First day at school

I have to say that I was really surprised how many people contacted me after my last story about Amsterdam. I received messages saying: “Hey, are you ok? I read your story. It will be fine! ”. I would like to respond that of course I am okay and it is getting better! Yesterday, we finished rearranging my room and I feel comfortable in it. We also met few people and we already planned some activities for following days. I am always happier when I am busy. That´s why I am already planning on finding a job here, joining some organization and registering for membership in a sport centre. I have to go over that it is not exchange anymore. It is much more serious and since we already spent a lot of money, there is no way back. I guess that the beginning is always hard and with every day it will be better.

Besides this, I decided to make a list of things I already hate about Amsterdam. Biking seemed to me amazing until today. It is just crazy when you get to the city centre full of people and everybody is busy and you are confused. We did some shopping today and I could not believe how hard was getting home from the shop. Firstly, I could not handle my full bag of food while biking and secondly, I could not handle the rules on the road. When I saw the package of potatoes on the ground of my roommate, I realized I was not probably the only one struggling.

Everything is super expensive. I have to remind this to my best friend Mara because when he started studying in Netherlands, he always argued with me that prices in Holland are almost same as in the Czech Republic – sometimes even cheaper! It is a big lie. I was trying to save money and do shopping rationally but it is impossible. Seriously, each thing costs at least 1 euro in the best case. In a worse case, it is for instance the package of 10 slices basic cheese for 2 euros. And you know what? Today we bought three bananas and a small coke for 3. 6 euros! It is unbelievable. I also want to mention that it was in the cheapest shop. When I thought that France was expensive, I was naive. More numbers: discount entrance to the club – 17 euros and our book for Real Estate Markets for amazing discounted price – 90 euros. What else should I say...

I should not complain too much about the weather because we just experienced one week of sunny weather but still – it changes a lot! On Sunday, it was raining. After sunny. Raining. Sunny. Raining. Is it normal? For real, I never know if I would be better off with the jacket or dress. They say it will be worse. I already ordered a rain coat.

School is another chapter. Today it was our first day at school. I have to say that I was happy that we had only a small group of people and we were only four girls in the class. The professor was great, except for some moments when it was difficult to understand him. The topic was interesting and I liked the lecture. The only problem is that they just made our schedule and we have four hours lectures with small breaks. Four hours? Seriously? Who could be focused for such a long time? Well, I survived it today, so I will do it next week. The worst thing was that I checked the schedule for tomorrow and we will have two subjects in a row which means 6 hours of lectures with no big break. I really don’t know if that's normal but what could I say. I can not do anything actually. I am just shocked.

I was also surprised that in our class, there are many really motivated and inspiring people. I did not expect this at all. On my exchange, it seemed to me that most of the people were at the same age or maybe even younger and they were not so serious about their plans or future. They just came to travel and have fun. It could seem childish for some people and we could say that they just spent one semester of partying and it was for nothing. I strongly don´t agree with this opinion. What is more important? Job or travelling? Money or people you met? Hours spent in the library or an unforgettable experience? I am not saying what is better. In my opinion, it is an individual issue. For me, the people I am surrounded with and experience I have been through is the thing that matters the most in the end.

Here I can see totally different people than before. Firstly, a lot of people look older. Secondly, there are many students who already worked at least one year in finance field in a company or they had some internship. Maybe it was only my impression but it looked that they knew a lot about topic we were going to learn. It was definitely an amazing thing to meet so many great, intelligent and confident people! On the one side, I did not feel so comfortable talking in front of these people since they are more experienced and I felt like I already missed something. On the other side, I also spent a lot of time by studying in Prague at the university and there was not much space for having an extra internship or serious work. I have time for this stuff. I guess that this should be an advantage for me to study with these people because I am always really adaptive and I want to catch up. It means that they could motivate me to study more. Although I am not sure if it is going to happen. I prefer having many activities over studying hard.

Since I should stop complaining I would love to share one thing that made me happy lately. I just received a message from a strange Brazilian girl. I did not know her before. In the beginning, she just said she was going to study in Lille and she had some questions. Later on, I found out that she read many of my articles. When she told me that I made her relaxed about Lille and she had no worries anymore, I felt so happy. I think that my writing already fulfilled its purpose. When I started to write this blog, I did it because of the competition in the first place. I did not expect people to read everything I write – not even my friends. I just tried automatically write my experiences. Sometimes I was annoyed with writing and sometimes I was excited to share my travelling stories. Later on, I realized that the stories I write really matter to me. I would like to write a whole article about the advantages of writing a blog and why it was beneficial for me, by the way. To make it short now, I was always more than happy when my friends wrote me some replies to the things I wrote. These people were the ones who made me to continue and motivated me. I always appreciated support from them and they made me feel really good. But the fact that my advices helped someone to make her choices about her exchange is the most valuable thing for me I could ever imagine. I am so delighted to hear it. (By the way I am also super jelous she can go there! ). On the other side, I hope I won´t discourage anybody from studying in Amsterdam!

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