The document contains stories from several Spanish students describing their surprising experiences during a trip to Almere, Holland in April 2007. One student was surprised by warm beach weather upon arriving in winter clothes. Another got stuck in a broken toilet. A third fell into a river during a sports competition. Others were surprised by plastic ducks, train ticketing systems, and improvised toilets in the forest. One student had their birthday celebrated and another was surprised by a street for bikes only in Amsterdam. Visiting Anne Frank's house was a highlight.

1. ALMERE APRIL 2007 OUR EXPERIENCES OUR IMPRESSIONS OUR MEMORIES

3. I’ve been told to write about something amusing or surprising which happened during our trip to Holland. After thinking about all things we did, I’ve decided to explain what I first thought when we arrived there. When our plane landed, we went to pick up our luggage and then walked out of the Terminal. As in Spain it was very cold, we all wore warm winter clothes, because if it was cold in Spain, we’d get frozen in Holland! However… what a surprise! We saw our partners waiting for us… on summer clothes! And all of them looked more tanned than us! Can you believe it? The Spanish with our coats and jumpers while the Dutch were dressed as if they were on the beach!. They looked at us and started to laugh. “Why are you wearing those clothes?”, they asked. I felt very stupid…

4. Then they said we were going to the beach in two hours, so we had to hurry. “To the beach?! We haven’t brought our bikini!”. We couldn’t imagine we would go to the beach, so we didn’t have our swimming suits. Therefore, when we arrived at the beach you could recognize perfectly who were the students from Rubí, the ones which were sunbathing with jeans and t-shirts. I think the weather was one of the most surprising things of our exchange. As we said “who could have told us we would be sunbathing on a Dutch beach in April?” Ainhoa

5. The first day, when I arrived in Holland, a very embarrassing thing happened to me: My partner had just finished to show me her house and my room. Then, I went to the toilet, but when I wanted to come out of it I couldn’t! I didn’t know that the door of the toilet was broken. Finally, my partner and her mother could open the door. Ariadna

6. The last day in Almere, we went to a place where we did some sports. There was a competition and I was in team 1. The first thing we had to do was to cross a bridge with just three ropes. I did it once and it looked easy, but the second time I tried to cross the river I fell into the water. I was the first one to fall so everybody laughed. It was very funny! Enric Alonso Alonso

7. It was Friday 20 th April and it was the first time we went to Amsterdam. After we had been in a museum, we went in a boat trip into the channels. It was a nice tour. We could see the most important places from the boat. Up to here, nothing special had happened. Well, sometimes the boat scratched the river bottom, but none of us was injured. When we came out of the boat, we went to the meeting point to catch the bus. During the walk, we were looking at the river when suddenly, a duck with its ducklings appeared in front of us! All of us stopped to see them! But there was something wrong: they were always in the same place, moving only a bit. After few minutes we could see that they weren’t real! They were plastic ducks! Surprise! Some Dutch people stopped and laughed at us… Gemma Sampons Cardona

8. When I was in holland I saw lots of things which are different in Spain; for example in the train stations. You can get on a train without paying, because you needn’t have the ticket to go in. You must buy the ticket because sometimes the ticket inspector comes and if you don’t have the ticket you must pay a fine. When you go into the station you can see different machines whose job is counting people who get on or get off the train. Gregorio

9. As you know we had a really good time in Holland. We were most of the time doing exiting activities, meeting a lot of people from everywhere, talking to everybody... The best moments that I can remember used to happen on the beach. Those magic nights sitting on the sand, around the campfire, listening to a guitar and trying to sing some songs in English... One of these beautiful nights on the beach, I had to go to the toilet, but .. Guess what!! There was no toilet in the middle of the beach.. -Oooh! What a shame, I will wait (That’s what I said) and then I sat next to Elena. I thought I could wait a little bit more but it was impossible, I really had to go to the toilet. So I asked Elena if she could come with me. We went to an improvised toilet in the forest . But imagine, there was a lot of people going on a walk and every second I had to stop because I could hear some people between the trees. Elena was the invigilator but she was laughing at me And then she took a picture of me trying not to be seen by no one while she wasn’t paying attention because of the laugh attack.

11. My most memorable day was the 23rd of April, my birthday. I was really excited because I had to celebrate it in Holland. I woke up on Monday morning. I dressed very quickly and I went downstairs. There was some decoration on the walls, and a lot of food for breakfast. Neyca, Angelo, Gerson and Mary congratulated me, and I felt really happy. They gave me a perfume, and a nice card, with a dedication. Then, Mary and I went to school. When my group was in our classroom, the Dutch people came in and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me..., but in Dutch (I can’t remember the correct words). It was a nice surprise.

12. It was the Debate day, and we spent all the morning debating. After the debates, we came back home and had dinner. Later, we went to the beach! Everybody was on the beach! When I arrived, Víctor and Harris gave me some roses (following Saint George’s tradition) and then, we played and laughed a lot! Later, Alba and other people gave me a cake, and I blew the candles. The cake was delicious, but a little bit small, because all the people wanted a piece. A lot of people that I didn’t know before came to me and gave me their congratulations. A lot of people were there, for my birthday!!! I didn’t believe that…

13. Travelling to Holland made me see lots of surprising things different from Spain. Something that surprised me was one day while I was walking in Amsterdam along a street I thought it was a normal one. But my surprise came when I realized I was in a special way ONLY for bikes. The bikes began ringing the bell and everybody were riding so fast that I had to run carefully to a NORMAL street! It was quite funny! But if I have to choose I would like to choose the excursion to Anne’s Frank house. When I was thirteen I read the book and it made me think a lot about the holocaust topic and the life of this girl. I really loved her diary, so going to the place where Anne wrote it was something very important for me, something like a dream.