Italians safely brought home by our own Romereis bus

Above you can see mrs Marchese looking very worried because she had to announce that the Italian students had to deal with the fact that their flight was cancelled. As soon as the debate started everybody tried to forget the volcanic ash and did their best to perform well. It was a very good and well prepared debate: according to the outsiders who observed the debate very good indeed! A fine way to end a week of hard work and lots of fun!

Extra information about the ashcloud

At tne moment we are arranging a bustrip home for the Italian students. At this moment we don't know yet at what time the Italians will leave. As soon as we know more about the time that the Italian students are leaving we will let you know.
We know now that we will leave tomorrow morning as early as possible and we will leave from the busstation in front of the Central Station, opposite the Kruidvat/former Chinese.More details as soon as possible
One of the propositions was about the sustainability of bustrips ..thank you Giulio!

Mrs Roos

Real sustainable buildings and a boottrip

In the morning we visited two sustainable buildings. The report about this visit is not finished yet but we do have pictures !

Delft afternoon: social sustainability and fine time

Wednesday 14th of april, EEP

Today we were in Delft. After having lunch at Van Nature, we split up in three groups. The afternoon contained two parts: The social assignment and the fine time. For the social assignment, the dutch students had organized a meeting at a municipality centre for children and young adults, who have problems participating in society. A friendly woman told us about her job. She helps children who have problems at home or at school by talking to them and motivating them. This way she supports them to change the way they are living now. They get a better chance at good future. She showed us the building and after this we went back to the place where we had lunch. Then the fine time started. We split up in groups again. Our group, group 2, rent ‘kickbikes’ (dutch: steps/ Italian: monopattino). With the kickbikes we went to the Nieuwe Kerk. We walked around inside the church and looked at the grave of Willem of Oranje, who was murdered in Delft in 1584. After this we climbed the stairs of the tower of the church. Those were a LOT of stairs, but it was really worth it because of the view. We left the church and took a break on the square. The sun was shining so we were very lucky. After the break we returned the kickbikes to the rental, where we got a tiny pair of clogs as a souvenir. Then the fine time was over and everybody could relax, shop or enjoy the sun. At seven o’clock we had dinner at Het Pakhuis. We all got six little dishes to share in pairs. First we had sushi and raw salmon. After this we got baked fish and little seasoned pancakes. The last dishes were pasta with pesto and feta and some chicken. We enjoyed dinner very much because of the different dishes. It was funny to see how the Italians couldn’t handle the Chinese chopsticks very well, unlike the Dutch students! In the end everybody got a bit tired because of the walking, kickbiking and climbing stairs, but we had a very nice day!
Jennifer & Patrizia

Italians at Den Haag

Oggi siamo andati a visitare la capitale amministrativa olandese Hague che si trova nelle vicinanze di Leiden e la prima tappa della nostra gita e’stata al Mauritshuis. Le cose che rendono questo museo cosi particolare sono I dipinti che illustrano la storia della pittura olandese e dei suoi maggiori maestri, ma anche l’edificio in cui si trovano, con tante belle sale che risalgono al XVII secolo.
I quadri che hanno colpito di piu la nostra attenzione sono stati “La ragazza con l’orecchino di perla” di Vermeer e “La lezione di anatomia del Dott. Nicholas Tulp” di Rembrandt, due dei piu preziosi capolavori custoditi nel museo.
Il Mauritshuis si trova proprio vicino al centro della citta’ e questo ci ha consentito, una volta terminate la visita, di fare un giro della citta e percorrere le vie principali dove abbiamo goduto di due ore di tempo libero in cui ci siamo dedicati all’acquisto di qualche souvenir e abbiamo potuto gustare i tipici pancakes olandesi.
Verso sera abbiamo preso il treno per tornare a Leiden dove ci attendevano i nostri compagni olandesi. Anche se la giornata e’stata molto impegnativa e’stato divertente visitare la citta’ di Hague e trascorrere del tempo insieme. Ora dopo un breve riposo in famiglia ci prepariamo per la serata che come al solito sara’davvero cool.
Today we have visited the Dutch administrative capital Den Haag that is situated close to Leiden and the first stop of our trip was at the Mauritshuis Museum. What makes the Mauritshuis so unique are the paintings that illustrate the history of the Dutch painting and its most important masters, and also the building in which they can be seen, with a lot of beautiful rooms going back to the XVII century.
The paintings that have more captured our attention are “The girl with a pearl earring” by Vermeer and “The anatomy lesson of Dott. Nicholas Tulp” by Rembrandt, two of the most precious masterpieces in the museum.
The Mauritshuis is close to the city centre, so at the end of our visit we could walk through Den Haag’s main streets where we enjoyed two hours’ free time, bought some souvenirs and also had time to taste the typical Dutch pancakes.
In the evening we took the train back to Leiden where our Dutch school mates were waiting for us.
Even it was a tiring day it was amusing to visit the Hague and spend the time together.
Now, after a short rest with our families, we are getting ready for the evening that, as usual, will be really cool.

Italians in Amsterdam

(this is the beach on saturday--no pictures of the amsterdam available at the moment)

On Sunday the 11th of April we went with a large group to Amsterdam. It was the “ familyday” but we thought going with a large group to Amsterdam would be much more fun!
At 12.00 pm everybody arrived at Central Station and we were very excited, because Holland maybe is a small country, but everybody knows en loves the great Amsterdam! After 30 minutes we arrived at Central Station, and I couldn’t believe it, the sun was shining! Even though Amsterdam is of course a beautiful city, but in the sun it’s even more beautiful!
You can see a lot of things in Amsterdam, like a vodkamuseum, the red light district and a condomerie Everybody heard about the many many coffeeshops, so some of us, were quite interested to (just)have a look.Everything is possible In Amsterdam! We had lunch in a small café, I think they were very happy with us, because everybody could hear us…. After lunch we split up, because some wanted to go to the ‘ Vondelpark’ en especially the girls wanted to see the huge numbers of shops! The favorite shop was a tourist shop with souvenirs, I’ve been in like 3 of them. (They are all the same but…) But also shoe shops were popular on our shoppingtour! Who says only the Italians know what nice shoes are?!
Time flies when you’re having fun, so at 17.00 pm we gathered all together at CS again to discuss further plans. Some of the group wanted to eat at the Mac Donalds, but my mother cooks great (my opinion) so we decided with some others to leave Amsterdam. Tired but satisfied we sat in the train, laughed about all the funny things we saw and talked about the next days. The Italians will go a Second time to Amsterdam, but I’ m sure, it won’t be the last time!

Eva Galbiati and Eva Rabe.

Mondaymorning

This morning we went to school very early. When we arrived at school we went to the classroom to listen to the introduction. After that everyone had to work on their statements in their groups. We were send to different classrooms. We had to think of two statements about specific topics from sustainability. We have to discuss about these topics on Friday. It was also important to think of good arguments to defend yourself. Then we had to look up some facts on the internet, to support the statements. We also had to make a powerpoint about our subjects with some extra information usefull for General assembly on Friday.







Hessel Stuurman and Allessandro Balduzzi

Redesign the neighbourhood

After lunch we met in the classroom again where an expert, Mr Kaashoek or in english Mr Cheescorner, was waiting for us. He gave a presentation about how the neighbourhood of the school was, is, and will be. He showed pictures and videos of how the neighbourhood will look like in two years. After the illuminating presentation we were assigned to make up a question with our group which contained italians and dutch. Some of the questions were very good and Mr Cheescorner was impressed. Then we had to take a look at the neighbourhood. We took pictures of the buildings that we wanted to change or to replace. When we got back to school, after an exhausting walk through the neigbourhood, there were little bags of chips and drinks waiting for us. After everybody had come back, we started to think about the neighbourhood of our dreams. We could make whatever we wanted but we had to make sure it was sustainable. You could hear everybody's brain work and the pencils draw. Everybody finished their beautiful plans and showed them to the other groups in the hall. Every group explained how and why they designed there neighbourhood as they did. After this everybody got 2 green stickers and we had to put them on the plans we liked. We also got a post- it, where we could write why we liked something, and put it on a plan. At the end we al got back to the classroom to take our bags and jackets and we went all home.






Alessia Basadonne and Alenka Wels

Singing,dancing and dining

Friday evening our Italian guests arrived by plane. Saturday afternoon we started our first 'session'. We went to the beach on bike and this itself was pretty exhausting,the games at the beach were even more exhausting! This meant that everybody was very hungry saturday night...no problem, there was enough food!





This is what Anton and Giulio have reported about saturday night:


The Dutch Presentation:
The Dutch opened their programme with their version of the godfather, in which of course money, drugs and woman played a big role. A Happy end came after all (except of course for the boys' girlfriends), with the help of good old Nederweed. After that we continued with a quiz, which consisted of various subjects on The Netherlands (Geography, Politics, History, Fashion...) and a final question about the coolest school in Holland (it wasn't a surprise the Bona was NOT the right answer).


Then it was time for the Italians to show their programme. At the end, however, it was time for the Dutch to get on the stage once more, and do their final act; A marvellous masterpiece of Music, composed by our greatest and most respected students, Sjoerd and Christiaan. It went into a big success, despite the fears of a total 'fiasco'. (As you might expect when not even half of the quire knew the lyrics, and hardly anybody knew the melody) In one word; A perfect performance!





The Italian Presentation:
The Italians opened their presentation with an amazing quiz called 'Who wants to be an Italian?'' about Italy, and especially Voghera. Almost every answer was given correctly as the public consisted of both Dutch and Italian people. The show continued with the song "' Azzurro"' by the Italian singer Adriano Celentano, followed by a series of dances inspired by the movie "Grease".It took ten minutes to start the dance, as the boys still thought it would fail. At the end the girls performed "This is the life" by Amy McDonald with the guitar.

Finally, we can conclude that both schools performed (almost) as well as each other.

Start EEP 2010

With a lot of help from former students, parents and sixth-formers from our other schoolbuilding at the Fruinlaan we started EEP last week.
After a biological lunch (even the plastics were sustainable) students informed each other about the latest news about scientific and political developments in the field of social and ecological sustainability. We practised our debating skills with the help of former participants of EEP. Experts in the field of sustainable architecture,
agriculture and mobility gave their account of the things that are possible and the problems that you have to solve when you really want to improve things. A flying start indeed !


Met hulp van ouders, oud-leerlingen (of combinaties daarvan) en 6e klassers die speciaal waren ingevlogen vanuit de Fruinlaan is een begin gemaakt met ons uitwisselingsproject met Voghera, Italie.
Het programma was als altijd heel gevarieerd. Biologisch lunchen,informatie uitwisselen over de nieuwste trends op duurzaamheidsgebied, een debat met als stelling: 'social inequality is a bigger problem than the climate crisis' en, last not but least, een meet and greet met 3 experts uit het veld. Daarvoor kregen we de hulp van dhr. van der Stok, specialist op het gebied van verkeersstromen en op dit moment o.a. verantwoordelijk voor de veiligheid rond het nieuwe schoolgebouw. Hij kon ons echter ook vertellen dat Leiden de stad is met de minste CO2 uitstoot die samenhangt met mobiliteit per inwoner van heel Nederland !

Het bureau waarvoor hij werkt heeft een computerprogramma ontwikkeld waarmee alle steden zijn doorgelicht op CO2 uitstoot die veroorzaakt wordt door het verkeer.Ook kregen we hulp van een specialist op het gebied van duurzame landbouw en oud leerling Rogier Groeneveld informeerde ons over de nieuwste snufjes op het gebied van duurzaam bouwen.
Er staan ons nog de nodige bijeenkomsten te wachten, maar dit was alvast een vliegende start.


Meer foto's vind je als je op de openingsfoto klikt.