just as we had left for the library. We went to Verbs 10 at night for Movie Night. Loft was the night’s Dutch movie, selected by Joyce. Loft was an exciting thriller even though it was a little slow in the beginning when they introduced the characters. Overall I would give it a 3 on a scale of 5. The movie is actually a remake of a Belgian movie by the same name, and a Hollywood remake is scheduled as well. Oddly the same director that directed the Belgian version will do a remake of his own movie in the Hollywood version.

We went home after pretty quick after the movie as we went to Schiphol early this morning. Saying goodbye is never easy and that wasn’t the case this time either.

Even though I have had an amazing time every weekend since I got here, I still consider this weekend to be my best one this far. I was able to spend the weekend showing my girlfriend how I live and what I’m doing when I’m here, while hanging out with her. Love is a strange thing.

Houdoe.

I am sitting on my room with my dear Dutch friend Hertog Jan III and another friend who would like to remain anonymous, let us call him his initials, FM, waiting for tonight’s mentor dinner. The theme is… NO THEME! I don’t care, I decided on my own theme. Anyhow, the dinner tonight for Goeiendagschotel and group 11 is a mix up of the Czech and the Hungarian cuisine. Martin and Veronika are responsible for the cooking and I have high expectations. The party tonight is at Lamme Goedzak as we are still waiting for the new building, hurry up Jiska! This upcoming Friday will also be the first TGIF-party, location still TBA but it will be a blast anyway.  Ninni who arrives Thursday night will join for both that and the Movie Night this Sunday =D.

I have forgotten about some necessary reporting. TUC took place last Monday. TUC is short for Tilburg University Cantus. We went there with I*ESN although there were far more mentors than international students. There were four of us, besides me Michael from Australia a.k.a. the Waterfall was there, one girl from Estonia and one from Germany of whom I knew none. Janneke was the head of our table, I also had Paul at my table. I have avoided uploading the film that would give him the nickname “the Airplane”, but I might do it if the demand is big enough. Our table was next to the table containing ten guys of TSVV Merlijn, although I didn’t recognize any others than Tom at that moment. I had a nice chat with him though and I know the names of a few more of them by now. Curious as I am I decided to try a Brabant tradition that I had just learnt after the break of TUC when I was feeling thirsty.

Here is another video from later that night, just to show you what the mood was like.

Houdoe.

We gathered at noon Friday, September 2 at Verbs. Every mentor group was assigned a movie theme to dress up for during the weekend. Since we missed some parts of our group we merged with group 5 and included Stephen from Canada, Danitza from Peru and their mentor Bart. Aslan were a traitor this weekend, as he formed an unholy alliance and became one of the Aladdins. Apart from him our groups formed the X-men group, the group with the cheapest outfits of the camp.

After we had been to the store Action (where Captain Kelly does all of her shopping), we went back to Verbs for transportation by bus to our Camp location, De Kiek. We had the Introduction Camp Cantus during Friday night, led by the cantus singers Martijn and Ties. Some people like Thomas broke the cantus rules, and where of course punished.

Although it was pretty dark where we had the cantus and most of my videos thereby are useless, I enjoyed the cantus just as much as the one during TIK-week. Beer cantuses is a tradition in Brabant; I have never been at one in Sweden so I guess that it is not very common back home. Of course everyone was dressed up during the cantus. I guess that it doesn’t come as a surprise that it was easier to identify who were smurfs and pirates than who were X-men.

At Saturday morning we were introduced to the I*ESN dance by Anke and Lisa, the tune is ‘Plage’ by Crystal Fighters. We played some games during the day; my favorite was the soap rugby, even though we lost. We had our own Oscar gala at Saturday night, all groups performed and the winning group and the best actors were awarded. I performed with the Mega Mindy song a cappella after having been tricked that I could perform it playback, if you have ever heard me sing you can imagine how it was. I did not even know the melody of the verse.

Later that night I received my only punishment of the week, unfortunately I had to clean the toilet.

All Sunday until the buses picked us up was beer races. Unfortunately X-Men did not make the final. Mark and Julien from Canada were the stars of the winning team. Mark had a little too much though, here are two videos of what went on at the after party at Verbs 48.

Mark argues that he won against Jiska, please post comments whether you agree with him or not.

Ninni arrives to Holland this upcoming Thursday :D

Tot Ziens.

Many exchange students spend their weekends travelling to get to know new places. So did I this weekend, for the first time of my life I visited the little city Oosterhout for an away game with TSVV Merlijn 2. We played against TSC, and won 5-3. I scored a hat trick, but I was still disappointed with my own performance as I should have scored five goals. The other goals were scored by Paul and Lucas. It felt great that we managed to pick up our first points of the season, and we sung the TSVV Merlijn song in the dressing room after the game to celebrate the victory.

When we returned to Merlinello, our fantastic facility, we had a few beers and some food. I got to know some of my teammates better. The first team had won their game as well and is now top of the league after two games.There were more players of the first team that stayed than from the second team, but I didn’t mind, because I intend to play for the first team soon anyway. As Café Brandpunt is our main sponsor we went there for some free beer, and the night ended at Café Polly Magoo.

Yesterday was Pub Crawl night, I*ESN had arranged for the exchange students to get to know six different pubs in Tilburg. I was assigned for the Ca-group, under the excellent leadership of Janneke and Mark of the I*ESN Board. The pubs we visited were in order Lokaal Zeven, Café de Boekanier, Café Polly Magoo, Studio, and Café Philip and then we ended at Café Bolle. We were given free shots at every bar and I thought all except Lokaal Zeven were nice, but people told me that no one ever goes there anyway. Café Bolle was an excellent night club, but I have been there before, for lunch. Don’t ever go to Café Bolle for lunch. If you want to know the explanation, read earlier in the blog. It was a great night and I got to meet a few new friends, our mentors were a little disappointing though.

I had a relaxed morning today; I caught up on some previous lost sleep. Then I spent an hour talking to Ninni over Skype. Skype is such an excellent invention, perfect when you need to speak to people far away from you. It is a Swedish invention by the way, alstublieft. Then I went to the University to pick up my SHRM book that Dama had borrowed to make a copy of.

It was now 2.50 pm, and I spent the rest of the day in the library doing some studying, my first real study session this semester. In Holland the lecturers presents us with homework every week in every course, very different than in Sweden were we are expected to plan our studies on our own. I left the library in 10.55 pm. Studying an entire Friday night is not ideal, but there can be parties practically any day of the week, so the weekly rhythm is strange anyway. I do not want to fall too far behind in my courses so when the opportunity to be somewhat productive arises I really need to grasp it.  Here are some pictures of Universiteit van Tilburg by night, in a few weeks I will post some daytime pictures as well, it looks very different.

I will play my first football game in three weeks tomorrow, for TSVV Merlijn; I’m really looking forward to it. Meanwhile IFK Täby plays IFK Lidingö at home, fingers crossed that the guys will grab 3 points.

Tot Ziens.

My biggest Dutch hero is called Geert den Ouden. I know that most of my Dutch friends are laughing when they read that. Geert den Ouden has played for Excelsior, Roosendaal, ADO den Haag, Willem II and de Graafschap in Holland without being successful anywhere. Djurgårdens IF was reining champions in 2003, but during the summer our best attacker Johan Elmander’s loan from Feyenoord ended. The solution was to recruit a tall Dutchman who was unknown to everyone. What happened? The following video is a compilation of all den Ouden’s ball contacts during the remaining eight games of the season.

We won our tenth (out of eleven) league title; Geert den Ouden scored ten goals. Allsvenskan will never again see a finisher like him.

Back when grandpa was young he knew a grown man who did not know how to ride a bike. Yeah once I was even as young as you. He was from Kazakhstan and had never needed to learn it. Yes now he knows it, grandpa actually helped him learn it, because in Holland were we were living then, everybody travels by bike.

Here is the unedited version of Aslan’s first lesson in the fine art of riding a bicycle. The video is long, and if you are only interested in the best parts, then you should skip to 3.10. Imanol is Aslan’s Spanish (Basque) flatmate at Hendrik de Keijserstraat.

I would like to believe that my English is better than what it was during this video. I am not used to hosting video reportages, lets blame stage fright.

Tot Ziens

I have decided that it is better to finish TIK-week before we dig into the details of Introduction Camp. Thursday, August 25 is all I’ve got left for you. It was another exchange introduction day. I skipped the mentor group breakfast to win an extra hour of sleep. Then we had two hours reserved for different workshops. I chose to attend Tilburg for Beginners and Cultural Matters, among the other available workshops were Dutch for Beginners and Dutch Drugs policy. Tilburg for beginners was interesting as it gave me some insights in the city’s history and local habits. Cultural Matters were not what I expected, it turned out that we were supposed to play a card gamed but they assigned us different rules and we were not allowed to talk to each other while playing. Of course they did not tell us that, and as I am very stubborn I were extremely frustrated with Martin who cheated given my rules of the game. It was not among the highlights of the week, but the exchange coordinators, who were leading the workshop managed to show us that we are going to encounter problems related to cultural differences.

After lunch it was time for a computer course to get to know UvT’s computer systems Blackboard and COMAP. They are rather user friendly once you get to know them so I think I like them. We had to do some more boring administrative procedures during the afternoon such as taking pictures for the student card.

In the evening we saw a Dutch romcom called Alles is Liefde with I*ESN, it was a pretty good movie, and provided some interesting insights in the Dutch culture. Apparently Santa Claus arrives to Holland a few weeks before Christmas, and middle-aged Dutch women picks up their toyboys at funerals.

Most of the day is a blur; it is now two weeks ago. I know that there was a party at LG and that I went to Olof when LG closed for the after party, I don’t remember all of the mentors that went there, but Party Mentor, Captain Kelly and Jasper did. I got home to late, but I had already come to the conclusion, that sleeping was not top priority.

Tot Ziens.

Today is a sad day. There are two national sports in Sweden, football and ice hockey. The goaltender Stefan Liv was awarded Guldpucken (ice hockey player of the year in Sweden) in 2008. He won both an Olympic gold medal and World Championships in 2006. This summer he signed a contract to play for the Russian team Lokomotiv Yaroslavl.

Today Lokomotiv Yaroslavl was travelling to their season premiere against Minsk. Their plane crashed and it is said that only 43 out of the 45 passengers are confirmed to be dead at this moment. It is confirmed that Stefan Liv is among the victims, the list of victims also contain Pavol Demitra, Slovakia and Ruslan Salei, Belarus.

R.I.P. Lokomotiv Yaroslavl

Most of the people were tired of partying after a long weekend out in the countryside. However some people heard that there was Euroshopper beer on I*ESN at Verbs 48 tonight. For those of you who went home, you missed some good fun. Mark from Canada lost the head-to-head beer race against Jiska. We had a little game of I've never, or whatever you like to call it, from now on we have got a guy from Australia simply called the Waterfall. Oh, yeah, about the Introduction Camp, there will be pictures, videos and some texts up this upcoming week. If anyone has got a video of the only solo performing act, please contact me on Facebook, because I guess some people would like to see it. Kars and Jasper, you should be ashamed of yourselves for not attending the afterparty at Verbs 48. You are not feestje beestjen.

Alright, why not do the epic Friday, August 26 while the engine is still running. After 3.5 hours of sleep I went to Academia Building to register for the course Dutch I for International Students. The queue was moving really slow so I decided to go into the central city for some lunch with Goeiendagschotel. We met up at Tilburg Central station, and went to Piusplein for lunch. That turned out to be a bad idea; it took them more than 1.5 hour to make our sandwiches and omeletts. When it was done parts of our group had left and upon delivery one of the sandwiches was frozen inside. I am sorry that I don’t remember the name of the restaurant, because I would advise all off you to avoid it. After half of the group had been presented with something edible I went back to campus to register for the course. So I and Kuba who had gone home to drop off some cash had to find the way from Campus to ‘t Laar without a map. Besides a little sightseeing tour in de Blaak it went surprisingly well, and we arrived just on time for the most important event of TIK-week, Beer Cantus.

Beer Cantus was the absolute highlight of the week, and this upcoming Monday might be even better, when Tilburg University Cantus opens the academic year at Willemsplein. Videos from Beer Cantus are available on Naldorinho99’s YouTube-channel http://www.youtube.com/user/Naldorinho99?feature=mhee

After the cantus Goeiendagschotel had dinner at another restaurant at Piusplein, Café Brandpunt. It was simple but yet, much better than lunch. Then TIK-week ended for most of the group, but not for everyone. A few of us hopped on the bus to Vidar from Heuvel. Vidar is one of Tilburg’s biggest student organizations and it organized a party in its building by a river (or possibly canal as we are in Holland) south of Tilburg. We had a good time there as well; lots of Dutch students were there, which was a nice break to the usual international crowd.

This was TIK-week, tomorrow is it time for Introduction Camp, the highlight of the semester for international students according to I*ESN Tilburg. I hope so, next week there will be more about my first three weekends here in Tilburg, including Introduction Camp.

För övrigt så hoppas jag innerligt på att grabbarna tar tre poäng mot Österåker på lördag.

Tot Ziens.