Holland 2006

It has been the third time a group of the residents from our „Home under the Castle“ got an invitation from Woerden Rotary Club for 7 days amazing holiday in Holland.

In 2002 the following group of people enjoyed this week : Petr, Zdenek , Mila , Jenda , Slavek and our favourite, nice Silviaaccompanied by the director Ludek Gratz, Tomas Čečetka and Marketa Novotná.

Two years later in 2004 Miluska and Bohous, Mira, Vasek (with his nick name Policeman), Lubos and neverforgotten Roman, who spoke very nice English and German with Dana Kroulova, Tomas Č. and Marketa N. traveled to Holland.

Also the third group extremely enjoyed the holiday week and everybody has gained alot of beautiful experience, new friendships and deep memories.

We were hosted by 3 Rotarian member families of Scholten, Streng and Graafland .

The program of the week was full and very interesting, the whether was sometimes wonderful and sunny, sometimes it was raining gently and once we even saw a rainbow above the Dutch countryside.

We were at the seaside in Haag, in Madurodam, one day we spent at Archeon, a historical skanzen from the stone age to middle age, we went by boat along a lot of water channels throught a historical town Leiden, we walked in Utrecht and visited the museum of trains there.

We spent an interesting time in Amsterdam, among funny people of different ethnics. We saw a wind mill, typical pubs and a big cathedrale in Woerden. We visited a cheese house and nice farms in the surroundings of this town.

We were also officially invited by Woerden majorMr. Schmidt to the town hall, Mr. Schmidt personally met us all and he was interested in the Rotarian project for handicapped people, in other projects and the contacts between Zamberk and Woerden regions and about our institution in Zampach.

We all hope the contacts between Woerden and Zamberk will be promoted in the future.

Our group was invitated for a Rotary club meeting in Concordia. There was a presentation of all 3 projects for handicapped people and about our institution „Home under the Castle“. We thanked the Rotarian people for these wonderful projects.

During our stay we saw not only Dutch sights.We also walked through marvellous countryside with water channels, wind mills, meadows with cows, horses and sheep, but we were also invitated to the Dutch families for lunches, forfestive dinners, fornice meetings every day and we had very pleasant feelings from these times.

Our final party at the Scholten´s house was full of Czech and Dutch songs and friendly dialogues, our boys and girl didn´t have any language problems, they spoke Czech, Englisch, Dutch and with hands and legs.

In the end Radek thanked to our Dutch friends in very special English-Czech language. We got big typical Dutch cheese for all the residents of our „Home“ for Christmas.

The Dutch people appreciated our handicapped group members´ friendship, spontaneity and the way the helped one another.

We have brought home enormous expirience and neverforgotten memories of all Holland and of pleasant and lovefull Dutch people.

We would like to express our very special thanks to Berend Jan Scholten, who began and has organized these projects, to his family, to families Graafland and Streng and to all other families and Rotary Club members who participated in these projects.

                                                                                                                                                                              Markéta Novotná