Bike Adventures

I got a bike! Well, actually I already have it for 14 days now, but it is still exciting. I bought it at Waterlooplein market, that’s an outside market place in the city centre where you can find anything you want - clothes, shoes, jewelry, souvenirs, food, bikes, bike chains, lockers,… Bike is one of the most important things you have to buy, if you live in Amsterdam. I knew that before I even came here. So now I have my own bike and I already feel more Dutch. Of course I am still a bit clumsy on my bike, because it is an old one with pedal breaks, and I’m used to drive my ‘mountain’ type bike with hand brakes. Well, actually I am not used to drive bike at all anymore, because since I have my motorbike and a car at home, I stopped driving my bike. And it would be really hard for me to go to school or to the city center with bike in my country, because we have a lot of hills everywhere. I am already sweating here, when I come from my place to the city, because I’m living in Diemen (7km from the city center), but in Slovenia, I think I would need a shower and fresh clothes if I would go to school with a bike. It's also quite a distance from my home to school here in Amsterdam, but hey, at the end of semester, i will have awesome sporty legs because i bike at least 15km a day. And that's why it's worth it. :D It has also good and bad side when we're leaving a party in the city, and some of us have to drive 20 minutes to come home. Usually, we are all very tired of course, so just a thought on biking so far is exhausting, but on the other hand, everytime me and my flatmates cycle back from the party together, we have an awesome funny story to tell the other day :) 

I love colourful stuff, so I had to paint my bike. Now it's even cooler! 

I saw that Dutch people don’t actually consider traffic lights important. So, I thought I don’t have to do that either. It turned out, that was a bad idea, because I don’t really know the system here, and I almost got killed two times, when I wanted to be brave like Dutch people on bikes. So from now on, I think I’m going to stop when a light is red, and start when a light is green. Oh and what about the chaos on the bike road! Almost everyone is in a hurry, and god help the pedestrians on the bike road. These are probably tourists, and everyone hates them. I think I am starting to feel annoyed by them too. Because it is true, if you are in a hurry, and there is a group of tourists on the bike road, they are all occupied with their cameras, and all the sightseeing, so they don’t even see you coming. That’s why, we have to stop our perfectly good journey to work/school/meeting, whatever, and avoid the group of tourists. But still, everything is so exciting for me now, that I am not really angry at them, because I kind of feel like one myself. I still stop and take pictures of nice places, or just from some typical Amsterdam houses, canals and stuff. My friends here are making fun of me, that I am still such a tourist. But why not? I think I can be local and tourist at once. Local on the bike, and tourist in the free time J  

First impression

I arrived in Amsterdam in the middle of August, to get to know the city a little better, before my exchange programme starts and to  participate in the Introduction week of ISN. In this week I met so many students from all over the world I couldn’t even follow anymore. They were from all over Europe, USA, Australia, Asia,… I’ve never met so many different people from so many different countries before. It’s actually quite impossible to do that in Slovenia, because it’s not very known country, so not a lot of foreign students go to visit it or go study there.

I noticed quite quickly that Amsterdam is much more diverse in all aspects, than Slovenia, or if I compare it to Ljubljana, the capital. We don’t have as much cultures on one place as here in Amsterdam. But I think this would be great for Slovenian people, because most of them are really controversial and getting to know more cultures and people from different ethnic background would help them see, that there is a lot of nice people outside of Slovenia too. More and more young people decide to study or work abroad, so at least we can share our experiences and maybe try to change opinion of controversial Slovenians.

A big difference between Dutch and Slovenian people is also in communication. Dutch guys are so straight forward that I was really surprised for the first few times, when they just said whatever they wanted to. We are usually not like that. A joke made up from Slovenian people is that Slovenian national sport is gossip. But that’s actually true. I mean, we also have a lot of very good sportsman on a lot of different fields of sport, so don’t think that’s all we can do. But it is true, that Slovenians just don’t say everything they want to. They just keep it to yourself and then talk about that with a friend. And that’s very bad. I like honesty of Dutch people, and I’m getting used to it. Oh, and another thing that shocked me was, that Dutch men don’t buy drinks to girls.. I found out about that on introduction week, when we were talking with our Dutch coach and people from my group and he said: ‘Why would you do that? Why would you buy a drink for a girl?’ And of course the reaction of ALL of us was: ‘woow, what!?’ We are from all over Europe, USA, Asia, and Australia and for all of us it’s normal, that a guy comes to you in the club or if you’re on a date he offers you a drink and of course also pays for it. But not Dutch guys. If you go on a date with a Dutch guy, you pay for your own drink and he pays for his own drink. That’s how it goes here. And don’t expect that a Dutch guy will come to you in the club and offer you a drink. You’re now in Netherland, so you pay for your own drink, or find a guy who is not Dutch if you want a free drink. ;) 

from the back: Turkish, Slovenian, American, Australian and Dutch guy's head . :)