Chapter 8 - Preparations (2)
In the mean time at school, Louisa started a geography lesson with the fifth grade.
'Hello class, today we are going to do something special. We are going to the library and the media center. In small groups, you are going to find some details on a European country. This afternoon, you and your group will give feedback to us all. And be careful, you will get a grade for it, so you'd better work on it seriously.
Here are the themes you can work on:
- transport - how can you travel through this country
- accomodition - where can you stay
- culinary specialties - what are the local dishes
- art and culture - are there musea you shouldn't miss
- geographical circumstances (demography, are there mountains, rivers, is it close to the sea, etc.)
Please copy any interesting link you wish to use in your feedback in a mail and send it to me at headteacher at primaryportwenn dot org. During the walk to the mediacenter, I'll tell you in which group you'll be.
Now quietly pack your stuf and off we go' Louisa instructed.
'Miss G', Timmy said.
'She is Mrs. E. since a long time now, you dummy', Angela corrected.
'Never mind Tim, what's it you want to ask?'
'Well... You never said on what country we have to do this task'.
Louisa she put her hand to her mouth in surprise.
'You're rigth Tim, how silly of me. Now I let you guess: this country produces cheese,..'
'France', Hillary shouted - she had been there last summer.
'No, it isn't France and I hadn't finished yet, Hillary', Louisa snapped.
'.. It's a kingdom and their football team plays in orange, who knows whch country we are going to study?', she continued.
About twenty children put their hands up now. One boy raised his hand, but quickly dropped it again, his ears turning red and his face all flushed.
'Jeremy, give it a shot' Louisa encouraged the shy boy. She was practically sure that he would give the right answer and she didn't want to lose to much time on This ridle. He reminded her of Peter Cronk, the highly intelligent boy that Martin had saved in the first year he was GP in Portwenn.
'Hmm, I, I..think it's the Netherlands..', Jeremy uttered, his face getting purple, now.
'Yes, Jeremy, that's correct, well done!'
Then the class quietly left the school and walked to the library.
Louisa split the class in five groups. Doing so she tried to give them all a subject they would most likely be interested in.
She also chose five group leaders. She gave them the task to do the time keepiing and told them they were responsible for the collection of the internet links. For this task she picked the chlidren that were accurate and precise.
The ones of whom she knew they were gamers, with probably quite a lot of knowledge on how to capture and copy links, were also divided over the different groups.
At the media center, the children enthousiastically started the research. Happily enough, none of the computers was broken down - which was a miracle in itself..
Louisa, kept an eye on them and when seeing that they all were seriously scrutinizing the Internet, she asked the librarian to watch them for a moment. She went to the "country" section in the library and chose some interesting books on the Netherlands and Amsterdam to use in the afternoon and to take home afterwards.
When she came back to the mediacenter, the children were looking at different sites. 'Jee, almost 25 percent of this country is located below the sealevel! that's why it's called Netherlands Or low lands... 'Where soes Holland come from then?' Someone asked. 'just the name of to provinces', Jeremy answered. You've North Holland, where Amsterdam is located, the capital of the Netherlands. South Holland, with the Hague as capital of the province and residential city with the parliament and so on and Rotterdam with a main port, form the other half of Holland.
Another group was working on the demography: 'nearly 500 persons per square kilometer, that means they all live like sardines in a can over there!'
Their neighbours, working on transport replied : 'no wonder they all ride the bicycles there, there simply isn't any space for cars..'
After about one hour, Louisa reminded them to send her the links of the sites they used and anounced that within ten minutes they would go back to school.
'Remember, this afternoon each group will give us all a synthesis of what they have learnt'.
The fifth-graders, knowing Louisa for some time now, didn't even think about disobeying the headteacher - no one wanted to spoil this exceptional day.
At lunchtime, most children stayed at school, but Louisa went home as often as she could. James stayed with Maureen until the end of the school day, which made it possible for Martin and Louisa to have a quiet lunch together. This was also an idea of the counselor Mr. Johnson, to invest in spending time together, not disturbed by anyone, not even by their precious son.
Unfortunately quite a lot of planned lunches like that resulted in a lonely lunch for Louisa and Martin being called away for an emergency. So every time it was a guess whether they could eat their soup with bread and cheese quietly or not.
'Hello Martin, that smells good!', Louisa said when she came in through the back door. She kissed him on the cheek, while he was busy pouring soup in the bowls. 'How was your morning?'
'Fine, quiet', Martin replied, 'and yours?'
In a few sentences, Louisa explained the visit to the library and the task she had given to the children.
'That'll save me a lot of searching on the internet and it's a good exercice for them', she said to underline the educational value of her idea.
'Brilliant idea, Louisa, I don't doubt that you've asked them to send you the links for yourself for future use?'
'Indeed! We'll see if it will be useful, but it's a start..'.
For once they could finish their lunch undisturbed. Martin confirmed to have spoken to Chris Parsons to organize a local.
'Chris asked me the same question as you did - if I was sure about the blood phobia congres..'
'He is your friend, so he is concerned about your well being'.
'He was relieved to hear that you are coming with me. And finding a local will not be a problem.. He told me that he would take over himself if he couldn't find anyone - it's the first time I will be on holydays since I am GP here..'
'I told you, he IS a friend...'
Louisa went back to school. The presentations of the five groups would take most of hte afternoon, but that was fine for one day. They would practice presentation skills, and learn each other a lot about this country.
'Let us start with traveling to the Netherlands and traveling in the Netherlands, group one, what have you found out?'.
Alicia, a very organized girl, told the class: ' From our country, you have several possibilities to go there.
By car and by boat will allow you to travel with your own car in the Netherlands. If you do so, don't forget that they drive at the other side of the road! It's a long journey by car, and the Northsea is often very rough so a lot of persons get seasick.
You can also take the train to Londen, then travel with the Eurostar to Paris and then take the Thalys to Amaterdam
Last possibility is by plane. For us, the easiest way is to fly from Exeter to Amsterdam Schiphol ariport, which, as we found out, is located at 4,5 meters below sealevel!
Within the country, there are good train connections between the bigger cities, but when you travel to the regions in the east or south part of the country, it's best to take a car. The Dutch also use the bike for traveling within a city. Children of our age nearly all come to school by bike, especially in the smaller villages.'
'Thank you group 1, well done and thank you also for the links to the national railway site and the site of the public transport in Amsterdam'
Tim, also part of group 1 and a big fan of Top Gear, added: 'I don't think the doc will find a lot of Lexuses in the Netherlands, most cars over there are Volkswagens or Opels, Japanese or French cars...'
'Thank you Tim, for those additional information. Group two, where can I stay?'
Johnny, son of Tommy the taxi driver, stood up and said:'well, there are endless possibilities. In Amsterdam there are plenty of hotels of all categories, but also hostels, bed and breakfasts and even people who lend them your house for a stay in yours, so an exchange system.. If you don't want to pay, you also can ask to stay in a kraakpand, a squat.. He added with a smile - only joking!
When going in some of the other regions, there are a lot of bed and breakfasts. But also sleep in a treehouse, tipi of tilt car if you like. Just like here, there are also resorts with holidayhomes for rent. You can find ideas for that at weekendjeweg for instance. All big hotel chains have their own websites you can consult. The girls in our group were thrilled by bijzonderplekje, a bed and breakfast in Gelderland, in the middle of the woods, not far of National park Hoge Veluwe.
'Very good Johnny, thank you. Like the girsl I prefer the b&b in the woods over sleeping in the squat...', Louisa confirmed.
Like the two other groups, the remaining three groups gave a clear view of their topic.
Louisa understood from what the third group told, that Martin wouldn't be thrilled by the Dutch national food. A classic dish consists of boiled potatoes, overcooked veggies and meat, mostly sausages, the whole plate covered with gravy... On the other hand, the Netherlands traditionally being a country with colonies overseas, most likely there would be also influences from abroad. The traditional bitterbal, served at drinks and parties, were to be kept far away from him, she thought.
The group handling art and culture informed her that there are over 1000 museums. The most famous museums were mentioned, the Rijksmuseum, the Van Goghmuseum, Kröller-Müller. The group also mentioned the Openlucht museum, an open air museum near Arnhem, where you could learn about how the Dutch lived in the old times.
The last group came up with a lot of interesting geographical knowledge: the Netherlands have a surface of 41,543 km2, of which 18% is water. 27% of the land has been reclaimed from the water, by creating polders. The deepest place is located in the Zuidplaspolder, near Rotterdam. It is situated at 6,76 meters below sealevel. Watermanagement is very important, even the future king*) has a role in this process. Water managment is the reason why there are still 1000 windmills spread allover the Netherlands. Most of them were used to pump the water away when the polders were created, some of them are still functional.
This group also said that absolute "must see" were the Kinderdijk, where not less than 17 windmills can be seen in a row and the Deltawerken, watermanagement of the highest order in the region Zeeland. The safety in many parts of the Netherlands could not be guaranteed at times of storms and high sea levels. In the densely populated areas near the river mouths of the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Schelde, it was ver difficult to strengthen the original ones. For that reason the best solution was to close all the river mouths. Only after the flood of 1953, the Deltawerken were realized. 'Amazing', Louisa thought, 'I wonder if Martin has seen that already'.
'Class, i am very proud of you, you will all get an A.'
At that exact moment, the end of class bell rang.
'Dismissed, see you all tomorrow, be careful when you go home!'
'Thank you Mrs. E., 'til tomorrow!'
Louisa packed her bag and headed to Roger and Maureen's to pick up James.
'Hello Maureen, how was your day, did James behave well?'
'Of course, he is such a sweetie. He played with the boys. They seem to understand each other perfectly.'
'Fine! Then to James:'hello gorgeous, come on we are going to daddy, say bye bye, to Maureen..' James babbled 'dada...bubye' and waved to Maureen, producing a charming smile on his little face..
With James in the buggy, her ponytail swinging in the wind, Louisa climbed Rosarock Hill towards the surgery, towards home..
To be continued..
I hope you liked it, and hopefully I am correct on most of the tourist information you can find behind the lines...
*) the story situates just before the crowning of King Willem Alexander.