Canals in Leiden

This is a nice sight of Leiden, a beautiful and historic Dutch town crisscrossed with canals that are lined up by many 17th-century houses. We went here today to a fast food restaurant for lunch. Today is a public holiday but our eldest had to go to school in the morning to sit for her IGSCE Malay exam. She is still in year 10 but she is taking the exam a year earlier. She has been practicing a lot with us the parents with her ‘karangan’ and overall Malay vocabularies. Finding a Malay teacher here is difficult, although there is an Indonesian Languages and Cultures faculty in Leiden University, but the lecturers seems to be reluctant to be involved too much with outside teaching. So we opted not to then and hoping that our eldest daughter takes the initiative herself to learn Malay online or through what ever means. It all boils down to the requirement for scholarship in the future which needs minimum Malay pass. But then it is becoming difficult to get a scholarship nowadays. Even though there are all sort of scholarship schemes being introduced recently, they seems to cater for certain groups and ranks (ranting again!).

About Leiden University itself, it is the oldest university in Holland, founded in 1575. It is probably the most internationally renowned of all the Universities here. It got about 18,000 students, nine faculties, over 50 departments and more than 150 undergraduate programmes.

In Leiden today, we saw people going on canal cruise and just enjoying the weather. Its strange how people really appreciate such things which back home we too often take it for granted – sunshine and the good weather. Coffeehouses are now putting their chairs and tables outside where people sit down and enjoy their coffee. It’s incredible to imagine where all these chairs have been hidden all this time...