leagues from all over Europe, in the same hotel in the cosy city of Leiden. Both cover an excellent daily program, followed by an amazing social pro-gram! Speaking on the social program... next updates will cover this topic for sure! Keep watching the European email groups! For now: please enjoy reading this very first edition. Visit our website (URL mentioned above) while awaiting the next edition, and cover yourself in the EMSA (GA) spirit already! Best wishes from the EMSA-GA OC 2011

Dear fellow EMSAi, Instead of spamming you with “register now” emails (which we possibly will still do after all, if neces-sary), we decided to show you a small selection of the thousand reasons to come to Leiden for the EMSA GA. As only a few topics can be covered by one newsletter, we will spread the topics over at multiple editions! Every newsletter will cover an interesting selection for those of you who would like to come in the mood for the EMSA GA 2011, the EMSA GA during which EMSA will celebrate

its twentieth birthday! This very first edition forms a short introduction to the newsletters. We introduce you to several newsletter features as the “Jeroen-o-meter”, and the Dutch word and food of the month. Every issue will cover a topic about the venue, starting with the city of Leiden itself. We will also give you some additional informa-tion about the program. We chose for an EMSCon update in this very first edition, as this is going to be an event as big as the GA itself! Both GA and EMSCon will give you the opportunity to meet col-

Introduction to the updates 

The city of Leiden Leiden is the city of the keys, Rembrandt and hutspot. In 1575, Leiden was freed from the Span-ish. Because of their brave defense, Prince Willem van Oranje gave the people of Leiden a choice between two pre-sents: They could choose for a University, or they could choose to be free of taxes forever. The people of Leiden chose the Uni-versity: the first University of Holland was founded! Now, 446 years later,

Leiden is the decorum for the EMSA GA 2011. You can visit the old buildings of Leiden University and walk along the beautiful canals. Visit the market to taste the real Dutch cheese. Two old gates of Leiden are still intact: the Morspoort and the Zijlpoort. Along the city walk road you will find the ‘beestenmarkt’: the old cattle market of Leiden, the ‘burcht’: the citadel of Leiden, the townhall and the ‘Waag’: the weigh

house of Leiden. In the Waag the goods that were transported along the Rhine to Leiden were valuated.

Don’t think it is an old medieval, dusty city: ten percent of the inhabitants of Leiden are students! This is why there are liv-ing a lot of young people in the centre of Leiden and because of that, there are enough places to party all night long!

08‐05‐2011 Update 1

EMSA GA Update

Jeroen­o­meter: Keep our treasurer warm, and pay your fee as soon as possible! Now, he’s still freezing and that’s why he’s grumpy! 

In this issue: 

Introduction 

The city of Leiden 

Jeroen‐o‐meter 

Dutch Word of the Month 

Dutch Food of the Month 

Update of the EMSCon 

ga2011@ifmsa.nl www.ifmsa.nl/ga2011 Leiden, The Netherlands

Update EMSCon Are you coming to the EMSA General Assembly? And would you like your non-EMSA friends to join you in discovering the Nether-lands? Bring them along to the European Medical Students’ Confe-rence (EMSCon)!!! EMSCon is a conference open to all European medical students in the beautiful city of Leiden, The Netherlands. This years’ theme is NUTRITION: Medicine for modern society. We will discuss every aspect of nutrition: from medical to political. The program will com-prise a full three-day conference from August 28th till September 1st. During daytime you will gain a lot of useful and very interesting knowledge for your future carreer, at night you will get to know Lei-den and Leiden’s social life. On the first and last day you will also experience some Dutch traditions, and what stops you from coming a few days earlier and experience Amsterdam or The Hague? After the EMSCon you can stay in the exact same location for the EMSA GA, which will start on September 1st. For more information check out www.ifmsa.nl/emscon or contact us via edu.ga2011@ifmsa.nl. 

Recipe for the cake of the stroopwafel Melt 200 grams of butter in a frying pan on a low heat and pour the melted butter in a large bowl. Add the sugar and salt and stir until smooth. Add the flour and cinnamon and the egg and knead a firm dough. Leave this dough in minse for 30 minutes.

Recipe for the syrup of the stroopwafel Put the cooking syrup, brown sugar and 50 grams of butter in a sauce pan and keep stir-ring it and heating. It takes about ten minutes to create a thick syrup and it will thicken a bit as it cools

Recipe Stroopwafels (nomnomnom) 250 grams butter 200 grams sugar 1 egg 10 cl milk 500 grams flour Teaspoon cinnamon Pinch salt Half pot cooking syrup Half cup brown sugar Waffle-iron Big Dipper

further. Let the pan stand quietly and go back to the dough.

Making the stroopwafel Make small round balls of dough. The balls should be about the size of a quail hat-ching. Put the balls in a hot waffle-iron and bake it, it will take approximately one minu-te before the cake is rea-dy. Take the hot cake from the waffle bowl and cut into 2 pieces. This can be do-ne with a hot knife. When the cake is in two parts put the syrup mixture between the two layers. Let the cake cool for several minutes

Dutch food of the Month 

Dutch word of the month: 

“Gezellig!”