I participated in this programme in 2023. I really enjoyed being
there in May, then in February, because the Netherlands is more spring country
than the city of Prague.
Language:
For exercising and training English, this programme is great. You
have to speak all the time. It is not really polite to speak Czech behind your
exchange students' backs. They have really good English and you can catch every
new word you don't know.
However, going there to learn the language is not a good idea.
They don't want to spend time teaching you the language. It is much better to
go there with some level of English. But our school is able to teach you this
level, so don't be worried.
The country:
Seeing the country with this programme is great. Living in a
smaller city is really nice, because you can see the typical Dutch
infrastructure of the city. Amsterdam is much more crowded than Leiden, so you
aren't able to see the great usage of bikes. In Leiden however, the biking
system around the city is spectacular! You can get everywhere in the city in 30
minutes. They have separate roads and cyclists have much more respect for the
bikes, than here in the Czech Republic. The city of Leiden is a really nice
city. It is able to show you almost every typical Dutch food including food,
architecture, culture, infrastructure etc. The all day trip to Amsterdam was
pretty good, but Leiden is a much better city to live in as the students that
participated in this programme said. Overall, when it is your first time being
there, they will put a big effort on showing their country throughout the whole
exchange.
School programme:
The school programme was always except one whole day trip in the morning. The main topic is cultural differences and I think it's a great topic, because you can learn a lot about their culture and living in the Netherlands. But as the weather was changing a lot, the programme was not flexible enough. We had to have a boat trip in Leiden, when it was raining a lot. It would be better to go bowling that day and instead of bowling, we would go on a boat trip in nice weather. Bu
t even when this happened, I enjoyed the school programme anyway.
Overall:
I enjoyed the whole programme in Prague and in Leiden. I learned a
lot about their culture and I met pretty nice people. It's really well made
from both sides and the teachers did a good job. I would recommend this
programme.
Štěpán Komárek 8. B
