Home Life

by Tim van Rijt, Robbert Elshout & Arthur Thijssen

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Bar/Disco game

I don't go to the disco a lot, but when I do, me and my friends play a game. The game has two rules:

1 Try to get on a photo as much as possible
2 When your photo is taken, try to look as ridiculous as possible

the photos are posted on the website of the bar/disco the next day, so then the winner will be decided. This winner gets his drinks for free the next time

In the next posts you'll see some results of such an evening

in between


in between
Originally uploaded by Instructor1.
I saw my friend Raymond getting on the photo, so I jumped in front of him so that I didn't loose the match. I scored points for ridiculousness

Very nice


Very nice
Originally uploaded by Instructor1.
Me and my friends at our best. Only Raymond (on the right) looks normal, that's a pity

Players


Players
Originally uploaded by Instructor1.
Mark and I scored bonus points when we saw three girls getting on the photo and we jumped behind them to get on that photo. I would have liked to see the faces of the girls when they saw 2 complete strangers behind them

too much competition


too much competition
Originally uploaded by Instructor1.
When I was winning the match, my friends did everything they could to stop me from getting on a photo. Here I'm pushed away from the camera

Typically dutch

One of the things I love when I walk around in the city is looking for bargains. People always say that Dutchmen always carefully watch their money and are stingy, so I am a very good example of a dutchman. In every shop there is always something on sale, so I always find interesting things

In addition to that, there is a very popular dutch site (www.marktplaats.nl), which litterally means market place), that sells almost everything, form stamps to cars and from books to houses, all second hand though. Here is how it works: people can post the things they want to get rid of, other people want to buy it and get in contact with the ones who sell it. It is really just a bulletin board, but categorised.

this site was made by a couple of student, who sold it around the year 2000 for approximately $ 650.000. Last year, ebay bought the site for over 200 million dollars, which proves how popular the site is.

The only money they can make with the site, is the 6 dollars someone has to pay to place an ad for something that costs more than 200 dollars. An ad for a book of 50 dollars is free, an ad for a car of 3000 dollars costs 6 bucks. This means that there has to be 40 million people who will pay those 6 dollars, to break even. And to think that the Netherlands just has 16 million citizens. Those students who were happy with their 650.000 dollars would've smacked their heads when they read this.

Spring is here!

At last... this year we had to wait a while for it, but now, at the end of may, the sun is shining regularly. This means that students often won't go home directly after school, but grab a drink at a terrace in the city.

When I'm at a terrace, mostly I am with a couple of my friends, and there is just one subject: girls. Because there are enough girls at the terraces, we have a lot to talk about and other subjects won't get through.

This weather has his disadvantages: beacause it is so lovely and I really enjoy it, I think it is a waste to do some homework. After school, I wander around in the city, drink a cup of coffee (my drug, which I neef for my timetable nowadays) and go home to be on time for dinner. After dinner, I call some friends of mine to play some billiards. When I'm home, around midnight, it is time for my homework. Because I have to get up early to go to school, I don't get a lot of sleep, which explains the amount of coffee I drink. This is how my spring days are filled. In the weekend, I get all the sleep I need to survive the next midweek with hardly any sleep

Life in Heerlen

Hello everyone,

let me introduce myself. I am Tim van Rijt, also a student of CMD, and I'm not like Arthur, the one who posted the article about Antwerp. I am in general very lazy, so my posts will be a lot shorter. I am 20 years old and I use most of my spare time to play sports. For 14 years now, I've played the most favorite sport in the Netherlands: soccer. It's one of my big passions, and ironically, it is the reason why I broke my leg 2,5 months ago. I'll tell you more about that in a later post.

When it comes to my spare time besides sports, I seem a dull 30 year old man, but I think others can assure you I'm not. Here is a list of the things I fill my spare time with:
Literature
Movies
Philosophy
Getting a cup of coffee in the afternoon, while observing the city people
Writing
Communism
Long sleeps (if possible)

This all makes me look like a quiet young man, but mostly I don't have my mouth shut. I love to talk, I like to challenge people (especially teachers) to debate and I have a very strong opinion which I will always speak out.

This is a basic description about who I am and what I do in my spare time.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Home life in Antwerp (Belgium)

Hello everyone! I am Arthur, a student at University Zuyd Heerlen.Our assignment is to write something about your home life. So I am going to tell you something about Antwerp (Belgium), the place where I grew up. Well I grew up in 3 different countries. I was born in the Netherlands but after 4 years we moved to Germany for a reason I still don’t know. After living there for approximately 2 years we moved to our last destination ,Belgium, to be more accurate Antwerp.


For more photos click here

Antwerp is like the second biggest city in Belgium,after Brussels (the “main base” of the European Union). It has a population of +- 500.000. People in Antwerp speak Flamish (almost the same as dutch) but this isn’t the case for whole Belgium. People in the south tend to speak French and the north speaks Flamish.

But anyway lets talk about some things that interests you. How is the nightlife in Antwerp? Well… I must say its superb! There are all kinds of different genre clubs. Dance, house, RNB, hiphop, lounge, rock and so on. Big club names in Antwerp’s nightlife are Café D’anvers, Hangar 26, Café Local and Industria. You guys probably wonder what a night in Antwerp looks like. Well me and my friends normally first eat something at Pizzahut or Quick (Mc Donalds wannabe). After have eaten pizza or french frites we catch a movie at Metropolis, the biggest cinema in Belgium (and Benelux). Movies i like to watch are Cruel intentions, American Psycho, A beautifull mind, The ring, LOTR and so on… I exactly like all kind of genres (comedy, horror, thriller…).


For more photos click here

Well after the movies it’s time to go clubbing. I , myself prefer going to clubs that play RNB and Hiphop music. Things like The game, The black eyed peas, Snoopdogg and Justin Timberlake. Thats why we go to Hangar 26 most often. It's a trendy, pretty large RNB disco with a nice atmosphere. By the way the booze here in Belgium is pretty good. As you probably know Belgium is THE beer country in the world. I presume you guys know Jupiler, Stella Artois, Palm. The entrance price of a ticket here in Antwerp is about 8-15 euro (10-19 dollars) what I think is a reasonable price. But then again i have no clue what the prices in the US are. Around 6 AM the clubs are closing but most of the time I am leaving at 4 ‘o clock depending on how much fun i am having. After the clubbing we take a cab home (cause the buses don’t drive anymore at this time), this 20 minute drive costs me around 20 euro (26 dollars). What I think is way to expensive. That’s a small summary of things to do at night in Antwerp.


For more photos click here

What else does Antwerp has to offer except the great clubs. Well if you like shopping all day long this is the place to be! You will find all well-known clothing brands around here. Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Carhartt, Gucci, Versace, Hugo Boss, Levis, G-star…
I think Antwerp has like all the same brands as you guys in the US. The same thing goes for the junk food businesses. Like Mac Donalds of course and KFC, Pizzahut or the ice cream stores from Ben & Jerry’s.


For more photos click here

Let me tell you a little about myself before i go. Like I said my name is Arthur and I am 20 years old. Last year I studied international business at the University Maastricht but I quit the study after 4-5 month. So I started looking for something new. I always liked working with computers, designing webpages, making things with photoshop. Also the communication and marketing part sounded like music to my ears. The next thing to do was enrolling myself for the course and until now I don’t regret making this choice.

I hope i succeeded at giving you some information about where/how I live and what I do in my spare time.