Dara (Oluware Dare) who came to Amsterdam instead of Ola Jeboda wrote : "Going to Amsterdam, was a truly amazing, unique and different experience. I was privileged to represent St Catherine’s at the Y’Poetry Finals. My stay in Amsterdam was packed with ; a boat tour alongside the beautiful scenery, a tour in the City archives where I met, Menno Wigman, the poet laureate of Amsterdam, a visit to the city centre in which I learnt about the Art and culture of Amsterdam and finally a free exploration of Amsterdam City centre. Amsterdam and London have completely different cultures. In Amsterdam there are bikes everywhere, maybe they are even more than cars, when I asked some friends, “Do you have a bike?” they laughed as if to say “of course, what kind of question is that?” This was a unique and different experience for me because during the first activity, Literary breaking the Ice game, I thought all the other finalists wouldn’t speak English, so we wouldn’t be able to communicate. However, I was shocked when I realised mostly everyone from Berlin, Amsterdam, Antwerp learnt English as a second language and where quite fluent in it. It was very different because everything in Amsterdam was written in Dutch and everyone spoke it, so you had to try and communicate in a way that you would be understood, even if it meant talking really slowly and breaking down each word. Another fantastic aspect of the trip was that we were treated like V.I.Ps, with dinner in a different restaurant each night; I also tried chips with mayonnaise –very different to fish and chips. Delicious. One thing I got out of Amsterdam, was that I made many new friends with different nationalities and I also learnt some Dutch; “Ik hou van je haar”- I like your hair, “heb je genoten van je tijd?”- Have you enjoyed your time? Thank you very much for such a great opportunity. Daag (bye)" Dara
