My Life in Holland

Tasya Kuswardani, II SMP, 10 June 2005
(Theme: Reflections)

I came to Holland on 11th October 2003. I was very happy that I could see the beautiful scenery in the country because it was not like in Jakarta. But it was so cold at that time. I came by a Garuda Indonesia aeroplane with my parents. And then we were fetched and brought to a hotel called ‘Golden Tulip’ in The Hague. We immediately went to bed because the trip was so tiring. The next morning, we had breakfast in the hotel and afterwards we went to The Hague Central Station by tram. That was the first tram that I ever rode. The tram number was 17. At the station, we had some nice food and we just looked around. After a long while we went back to the hotel.

On Tuesday morning, 13th October, I went to my new school: Sekolah Kedutaan Republik Indonesia, Nederland (SIN). I was accepted as a first year SMP student, and my new classmates were Amr, Andre, Kika and Zizi. They’re good friends and funny. But after 2 days, I got a bad news that Zizi was about to go back to Indonesia. So we only met for 5 days at school. She’s a nice friend and it was Zizi who introduced me to everyone in the school during my first days. I was too shy to do that, ha..ha…ha…ha….

All of my new friends in here are kind, hospitable, and they are not discriminative like in Jakarta. In Jakarta sometimes if they were older than you, they used to ask you to respect them, if not they would ask you many questions that you did not understand. I thought that they were about only one year older than you, but some of them, because of their manners, did not actually deserve respect. But in here it was not like that. We’re so close to each other.

After about three weeks staying at the Golden Tulip, we received a house in The Hague. It had been resided by Zizi’s family. But I was not so long there because we moved to another house nearby.

I would be in The Hague for maybe 3 years. After making some adaptations, I am so glad to have a new life in here but I am still missing my sweet home in Jakarta and my friends, too.