Expectations
When I ask Nour about her expectations before she came to the Netherlands, she says that her expectations were build on the movies she saw and things she had read about Europe and that her expectations were not far from what she actually experienced here in the Netherlands, aside from the snow when she first arrived here. ‘’The snow was breath taking and something entirely new. I cannot grasp how beautiful the snow is’’ she said when she arrived in the Netherlands in the end of January 2013.
Culture
Culturewise, Leeuwarden is significantly different from Doha, Qatar. Despite that, Nour did not experience a strong culture shock as she has been in Europe before, and had seen movies, which gave her an idea of Europe, culture, and the people living here. “It would be more of a culture shock for people going from Leeuwarden to Qatar then the other way around I think.’’
The most difficult part of her time in Holland for Nour was staying away from her family for the first time for this long, let alone abroad. All in all, Grand Tour experience has promoted her to become more independent. She learned to deal with problems she never encountered before.
All in all, she says “I dealt with everything a lot better than I thought I would’ve”.
Nour in the Netherlands