Dag 8 (13 feb): Bezoek aan Delfshaven

This day was promising: we were going on excursion to Delfshaven in the afternoon. But first: the concept of education by Mr. Pols. I don’t know to which subject in Belgium I could link this subject but the names of the people we are going to discuss sounded famous (Vygotsky, Dewey and Arendt). I think I heard their names when I was studying in Ghent at Artevelde, but I’m not sure.

This first lesson we had to answer the 5 basic questions from our own point of view. Next lesson we have to answer them through a presentation with answers from our own country. How would Belgium answer to these questions? Now, at first, it wouldn’t be Belgium that answered but Flanders because I have no idea how the education works in the Walloon provinces.

After this subject we had almost 3 free hours. Ana, Silvia (both from Spain), Derya (from Turkey) and I went to a restaurant I knew very close to the school. It’s called Ari and it serves good food for low prices, especially at the lunch hour. We all ate something and the girls were really surprised by the prices and by the huge pepper-mill they use in the restaurant.

After our lunch we went for a stroll passing some funny shops. We took a lot of funny photos and we also ate some cake from a shop where they sold muffins, cookies and cakes in all flavours. Then we walked back to school, passing the NAI and the Boijmans Van Beuningen museum.

At the reception Mrs. de Wit-Storimans was attending us to take us to Delfshaven, a village next to Rotterdam.
In this village we were confronted with great differences: on the one side you had modern buildings and on the other you had old buildings and living boats in the old harbour. We saw the house of Piet Heyn and his statue.
The things that I’ll remember are the old and cosy houses and the antique shops.
The working mill is also something to remember. The man who worked there lived in Belgium (near Hasselt).
At the end of the excursion Mrs. de Wit-Storiman wanted to buy us a drink but she forgot her wallet so we paid for ourselves: this is called a Dutch treat. She promised us to pay next time (actually, I feel we should pay her drink for all her efforts and interesting facts).
I’ll remember Delfshaven as a beautiful cosy town with some special corners.