Hello everybody, my name is Anna and I'm one of the new Atlantic Bridge interns! I'm from a town called Oldenburg which is in the north of Germany. Me and the rest of the new interns (Minta from Lithuania, Rachida from Belgium and Bogdan from Rumania) came here exactly one month ago and I want to use this anniversary-day to tell you a little something about my first month in Kruiningen, the Netherlands.

What have I done so far? Good question.

Well first I moved to another country. Some of my german friends made fun of me and my plans to move to Holland, and they said the culture shock would probably be bigger if i just moved from the north to the south of Germany. But I was excited about the Dutch, about learning the language and seeing the differences cause I was sure that even though our countries are neighbours there would be differences! (And I was right, ha!) I moved in with four strangers and although we don't speak the same language or listen to the same music or eat the same food we get along well and we do have a lot of fun. I've given classes in schools about cultural differences, prejudices and my country.

I have met round about 1000000 new people, I have had dutch food (Stamppot met Rookworst, three times!), and I'm trying to learn dutch ("Hoi, juisti? Ik heet Anna, ik kom uit Duitsland maar ik won in Kruiningen. Ik ben twintig jaar. Kom jij eten, alsjeblieft? Dat vind ik leuk!"). I've introduced myself in churches, and I have seen two kids beeing baptised and I'm not speaking about the German-I-put-a-little-water-on-your-forehead-baptism, no, I'm talking about a swimming pool next to the altar and two kids acutally falling into the water! (I was so touched and overwhelmed by this that the introducing-myself-part got a little confusing and there was a lot of laughter in the community, but I took that as a good sign.)

I was told that dutch people give you only one cookie when you have coffee with them and although I was sure this has to be a stupid prejudice, I found out that it's actually true. And I have also discovered that even though Germans always think the Dutch don't like them, most of them welcome you with open arms. Well, this was my first month. On Thursday we'll leave Kruiningen for our EVS training in Arnhem and I'm pretty sure when we come back there'll be a lot more cross-cultural-funny-incident-stories to tell! I am really glad to be here. I feel like this is my place-to-be right now, Kruiningen, one of the smallest villages I have ever seen. I'm sure the next months will be filled with surprises (and I hope pleasent ones..)!

Yours, Anna