Dear AvaLingua friends,
You can now join our LIVE meetings in Nijmegen again!
- Stay tuned for new dates -
We hope to see you all!
AvaLingua Exchange Team - Nijmegen
Curious? Read the experiences from other participants!
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The Team
Organizer: Thijs
Hi! My name is Thijs. I have a background in psychology and IT, and have been interested in language for a long time. Together with the rest of the team, I'm happy to be part of AvaLingua Exchange. It's fun to organize it and meet new people, and help each other this way. Connecting all kinds of people is something I also enjoyed when organizing laughter workshops, in the past. Language and laughter: two universal ways to bring people together! I enjoy music a lot, as well as photography, playing guitar and practicing various Cheng Hsin skills. And learning Swedish... See you at the meetings!
Organizer: Henrique
- Henrique will introduce himself here soon 🙂 -
Team member: Kiki
Hola todos! My name is Kiki. After my internship in Ecuador in 2015, I decided it would be good to keep on practising my Spanish. Soon I learned I could do this at AvaLingua Exchange (ALE). I was quite nervous the first time: two hours of talking to total strangers in a foreign language... Was this really such a good idea?! Now, 4 years later, I know it was. I met a lot of people - I even became good friends with some. The relaxed, non-scholastic atmosphere at ALE really helped as well! My Spanish is still up to date and I also organized the events for one year together with Thijs, Avalon and Manu. And I am still a big fan! I visit the events quite often and like to help organizing them from time to time and meet new 'strangers' here.
I love to write blogs for my own website and for FollowFox024. Or I go sporting. Running around in Nijmegen became my own business. I guide people through the city with my company Nijmegen Running Tours. It is a great way to see the city in a different, quick and healthy way. I explain a lot about the sights and hot spots we see when running. The remaining time I work as a physical therapist, see friends, go traveling, drink coffee or am busy daydreaming. Hope to meet you at ALE one day and learn about your interests!
Organizer/Founder: Avalon
Hi everyone! I’m Avalon, a Dutchie who has been living in many different countries, who loves to discover new cultures and different ways of thinking. I’m a cultural anthropologist and teach Dutch to foreigners. I grew up close to the sea, which is one of my favorite places to be!
In 2014, I organized the first AvaLingua Exchange Meeting (called Language Exchange Nijmegen) in Nijmegen, only because I wanted to meet Spanish speakers. It turned out that a lot of people showed up at that first meeting and because I enjoy organizing and connecting people, I decided to make it a weekly event. During the last years it was not only me who organized the meetings, but many people helped me during the time I was abroad or at the other side of the country: Emilie, Jana, Suzanne, Janice, Robert, Manu, Kiki, Sophia, Antoine, Marleen, Fiona and Özlem, thank you! Right now, Thijs and Henrique organize the meetings in Nijmegen, Emma and Alankrita in Rotterdam and Cynric in The Hague. Every now and then, I join the meetings and help with the organization. I support the team and together we create the AvaLingua Exchange community!
It’s always an honor for me to organize the meetings. Every meeting I have the chance to meet wonderful people from different countries. I see a lot of happy faces and all the time new friendships are made and we speak a lot of languages. LANGUAGES, FRIENDS & CULTURES. Connecting these that's what it's all about and my main objective in life.
