My Dutch Experience with 75 others...

I'm back from Arnhem and I had a great time...fun staff to work with, fun activities (lots of them! More to follow on that one) that we enjoyed, good hostel with great food, easy enough travelling and reasonable weather...what do you want to hear about first?

I guess I'll start at the beginning:

Day 1 Monday, June 9th : Departed 7:15 AM from Waterloo, Belgium,
We arrived in Arnhem in Holland, the Netherlands about 11:30 and went directly to the Arnhem Road Bridge and Memorial Park. We met the hired counsellors, had the kids do some sketching, then we got back on the bus for an afternoon visit to the Airborne Museum in nearby Oosterbeek. This museum is devoted to the subject "Operation Market Garden" (made into a movie called ‘A Bridge Too Far’), the biggest airborne invasion in history. This was the renowned British military leader ‘Monty’ Montgomery’s effort to end World War II early, by getting straight to the Rhine and into Germany. We then went in the late afternoon to the hostel, where we had some time to settle in before supper. This evening, we walked about 20 minutes to the bowling alley and had the entire place to ourselves. Unfortunately, the lead counsellor and the head teacher weren't in attendance, since one of the boys fell from his bunk setting up his sleeping arrangements and fell, badly cutting his ear. They went to explore the Dutch Hospital system. Yikes...that will be my responsibility next year!

Once we got back to the hostel, it was nearly lights out. The kids of course were very excited, and in spite of being tired (myself and many others got up as early as 5:30 that morning) they were up very late being silly (girls) and sneaky (boys)...typical stuff. The counsellors, teachers and I had a "briefing" in the bar over fermented beverages and got to know each other a bit. They were from all over, the leader (Stuart, 43) being a Kiwi, the one woman (Rebecca, 23) from the suburbs of London (accent sounded like something from corronation street) then a Californian (Kurt, 48) and Yippe! A Canadian from BC, Dave (not sure his age, I'd guess 27-30). He was really nice and is in the midst of Teachers College at Lethbridge, so it was fun chatting to him since he and I knew many of the same cultural references, something I relished after being away for ten months now.

Day 2 Tuesday, June 10th
This morning after breakfast, the entire group got on the coach for the 45 minute trip north to the town of Hattem. We spent most of the day here at the Vadesto Adventure Centre. Half the group (35) got outfitted for canoeing and received instruction before we headed out on the canal. This was really interesting, since they were Coleman canoes, and only a handful of kids had ever used any form of paddle before. I got into the stern of one boat and the two girls with me were thrilled, since we led the pack, then doubled back and helped the slower ones, all the time playing a game of chase and splash with Rebecca's boat (she said she'd get me later and she did by pushing me off the dock just before lunch). The second group remained on land, for "off road scootering" and a "raft building" project with oil drums, ropes and planks led by the guides at the centre. We took a break for lunch and then in the afternoon the two groups switched, but I remained on the water, this time in a Kayak in order to assist with canoe instruction for those boats having difficulty. It was great fun and wonderful weather, and since we were supposed to be there to investigate bridges, I got a picture of a typical bridge, a la Van Gogh:When we were all back on dry land, after a good thorough swim (and for me, a dunk first) we played some field games which the kids absolutely loved. The kids were beat after this, and the trip home in the bus was quiet except for a full rendition of 100 bottles of beer on the wall by two of my students sitting directly behind me...I coulda killed 'em...at least they were in tune.

That evening, we had more field games after dinner, a game of "Clue-Whodunnit" (yours truly played Barbara Bunny whose weapon was a carrot and preferred a hollow tree as a hiding place) and more debriefing in the pub on site after the lovelies were all nestled so soft in their beds...hall duty for my male colleague was very easy...he said he finished only one article of Atlantic Magazine before not a peep was heard--water and sun made some of us very tired.

Day 3 Wednesday, June 11th
In the morning, everyone headed for the Hoge Veluwe National Park. On arrival, again we split in half with one group going biking in the park. In the meantime I was part of the second group and we visited the renowned Kröller-Müller Museum, home of an outstanding Van Gogh
collection among other items. Inside, I took the kids who weren't fast enough to join with their favourite teacher or counsellor, so I ended up with some rather challenging and less than art enthusiastic boys. It was all good, though, as I got them interested in some of the paintings by telling them stuff I knew about Mondrian, Picasso and Monet from my fashion history and design days. We ate our packed lunches in the Sculpture Garden, which was a
fun place to run around, and then in the afternoon the groups switched activities. Our group took over the bikes the first group used and we did a tour through the national park visiting a monument of the first Nature Philanthropist of the park (a retired general who stocked the park with at one time 1200 Elk for hunting), got to visit the hunting lodge complete with viewing turret, man-made lake with 50cm carp who liked croutons we threw at them and an ice cream bar. We also visit the ‘Underground’ museum after we dumped off our bikes and this was a really neat spot showing animals, minerals and vegetation that reside below the surface....well done displays with hands-on elements and an environmental focus, but not too preachy.

We got back to the hostel in time to relax a bit before supper, and this evening
the students had a Quiz Show...the adults actually did some work and wrote notes about the students' groups for grade 6 next year...it took a good hour now that we had lots more information about how these kids interacted in new situations!

Day 4 Thursday, June 12th
Following breakfast this day, we packed our bags for this evening’s departure, and stored them on the bus. We then took a short walk from the hostel to the Open Air Museum. This wonderful settlement of buildings, barns, cottages, windmills and farmhouses (mostly from the 18th and 19th century) were brought in from all parts of the country. The students visited a working bakery and paper-maker, played on antique iron toys, and walked through houses
and shops decked out in period detail. We were getting a bit drizzled on so went inside the museum and saw a spectacular Diorama presentation (unfortunately only in Dutch) that had life size displays and archival video footage. We ate our packed lunches in the museum and continued our inside visit that I found really interesting because there was a great display of cultural costumes, home life for a typical Dutch family and lots of antique cross stitch samplers and exquisite embroidered items. Following our visit, we went to the gift shop then waited for the bus to come get us, as the heavens had now opened with abandon. Once back at the hostel we had an early dinner, then we boarded the coach for the trip back home to Waterloo. We arrived home at exactly 22:10, got all but one kid home safely and only had to phone one parent to retrieve her son (the one that had two tearful fits of homesickness: wish it had been any other kid!). A colleague drove me home and I was sipping a dram of cognac by 23:15...exhausted, but very pleased overall with our experiences!

I think that makes 4 countries this trip...now how can I get my husband to take me to Montpellier or Cannes this fall....Hmmmmmm.....thinking!