This week 
we’ve interviewed Bas from the Netherlands and Giorgio from Italy. The Dutch boy has been Giorgio’s correspondent during the week in Turin . Bas has been put up by his classmate Axel by Giorgio’s family, and now we can read Bas ‘s impressions and Giorgio’s opinions about the experience.
1) What did you expect from Italy and then what have you really found?
B- Hmmm.I expected to eat a lot of food, to see old but nice buildings and to meet kind people I guess. And I wasn’t disappointed ,those three became true for sure.
G- I don’t think they expected Turin to be such a big city with nearly one million inhabitants.
2) What did you like most about Italian/Dutch people?
B- Italian hospitality is great I think. The family I stayed with is a really close family , which isn’t that common in The Netherlands.
G- The first thing I noticed was the way they can speak English . In the Netherlands students have been used to watching the TV in English since their childhood so they are more fluent than we are ,and for them speaking English is as easy as falling off a log!
3) Did you know about our monuments before you came here?
B- No, I actually didn’t know much about Turin before our trip.
G- Yes I did, except for the Museum of Oriental Art . All the museums we visited I had seen before, the Dutch students also went to Venaria which is a breathtaking place.
4) What was it like spending a week living with people that you don’t know (having a stranger at home)?
B- At first it is strange of course, but the family was really nice to us, so we felt at ease very quickly.
G-It wasn’t too difficult for me, since it wasn’t my first experience and I was more or less prepared for what it might be like.
5) Why did you choose Italy, in alternative to Spain and Hungary?
B- I actually chose it more or less by chance, because I didn’t know what to choose, Italy or Hungary. I had already been to Spain before, so that wasn’t that interesting, but I was eventually more interested in Turin than in Budapest, also because some older students who went on an exchange to Budapest last year didn’t enjoy it, while the people who went to Turin enjoyed themselves.
6) What do the Italian students expect from Holland (what do you expect)?
B- hahah. It will be so ugly compared to Turin. Especially Eindhoven, although Amsterdam and other cities are older in a good way.
G- I expect to have a lot of fun in Eindhoven and also to get to know our correspondents better in order to keep in touch with them in the future.
Thank you boys! It was very interesting to get your impressions about the exchange. We are eager to read something about the Italians in the Netherlands in March. Bye!
Claudia Brizzi (3E)