Foreign Exchange

Hey, If you ever get the change to go on Foreign Exchange do it. You meet so many great people and the times you had will stay in your mind for ever! I got the chance to go to the Netherlands in 1997, From September - December... It was excellent and the people I met were great! You also get to know so much about yourself. Here's a pic of Zwolle -->
For many this will be a very familiar pic. The entrance to Zwolle's night life.. Haha!!	I arrived in Zwolle 3 days before the other student from South-Africa, Paul. The people were very nice and the first person I met was Josep, a guy from Spain and he was imediately showing me around and then he took me to meet Reli (from Romania). That afternoon we had a few beers to drink... It was nice to see the different people from different 'Worlds' having so much in commen. We then met the English girls (Catt, Clare, Beth) and then Jack (USA). We all started talking and decided to go to Sally's and the Irish Inn that night. We also met the German girls (Dugter, Tanya, Tina, Nina) that afternoon, but they already had plan's for the night. Just before we went out we saw Mike (from Wales)... He was definately looking forward to a few good beers.
	<-- This was the view I had from the room Paul and I stayed in... Room 320 Lelietraat, Zwolle, The Netherland... I think the funniest for me was the bycicle lanes they had and to see all of the foreighn students getting the hang of riding 'em again! It was also not very safe leaving your bicycle outside, for so many of our bycicles got stolen and also so many of us (especially Manollo) woke up once to often finding the bycicle he got the previous night in his room!
Some of the other people we met were: Jack, Robin, Frank and Daniel (USA); Tanguy, Stijn / DJ Vlekje (Belgium); Clare, Mike, Vicy, Beth, Cat (UK); Celine, Philippe (France); Julia, Tina, Nina, Tanya, Dorthe, Dirk (Germany), Guiseppe, Manlio (Italy); Bas, Simone (Netherlands); Simona, Laura, Reli (Romania); Palma, Sergi, Ragui, Eva, Maria Jose, Angel, Josep Maria, Manuel Maria, Maat Pascual (Spain); Rahel (Switserland); Paul, Marthinus (SA); Pic of my last day -->
Sally's bar... Very nice!	Irish Inn.
We had a party for almost any event... Well I'll just show you the pictures. You can then decide for yourself if it was fun or not... The only thing I know is that I'll definately miss all of 'em and would really like to see 'em all again one day... Hey, who knows...?
On top is just one of the "get togethers" we held in our room. On the right is the cheasy 80's bar and below is a party in Bas' brother's room in Amsterdam.	Luckily they had a happy hour. Two beers for the price of one.
	The parties were just great... MMMmmm!
	Robin's room. Well, she first stayed on the 9th floor and then decided to move down to our floor. She stayed just across the corridoor from Paul and I. This picture was taken on USA's Thanks Giving... Lots of other stuff happened that night, but I'll tell you about that in the "Must Known Fact" section. Jack ( the professional card-player), as well as Paul and Robin can be seen on this pic - Just SUCKING it EASY!
We did lots of travelling too... The first place I went to was Amsterdam, with the Spanish Invation. Here we are at the very first hour of our little walk through Amsterdam which turned out to take much longer than we thought it would... PS: If you ever decide to look for a place - use the map and ask people... it's much easier that way!
Here we are at the Red light destrict... We were looking for it for a few hours before Angel got the guts to ask someone where it was. It turned out to be just 2 / 3 blocks / channels from the Youth Hostel we stayed in. As you can see on our faces we were very happy when we finally reached our goal.
The one day a few of us decided to go to Den Haag. It was a lovely thought, but the water was just too cold. Another sad thing happened that day to one of the USA guys... Daniel lost his mouth harp, it happened just after he got mad enough to go into the icy cold sea with only his boxer shorts on... Well luckily for him I heard that he got a new mouth harp and is definately enjoying every minute of it. We also walked all the way from the train station to the beach and back, next time I'll definately take a tram!
	From left to right it's Clare, Robin, Catt, Manollo... We were doing a bit of travelling through all the smaller cities and towns and were definately feeling a bit "Out of it" on this pic.
	<-- Here we are at Efteling the smaller scale of Disney world... Just a joke, but we were definately going on every ride in the fun park as if it would be our last ride. We even went on the roller coaster more than once. In some of the lines we had to wait for almost two hours before it was our turn! Hey, but every second we waited was worth it.
Clare and I went together to Paris. On our way there the train broke down once to many, but eventually we got there! On top we are in front os the Lovre. I actually got to see the Mano Lisa, haha. On the left I'm standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. We went up there in the night. It was beautiful... I took so many pictures only to see that none of 'em got developed. Paris was definately worth it.
	This was my very last day in Zwolle. A very sad day! On the right is a pic of me, my bicycle (Orphani) - the first two were called Peggy Sue I and II - and Dj Vlekje! He became the proud owner of this very special bycicle which I found on the side of the road and just build it up from there! After this picture was taken I went to the UK to visit one of my friends and then flew back to Sunny South-Africa where I now stay in Pretoria - working as a programmer in MidRand.