adventurethereandbackagain

[adventurethereandbackagain]

Four times as charming, five times as magical

This week was full of new challenges and adventures, but most importantly a chance to learn more.

Just look at those three buddies just sitting in a class, still learning.

There’s also a secret map of Zwolle that I found out about when roaming the city in the evenings.

And just look at that brug (bridge in English)!!

Tuesday came with the same old start.

But i found some shiny balls in the city.

Wednesday morning was rainy but I found the cutest rain boots when arriving at school.

Also, meet the kiosk that got a new and colorful keyboard!

Some amazing secrets easy to miss from Agnietenberg.

“Ratas all paremas nurgas” I would say, but it takes an Estonian to get the joke.

Thursday came with mildly amusing errors from servers refusing updates.

Friday showed us the preparations for a Lego building competition.

I spent the evening roaming the town in search of a dress for my mother. What’s important tho is that I think they might be copying Sims 3 lawn ornaments around here. 

Life imitating art 1 - is that from Sims?

Life imitating art 2 - That man must be an angel in disguise

Life imitating art 3 - still quite sure I’ve seen it in Sims

Saturday was spent birdwatching and relaxing before an adventure.

That’s me, enjoying the sun and birdwatching.

The bravest bird.

Sunday morning took me to the train station once again.

Destination? ROTTERDAM!

Knight in not so shining armor.

What does the fox mail?

With a side step to Den Haag aka the Hague

Just look at the happy lady in the windows :D

This is for big writers’ blocks.

Strike a pose for me?

Weird humans of the Netherlands

And back to Rotterdam!

Meet the Santa Claus of the old.

And the Moon Moon of boats - Bor Bor!

Made a new feline friend.

And had two lovely tour guides originally from Estonia!

When I returned to Zwolle I was greeted with a beautiful piano piece.

[adventurethereandbackagain]

[adventurethereandbackagain]

All good things come in thirds, all great people grow

Last week with our interns, the ones who have been teaching us the tricks of the support here. Next week we get our own dutch interns to show the tricks of the trade to and to assist in the incidents yet to come. It will be a challenge but it will help us all grow and learn the valuable skills of teaching as well. The only discouragement we feel for new people is that they might not be very comfortable with speaking English. It is not as common around here for young people to speak English freely as it is in Estonia. I think it is mostly because of the fear of making mistakes or not knowing the words.

Now to the main part of this post - the pictures from my week! Let’s start it off with an ice breaker from Monday.

Tuesday was chilly and there was fog everywhere. Very fun to see, not so easy to capture.

Oh and by the way. As a competition is coming up tomorrow we are serving a switch for lunch today!

Wednesday was quiet photo wise.We also got to clean up the workstations we set up the day before for the competition.

Thursday morning we switched out computers in media class which had the most inspiring view of the sunrise.

Even the sunset was beautiful that day.

I have totally skipped photos Friday. Most likely because we helped out Saturday and had Friday off so I just spent it doing nothing but catching up with friends online and working on writing the report.

Saturday was yet another chance for adventure! Amsterdam awaited and so did a friend from Belgium to share the tourist experience with. 

The bikes at the local station at Zwolle are not as many as you’d think.

Hey, look, it’s almost the same in Amsterdam!

The locals looked real friendly.

Too many tourists, must take tourist photos, just not in the conventional sense.

That passage way seemed a bit too fishy to walk through.

Protestors at their finest. Welcome to reality. I like reality and people standing up for what they believe to be right.

The honesty of the Amsterdam Dungeons is real.

Once we got out of the dungeons it was already dark.

It was also dark in Zwolle when I got back.

The Sunday that week was spent in perfectly comfortable rest.

[adventurethereandbackagain]

Second to none, yet still the second week

The mornings are early and the nights are long. We get to experience snow and cold and slippery roads, but nothing a good warm cup of hot chocolate cannot fix. 

First of all, I would like you all to meet my roommate, one of many actually. This one was the biggest and so it and its friends moved to outside after being discovered. They didn’t catch any of the big house flies that woke up when it got warm inside thus they now have to move back into the roof.

But now- let the trips to our work place begin again. Through rain and fog and snow this time.

Monday was still warm enough, albeit a bit foggy in the morning.

Tuesday took us by surprise...

Meet my amazing classmate during one of our breaks.

And the rest of our practical training place.

So came Wednesday with more winter wonderland or how a local described it to us - fairytale time.

On Thursday the snow was already starting to melt.

But it still lingered around for a while. Yet we were happy that Friday came, despite us helping out on Saturday as well.

Also some photos from around the Deltion College.

Saturday we had to get to our practical training place a little bit later so I used the extra time in the morning to snap a few shots around Molecaten Park De Agnietenberg aka the place where we stay.

And then it was off to school again.

It was the open doors event at Deltion College on Friday and Saturday so we helped with setting up and taking down the tech. We also had a chance to look around and explore the school ourselves.

Sunday was spent hanging out with a friend I made here which was fun. 

I even got to walk the amazing dog - Jason!

The scenic route to work and never a dull moment really helped me to get used to the life around here. It has been fun and quite amazing around here so far.

[adventurethereandbackagain]

So that’s how you ride in style.

[adventurethereandbackagain]

Welcome to the Netherlands

It’s been a week since we arrived. Me and 3 guys from my school. I even managed to get them in one picture at the airport at Tallinn.

We took a train from Amsterdam to Zwolle and then a taxi from the station to the camping site where we are staying for our time here. 

We were shown the local stores so we could get some food and the next day we were shown how to get to school. I chose to walk on that day so I had to find the way to the school on my own. (Took me two days to develop blisters that made me switch from walking to cycling.) Here are some things I saw on the way.

When we finally got to Deltion College we were introduced to the teachers and interns at the IT support of the school. They were the ones to help us get used to the school. From now on we would work side by side with them. Despite the obvious language barrier, as they would speak in Dutch most of the time, we could easily tag along with them and get the general idea of most support cases we were to work on.

I also got to do a little work for the school’s internal network as I work on the system they use while in Estonia as well.

It rained on the second day at the place of our internship. We were expecting the rain.

What we did not expect was the snow next morning. 

On the weekend some of us visited the local town and some decided to take the train to see other cities around the country.

But hey, where else can you park a boat in the middle of the city?

[adventurethereandbackagain]

Zwolle, a city with culture and wonder. 4 more weeks will be spent interning here.

[adventurethereandbackagain]

[adventurethereandbackagain]

Sunburns, roofs and excitement

I'm on a mission trip to Lasara right now so I don't have much energy or time left at the end of the day to post here, I will get you all some pictures after I get back home from here, well, the home I have while I'm over here anyway. 

I'm rather fried from the two days of working outside in the sun all day long and putting up a roof on a local house here in Lasara. (I'm at a hotel in Raymondville right now... waiting for the meeting.) It has been fun and a real joy to help out where I can as I feel quite useless knowing almost nothing about construction and not being a man. Haha! At least I'll try to help out in any way I can and run around lending a hand. Apparently even the small things seems to get people appreciative over here. Maybe I just don't see how the small things I do help them as to me it seems like no real work, even if my feet say otherwise - they're burning up from standing up almost all day long. 

But I'll run now and continue my adventure! Ice cream social tomorrow :D and maybe some pictures later if I'm not too tired.

[adventurethereandbackagain]

4th of July

Oh well what a day!!  Shopping and bbq and guns and fireworks. What a day... 

I mean... Just a total amazing adventure. 

[adventurethereandbackagain]

[adventurethereandbackagain]

Good bye Estonia :D

[adventurethereandbackagain]

This died real quick but it is back now

Respawn time was long this time, wasn't it. But I'm going on an adventure again and I'm ready to take on the challenges and receive all the blessing waiting for me :D

[adventurethereandbackagain]

The Making of 'She Clicks Her Heels' (by jetproductionsextra) This is what I've been doing this week :) 

[adventurethereandbackagain]

Heavy and lovely :)

[adventurethereandbackagain]

We walk past this every time we walk to town or home from town :)

[adventurethereandbackagain]

Weekend begins...

We had no idea of what would become of us when we set out that morning... We just knew we'd go to Joseph Wright building of the Derby College.

After a long walk to the city centre (which we're already used to) we met up with Callum at Westfield centre and headed to school. Mid first lesson we were stolen away from our buddies to show us where we'll be for the first two weeks. 

JET Productions. We'll be working with two WOWsome blokes who love what they're doing (I'm really looking forward for Monday). We were given a schedule of what we'll be doing over these two weeks... One word - EPIC! 

After the introduction we didn't head back to college but decided to stay at the studio and hang around until the game even at Derby University as we would've gone there anyway. 

That even was pretty wicked!

After that Brett and Jason showed us some more Uni buildings and a really neat park (Markeaton Park) and A38 and GRASS! Can you believe that? :D When our nice tour ended Brett took us back home (Derby Conference Centre). With that our Friday kinda ended... Besides the Estonian theatre night in the teakitchen.

Saturday we went shopping and Sunday I spent home... That about sums up my weekend. Hope yours was more interesting.