I’ve been living in Coventry for about a month now. University work is getting more interesting and more intense every week but also I am planning and trying to arrange to sneek in visits and sightseeing trips into my agenda. You can see where I’m going here… If you want to know more about my student life at Coventry University, I will have to dissappoint you but can reassure you that I am working on a, rather long, manual on The Student Life in Coventry: How to survive the first weeks. There is, however, still a lot of work to be put into that post. This one is completely dedicated to MANCHESTER.
On the bus
between Mostar and Dubrovnik, Liesbeth and I decided that not booking a hostel
was probably the smartest thing to do. In Croatia, especially in summer months,
people open up their houses to receive tourists for a couple of days. Kind of
like a bed&breakfast but I doubt it is highly legal. Nonetheless it is very
common that when a bus full of tourists arrives in a city, once leaving the bus
at least ten people jump on you to convince you to stay at their place. Last
year we were really lucky to get different awesome places and hosts for a cheap
price so we decided to do the same this year. We were right.
Getting to the festival was one thing, but getting in and finding a place for our newly bought tent, another. After waiting about half an hour at the entrance, a couple of Dutch guys, accompanied by a Belgian, told us that we had to get our wristbands somewhere else. Well damn. I left Liesbeth in the line and went to get our tickets exchanged. Once this was done, I ran into a friend from home who was at Volt Festival as well! A nice surprise indeed to see Kyra, a colleague-volunteer from AFS here in Sopron, Hungary.
Look America, the Belgians are coming, and you can be damn sure that they're here to stay!
(Yes, number 301 to watch it!) One of Belgium's prides is taking over the US, as of the end of September 2013!
Two weeks of intense intercultural branding, experiencing and business gaming.
That's what I'm going for.
More than 30 people from KHLeuven University College applied with a motiviation letter. Mine, which you can read down here, enabled me to end up within the last ten. Unfortunately only six people are allowed to go. Therefore I will have an interview with the responsible professor somewhere this week. #USA2013!
MOTIVATION LETTER : THIBAULT SCHROVEN - INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP
After
seeing the presentation concerning the business game and exchange in the United
States of America, I knew right away I was going to apply for the program. It
just sounds so great and instructive that I can’t imagine someone not wanting
to experience a two-week exchange with students from across the globe! I
would be honored if I would be given the chance to represent our country and
college abroad. Also, I am convinced that I will learn a lot during these two
weeks. Not only about business and management but also about the United States,
the American culture and lifestyle and the ideas, habits and experiences of
students from other nationalities competing with us during this International
Workshop.
Thibault
Schroven: who am I?
I am a
22-year old student of Advanced Business Management, majoring in Marketing
Communication (BABM). Last year, I graduated as a Bachelor in Marketing, also
at the KHLeuven. During my previous years here, I have already represented our
college in Finland, during the International Marketing Week in Lahti (2011), in
the Netherlands, where our team was one of the finalists of the HBO
Talentenprijs in Groningen (2012) and in France, during my Erasmus semester at
the ESC Rennes in Brittany (2011). All these times I had the pleasure to
represent our college and meet new people from all over the world. I think
these experiences might qualify myself as an ‘Experienced (International)
Business Game Participant’.
But it is
not only thanks to the KHLeuven that I am internationally oriented. When I was
only 16, I spent a semester as an exchange student with AFS Intercultural
Programs in Austria and after my high school I went on another exchange to
Argentina, where I lived for 10 months and learned Spanish.
Why I
believe I deserve a place in the KHLeuven – USA team
I can be
clear about the fact that for me, there is no issue to start talking with total
strangers and to learn to live and work together with them. I enjoy facing the
unknown, taking on new challenges and hoping for the best, which usually means
living and feeling an extraordinary experience which enriches me as a student
and as a person.
Whenever I
am around a group of people, I easily adapt myself to their culture and way of
living, without forgetting where I am from or who I am. I will easily connect
to them and I am convinced that if I would be on board of the plane which is
going to bring the KHLeuven students to the USA, all the participants won’t
easily forget about “the Belgians”. I will ensure that by the end of our
two-week trip, they will know all about our chocolate, beer, governmental
system and our importance, as capital of Europe, for the European Union and the
world itself.
Thanks to
my previous experiences with (international) business games, I am already aware
of how these work and where I need to pay attention. I am not only willing to
go to the USA to represent our college, I want to go and perform the best I can
in order to win this competition!
3 Positive points of myself
As stated
before I am an active, motivated an life enjoying young man from
Sint-Katelijne-Waver during the beginning of my years of maturity. My greatest
motivation is my will to absorb (intercultural) business experiences and
meeting new, interesting, open and broadminded people with different
backgrounds than my own. In order to reach my goal, I enjoy using different
languages and ways of living that I don’t always, but every day a bit more,
master well. As stated before, I am very proud of being a Belgian and I am
super motivated to perform well in a multi-cultural environment. We are living
in a globalizing world but it is my opinion that we must never forget, nor
neglect, where we are from.
Secondly I
am very well at performing in groups. I have been active in the boy scouts and
now I am a volunteer for AFS, which implicates organizing weekends for
youngsters and work together with others to make these events the best. Another
of my positive points is my multilingualism. Broadly taken I speak five
languages: Dutch, French, Spanish, English and German. This means that
I’ll be able to speak to a lot of the students in their own language which will
facilitate our communication and enable us to get to know each other faster in
order to work better during the group work.
2 Negative points of myself
One of my
negative points is that sometimes I can be very impatient. When I work, I want
to work effectively and efficiently and for me there’s no time to fool around.
I want to finish the job as soon and as good as possible.
Secondly I
find it hard to critically evaluate myself. I have no problem with judging and
evaluating the performances of other people, but sometimes I catch myself on
critically evaluating co-students for doing things I do as well.
Ideas
for a Belgian evening
One of my
ideas would be to teach one verse of our Belgian national anthem (both in Flemish
and French) to our fellow students. I would hand them out the lyrics and teach
it to them. This will probably lead to funny and weird expressions on the faces
of co-students, but will be very entertaining for us all.
A second
idea would be to present Belgian specialties, like our fries, chocolate, beer,
the Atomium, Bruges, Manneken Pis,.., etc. by playing the world famous game of
Pictionary.
I would be
very delighted if I would be allowed to travel to the USA, a country I don’t
know yet, and participate to this International Workshop. It would be the
perfect opportunity to see if, after four years of KHLeuven, I am able to work
professionally with a team of people whom I’ve never met and ensure that my
knowledge helps to improve the final result of our team. Obviously I hope that
this letter was able to convince you of my motivation to be a part of this trip
to represent KHLeuven and Belgium in a foreign country. I sincerely hope to get
to know the USA in a different way in 2012 because I am sure that this unique
experience will certainly help me in my future career. As I state on my weblog
(thibaultintheworld.blogspot.com):Experiences are the key to
success.
Same comment as last year:
I have to admit it. This may not completely be my style of music, but DAMN, we belgians party hard!
Tomorrowland (Electro, Techno, Drum 'n Bass, Dubstep, Trance, Dance,...) 2012 edition: Official Aftermovie.
This is worth seeing, but be aware: you'll get in the mood for a party!
After a good night of sleep in the
River Side (motherfucker) hostel, we packed our stuff to head for the Heineken Open'er Festival in Gdynia. In the pouring rain, and after a quick stop at a monument
which remembers the beginning of the end of communism and a picture next to a
piece of the Berlin Wall, we took the train to Sopot, where we walked around
for a while and enjoyed a nice hot chocolate. We met up with Pawel, my Polish
Erasmus friend from Warsaw, who gave us tents for the festival and we hit the
train again for Gdynia!
Piece of the Berlin Wall
Barely inside the camping site, we
met up with three West-Vlamingen (Flemish guys with an accent we barely
understood) and we decided to put up our tents next to each other. I’m not going to write too much about the
festival itself, most of you who know me, know how we roll: sleeping until the
heat of the sun chases you out of your tent, having a beer for breakfast and
chilling on the camping site until we want to see the first group. Not this
time! Basically it was raining every morning when we woke up, and then 30°C for
the rest of the day… Beer, except for
Heineken (but since when is that beer), and other alcohol is not allowed on the
camping site. You’re not allowed to cook on the camping site either. Bands only
start playing around 17hr, so except for a theater, a museum and a movie
theater, there’s nothing to do around the festival until 17hr. A festival site so big, that it takes
literally 30minutes (without crowd traffic or whatsoever) to get from the main stage
to the second biggest stage. And the worst is yet to come: on the festival site
you cannot drink alcohol in front of a stage, you have to stay behind ‘Heras’-fences
until you finish your glass. Who
invented that sh*t?
One thing they couldn’t help: rain,
so much rain…: Mud was the bummer of the weekend
Anyone needs mud?
You need to wash?
Festival, belgian style
Good things are: International and
local top artists for only 95euros for a four days festival, camping included.
1,5euros per 0,4liter of Heineken/ Desperados. A festival on a airfield, so
plenty of space. Little crowd for all the gigs and big screens at all major
stages, so you can easily be in the front to see your favorite artist or band. Two
stages which are located INSIDE an old bunker where airplanes used to be put,
camouflaged from radars and satellites: epic moments indeed. [And yes, they do
know the Tetris dubstep remix here, as well as Gotye’s Somebody I Used To Know].
After realizing there was nothing to
do around the festival during the day, we decided to do some sightseeing in the
cities located around the festival site every day, before heading for the
concerts at night. Our first stop was, yet again, SOPOT, known for its 513m
long pier, it’s a quiet holiday town in the north of Poland. We chilled on the
pier for a couple of hours before taking the boat to …. HEL! Yes, ladies and
gentlemen this trio went on a boat to Hel and back! It was a 1,5hr trip to get
there and unfortunately we only had 30mins to be in Hel –yes, it even was kind
of hot there- -I even went for a quick swim in Hel, and then 1,5hr back. A
successive excursion if you ask us.
We went to Hel and came back alive.
Biggest pier of Poland - official start of EEET 2012
Port Hel - " we went by boat to Hel and back!! "
The next day, we just stayed at the
camping site. We were going to sleep for a bit in the afternoon as we were still
tired of the travelling etc., and Liesbeth and me were still exhausted from
Rock Werchter festival in Belgium. But then again, we were on a festival… We
met a nice Canadian (so nice Canadians do exist!) and chatted for like two
hours about a lot of stuff. He and his brother have this pact with each other
that they do one different festival every year. They’ve been going to a
different festival every year for 13 years now. After all that chitchat, it was
already time to hit the festival again, so no napping for us…
The last day of the festival we went
to GDYNIA and mainly visited the beach, the port etc. Nice to see that in so
little time, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, some cities have become so
touristic and pretty – not that they weren’t pretty before of course-.
Sunday morning, we got up at 6.45
(!!), packed up our bags and tents and dragged ourselves to the train station
of Gdynia where we took the train to Warsaw, together with Pawel. In Warsaw we then
met up with Justyna, Silke (BE) and Wojciech, but that’s for the next post!
It's true! Admit it, who has never donwloaded anything from the internet? I pay a high price to see the bands I like. I visit multiple concerts and festivals every year. Artists get little of their album-sales numbers anyway, almost all of the revenues go to the big labels. #Anonymous #StopActa #StopSOPA #FreeMegaUpload
First I thought, make new friends but keep the old. One's silver other's gold. But now you too are old friends, now you too are gold.
- that's the quote I would use to describe all the friends and connections I've made these past four months in Rennes. Argentineans, Canadians, Americans, French, Germans, Belgians, Irish, Norwegian, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Egyptian, Brittish, Welsh, and all the other countries I've forgotten, thanks people.
Get started with the tunes I posted as well!
" First of all, for people who still haven't figured it out, if you click on the pictures they will enlarge themselves in a new tab! Secondly, as you might've noticed it's now possible to share/like/forward my posts via the buttons at the end of each post. Please feel free to do so, it's free! Thirdly, comments are very much appreciated and if you log in once, normally your computer should remember your information for next time! Forthly, if you see that words are written like this : Bold and red, it means that there's a link behind it, waiting for you to click on it. Do so, it will only enlargen your knowledge! "
I know, I know, it's been too long. But here you go: the closing down session of Erasmus Rennes Fall 2011.
After coming back we had to prepare a paper and presentation for the next day, which ended pretty good actually, thank you very much.
On Friday we went to the Transmusicales de Rennes, an anual festival in the city with bands from literally all over the world. It was sort of Gentse Feesten-ish, with bands performing on different places in the city. Some could be seen for free, others were not. As we were supposed to be studying we, Anja, Esther, Chris and me only went to see two bands: Isbells, a belgian band and Moss, a dutch band. They were performing for free and they were really good I think.
The next day, Max, Pedro (Brasil), Laura and me were invited to Arsène's house. Arsène was our French Culture teacher and he had, appareantly, really liked us as he invited us over for coffee and cake. We spent about 3hours with him and his wife, they live in the absolute city centre of Rennes, discussing exchanges, school differences in our home countries and other intercultural experiences, knowledges and interests. Fascinating how a bond with a teacher can be so loose, and that you feel like you could basically talk about anything with that person. But then again a teacher stays a teacher and you won't talk to him about what happened 20 years ago. Wrong. He showed us his pictures of when he was 'famous' in and around Rennes, the books he wrote etc. To conclude a fine afternoon with whom would probably be our favourite teacher, he gave me a book about French people making fun of Belgians and dedicated it!
Hey! What the Hell?! 6th of December: Saint Nicolas day in Belgium. And we have a government?? No way josé! Re you freakin' kidding me?! Meet our, named by the Independant (UK): "Gay-socialist-and-born-in-a-squatters-camp"new Prime Minister: Elio Di Rupo! Good luck man, you'll need it!
The week of the 5th of December my exams started. I had six exams on following dates 7-8(2exams)-9 and 13 (two again). I'm going to keep this short. The exams weren't as hard as at KHLeuven. For some exams we even already had the questions! Whatthehell,areFrenchESCStudentsstupid? For others we got 5 questions and only had to answer 3 out of 5.. I'm not saying it was easy, not at all, but to be honest: it was. We had no clue of what to study exactly and after every exam I had the feeling I had written even more bullshit than on the previous one, but I'm pretty sure I passed them all. I'll let you know in February, when I get my results. Exactly February. What the f*ck, ESCRennes. How slow can you correct exams? I mean seriously, two months to give us all A's?
Vive la France!
On the Saterday of the exam week, we all got together with the whole group to celebrate our own little Christmas party. We did something called Secret Santa. Everyone got to pick a name and during one week you need to be extra nice to the person whose name you picked. I picked Anja, the german girl, and I think I did pretty good, haha.I was the best Secret Santa. My Secret Santa was Justyna, from Poland, who was the girl who put all the balloons in my room when I came back from Ireland. As it was also the last night we were all together, it was kind of awkward because none of us was able to fully get that it was the last night. Pawel, Polish, had brought his Brettoon flag and we all got to sign it. Chris' parents where there as well, telling us that they were happy for Chris to have met such amazing people and that now they understood why Chris was having such a good time. Well, they only said that after 8-ish beers, so not too sure if trollin' or not. Nice people those parents, I now know where Chris got his amazing hair!
After my last two exams, and having a huge fallback when hearing of the suicidal attack in Liège (Belgium), we prepared for the last days in Rennes. The last days of all of us together, the last days of Erasmus. We started Tuesday night of with a picture night. All of us had to choose their favourite pictures and then I showed them on a big screen with a projector. Of course this went together with the casuals glasses that were raised during our game. Check the next tune! After our picture game we left for the Rue de la Soif and ended the whole night in style taking pictures with containers, statues and cars. Driving home in a cab with a Canadian and an English lad, waking up without a girl in bed, unfortunately! Haha!
The next day Chris came by to say goodbye, he was leaving on a Eurotrip with his parents. Sad but true, he left and left all of us with more than a memory, he left us with a Canadian friend for life. Thanks for that Chrisso. Your smile, your hair, your laugh, your acting, your soccerskills, your going out nights when you go home early to watch hockey, our casual spaghetti dinners with beer and our going out evenings starting with some beers in the living room of Avenue Winston Churchill 23, etc. Yes, I am in love with you and yes if I were a girl I would want to make love to you!
After that me and Laura, not my roommate, the other one, had a crazy brunch with eggs, tomatoes, onions, cheese, toast and juice! Nextly we hit the city for a last afternoon of wandering around in Rennes. We tried to find some touristic shops, to buy gifts for family back home. Well we nicely failed in that. There are excatly two (of the same owner) souvernir shops which both sell rather stupid stuff.
In the evening I had dinner with Pablo, argentinean gigolo, when the spanish people and our holland friend-from Holland or Poland, or Poland and Holland, I would like to write your name but no freaking idea on how to spell it- and we started of for another night out with more strange happenings!
On Thursday I had to go to school to close my school account, as well as to fetch my paper that I was actually attending classes there. I finished doing all that around 4.30 and with Pablo we decided to stay at school until seven, which meant we played pool for about two and a half hours. At seven the Well'come Team had invited all the exchange students for a last dinner all together. As we are used to it it was: too little, too small, to little alcohol and to much bullshit. But then they started giving out gifts. Some people got an i-pod, a camera or a headphone! 'Yo, that's sick yo!' was Tam's first reaction when he heard he had won a headphone. After that we went to Appart'city, where a lot of Erasmus people lived and where the Belgian girls had organized a Predrink. Around ten thirty we went to the city to get the bus to the last Open Bar. And what an OB it was! People litterally suffocating while trying to get in the bus, French people singing songs in that same bus, electricity and music falling out due to a huge storm, crazy people jumping around in their underwear on the beats of LMFAO, walking home in the pooring rain and waking up after noon.. Johnny la gente esta muy loca. whatthefuck! One for sports:
On Friday it was, let's state it, an epic night which was 50% on my account. Thank you and no, I'm not going to be modest over this. It was an incredible night and I had the best time. I had the idea of organizing a dinner with all the Erasmusfriends, all together. On Facebook, the event I had created had about 50 people attending. But that's not all, another student from Erasmus had had the same idea and had also put a Facebookevent online. So we dediced to team up and expected about 65 people, which would've been crazy and fantastic. But what happened was beyond our expectations. Not less than 82 students showed up at the El Negocian restaurant! It was the perfect opportunity for me to stress completely as we had to make sure everybody would pay his all you can eat 20euros. A total of not less thant 1 640 euros was collected in cash and cheques. But after paying it all to the restaurant keepers and making their day for paying so much, I finally had the time to enjoy it. Being together with all these people with whom we had founded a strong friendship in not less than three months was a great experience. I got to talk to most of the people with whom I wanted to share one last dialogue, got to take pictures with some people I hadn't taken pictures with yet and got to see all those hot bitches who dressed up nicely for one last time all together. Because yes, I hadn't told you yet but we were dressed up. Like a Boss.
Avenue Winston Churchill 23 For the win
Jose, el mexicano, como dicen todos
After this amazing dinner we hit Rue de la Soif again before heading for Pyms, where we weren't allowed in because there was more than five, fifteen to be exact, of us and groups aren't allowed in. Say what? We tried, but they just didn't want our money that we were going to spend there. And we were all suited up, so it couldn't have been of us not being nicely dressed! All of that b*llshit taken care of, we ended up at our place, good old Winston Churchill with a McDonald's midnight snack and a good wine, discussing our past experiences in Rennes and planning future trips to visit each other soon again! As it was already ridiculously late we invited the whole lot to stay over and everybody slept on couches, extra matrasses etc. The next day we all woke up and made a big, I'm talking gigantic, amount of spaghetti and we mixed up all the vegetables that we had left to make a really good and pretty spicy sauce. By five, I realized that my dad was going to arrive in little more than two hours and I hadn't even started packing yet. So I opened my cupboard, got out the cardboard crates and started throwing all my stuff in it. When everyone who was still at our appartment, about 15 people, saw me doing this, the emotional moment came.
We put on what I like to call: 'makesyoucry'music like Coldplay, Adele, Jeff Buckley etc. and people started hugging, saying goodbye very emotionally and promising each other that they'd meet again. The beautiful part of this was that, as we all are close, it's very probably that we will meet again in the future. In one's homecountry or in a completely new environment. One thing's for sure. I want to meet you guys again, better sooner than later!
After the packing and my dad arriving, we had some last shots of Jose's Jose Tequilla and me and my dad went for dinner in the city after which I left him at the appartment and went out, one last time, with my Erasmusfriends, one last time all together, to the Rue de la Soif, for the last time. Amazing how many people you get to know in such a short time, amazing the bond you create with them because you are living the same experience and seeing each other six days ouf ot seven. And yet again we came home too late to be healty.
The next day me and my dad got up, way to early to be healty, and hit the road back to Belgium. With a small stop in Paris, to pick up a carriage, we got home at around eight pm in the storm. I came home with a luggage boot full of stuff, a symbolic backpack full of knowledge and experiences, a head full of great memories, a photoalbum full of pictures of Erasmus Rennes Fall 2011 and a address book (=directory) full of phone numbers and addresses of new made friends and connections to visit in the future.
A perfect end to a perfect experience. Thank you so much people. Thank you so much to all of you.
Vive la France!
PS:
- What did Rennes' bars offer me? 2Amstel beer glasses (no Stella Artois glasses where available), 1guinness glass (well that one's from Dublin), 3shotglasses (one from San Sebastian, thanks girls) and 1 Malibu glass (I don't even drink Malibu..). How and two crazy flags, unwillingly donated to Pablo and Cintia, gimme my flags back!
- Liked my blog and/or the posts? Want to stay updated? Easy shit! Just click on the Google link beneath 'My Fellowship' on the left and/or submit your e-mail in the 'Stay Updated' part on the left as well. - Relax, your address will not be shown anywhere, but every time I post something new, you will get an e-mail about it!
Raising funds to help children in third world countries. Studio Brussel (Flemish Radio) has been doing this since 2006 ! People can pay for a tune they want to hear on the radio and sometimes bands come play life for the better cause! Like for example: 2 Many DJ's
I have to admit it. This may not completely be my style of music, but DAMN, we belgians we party hard!
Tomorrowland (Electro, Techno, Drum 'n Bass, Dubstep, Trance, Dance, ....) 2011 edition: Official Aftermovie. This is worth seeing, but be aware: you'll be in the mood for a party!
