G’Day from the Netherlands!

Hallo (that’s hello in Dutch in case you were wondering), my name is Chelsea and I am currently on exchange in Tilburg for my final semester of my law degree!

I have just finished week 2 of my exchange at Tilburg University, and even though I’ve only had 5 hours of classes in the past fortnight, I absolutely love my new life here! Tilburg is an amazing student city, it is a town with the most bikes per capita I’ve ever seen in my life, and is in such a great location to travel on your days off. As someone who learned to ride a bike two weeks before she moved to the Netherlands, I am happy to say I have had no accidents (however, a lot of bruises).

Some of you may be concerned about moving to a non-English speaking country however, that was one of the things that attracted me to Tilburg – moving to a country with a different culture. I can’t speak Dutch; my language-learning abilities are so bad I don’t think I’ll learn more than 5 Dutch words by the time I leave, so thankfully everyone here can speak English exceptionally well, and are eager to show it off.

When you arrive at Tilburg University, you are set up from day 1 to ensure you have the best experience possible. Like most European countries, Tilburg University goes hard on their O-week, which they call TOP week. You are put into a group of around 20-25 exchange students and 2-3 mentors, and have one of the best weeks ever. The week is all about making friends, eating meals together, having daily activities including going to a water park, and a festival filled with inflatable slides and games, and being able to party at different venues at the end of each night.

But the best activity by far is the Cantus, where you spend the afternoon drinking beer (or rosé beer if you hate beer like I do), singing songs, and drinking more beer. By the end of the week, you make so many new friends from so many different countries. But as all good things come to an end, you wouldn’t be wrong to be worried your close-knit group will start to drift apart as classes start. I*ESN (the Erasmus association in Tilburg) ensures you don’t lose contact by organising weekly dinners every Tuesday where you take turns cooking with a few other groups, and then go out to a different themed party.

It’s time for me to tap out and do some readings for class, feel free to contact me for more information about Tilly. I hope you weren’t reading this to get information about classes, because I haven’t really gotten to that part yet!

Chelsea Payne

11698836

Bachelor of Business Bachelor of Laws

Tilburg University, The Netherlands