Week Two - Cultural

Hallo iedereen. 

After being away from home for two weeks the excitement has started to fade when it comes to cooking and cleaning. Eventually for us it has sunk in that we are fending for ourselves solely for the next four months. Luckily this week has been ‘Crocus’ week which is when the Belgium’s celebrate carnival which results in us having no classes. As this was the case we made took this opportunity to develop our culture by joining in the celebration in Holland.

At the beginning of the week we went to visit the city of Maastricht where we had a guided tour for a full day.  This was pleasant city filled with history, art and culture which was very interesting to visit. As you will quickly discover from my photos that Maastricht has a lot of old buildings and sculptures as it is one of the oldest cities in Holland.

In this cultural city we attended the carnival which is celebrated widely by many European countries. We all dressed up and joined in the celebration of street parties with both the young and old people. This was an enjoyable experience which I would like to be a part of again. During this day we made it our duty to sample as many different dishes which are traditionally from Holland. There were many items we tried which were made locally such as cheese, pies, meet and breads. 

On Wednesday night all the Erasmus students organised a dinner party together where everyone would make a traditional dish from their country. A lot of effort was portrayed into the dishes and decorating the dining room. It was nice everyone together preparing and cooking in the kitchen together – even if it did take us three hours.  There was a range of different foods and of course drinks which were consumed and resulted in a good mutli-cultural dinner for everyone. Of course we made an Irish stew for the dinner party which we were given requests to make a bigger pot the next time.

On Thursday my mum and sister came to visit me for a few days. I went to meet them off the train in Hasselt station and we went to a luxurious hotel, which like heaven compared to my student accommodation. We then planned where we would like to visit for the next four days, after much research and discussions we decided to visit Brussels and Antwerp.

 I showed my mum and sister around the city of Hasselt, where I am staying, first then we made use of the great Belgium transport by train to Antwerp. It was interesting to notice the different Cultures and languages spoken in each city even though they are extremely close to one another. In Antwerp we toured around the city on a horse and carriage which meant we got to see most of the city in a shorter amount of time. While we were eating dinner we met an Irish family who introduced themselves to us after they recognised the language and accents. They developed the conversation by saying they moved over to live in Antwerp, from County Armagh, to secure a job ten years ago. We had discussions on the differences in the cultures and even the people themselves to Ireland, all positive issues were raised. Although they love living in Antwerp they were curious about Ireland and hadn’t been home visiting in the past five years. It is important to get to know multicultural denominations, which is why I choose Erasmus, as you get an insight to other cultures and can understand them more as an individual and as a regional country. It is vital for us all to be interested in different cultures and approve of them which is what Amis. M (1995) meant when he stated, “The deal with multiculturalism is that the only culture you're allowed to disapprove of is your own.”  

The following day we travelled from Antwerp to Brussels to spend the next two days here. This was a very interesting city to visit. From what I have heard about it over the years I was expecting it to be a largely built up, rich city but my views changed drastically before I even got on the train in Brussels. From the view of the train we could notice very rundown buildings, a street of buildings which somewhat looked like a red light district and beggars. Although we did not investigate this changed my opinion of the European cultures all over the world and made sad to realise there really is poverty everywhere and everyone has a different view on how to live their life. In Brussels we visited many tourist attractions, chocolate factories, toured on an open top bus and of course “sampled” the foods. The European Parliament is in Brussels which was the main reason why my mum wanted to visit here so we attended it and then moved on to an attraction my sister and I wished to visit – the chocolate factory.