I have been in the Netherlands for one month now. Our first week at the university was a welcome week with different activities such as Dutch games or a welcome drink. Furthermore, we also did a pub crawl with some mentors of our university which was really nice. The university itself is a modern building for primary teachers and is located near to the city centre. The professors are really nice and so far I really enjoyed all of their lessons. Our international class has 15 students from9 different countries.   

I already had my first teaching practice in an international school. I really like this school because the spoken language is English which is perfect for me because of my first subject. Hence, I have the opportunity to teach and speak as much as possible. To reach the school I have to go take the train and the bus and it takes me about an hour to get there. In my classes there are between five and seven students.

The city Zwolle is a really nice place with about 130.000 people. The city hosts a lot of students; therefore it is a very lively city. I live in a shared apartment which I found on the Internet. With the bike it takes me about 10 minutes from my place to the university. One of the first things I bought was a bike because you really need one in the Netherlands. During my spare time I try to visit as many places I can. So far I visited cities such as Rotterdam, Amsterdam or Kampen.

To sum up, I am really happy to be here. However, I hope that the weather will get better here.

Andreas Reder