Hello Wisconsin!!

All packed up

The day finally came that I had to leave Arnhem and travel back to Wisconsin.  I had only gotten about four hours of sleep the night before I left and had to get up really early at 5:30.  I said good bye to Mike and then met Emily and Tad in the lobby.  We walked with all of our luggage to the Presikhaaf train station. Unfortunately, there is no elevator there so I had to make two trips up the stairs. We had to switch trains that the Arnhem Central station which its such a hassle getting on and off the trains with two heavy suitcases! We finally made it to the airport. Tad came with us to check our bags and then we went and checked his. Unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to each other before security because we had to go to different securities for each gate.  And then it was just me and Emily left.  The flight left on time around 11:15 and was a really smooth flight. They had okay movies and I watched Beastly and Wall-E and then was bored.  We arrived in Chicago around 12:45pm and had no problems going through customs and getting our bags.  My mom and dad were waiting for me and were so exited to see me. We drove home and for my first meal back I wanted Gemplers pizza with ranch and chocolate milk! It was really good even though it was my second supper of the day because they served us lunch and supper on the plane.  It was a little harder adapting to the time change coming home. The first night back I went to bed at 6:30pm and woke up at 4:30am. The next day I went with my mom to pick up Tanya from Badger Girls State camp.  That night we had a family cook out for fathers day, Nicole's and Ryan's birthday and my homecoming.  It was really nice to see all of my family again.  It took me a few days to completely get over the jet lag. I still have not gotten my car out of storage because my parents seem to have misplaced the keys.  I also still have not unpacked because one I don't really know where to put everything and two once I unpack it will really seem like I am home for the summer and not returning to Arnhem.  But Nicole is getting mad at how messy our room is so I guess I have to start unpacking soon!

Goodbye Holland!

It's not good bye its see you later!

All good things must come to an end.  I can't believe that my time abroad is over.  My final days were just spent relaxing, hanging out with friends and cleaning.  My check out appointment was Wednesday at 2:00.  I didn't start packing or cleaning till Tuesday and even then I didn't do that much. I took things off of the wall and started putting thing in my suitcases.  Since I didn't' get much done on Tuesday, I had a lot to do on Wednesday. I got my room clean, though everything wasn't completely packed up so I just threw everything into the hallway just to get it out of my room. After getting my room done, Emily and I still had to clean the kitchen and toliet.  Luckily I got that all done and also had time for a few people to stop by to say good bye to. There was a guy and girl that come to inspect my room.  I was a little nervous because I spilled wax twice on my carpet so I rearranged my room so that the bed was covering the wax. Luckily they did not see it so I got my full deposit back.  I had to through all the stuff that I had in the hallway in Mike's room who I was sleeping on his couch for the night.  It was really nice that Max is staying for next semester as well so lots of people gave him the things that they didn't want anymore so I gave him a lot of things too.  After me, Emily and Tad were all checked out we went to the Vivare headquarters to get our deposits back.
 

My room all cleaned and packed up

  
For my last night I went out to eat at a pizza place in the city center with Emily, Sixtina, Caro, Hanna, and Tanya.  Then we met Elenor, Nolin and Brittany and the theater for ladies night.  We saw Bridesmaids which was supper funny!! They always to raffles prizes before the movie and I actually won, though it was a 25 euro gift certificate for makeup but since I was leaving I gave it to Brittany.   When I got back I had to finalize my packing and made sure my bags were okay weight wise.  There was a small party going on on the 5th floor since me, Emily, Tad, Raquel, Maitane, Coline and Guillaume were all leaving the next day.  It was so sad saying good bye to everyone and of course I was crying!! But hopefully, most of them are not good byes for ever, they are just see you laters.

Elenore, Emily, Noilin, Brittany, Tanya, Hanna, Caro, me and Six

Heaven and Hell

"We were strangers, starting out on a journey. Never dreaming, what we would go through. Life is a road, now and forever, wonderful journey. We were strangers on a crazy adventure, never dreaming how our dreams would come true." At the beginning, Anastasia

The International Student Association organized an end of the year boat gala for all of the students of ABS. They had said they sold 450 tickets and they were sold out; there were many people who still wanted tickets that did not get them. The theme of the gala was heaven and hell but they had the boat decorated the opposite with heaven on the bottom and hell on top. We had to be at the boat early to pick u Bettina's ticket and the boat departed around 8:30.  The weather was not the nicest as it was kind of rainy and a little cold. When we bored be got our free welcome drink of champagne.  We also had one free coupon for a free cocktail. Bettina and I went to get our drink and they never took our ticket and so after we were done with that we went up again and still they didn't take our ticket. Finally on the third time they asked for it; so we ended up getting a free long island ice tea and two sex on the beaches! There was a DJ so we just danced and talked to everyone. It was a really fun night though sad at the same time because it was the last big thing all together, so there were a few people crying.

Iker, Brent, Bettina, Tanya, Hanna and Pablo

Elenor, Nolin, me and Bettina

The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music

Lisa, Bettina and I

Two of my really good friends that I have made here, Lisa and Bettina, are from Austria.  They only had one exam so they left early on June 6th.  Since they were already home I was able to go and visit them! I left on Monday afternoon, and took a bus for 13 hours across southern Germany to Linz, Austria.  I arrive about five in the morning and Bettina was there to pick me up.  I wasn't able to get much sleep on the bus because it was really uncomfortable, so we went back to her place and slept for three hours.  Then we got up and ready and took the tram into the the city of Linz. (Bettina lives in a suburb just outside the city while Lisa lives in the city).  We meet Lisa and they showed me around the city.  We were able to take a tram up one of the mountains and got a good view of the city. Then we went and ate at a small restaurant called Walkers which has really good burgers.  We meet up with Bettina's mom and grandma and went to the OK Hohen Rausch.2 which was kind of like a museum thing for water.  They had these cool picture boards which you pulled out and they were of a body of water and then it made the sound of the water. They also had this area where a lot of mist came out and then it was hard to see anything more than two feet away from you. It also had this long walk way above the building which you could walk around and see the city.  After we went and had coffee, went back to Bettina's house and ordered pizza and watched Gossip Girl. 

Linz, Austria

The next day we got up early and drove to Salzburg which was about an hour and fifteen away. The drive there was beautiful; there are mountains everywhere.  Salzburg was a really nice city and did remind me of the Sound of Music.  Apparently there is even a tour that will take to places from the movie.  We got a small lunch from the market, I had some sort of bratwurst with cheese in it that is typical from there and it was pretty good.There was a castle on top of this really big hill that we hiked to the top to get a good view of the city.   We got to the top and then found out you had to pay to go further so we didn't.  We were able to hike around some more of the hills/mountains. We had a really really nice sunny and hot day; it was about 90 degrees.  After all the hiking we had a dessert break and I had chocolate milk with ice cream.  On our way home we stopped and saw this small lake in Mondsee that was surrounded by mountains.  It was so nice to sit with our feet in the water and just enjoy the scenery.  We were all really tired from all the walking around we did that day.  We just went back to Bettina's house; here mom made a greek salad with rolls and it was very good.  Later one of Bettina's friends came over and we just sat outside talking.

Salzburg

Mondsee

my Austrian dish-Käsespätzle

We had originally planned on going to Vienna (Wein in German) on Thursday but we decided not to because to do Vienna properly you really need more time. So instead, we went to Hallstatt which is a small but very scenic town and Bettina's sister goes to school there. We walked all around the town and then had lunch at this cafe right on the water.  I tried a typical Austrian dish, Käsespätzle, that was kind of like macaroni and cheese. But they weren't really noodles,  I don't know how to describe them. It was interesting; it wasn't bad but it wasn't amazing either. Next we went up the mountain.  We had seen pictures of this cave that looked so amazing and we wanted to go see it.  We bought tickets and you had to ride in this little car that took you up the mountain.  It was only 8 degrees Celsius in the cave so they made us wear these heavier jackets and pants. The tour was fun and there was even these slides we went on to get down to the lower parts of the cave. The caves were salt caves which are very important to the area.  Then they told us the tour was over and we were confused because we thought we were going to see these big blocks of salt.  It turns out we were at the wrong tour than we wanted; what we saw pictures of was the ice cave. It was kind of disappointing because the ice cave looked really cool but the salt mine was still fun.  Then we went to the restaurant on the top of the mountain and had dessert and enjoyed the view. I had this really good chocolate cake with I think an apricot jam filling. We finally went back down the mountain, did some souvenir shopping and went back home.  Bettina's dad had made supper on the grill of potatoes, garlic bread and weinersnitchel which was really good. Then we just tried to pack up and get things ready for the next day and watched some Friends.

Hallstatt Lake

View of Hallstatt from the top

      Friday morning we got up bright and early at 5:00am and were on the road about six headed back to Arnhem.  We made a few stops along the way to McDonalds and a gas station. It was hard to stay awake because I was still kind of tried from the long week and getting up early but I had to stay awake for Bettina. Unfortunately I couldn't help her drive because most people here have stick shift cars which I don't know how to drive. After about nine hours of driving we made it back to Arnhem!!
      I think out of all the places that I have visited while I was here, Austria was the prettiest place (Ireland is a close second).  It was just amazing seeing all the mountains everywhere and the lakes.  It was so hard to capture the beauty in my pictures.  I took so many pictures it was really hard to decide which ones to put on here! I hope to go back to Austria to visit them again and to see Vienna.

Hallstatt houses in the mountain

Ready for the salt caves!

A Weekend in Arnhem

      Its weird that I have been here for five months and I hadn't done that many things here around Arnhem.  Arnhem isn't the biggest city ever but does have a few things to do. One weekend Emily and I went to the Open Air Museum and the Zoo.
     The Open Air Museum is kind of like Old World Wisconsin.  It is a park set up like a village from the past.  You can go in all the different buildings and see old tools, furniture, farming equipment, etc.  It was also cool that there were about five windmills there which I always love seeing. We didn't have the best weather this day as it was a little cold and rainy. Because the park is so big, they have a free tram that you can hop on and off that goes around the park. We didn't realize before going how big the park was and how much time you needed there, so we weren't able to really go into a lot of the buildings and look around. After walking around the park, we took a coffee break while we waited for the next showing of the Holland Rama.  The Holland Rama is kind of hard to explain.  Its kind of like a 4-D movie but not really.  You sit on theses benches but they move around showing you a variety of different set ups as a speaker (it was only in Dutch) described the scene. (http://www.openluchtmuseum.nl/en/)

The next day we went to the Burger's Zoo. (http://www.burgerszoo.nl/). We had much better weather this day, it was sunny and warm.  It was a pretty big zoo and it was nice just to be outside, walking around enjoying the the weather and seeing the animals.  Its hard to say what my favorite animal was; I think it would be either the penguins because I love watching them play around in the water or the elephants because they are just so big but yet very peaceful. It was a nice weekend in Arnhem, though we did think it was funny that we did everything in one weekend at the very end of our time here but I am glad that I was able to see them.

Study Abroad Play List

"Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom.  If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn."  ~Charlie Parker

Can you imagine the world without music?  I don't think we really realize the effect that music has.  Music has the power to create an emotion within us; it can help pump you up and help you focus for the big game, it can help relieve stress, help relax us, and it sometimes gives us the words that we are looking for to help explain how we are feeling.  A song can create an impression upon us and can help bring back memories of a certain time.  So in order to help better remember the moments of my experience studying abroad, I have created a play list from my time here.  Most of the songs are ones that were very popular and played a lot here and have some meaning to me.  I tried to order the play list to try and create a story of my time here. 

1. I just came to say Hello (Martin Solveig)
2. What's My name (Rihanna)
3. Who's that chick (David Guetta featuring Rihanna)
4. Waka Waka (Shikira)

5. Berlin City Girl (Culcha Candela)
6. Lei-Lei, Lei-lei
7. Vamos a la Playa (Loona)
8. Latino Lover (Loona)
9. Loca (Shikira)
10. I want to Ride my Bicycle (Queen)
11. Black and Yellow (Wiz Khalifa)
12. S&M (Rihanna)
13. Barbra Streisand (Duck Sauce)

14. I know you want me (Pitbull)
15. Tonight (Enrique Iglesias)
16. Alcohol, Alcohol, Alcohol (Los Inhumanos)
17. On the Floor (Jeniffer Lopez featuring Pitbull)
18. Higher (Taio Cruz featuring Travie McCoy)
19. Heyo Captain Jack (Captain Jack)
20. We are your Friends (Justice vs Simon)
21. Wav'n the Flag (K'naan)
22. One Day (Matisyahu)
23. Live your Life (T.I featuring Rhianna)

24. Angles (Robbie Williams)
25. Memories (David Guetta)

26. Summer of 69 (Bryan Adams)
27. Party Rock Anthem (LMAFO)
28. Who Says you can't go Home (Bon Jovi & Jennifer Nettles)
29. Home (Blake Shelton)

Caro and I

Me, Silvia and Maitane

Koln

Emily, Stephanie and I went on a day trip to Koln, Germany.  Our train was suppose to leave around 9:00am but was delayed a half hour.  We arrive in Koln around 11 and we went to the very large Cathedral there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne_Cathedral).  We walked around the inside before heading up the tower.  We climbed over 500 stairs up this spiral staircase to the top of one of the towers in the Cathedral.  There was a really nice view of the city and the Rhine River from the top and you could see some of the large bells in the Cathedral. Going down was a lot easier though we actually got pretty dizzy and had to stop a few times to try and stop things from spinning! After that we just walked around for a while.  They have many many shops so of course we did a little shopping.  I only got a new belly ring from Six which is an accessory store like Clair's only a little nicer.  I also got a headband from H&M. We took a coffee break at Dunk N Donuts; I have actually never been here in the States.  I just got a French vanilla iced coffee and a doughnut with lemon frosting.  Then we head to the river and walked along it.  We went up on the big bridge that crosses it that has train tracks and a sidewalk.  There is a wire fence on the bridge that over many many years, people have come and put locks on it.  Most of the locks have engravings on them with the couple's wedding date. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_padlocks) Couples come and put their locks on the fence and then throw their keys into the river. After that we went back to the train station where Stephanie had a little more shopping to do.  Our train was suppose to leave around 17:45 but when we looked at the board we saw that it was canceled! We went to the information counter and they told us that the next one left at 19:17 so we had an hour and a half to kill.  We just walked around the train station and got some food at Pizza Hut! I thought the pizza was Hawain, I didn't really look at the sign I just looked at the pizza. When I tried it, it was defiantly not Hawaiin! What I thought was pineapple was actually white asparagus and had some kind of weird sauce.  I was hungry so I ate it but it was interesting. We were so happy when our train finally came and we finally made it back to Arnhem around 9:30.  We later found out why our train was canceled; there was a labor strike in Amsterdam which was the destination of our train. All semester long it seems that there have been train strikes in Germany which makes the train some what unreliable to use and now there are some in Holland. So another place that I can check off of my list!

Love Padlock Fence

Schools Out for Summer!

Bettina, Lisa and I

I am all done with school for the summer!! I only had one exam out of five classes.  The exam was suppose to be on the 16th but our teacher said that ten people could take it early on the 6th if they wanted to.  I signed up just so that I could get it done and over with and I am so glad that I did. The exam was for finance which I have really been struggling with this semester.  The exam went pretty well I think; it was really similar to the practice exam that I studied.  Now I have about two weeks to do whatever I want! Next week I am going to Austria to visit two of my friends that I made here who have already gone back home.  I am really excited to go and stay with them and to see Austria!
       I head back to the States on the 23rd, only two weeks to go! Right now its still a big mix of emotions.  A few weeks ago I was just all sad to be leaving soon.  I really love it here and have had the best five months of my life.  The people here are really great and I will be really sad to leave them.  Recently, I have started to feel a little excited to go home.  It will be really nice to see all of my family again.  I think we will have a welcome home/birthday party which I am really looking forward to.  It sounds weird to say, but this life style that I have been living here can get exhausting.  Its been like a big race, trying to do as much as you can before time runs out. I have done a lot here though there is still so much that I want to see and do but I guess it gives me an excuse to come back to Europe!  I know that I will be back some day because I want to visit all the friends that I have made and I hope that some people will come visit me in Wisconsin because it is a really nice place to see in the summer.

Walibi World

Guillaume and I on the giant drop

Bettina, me, Sean and Rafa on the swings

Shaka is one of the buddies here and has been a really great help to all of us exchange students.  He decided to organize a trip to an amusement park (like 6 Flags) called Walibi World.  There was about 25 of us that went and he had organized a coach bus to take us to the park which is about an hour away from Arnhem.  We left about 9:00am, of course we were suppose to leave at 8:30 but there are also people like Brent who are late! We first went on this ride called Golith (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ7lstAs3r8&feature=fvst).  It really isn't that scary besides the big first drop but it is really long. Didac and I were able to convince Lisa and Bettina to go on it as they had never been on one before.  We told them that this one really didn't look that bad, which it didn't compared to some of the ones I have been on.  We sitting in the cart waiting for it to start when Didac told them that ya this one is kind of high that the drop was pretty big; they start to freak out a little. After the ride got done I looked back at them and the looks on their faces was priceless; Bettina looked just plain scared and Lisa's long blond hair was all covering her face, it was so funny! They said that there were kind of glad that we told them that it wasn't that bad otherwise they wouldn't have gotten on.  This park seemed a lot smaller than Six Flags, it only had a few really big coasters.  We went on one wooden one (which I hate wooden coasters because they are really jerky), one like the giant drop, the swings, bumper cars and the one that's like a boat and swings back and forth. We also went on a few water rides too.  There was the log one that you sit 4-6 people in this log and go around; you don't really get wet until the end when you go down the steeper slide unless you are the guys who slash each other and try to get wet!  Then we went on one that's like a giant bench that spins around; there was water that shoots up from the ground, our group didn't get wet but we saw other people that went on get wet.  Then we went back to the raft one that was broken at first; its the one that they have the big circular rafts that holds about 8 people and you go down the river and over some rapids. Again, you didn't really get wet on the ride but then after when we were waiting to get out, our two groups of rafts started splashing each other.  I think the funnest ride was this one that they had these submariners that ran on a track that held four people and each person had there own water gun that you could shoot at the other submarines.  We had a great day weather wise, it was really hot and sunny so the water felt really nice! There were two other big coasters that we went on the Speed of Sound which was pretty cool and probably my favorite and then I don't remember what the other one was called.We stayed until the park closed at 6 and then headed home.  Most of us were pretty tired on the bus ride home and some of us slept! It was another fun day spent with great people!

Some of the group

One Last Time!

Bettina, Steph and I

    There was one group in our event management class that was responsible for planning the farewell party for us exchange students.  They had a party in a bar a few weeks back but they had a second half to their event which was last week Wednesday.  It was held at Lokkal 99 which is a bar on campus and they worked with the university to organize it.  We all arrived around 6:30 and each person got two free drinks.  Around 7:00 the program started.  They made a slide show with a picture of each person from each country.  They announced the countries alphabetical and we went up to the little stage and received our certificate from the school and a yearbook that the group had made with a picture of each person. The countries that had the most people here was Spain and the US, I think we both had about 15. After they handed out the certificates they had a variety of small appetizers such as rice, meatballs, hard boiled eggs, Asian noodles, and a few others.  Then we were able to get each other to sign the yearbooks, there was a quiz, and karaoke competition. They also had some awards just for fun.
    -The nicest girl:  Siliva (Spain)                      The nicest guy: Stefan (Canada)
    -The best looking girl: Amandine (France)     The best looking guy: Alex (Spain)
     -The funniest girl: Elenor (Ireland)               The funiest guy: Rafa (Brazil)
-The girl that drinks the most: Marissa (California)The guy that drinks the most: Xavi (Spain)
    -Maneater: Coline (France)                             Womenizer: Conor (Ireland)
     After we all just hung out at the bar until it closed at 11 and then just came back and hung out in the dorms for awhile. It was a pretty fun night though its sad that the good-byes will be starting soon.

Class Trip to Brussels

Marissa, Hailey, Bea, Elise, Petra, Max, Teo, Norman

Hastomi

2 Liter beer at the Delirium!

The Atomium

View of the city from the Atomium

Parliament

For my European Integration class we got to travel to Brussels, Belgium for two days.  The transportation and hostel was covered by the school so we only had to pay for food which was very nice! We left Monday morning from school around 9am and we took a coach bus there.  We had turned in our paper a few weeks ago but we still had to do our presentations in our hostel.  My group was a little unorganized.  A few days before we left Anna found out she could not go on the trip for health reasons. Sunday night I realized that our group didn't have our presentation made or prepared! I made a template of our power-point and sent it to the guys to do their part. Teo and I were the only ones who had something done on it, so Teo brought his laptop on the bus so that we could work on it.  His computer battery only last about 20 minutes so it died before we could finish!  We arrived in Brussels around 1:00 and we were sitting in the hostel lobby starting to work on our presentation again. We got kicked out because they said that we couldn't check into our hostel until two so we got to walk around a little.  We came back at two and changed clothes for the presentation and went down to the dinning area where we were to present. We were very lucky that we were the last group to present because we were working on finishing our power-point and making our note cards during other peoples presentation! I have never been so unprepared in my life but it turned out ok; I think our presentation went fairly well for how little we prepared. The presentations lasted until 6:30. Then we had two girls who studied in Arnhem last semester and are now doing internships in Brussels come talk to us for about 15 minutes.  Then we were free to do what we wanted for the rest of the night. The two girls were really nice and showed us around Brussels a little.  First we went and ate and this small shop.  The girls recommended this sandwich--it was a sub role with mayo, this really processed, spicy hamburger, french fries and fry sauce. It was really difficult to eat and I could only eat half of it because it was so big and it wasn't the greatest.  We just continued to walk around more and of course the guys had to see the Red Light District of Brussels which was really small.  We stopped at a grocery store so that some people could get bottles of alcohol. We went back to the hostel and were sitting outside drinking.  Then around eleven we left to go to a bar.  Some how I lost the rest of the girls so it was me and nine guys that went to the bar.  We went to this bar called Delirium (http://www.deliriumcafe.be/)which has over 2,000 kinds of beer on tap; they rotate them and have 15 on tap a night. One of the guys bought this really huge beer, I think it was two litters that we all shared! Then I tried this cheery beer which was really good, but it was almost too sweet! Around two Marissa (Cali) and Hailey (Australia) meet up with us.  We stayed at the bar till after close and then walked back to the hostel which we ended up going to bed around 5am and my alarm went off at 7am! We had breakfast at the hostel and then packed up and left around nine and went to the Atomium (http://atomium.be/?lang=en).  It looks really cool but there really isn't much inside of it.  Then we went to the Parliament.  We had a little time to walk around and then we had a speaker which a lot of us were trying really hard not to fall asleep for!  Around 3:30 we headed back for Arnhem and arrived back around 8.  It was a fun trip though too bad we didn't have more time to see more of the city.

The class in front of the Atomium

Second Period Classes

Business Performance Tools: This class was a lot less work the second half because all we had was one large group paper, but it was worth about 50% of our grade.  We had the same groups that he had the whole semester (Lisa and Aldo).  We had to choose a company and do many analysis (SWOT, Porters, Pestel, McKinsey), their strategy and create a balance score card. Our group choose to do Chuck E Cheese because its a company that pretty much only Americans and Canadians know and it was kind a fun company.  Our teacher really really liked our report and we got a 9 on it which is crazy high for this school.  So overall I got an A in this class. This class was kind of fun because the teacher was nice and I had a good group to work with.

Finance: I feel that we didn't really do much in this class the whole second half.  We started with a guest lecture from Lithuania.  We had a few group cases to work on.  The only thing I have left for this class is the final exam next week Monday which I really need to study for. Our grade in this class is based on the two exams and then our cases.  This class was really a struggle for me.

Event Management: We didn't have as much to do the second half as the first half because most of our planning for our event was already done.  We had a few more plans to do and finishing details of our event which was held on April 28th and was a big success.  For our grade, we had to create a group portfolio which had all our plans, evaluations, picture CD, promotional material and a few other things. We had to make two portfolios, one for each teacher, and each portfolio was probably about 150 pages.  Coline and I spent 4 hours putting them together.  We had a final feedback session with the tutors where they just asked us some more questions about our event to be able to give us an individual grade.  Our portfolio for completeness got a 9.5. We were missing one feedback email that we forgot to print off and they took a whole point off for missing one sheet out of 150 pages! They gave us half a point back for printing it out and giving it to them. We got an 8.5 on the quality of our portfolio which they said was the highest for our class.  I am just waiting on my individual grade but that should also be high so I will get an A in this class as well. I would say that this was my favorite class, even though the first half the semester it seemed very time consuming do all our plans but in the end it was worth it.

Business Ethics: This class was switched to 8:45am Friday mornings so it was really hard some days to get up and go to this class! I think this was the most pointless class that I took here. The teachers were really good at getting distracted during lectures so they would always get side tracked and then would only spend about the last 30 minutes of a three hour class talking about ethics.  The only thing we had to do this half was a large group paper comparing the ethical practices in two countries; we had Germany and Mexico.  My group was mostly the same from the first half; Bettina, Ainel and Remco (Dutch). We wont get our grades on this until next week; I'm not sure though how well we did.

European Integration: This class had the same layout as the first half.  The second half was focused on mergers and acquisitions in Europe. I was the most excited for this class; I think it has the potential to be a really good class but the teachers were really boring.  We had one multiple choice exam at the end of the period. It was only 30 questions, but out of them I was only confident in 9 of my answers, the rest were all guesses.  I was at every single class and took notes and still didn't not know where they got the questions for the exam. I managed though to do ok, I got a 7 and the highest grade in the class was 7.9 so I was fine with that.  Before the exam, one person in the class had created a Facebook group to help each other study.  I typed up all my notes and put them on there and I think a lot of people studied off of them because a lot of people didn't come to class.  One time they gave they gave the exact same lecture twice! He was starting to teach and I thought I had heard it before, but thought maybe it was in a different class.  I looked back through my notes and found where they had talked about it in this class and just followed along with my notes that I had taken a month before; every thing was the exact same, even all the examples they gave! We got new groups for the second group assignment. My group was Anna (the Netherlands), Mike (Canada) and Teo (Bulgaria). We were a good group and worked very effectively.  I think we only had about one group meeting; we just communicated through Facebook, we just broke the paper into parts, we each did our part and then sent it to Anna to put together. We had to do our paper on a recent merger/acquisition in Europe. We did ours on Heineken and Carlsberg acquiring Scottish and Newcastle. Then we had to give presentations in Brussels. (I will talk about the trip in my next blog).  I think I should get an ok grade in this class because on our first presentation we got an 8.5, then a 7 on my exam so now I just have to wait to see how we did on our last presentation.

I can't believe how fast everything went and that I am done with classes! (besides one exam).  Right now, it doesn't seem like I learned a lot, school wise this semester, though maybe after I get back to the States I will be able to realize more what I have learned.  It has been nice though working in very internationally diverse groups.  A lot of students here though complain a lot about how they do not like the school system here.   The teachers do not explain things very well as to what is expected.  I always like to know exactly what they are looking for to help ensure that I can get a good grade.  But maybe, they don't give as much instruction because then it is up to you to be more creative and really think about what is necessary for what they are asking. They are also not very good at giving feedback, sometimes.  Event management and BPT we got feedback but ethics, finance and EI we hardly got any feedback which was really difficult because then it is hard to improve for next time to know what you did wrong. Another thing that is really different is how open they are with grades.  In the US, you are never allowed to see other students grades.  Here, teachers just have a spreadsheet with the grades that they just post on our online sight.  In EI, the teachers just read our exam scores out loud in class. It is kind of nice to be able to see other peoples scores so that you can compare yourself with the rest of the class to see how you are doing but I don't really like other people seeing my scores.  The grading system is pretty different too.  They have a scale of 1-10 but they say ten is for god, nine is for the teacher and 8 is for the good students so you have to work really really hard to get an 8 and above so most of the times they just give out 7s.  Transferring back to Whitewater, 8-10 is an A, 6-7 is a B and then it goes down from there.

Flamenco and Barcelona Champions!

One of my Spanish friends, Didac, is a tutor for one of the Spanish classes here and he told me about this workshop that his teacher was doing and asked if I wanted to go.  It was a workshop on Flamenco dancing with tapas after.  I was really excited because in Valencia, Emily and I wanted to go see Flamenco dancing but it didn't work out.  It was held in one of the buildings on campus and there was probably about 30 people there.  I didn't know anyone there besides Didac.  There are four different types of Flamenco dances and she taught us one of them.  At first we started out very slowly and just learned the feet movements.  The whole time, the instructor spoke in Spanish so it was a good thing that I at least knew when she said left (izquierda) and right (derecho). I didn't always know exactly what words she was saying but I could usually just figure out what she was trying to say or Didac would tell me. After a while I kind of had the hang of the steps but then she decided to teach us the arm movements as well.  That was a little more difficult trying to concentrate on both my feet and arms and then she started to do the dance faster and it went a little downhill from there! We danced for about and hour and a half straight and I was a little tired when we were done! When we were done, the instructor danced for us all four dances; it was really cool to watch! After, we went back the main school building in the Hanger cafe and we got one free drink and some tapas (though Didac said they weren't real tapas). They had some shrimp, salmon, meatballs, chicken, small wraps and few other things.  It was a pretty fun evening; it was nice because it was something different! 

      Saturday we had another BBQ because it was the championship league game that night. Unfortunately the weather wasn't as nice as last time; it was kind of cold, windy and a little rainy at times. It was still really fun and a lot of people were there.  At the BBQ they made a small pool to take bets about that nights game; it was only a euro and I bet 2-1 Barcelona. That night we all went to the Cavern to watch the game between FC Barcelona and Manchester United. Barcelona won 3-1 (so I didn't win the pool!)! I was supporting Barcelona and wore my jersey that I bought in Barcelona. It was another fun day/night! 

I AMsterdam

Lisa, Bettina, me and Emily

Since our first trip to Amsterdam was not very successful we made another trip back.  I went on a Saturday with Lisa and Bettina (Austria), Mike (Canada) and Emily.  It was nice that Bettina had her car here and was able to drive so it was much cheaper; I round trip train to Amsterdam is about 30 euros, we each just chipped in 5 euros for gas and parking so that's a big difference! We arrived around eleven in the morning.  First we went the the park with the famous "I AMSTERDAM" letters.  Then after we took some pictures with the letters we split up; Mike had to go to the airport to change his flight, Lisa and Bettina went to the Rijks Museum and Emily and I went to the Heineken Brewery. The Heineken Experience was really cool and it took us about three hours to go through the self guided tour.  The first part of it was just walking through and seeing the history of Heineken like all the different beer bottles and labels;they also had some of their horses there. Then we went on the "Brew you" 4-D ride where you stood on this platform and they took you through the beer brewing process; the platform would move and shake, you could feel the heat during the pasteurizing process, and even a splash of water.  After, we went to a station that explained all the ingredients used in their beer and then they showed us with a free sample beer how to properly drink a beer and explained the importance of foam. They had a station that you could pick your back ground and then take a picture, record a message or sing this song in Dutch.  I did all three and then you could email them to whom ever so I sent them to my family. They also had these cool chairs that you can sit in and then they have a movie screen on top to watch a short video clip about Heineken. The final stop was the beer sampling, which you got two good size glasses.  It was a really fun experience.
      After wards, we meet everyone back at the letters and were jut chilling with our feet in the water. While we were sitting there Mike turns to me and asks, "Kristen, a year ago would you have ever imagined that you would be sitting in park in Amsterdam with two Austrians and a Canadian?" No! When preparing for this trip it was really hard to grasp and really comprehend all that this trip would offer me.  Now that I have been here for four months, sometimes I forget that I'm in Europe, it just feels so comfortable here.  Though, when we go to a new city we are always like, "OMG, can you believe that we are in ...." its still surreal.

Emily and I in Amsterdam

       After the park we went to this small pizza place and sat outside and ate; it was pretty good though its still weird that they do not cut the pizza for you.  Then we went and got stroopwaffel McFlurries from McDonalds which are amazing-just ice cream, caramel and stroopwaffle pieces! Then we walked around and Emily and I needed to do some souvenir shopping which I was very successful at shopping.  We drove back and arrived home around 8:30.  Then I skyped with my family and later went and played pool with Richard (Canada) at a place close by.  I am not very good at pool but it was still fun; something different to do. Probably the next time I will be back in Amsterdam will be to go to the airport in exactly one month from today! (I have very mixed feelings about this)

Spring in Holland

     I have been here for four month now and everything has become come really comfortable and I have built some really good relationships with people and have been having the time of my life!

At the windmill with Stephanie and Bea

    About two months ago, I went to visit the national park with Bea, Petra,and Stephanie, which was about a 30 minute train ride outside of Arnhem, then we took a bus and then we walked the rest of the way to the park.  The park was pretty big, and they had bike there that you could take for free to bike around the park.  We went and saw the small castle with a small lake which was really pretty as we had a very gorgeous day with lots of sun. Then we went to the small art museum there and walked around some more.  On the way back we stopped at the windmill that was just outside the train station.

Vitesse football game

    Soccer (football) here is really big, it is as big or bigger than American football.  In total, I have been to four games; one in Germany, one in Spain,and two in Arnhem.  The Arnhem stadium, the Gerlderdome, is just across the bridge from the city center and is about a 30 minute bike ride.  The first game I went to here, I went with Emily and Vitesse (the Arnhem team) won 2-1. The second game I went to was with a group of guys (I was the only girl), probably about 10-15 of us.  It was not to bad outside so I just had on a long sleeve shirt but in the stadium there was a really cold wind, which made the game a little less enjoyable being freezing cold. The team mascot is a falcon and it was cool that before the game started, there is a guy that goes onto the field and lets this live falcon fly around.  This game was not very good as Arnhem lost (4-1) to a team that was ranked lower than them.  Next weekend is the big championship game or something; it will be FC Barcelona vs. Manchester City. Today, there was a football tournament, set up by Shaka (Dutch). Sixtina (German) and I biked there and watched the guys play.  I still do not really know that much about soccer, like all the rules and how the division work but I still enjoy going to the games.

Lisa, Jon, me and Tom

      The Netherlands is not known for their food and I have not really tired that much Dutch food (mostly because I dont really know what is typical Dutch).  I have had stroopwaffels which I like very much and even had a Stroopwaffel McFlurry at McDonalds! One thing that they have a lot over here if french fries which they usually serve with ketchup and mustard (they do not have ranch in Europe!). Doner Kebab stores are very popular through out Europe ( I think it is Turkish).  A kebab is thinly sliced lamb meet with, either in a pita pocket or tortilla shell, with different toppings. Back in the States, pizza was always are late night food, but here is the kebab as places are usually open till around 4ish. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doner_kebab) They also have some other snack foods that I have not tried yet such as krokets and bitterbollen.  (http://www.holland.com/uk/practical/practical-information/eating.jsp) The McDonalds here even serves a McKroket which is only sold in Holland.  Emily and I have still not improved our cooking skills; we still mostly eat pasta, tacos, and cheesburgers.  I eat cereal for breakfast and then bring my own lunch to school-usually a ham sandwich, pretzels or chips, and fruit.  I sometimes eat with Mike, the Canadian who lives on my floor. He is a much more creative cook than me.  The best meal he makes is his super potatoes, though its pretty much a heart attack in a pan-potatoes, hamburger, bacon, onions, cheese, and sour cream, but it is really good!  Both sets of his grandparents are Dutch so he knows some Dutch food, and made me bourrenkool one time which is a really simple dish with potatoes, some kind of sausage, kale and applesauce.  The applesauce on it sounded weird but its pretty good.  We have a good deal, Mike cooks and I do the dishes and we split the cost of the meal.  He is really good at finding things for really cheap so usually it is about 2-4 euros each but that is for two meals, so pretty good. Tonight Lisa and Bettina (both Austrian) are coming over and we are doing a taco night with Mike, Stephanie and Emily.
      With all the eating, I have tried to work out some.  It helps that we bike some, but it isn't enough. I usually do not bike to school, I still prefer to walk.  I would be more up for biking if we had an easier route to go.  When we walk to school, we go through this shopping area so sometimes that is hard to ride your bike though and then there is a really big bridge so I couldn't bike up that either. So by the time I unlock my bike, and push it through the shopping center and over the bridge, and then lock it up, it sometimes just doesn't seem worth the little time that is saves.  The bike is nice to have though when going to the city center, because other wise I would have to take a bus or a taxi back a night which cost money.  My pedal on my bike broke once, but Shaka fixed in and now I have a flat tire so I have to try and get that fixed soon because its really annoying not having a bike so luckily I have been able to borrow Stephanie's or Emily's when I have needed it.  In March, I was really good at going running about every other day, just a mile, but then in April I got really lazy and now I have started again a little, not as often.  I some times play basketball on Monday nights with a bunch of people, mostly guys, there is one other girl that always comes and Clara sometimes comes.  Its a fun way to meet new people and exercise.

Rafa's Cook Out

Lidia's Birthday (Martin, Lidia, Raquel, Lucia, Sixtina, Hanna)

     April was a month full of birthdays, because that's just the best month ever!  Rafa's (Brazil) birthday was really fun and we had a big party. Some of the guys went to Ikea and bought a grill and then got a bunch of meat and we had a big cookout.  It was a lot of fun and I think it was actually a turning point for me socially.  I think up until then, I mostly hung out with Emily and Stephanie and few others. I was really excited for this cook out but Emily, Stephanie and Bea were going to go to Utrecht so I had to decide what I wanted to do.  I decided to not go to Utrecht because I kind of needed a break to get away from Emily and Stephanie since we did so much together and I came here to meet other people and I am really glad that I stayed.  There is a nice lawn area on the side of Honigkamp so of course there was a soccer ball out, which I did attempt to kick around for a little while. The guys were really good cook and the meat was all really good, except I tried the chicken heart and spit it out, I did not like the texture of it; it was really weird! Later that night a bunch of guys chipped in and got Rafa a present that he enjoyed very much and was entertaining for everyone else to watch! Later that night we all went out to the city center.  Most of the birthdays were not as big a Rafa's; for Lidia' (Spanish) we had a small get together on the 5th floor with pizza and cake and some decorations. 

Bettina, Amanda, Emily, Lisa and I at ladies night

       One of the local movie theaters here, the Rembrandt Theater, has a ladies night about once a month.  I group of us girls went to the last ladies night and we saw Something borrowed which was pretty cute.  It was me, Emily, Lisa, Bettina, Jodee (Stout), Madison (Canada), Amanda (China), and then Sixtina, Caro, Hanna, Clara, Cecilia (all German),and Tanya.  It was 12 euros and you got unlimited champagne before the movie, a bag of popcorn, and a good bag which had Nivea body wash, magazines (in Dutch), a box of granola bars, chips, gum, and a few other small things. It was a fun night with the girls.

Tad, me, Emily and Didac at the salsa event

Sean, Mikel, Tad, Tom, Pablo and Hailey

     The rest of the event management parties have all gone.  There was a stereotype ball, X-change cafe, Salsa night and the farewell party.  I made it to all of them except the farewell party, I just just to tired that night. The stereotype ball was basically just another party but you were suppose to dress up as a stereotype from your country. Most people didn't really dress up; a few people people wore flags as capes.  I just wore jeans, Nike tennis shoes, and my red Wisconsin t-shirt.  The X-change cafe was kind of a cool idea, as it was different than all the rest.  It was held at the school; they had different tables set up representing different countries and at the table they had a quiz about the country which you could fill out for a free drink and they also had a food typical of that country.  Also, when you came in the door, you were suppose to put on a bracelet representing what languages you speak and what you want to learn.  The salsa party was a Wednesday which was weird, so I didn't stay long because I had a lot of work to do.  They had a salsa instructor come in to teach us how to salsa; it was fun to watch everyone.  The last party was the farewell party, I had bought a ticket for it but decided not to go because I was really tired (parties here don't start until around midnight) and we were leaving for Amsterdam early the next morning. Through out the semester there have been a few other theme parties; ISA (International Student Association) did a CEO and corporate ladies party and Martijn (Dutch guy) had a Hawain mixer at his place.