Semester Starts.

Yesterday was my first day of school at Tilburg University. Everything started to fall into the right place after two weeks of settling down and orientation. Tilburg is a good place to stay as both the environment and the people are nice, except I still need some more time to get used to the heavy drinking and partying culture here.

I attended a Dutch course and it was really interesting to learn a new language in a foreign country. The pronunciations between Dutch and Cantonese are very different, making the whole learning process super challenging. A few Dutch phrases I picked up include "Goedemorgen" (Good Morning, pronounced as "hood-da-morgan" ), "Hoe heet je?" (What is your name?, pronounced as "who-hate-ya") and "Heel goed!" (Very good!, pronounced as "hell-hood").

After class I went to a barbecue gathering organized by Tilburg Law School. It was held at the lunchroom inside Cobbenhaegen building, which has a fantastic view of the woods and the lake. I really enjoyed the Dutch way of doing barbecue as you did not have to cook the food yourself in front of the fire. There was also a photo booth inside the lunchroom which I got to do a few crazy snaps with my friends.

So far it was a great start to the semester and I am really looking forward to the rest of it, stay tuned!

在蒂爾堡待了大概兩星期，終於來到第一個上學天了。

蒂爾堡跟我其他到過的歐洲城市不同，這裡的生活節奏比較慢，人與人之間的互動亦比較多。雖然他們濃厚的啤酒和派對文化仍令我覺得有點不習慣，但舒適的天氣和環境的確很容易令我愛上這個荷蘭南部小城。

第一天上課便有學習荷蘭文的lecture，而蒂爾堡大學安排了所有來自亞洲而又有興趣學習當地語言的同學在同一組。因為大部份亞洲語言的發音技巧都與荷蘭文不同，好像荷蘭文內有不少捲舌的發音和喉音，所以學習的過程充滿挑戰性。其中老師教了幾句實用的荷蘭文，例如 "Goedemorgen" (早晨，讀音為 "hood-da-morgan" ), "Hoe heet je?" (你叫什麼名字？，讀音為 "who-hate-ya") 和 "Heel goed!" (非常好！，讀音為 "hell-hood")。

上完lecture後，我參加了法律學院安排予各地交流生的燒烤派對。派對的場地是鄰近學校樹林的Cobbenhaegen大樓lunchroom，那裡能看見一大片綠色的林景和噴泉，風景十分怡人。談起燒烤，一般的香港人都會想起TVB大結局的「圍爐式」燒烤，但在荷蘭，燒烤是十分寫意的，他們一般都是把食物放在grill pan上，然後就跑到一邊聊天，待熟了才拿來享用。但兩者相比，荷蘭式的燒烤就當然少了一份「親密」。

還有一整個學期的交換生生活實在教人期待，希望能有更多精采的奇遇吧！