Be Berlin

Hi there readers, and welcome back to my blog! In this post I will be sharing all my experiences of Berlin with you. If you all read my previous blog you will have read that last week I went on a study trip to Berlin. It was AWSOME! Seriously if you get a chance to go and see Berlin GO! So my story, here it is:

My day started relaxed, I took a shower, got changed, had breakfast and performed all the other usual morning rituals. The tour bus would leave at 8.15, but some people were late and we didn’t leave until 8.40. So finally at 8.40 the bus left college and we were off. The trip wasn’t too bad, we watched a couple of movies in the bus, some were listening to music and one fellow classmate decided to sleep on the floor. We crossed the border to Germany at about 11.30 where we had a break.

At 17.00 we arrived at the hostel. In the lobby everyone received a room key card and clean bed sheets. I shared the room with Hassan and David. The room was neat and quite modern. I quickly made my bed and went downstairs to have dinner in the restaurant of the hostel. After dinner we had a tour through the Jewish quarter. I was surprised how many buildings in Berlin weren’t renovated and most of them really looked neglected. Our guide explained that the government doesn’t force the owners to renovate the houses as long as they are still safe to live in. After the tour I went up to the 7th floor of the hostel: the bar!

Tuesday up early for breakfast, we would be visiting a 4* hotel called the Maritim. We received a tour through the hotel seeing some off the suites and bedrooms, also the restaurant, and a massive conference room, it was very impressive! We got a short lunch break and after lunch we were guided through Berlin’s oldest cinema called the Coliseum, the guide explained how the projection and the sound worked and how it used to be. Then it was time for the FAT Tire bike tour! The bus took us to the TV antenna where our guide was waiting for us and where we collected our bikes. We cycled through Berlin seeing most of the must see places in Berlin including Checkpoint Charlie, The wall, The Reichstag, the Brandenburger Tor and the Holocaust memorial. I spent the rest of the evening with a group of 7 girls. We had dinner at a pizzeria not to far from the hostel and went out to party in the evening.

Wednesday morning and yet another tour. It was a tour of bunkers built during WWII to protect the German against invasion. A huge system between the streets and the subway of Berlin. After the tour we got the opportunity to have some lunch in a nearby shopping centre.
At 12.30 we were picked up by the bus and taken to SachsenHausen an old concentration camp. I thought it was sad, interesting and weird! All around the camp there where ordinary houses. The camp was build in the middle of this town and during the war everyone that lived around the camp was able to see what was going on inside, but did nothing. We got to see how and where the prisoners lived, where people were executed and remains of the ovens that were used to burn the dead. After this rather depressing tour we returned to the hostel. A pub crawl was planned for us that evening and we needed to grab some dinner and get ready for it. The pub crawl started at 8, we visited 4 different pubs and a club at the end, apparently the club wasn’t to good, but I can’t remember that part I did remember I had a good time though :D.

Thursday already and our last day in Berlin, A Hollywood tour was on the schedule so another early start. Not everyone made it after the pub crawl. The ones that did had a hang over. The Hollywood tour was good fun though. Our guide walked us through the city showing us locations where well known films where shot. I recognized Alexanderplatz from the movie the Born Supremacy, it was funny to know that a famous person had once been where I was now standing. What also made the tour special for me was the fact that I got to see a Bugatti Veyron. The tour ended at about 12 which gave us the afternoon of for shopping. I went shopping and got some gifts for back home. Then back to the hostel to get some sleep because I was tired I there was still one evening left. The dinner had been taken care of, we had to be at the restaurant at 18.45. The restaurant had sort of a German farmers theme, all waitresses were dressed up and the restaurant was decorated a bit funny, the food was good, which is the most important thing after all. The rest of the evening was spent drinking and chatting, in one of the rooms. Then we decided we wanted to go out and find a club to go and dance. We didn’t want to return to a club were we had been before, but we couldn’t really find anything else. Half of the group did want to go back into the bar where we were on Tuesday, but I didn’t so I and 3 others took a cab back to the hostel and went to bed.

The Bus trip back wasn’t really comfortable for me, because I am quite tall I could place my legs comfortably and I had some kind of a allergic reaction to something in the bus. My left eye kept on crying and I had a runny nose :(.

Overall the trip was a big success! I saw a lot of new things and really enjoyed every day! The fact that we had excursions every day was a bit of a shame really because I would have wanted to walk around the city a bit more by my self, although the tours were really interesting! The best thing would be to go longer, or for me to go again.

Well the end is near!

Next week just a normal week again at school, glad to be back, but I do miss Berlin!

Thanks for reading,

;) Daniel

Have I packed everything?

Underpants... check, socks... check, T-shirts... check and my ID… check! Ok I’m good to go! Where to? Berlin! When, with whom and why? Tomorrow, with fellow students, and because its fun! Well actually because it’s obligatory, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t going to be fun.

Tomorrow morning 8.15 the bus to Berlin leaves school. Most fellow TRM students (unfortunately not everyone was able to afford this trip, we are students after all) and most LM (leisure management) students are going to explore Berlin. The idea was to visit the biggest tourism fair in Europe, but when we booked the hotel, the fair was moved to a different date. Cancelling wasn’t an option so now we are going to explore the city.

This will be my first visit to Berlin, and I’m really looking forward to it! I have loads of questions: What are the Germans like? What is the food like? What is the nightlife like? Anyway I’m bound to find out soon! Next week I will tell you all about it and I will include some pictures :D.

Last week has been quite relaxing really. Not to much has happened, life goes on as usual. Working on the new project. I will explain about the new project. As in previous periods the class is divided into project groups. This period I will be working together with Sanne, Claudia, Marleen an Achille. I worked with Sanne and Achille on the first project of this year, so this makes collaboration easier and better. Claudia and Marleen are both hard workers, so I got lucky this period. Sanne has the role of product manager, Claudia is the procurement manager, Marleen is the general and the human resource manager, Achille is the marketing manager, and I am the financial manager. Anyway you still don’t know what the project is about. Every group is has to run a tour operator! There is a website that simulates the companies. Running a tour operator means: making and selling package tours, determining Marketing strategies, how many employees do we employ, how many beds do we purchase in which hotel in which location. All these decisions have to be made every week. Every week in real life is a year in this “tour operator game”. What makes the game interesting, is the fact that every other group in your class is your competitor running its own tour operator. Every week new decision are made, and every week new results are generated based on the decisions we have made. Currently my group is doing really well! We are in second place and making a nice profit (how much is confidential I’m afraid.). When a new year begins, new destinations appear and we have to invest according to our strategy. The thing is we don’t have a strategy, so basically we are just trying to stay near the top. I guess that is a strategy :P

So that’s all for this week, I will write all about my experiences of Berlin next week, so be sure to read that!

Ciao ;) Daniel

A new week, a new blog

Hi Everyone (Zac/Anne) It's great to see you are back on my blog! :D Thanks for the feedback from last week. If you are new on my blog feel free to join it and give me some feedback ;-) just mail me @ 453927@inholland.nl. In my feedback I was asked to explain my blog name (Quik silva). If you now me you might have noticed I wear a lot of Quiksilver clothes, I have wanted to surf for a long time. One day my dad bought me a pair of Quiksilver board shorts (long swimming trunks surfer's wear) and ever since I have been mostly wearing Quiksilver clothes. My surname is Silva and Quiksilva has kind of been my internet name, so there you go.

Last week I told you my blog would be about college and my private life. So last week being about college this week I will be sharing with you how I spend my time outside college. Obviously most of my time is spent @ or for school, project work, lectures, project work, blogging, etc.

When I get home on Mondays and Thursdays I straight away have dinner (do you finish college that late?), no I start work @ 5 on these days. So after a long day at school I take home the bus, have dinner and go to work. I work at a local supermarket called Deen (www.deen.nl) the work isn’t much fun, but I get along great with my colleges and this gets me trough the evening. At nine we close and go home. On Thursdays I get to leave at 8.30 because I have to training at 9.

On Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursdays I spend my time training for water polo, On Tuesday and Thursday I train from 9 to 10, and on Wednesdays from 7 until 8. The late trainings are tough! I train with the men, and we are trained by an international reverie. On Wednesdays I train with my own team (the <19s). Our coach trains us, but my teammates don’t swim half as fast as the old men.

On Friday evening I am off! :D Sometimes I start work at 6 on Saturday mornings to earn a little extra cash, if that is the case it’s an early night for me. If I’m off on Saturday I sometimes play poker with some mates or I go out with my girlfriend Nienke.

The last time I played. I got to heads up (the finale) but I only had €8,85 and my opponent had €51,15. So I had to double up to make a chance! The first hand I got was 66, I put all my chips in the middle (all-in) and tested my luck. My opponent called and we had to show our cards. He revealed two sevens, and it didn’t look good for me. :-( The flop and turn weren’t of any importance. I feared the worst and got up to leave the table. Then the final card was shown… a 6! This gave me three of a kind and won me the hand. I went on and won the game :D.

(A small explanation for the people that don’t know about poker Texas hold’em http://www.pkr.com/poker-school/how-to-play-poker.cfm)

Saturday evening I play water polo matches. I always play for my own team of course, and sometimes I am asked to play for the men’s team 1,2 or 3 (1 being the best). Last Saturday I played for the 3rd team (I must explain these are the guys that see training as an excuse to get out off to house to go and drink beer with their team mates, which is fair enough, and why they never win.) But together with 3 other teammates of mine we won the match (most likely the first one ever!) the score was 5-9 (I scored 4 ^^).

Sunday morning I volunteered to train the youth of the club (the <14s), I get up @ 7.30 have a small breakfast and then cycle to the swimming pool. Most of them are good swimmers, unfortunately not all of them, but that’s where I come in. during the afternoon I usually relax, make some work for school, go visit my best friend Cesar or girlfriend Nienke, or watch some TV.

I have recently discovered a series that is called scrubs, It has been going for a while now but I hadn’t seen it before 1 ½ months or so ago. It’s about a beginning doctor and his friend (check http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285403/ for more info) I also like watching Top gear with my dad. It’s a car programme presented by 3 idiots that do different challenges that have to do with cars, like for instance building an amfibious car and crossing the channel.

That’s all folks!

See you next week

Daniel Silva

My first blog

Hey everyone! Welcome to my first blog ever. My name is Daniel Silva, I’m 17 years old and I am a first year student at Inholland university in Diemen. I am studying TRM (Tourism and recreation Management). In this blog I will write about my experiences at college and a bit about my personal life.

I have unusual routes. My mom is Dutch, and my dad is from Gibraltar. I was born in Amsterdam and lived there until 2000, when I moved to Purmerend (a small town north of Amsterdam). In Purmerend I finished my primary school and went to secondary School. And after finishing that last year I ended up at Inholland. I’m Dutch, but then why am I doing an English study? Well, my dad being from Gibraltar I was raised speaking both Dutch and English, so I decided to give myself an advantage in the future work field by doing the English version of the study.

Sailing into my new life!:

Before the school year started I went on a three day introduction tour. The tour started at school where we were expected to be at 1 o clock. I met up with an old friend, who was a fellow secondary school student that would also be studying at Inholland. When we arrived we had to go in school to receive some information about the introduction. I met up with new students that would follow the same course as me, my friend went her own way from here. At 4 o clock everyone got on busses and we were off. We went to a small famous fishing village Volendam. In Volendam 26 sailing ships were waiting for us to take us out sailing. It was an impressive sight. I found my boat and met up with the people I would be sharing the boat with. Everyone on my boat was Dutch and was also following the tourism course, Most would follow the Dutch course, and some would be following the English course like me. Being with Dutch students made me feel quite comfortable, but I remember finding it a shame that there weren’t any international students. The group consisted of 4 guys including me and an older student who was there to supervise (Amar) and me. All the other students were girls! :-) that evening we went out for dinner in Volendam and later that evening there was a great club that we went to. The next morning after breakfast we left port and headed to Amsterdam! I bonded with my fellow students while sailing and made some friends. In Amsterdam we had to play a trading game trying to trade a pen for something that was worth more, to then trade that for something that was even more valuable. As a group we decided the introduction was about bonding and getting to know each other and we decided it was more fun to go into Amsterdam together and explore the city. That evening we went out to Panama (a club in Amsterdam) and had a great night. After a late night we had to leave the boat early, we all cleared up the boat and packed our bags and returned home exhausted.

My first day:

After a fun introduction week my first real day at college, my new study, my new life had arrived! My first lesson was an introduction into the project. I had loads of questions and was quite nervous; what would my classmates be like? Was school difficult? What was the project all about?! I was welcomed By Feico and Jennifer, my consultant and tutor for the project. The teachers were very friendly and explained all about the project, and then divided us into groups, my group had 6 members. The assignment was to present our chosen country on a holiday fair held at school to promote our destination to all the visitors. I was looking forward to the project and wanted to get started straight away. But I had had other lessons to attend. The rest of the day went well, I must admit though, I struggled to stay concentrated as the lectures were 1,5 hours, and I wasn’t used to that. In period 1 these were my lectures: Spanish, English, Management, Successful team, Project based teaching and learning, Research techniques and Introduction to tourism. Before, between or after these lectures I would have meetings with my project group with our consultant and tutor to talk about the process of the project, I felt this was good, because in that way when you didn’t understand you could ask about it, and the tutor and consultant would clarify it for you.

So, I finished my first post ever! I shared my experience of the beginning of the school year and my first day, I hope you enjoyed reading, and you will hear from me next week.

Take care,

;-) Daniel Silva