What really happens during ESN Intro Week Groningen?
Eight videos, countless internationals, loads of parties and one very important eierbal. Aylya and Dora followed ESN Intro Week Groningen from start to finish.
An entire week of events before you have even figured out where the nearest supermarket is. For hundreds of international students, ESN Intro Week Groningen was their introduction to student life in the city. Aylya and Dora joined them for eight videos of ESN Intro Week Diaries.
Welcome to Groningen
‘I’m more excited for this than my sister’s christening.’ That probably tells you everything you need to know about the mood at the start of ESN Intro Week.
In the first episode, Aylya and Dora meet students who have just arrived in Groningen, as well as internationals who have already made the city their home. Excitement levels are measured, outfits are inspected and potential romances are immediately investigated. One student even gets publicly advertised as single. Subtlety can wait until after Intro Week.
What only your culture understands
Day two starts at the Culture Festival, where students from Brazil, Poland, Spain, Romania and Bulgaria explain the things that probably only make sense if you grew up there.
In Romania, turning 18 can mean throwing a party resembling a wedding. In Spain, apparently the party starts when everybody else is heading home. And if the number 2137 means absolutely nothing to you, you probably did not grow up in Poland.
Love, lost phones and bike crashes
By the pub crawl, some students have already discovered another important part of Dutch culture: falling off a bicycle.
But after spending two days together, how well do the newly formed ESN groups actually know each other? Aylya and Dora ask who is most likely to fall in love, get lost in Groningen or lose their phone.
Turns out some predictions are easier than others. One student had already lost hers.
Is chess a sport?
Sports Day should settle at least one thing: what actually qualifies as a sport? Instead, it creates more questions.
Golf? Probably. Dancing? Definitely, according to some. Formula 1? Surprisingly controversial. And chess leads to the philosophical question nobody asked for: if chess is a sport, where exactly do we draw the line?
Old Money, student budget
Next up is the Old Money Party at Palace. The outfits might suggest generational wealth, but the diets tell a slightly different story.
Aylya and Dora investigate the finest cuisine student life has to offer. Answers include ramen, sweet raisin bread, bread and water and, perhaps most painfully, cereal with water.
Give these students €1 million, however, and the plans suddenly become ambitious: travelling the world, buying houses, supporting family and investing in Groningen property.
Drake, Dolly and One Direction
At Band Night, it is time for the important questions. Favourite artist? Best concert? And which song would make you completely lose it if the band suddenly started playing it?
There is an extremely committed Drake fan, some confusion about Dolly Parton and, somehow, a plan emerges to reunite One Direction through HanzeMAG. We cannot make any promises.
Your life, the movie
At Movie Night, Aylya and Dora turn the cameras around. If your life became a film, what would it look like?
One student chooses psychological horror directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Ryan Gosling. Another wants to defeat Thanos with the power of friendship. Greta Gerwig briefly becomes Greta Thunberg. Hollywood has nothing to worry about. Yet.
One last party
And then, somehow, it is already the final night of ESN Intro Week Groningen.
There is still unfinished business. Earlier in the week, Aylya and Dora met an international student who had never eaten an eierbal. A promise was made. Now it is time to deliver. His verdict? Eight out of ten.
The internationals also face one final test: how much Dutch have they actually learnt? Some have lived here for years and describe their Dutch as ‘grocery store level’. Others get an improvised language lesson on the dance floor.