Universiteit van Amsterdam (UVA)

Living in Amsterdam is an experience itself. Wandering around the city is enough to enjoy it. Anyway, I strongly recommend to buy a bike and use it to go around. But take care of thieves! You should also buy a couple of good lockers to prevent your bike from being stolen when parked. The tram is also a good mean of transport. It goes everywhere and it is not expensive (as far as I remember). Obviously, there are some visits you are supposed to do: Dam Square, the heart of the city with the Royal Palace in one side; the famous Red Light District, which is more a touristic atraction than a neighbourhood of prostitution; a Coffe Shop, where joints are available in a menu (as in a restaurant)... A boat trip trough the canals is really worth it and nightlife is everywhere in the center of the city. Beyond nightlife, I must say that Amsterdam is a very cultural place. Its museums are excellent (Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Riks...) and it has also big and relaxing green areas to practice sports or just walking. Most of the people speak English and they are friendly to help visitors. There are plenty of Indonesian restaurants because Indonesia was a former dutch colony. You can try some of them but the food is very spicy. And don't miss the traditional pancake!

I could say that studying in Amsterdam was one of the most exciting experiences in my life. I would have loved to stay there longer, but my grant did not allow me that. Anyway, I did learn a lot of practical things. Not only about journalism but also about ways of studying, living in Europe, getting in touch with people from everywhere, etc. Obviously, improving your english level is also a main point, and you can achieve it easily because you don't even realise that you are becoming more fluent in this language. It happens just as a natural thing, which is great!

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I think that living abroad is an experience everybody should have, especially if you want to work in communication areas (this is my case). It helps you in endless ways. But it is also true that if you are not used to travelling around you can feel a bit lonely at first, you miss many things and every common situation looks harder than it is really. Anyway, this feeling vanishes soon (I hope) for almost everybody.

I lived in Amsterdam for four months and, unhappily, I could not learn dutch as much as I would have liked. But I took international courses in English. So, classes were given in English and students were english speaking people. In this sense, I love to say that my english level improved very much in this period. In fact, I couldn't believe when I left Amsterdam I could express myself so easily in this language (I even dreamt in English!). I have done my best to keep on improving since then.