Καλημέρα/ Kalimera/ Good day,

My name is Martijn Jouvenaar, 19 years old and I’m a second year IBS student. Zoomvliet College’s International Business Studies (IBS) provides a double qualification. The international acknowledged BTEC National Diploma in Business, as well as the Dutch qualification Vestegingsmanager Groothandel. Most of the subjects covered during this course are directly linked to business life. More specifically, business in international trade and wholesale.

I’ve worked at A.Epiphaniou for 10 weeks. This company is a wholesale and has its own showroom to process sales and a warehouse for the stock.

During this three year course, I’ll work according to the specified BTEC Unit structure. I will have to prove that I have an active understanding of the criteria specified for each unit. During this course I will have to develop certain skills which are required to start the career that I’m aiming for. Both aspects should ascertain that I will be a succes in the future business life. The criteria which I learn in school is what I want to use in the real business life, such as the promotion.

My target in the company was to fit in, to show I’m a hard and serious worker who wants to learn and maybe even improve the company.

For 10 weeks I was a visitor in Cyprus. And my foughts in the beginning were very different than when I actually experienced the Cyprus life. Cyprus is located in the middle east on an island in the Mediterian sea. I lived in Limassol which is one of the biggest cities on Cyprus. The weather there was different than I aspected. My idea was a lot of sun and a very warm climat. Unfortunately, we came in the period that it is raining about 40% all the days, which didn’t happened for 5 years! The people here are very happy about the rain because there were very much problems with a shortage of drinking water. It is very nice to live here, it is a big city which gives us a lot of option to do beside the work and many shopping oppertunities. The people here are very friendly and relaxed at work; this is because the business life here is very different compared to that the Netherlands. The personal connection between company and customer is very important. The sales persons often go to customers houses for a drink and to eat. The people here are very friendly, there are many different nationalities such as Russian, Bulgarian, Romanian, English, Polish, Greek, etc.

Cyprus has its tropical sides and its less tropical sides, everywere you’ll find the palm trees, but in Paphos you have the white beaches, in Nacosia the most sun and Limassol is the most industrial because of the harbor and the import. Limassol is a very rich city, you don’t see a lot of poor people on the street. All the houses there are pritty big and have the spanish look, especially when the sun shines. The infrastructure isn’t that good, sometimes there are big holes in the road and the people drive like crazy, which makes it very difficult to cross the streets. You see a lot of very nice cars here; actually almost no car is standard, if it is an Audi, it is a S-line, Bmw, a M version and even the Lamborghinis and Ferraris are tuned. The people here are also very rich because of the ground that they possessed was sold to rich English people to build hotels and the tourist area.

The company main sales is the catering equipment, which refers to their name; a professional in catering. Beside this they have a showroom where they sell furniture but also all the required cooking equipment for hotels, restaurants, bars, etc. which are also the main target group of the company. During my internship I will mostly be standing in the showroom, but this is also working behind the computer and doing desk research on promotional tools for the company, finding new customers and making reports. I liked it that they gave me space to learn what I wanted and what was suitable for me to learn. Such as the business process, sales process and the import of products. They had a lot of time for me and patience to ask questions and help me with my reports.

My spare time, this was good to let the time go fast, which means I had a lot of fun. Mostly after finishing round 4’o clock I had to walk home for 20 minutes trough the city and I did some grocery shopping and went to some other stores. When I arrived at the hotel sometimes it was possible to just lay in the sun the rest of the afternoon, but other days when it was raining I stayed in the hotel together with my IBS colleagues and I worked on my laptop, browsed on the internet, chatted with other people in the Netherlands, watched video’s, etc. There was always something to do.

The first month we had a contract with a other hotel which allowed use to use their fitness gym, indoor swimming pool, sauna, jacuzzi, table tennis and tennis court. I almost visited that hotel every day after work.

We made some friends here, also people from the company and people from the hotel which we had a drink with some evenings, mostly this was the karoake bar ‘Step In’. The people there are really friendly and you can really laugh there. We went out a couple of times, but this isn’t why I went for my internship. The clubs here look really nice and professional.

The weather in Cyprus normally is 5 years without rain and than 5 years with rain, and unfortunately the 5 years without rain where just finished and we had some days that it was really stormy, because when it rains here, it rains good.

We’ve also visited some cultural sights in Cyprus, and especially in Paphos, such as the tombs of the kings.