Thursday, June 24, 2010

Last day!

Sunday was the saddest day I had on this trip. It was our last day on this trip. I woke up around 10 because Rob and I still had to work out some of the travel issues for tomorrow/tonight. We went to the train station and see how much it would cost for a train. We had to pay 20 Euro for 20 hours night train or 200 Euro for an 11 hour fast train. We didn’t like those options so we went to the airport to see how it would cost to fly. Flights were originally 240 Euro for 4 and half hours but they charged 200 in fees. We ruled that one out too. So we decided to rent a car for 250 each! We figured this would give a better view of places we would normally never see. Once we had an idea and got a reservation for a car we went back and got some lunch. We just had something really quick because it was already really late and we wanted to have fun our last day here. With that in mind we went back and did homework… After that we had our global marketing meeting to discuss the books. We had to have our meeting while Italy was playing in the world cup. (Europe is awesome like that). There was a crazy Italian screaming his head off, it was hysterical. After that we went to go and have our last dinner together. We decided to walk so we could enjoy the view of the sea. Took us an hour but it was worth the extra time. How do I describe the dinner… Amazing! We had so much food it was so crazy. We ate right on the beach and we had perfect weather and a perfect view. There wasn’t anybody really at the restaurant, it was just us. I got salmon and pasta. It was really good. After dinner we had a little meeting and reflection time about our trip. I didn’t want it to end. We became so close during this trip that I wanted it to keep going. After our meeting we hung out on the beach for a while and then we started the walk back home. We took the bus back and it almost felt unreal about how fast it went and how much we saw on this trip. When we got back to our hotel (which they rent by the hour) we stayed up and did some more homework. Then we said our goodbyes. I already miss everyone!
The next morning was insane! We left for the airport at 8 and got our car around 10 ish. We left pretty much without a plan and a map on our computer (which wasn’t the best way of doing it). It took about 30 hours to travel 889 kilometers (roughly 600 miles or so). We paid so much in tolls it was ridiculous. Not only that but our car broke down because we put gasoline in it instead of diesel. Needless to say we had to tow our car… We were stranded in the middle of nowhere in Germany (11:30 at night). After that we got stayed in a hotel and left for Frankfurt at 9:30 ish. A man named Smaili (“smiley”) helped us get a hotel and everything. He was a big help. We got in Heidelberg around 6 just in time for some great cooking from Herr Luft and Yvonne! I missed Heidelberg a lot. And now we are here in Heidelberg, our journey coming to a close. We did see Germany play in the World Cup over here and the streets were crowded and noisy after Germany won the game and advance to the next round. I love this place!

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Nice, France

The next morning we left Rome to go to Nice, France (our last stop). On the way there we stopped in Pisa to see the leaning Tower. Wasn’t that epic and plus it was raining so we had to be quick. After that we jumped on our train and didn’t stop until Nice. When we arrived we went and got dinner. We went around town and saw some of the sights. Most of the day was spent traveling.
The day after we went down and grabbed some lunch. From there we went to the “beach” it was pretty nice except for the rock beach and nudist out there. The water was fairly cold which was nice because it was so hot outside. After hanging on the beach for a while we decided to go to the Chateau and see the view. It was pretty amazing up there and I am glad I went. From there we went and met up with the rest of the group for dinner. After dinner we decided to walk along the beach back to our hotel. Took us about an hour to get back.
The next day we were on our way to Monaco. We stopped at a corporate visit at a perfumery factory. Wasn’t that interesting and it cut into our time in Monaco. We also stopped in to see the Botanical garden overlooking the sea. When we arrived in Monaco we had about 7 minutes to see everything before moving on. Then we had another 10 minutes to see the casino. It was intense how many nice cars there were. I couldn’t believe it. Not to mention the place itself is amazing. To rent a studio it is 1 million Euros!!! Anyways after Monaco we went back to the hotel were we went back into the town for some dinner. We then went to a casino ourselves and won us some money :D. We treated the girls to some crepes for being our good luck charm

Rome

Rome was absolutely amazing! We arrived in Rome and once we got to our hotel we went on a vespa tour. I never had that much fun before. I scored the only girl vespa driver and she spoke fluent English. It was a 3 hour tour of Rome and it was gorgeous! They took us to the best gelato shop in town (only the locals go there) and they took us to the 2 best views in the city. I loved it! After the vespa tourwe went to get dinner. I had a traditional cusine of Roman style chicken. After we had dinner we went into town and saw part of the nightlife and watched the World Cup.
The next day was pretty crazy. We went out to get some lunch (pizza of course) and the guys started to walk down the street. We didn’t get far because we weren’t going anywhere. The guys wanted to go back and sleep some more but I wanted to go and see things. So the guys went back and I took off to go see the colosseum. I waited in line to go inside the colosseum and I actually ran into the girls inside. They were on their way out and I quickly looked around and saw everything there and met the girls outside. After that a few of us went to the Trevi Fountain. It was pretty awesome to see. They made a wish in the Trevi fountain. Oh and before we stop pretty much at every stop to see the attraction there (there is too much to see here). At one stop Sarah played in the street. After seeing the fountain we went back to the hotel to meet up for dinner. For dinner we went to the Hard Rock Café. I got myself a delicious BBQ-Bacon cheeseburger and it was heavenly! It was my first burger since Paris. After eating we went to see the Spanish steps. It didn’t see that impressive and most of the group too off to see the nightlife. I went with a few others to walk around and see more sights (we ended up going to the Trevi fountain again but that was fine by me). We got in around 1 in the morning and were so sore from walking.
The next day we went to the Vatican City. I went with Professor Sharpe, Justin and the Kipleys to see it. I didn’t wait for the others because they were taking forever. We got to the Vatican City and saw the Pope giving a speech. After that we grab some lunch (pizza again). From lunch we went to see the Sistine Chapel. We had to go through a maze of museums to see it and it was worth it. I don’t have pictures in the Sistine Chapel because it wasn’t allowed. After that we ran into the rest of the group but then we separated later. A few of us went to see a few more sites in that area before taking off for the hotel. The rest went shopping. After going back to hotel I took a short nap before we went to dinner.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Venice

After Geneva we went to Venice. It was about a 10 hour trip to Venice when it was suppose to be a 5 and half hour trip (not as bad as the one to Geneva which was a 12 hour bus ride). Venice was pretty insane. We had to do one of our homework assignments here. We had to take pictures and make a comic for International business (no idea how this is related). So I took quiet a bit. When we got into Venice we went down to the beach and walked around. After that we decided to look for a discothèque but couldn’t find one. The next day I woke up late and almost missed the bus to go to Venice. Luckily we had a private boat to Venice. So we all managed to make it to Venice and we had a long long walking tour around the city. It was interesting but I couldn’t really pay much attention to what he was saying. After the walking tour we went around and grab some lunch and it was good! It was so much cheaper than eating in Geneva. After lunch we went around and shopped (the girls of course went and bought themselves a purse) I bought myself a Deutschland jersey for the World Cup (yes I know I’m in Italy). After that it, was about 6 in the afternoon, we went to the beach by our hotel. We had some strange weather. It was first really hot and I couldn’t stand it (probably 90 or so). But then at night was it was stormy… Anyways we stayed on the beach for a while until dinner. Dinner was pretty good and our waiter was interesting. For some reason he couldn’t keep his hands off Rob (must have been his very tight “boyfriends” Italy jacket). After dinner we all went to watch the World Cup (Germany and Australia). Germany absolutely destroyed them (it was a good night to be a Germany fan!). Which now leads to this morning, which we are currently in route to Rome!

Schloss Mittersill, Austria

So today we are on our way to Rome. I have not blogged in such a long time and it has been a crazy two weeks. First off after we left Prague we went to stay at the Schloss Mittersill in Austria. We stayed there for 10 days and I wanted to do a giant overview of that week and now just realized it had been two. To begin with we were placed right in the Alps and there was still plenty of snow left on the ground. It was so much fun. We pretty much stayed around the Schloss (castle) and explored. In the beginning it was too cold to do anything else but try and keep warm. A few times Rob and I would play some ping pong. That quickly became a daily thing. We had some game nights where we played Mafia, King Frog, Scavenger Hunt, and other games. We had a tour of the castle and it was pretty crazy what had happened there. From witches to Nazi it was intense. It was about half way into the week when we discovered that it was about 80 degrees outside. From there the week was so crazy. We went tobogganing in the Alps and it was so sweet. We had about a 10 minute gondola ride up the mountain and about 2 min ride down. It was so much fun. We also had church on a mountain where you could see beyond the Alps. I played a few worship songs and it was absolutely amazing. Words cannot describe it. We went to Salzburg and had a blast. We went to the fortress, well I did, we only had a few minutes to take it all in before we had to be back to the bus. I missed Salzburg so much. We also went to the Hellburn trick fountain palace and saw some of the Sound of Music as well. I remembered this place so well that I was traveling based upon memory. When we got back to the Schloss we met Marcel, he is a music professor from the Netherlands. He was at the Schloss for his Sebatical where he is writing about the music of Bach and how they are connected to the Holy Spirit. He will be examining the cantatas that he composed and looking in Bach’s bible to make the connection to the Holy Spirit. After doing some laundry and saying goodbye to the town, we were off to Geneva.
Geneva was pretty cool. We went and saw the Olympic museum there and I accidently stole some pictures of the 1996 Olympic medals (we were there!). After that we went out to have some dinner. Everything was EXPENSIVE1 I paid 20 CHF (Franks) for a pizza and drink. That is the same as about 19 Euros (21 Dollars). We walked around forever trying to find a reasonable place but couldn’t find anything and decided to live it up a little and get something we would enjoy (McDonalds is about 13 Dollar for a meal). After that we retired early and went back to our hotel to sleep. We were supposed to meet the girls but we ended up losing them on the bus and decided to do our own thing. The next day we went to UN and had a corporate visit but first we had a corporate visit with Sun Power. Sun Power was probably the most interesting. They deal with the process of making solar panels and are the biggest and most efficient in the world. The UN was snot as interesting. It was cool to see but we were just given a guided tour and not really a formal thing that I was expecting. We did see some of the halls in which they held a few of there meetings. That was so cool to see because there was about 50 nations or more in the room! After this we went to have a picnic and then from there back to the hotel were we rested and we out into town. We went around town just walking and taking plenty of pictures. We met up with the rest of the girls back at a restaurant were we were eating at. From there we went out into town and had some fun ☺. We retired around 1 in the morning.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Nürnburg, Prague

So I haven’t blogged for the last few days and I have much to write about. So where was I… After we arrived in Nürnburg, we settled in our hotel and we immediately got dinner just down the street from our hotel. We had their famous Nürnberger bratwurst, which are about the size of your finger. They were pretty delicious. Rob again tried his luck on one of the waitresses and it was actually histerical. (note to self: remember: du bist ein shurlen mädchen). After grabbing some dinner we all went back to the hotel to skype family and facebook. We hadn’t had Internet for the past few days and it was nice to actually get caught up on all that.
The day after we were on our way to a corporate visit to adidas (a-di-das: their pronunciation). After that corporate visit we would be on our way to Heidelberg! The visit itself was pretty good. I really enjoyed it and I really wanted to buy some of their product afterwards because it look so appealing even if f I didn’t have any real need from them lol. It seemed more like an advertisement ordeal instead of actually business and their organization. It was more from a tourist perspective. However they did cover some of the business aspects, which is really interesting. They have this policy of becoming transformational. They are not doing the basic stages, which everyone else is doing, but they are going above commodities, product, customized but to transformational. After about an hour and a half we went on a tour of their facilities and it was absolutely amazing. I would love to work there because first off, everyone wears adidas. Secondly, they are performance centers where they test their products such as basketball courts, and tennis courts. They were even having a huge party in another room! It was a beautiful campus that was owned once by the US military but when they left adidas bought it because that is the same town it was founded. After the visit we were suppose to go to Heidelberg but to my dismay we were behind schedule and did not managed to get out their ☹.
So we were in route to Bacharach (who really knows about this place). It is this small little town on the Rhine and it was extremely quiet. It was kind of a nice place to live if I ever did. On our way in we saw at least 4 castles on the cliff edge. It was pretty cool. We got their at least 9 at night and of course we had to park like a quarter mile from our hotel and it was poring rain (hundewetter). Anyways we had the hotel manager to come by car to pick us up and give us a ride back. However I hoofed it back with a few others, which wasn’t bad because the rain stopped for a while. After we made it back, we had this “authentic” German dinner, which was a little disappointing when it was just bratwurst and sauerkraut. I enjoyed it of course (natürlich), but I was expecting like a huge schniztel and Käsespeztle. For dessert we had this berry combination stuff that was dank! We then explored the town at 11 or so at night. It was kind of scary because nobody was out and it was completely dark.
The next morning I went up to visit the castle above the city (in my formalwear, which is important to remember and last night rain). Umm… so I decided to take a shortcut (cus I’m a genius) and sort of slipped and the mud was not so kind to me. Needless to say that was an eventful morning however I did make it to the top and saw an incredible view. After that I booked it down so I can see if I can get the mud out of my clothes :D. I got back and begin to wash my clothes, which worked better than I originally thought. I managed to get it all out in time for our corporate visit. We were on our way to Frankfurt to visit the company Norma group. It was.....ok. it was definitely not my favorite. It was dealing with pipe connection and the manufacturing part of it. I felt like they tried really hard to make it interesting but it really wasn’t. We had a tour of the factory, which was boring too. After the visit we back to Frankfurt and grabbed some snacks for our overnight train ride. We had to say goodbye to our friend Mattias, our bus driver ☹.
The train ride was interesting. We had 6 people in a “cabin.” They were probably 12 feet by 6 feet wide. Not a lot of room for 6 people and a lot of luggage. Not to mention it was really hot! There was barely any AC and if we opened our window we would get the love noise from the training moving. I tried to get some sleep right away but everyone else was up for a while. It was a rough night for us. We got little sleep and it took us 12 hours instead of 9 because we were delayed I think somewhere in Berlin. I got about 6 hours of sleep…I think. We went got in Prague we went to grab some lunch at Subway with about 200 crowns! (that’s about 10 USD). It was a really good turkey breast sandwich. After that we went back to the hotel for some more facebook and later met with Professor Sharpe to grab dinner. I had a really good dinner; it was beef tongue (and yes it was real tongue). It was quiet the taste that I probably wouldn’t have again but it was good once you got use to the spongy texture. After dinner we went back t the hotel to get ready for the night. We later went out and had dessert* around the St. Charles bridge.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Koblenz, Germany

So I guess it would be two days ago we arrived in Koblenz around 6 PM after being on the train for a few hours. We didn’t stay there long but we did get to see some of the city. When we got to our hotel, we went to dinner and it was wirklich gut! (really good). It was inside the hotel and it was a three course meal, something we normally can not afford on this trip :D… after dinner a few of us went up to see the view from the fortress. I could go up there every day just to see the sun set. I left a little bit later after everyone else because I did not want to miss this chance to enjoy all of Germany. We won’t be here long and we are going to be constantly busy. I didn’t want to pass that up.
After the fortress I went down to the pool to see the others and to go swimming myself. That didn’t last long because it was really cold. After that I kind of just retired to my room for the rest of my night. I did go back out for a late McDonald run with Rob. The guy in the taxi was really friendly, another reason to love Germany. I feel like if I can’t convince you of how awesome Germany is then I must have failed :D. lol… anyways that was pretty much the rest of that day.
The next day (yesterday/gestern) we went to a two corporate meetings. One was with Compu Group. It was pretty interesting. I think this is my second favorite (right behind the Marketing store). Their objective is to unite all the health care into one system. There are problems here in the United States with doctors lacking patients background history, but in Germany they are given a card (just like a social security card) and it makes everything easier and plus it is extremely safe too. This might be what I can do to get myself into the medical field. After that visit we went to Tetra Pak, a food processing plant. It would be pretty interesting if I weren’t half asleep. We did get a tour of the plant itself. They build efficient and environment safe containers and sell them to other companies.
After these two visits, we were on the road for the next 3-4 hours. We left around 3 ish or so and got in Nürnburg around 7. It was a long drive on the bus, which will be with us until we leave for Prague. I really like our driver. He speaks little English and I try my hardest to talk to him in Deutsch. He drove 6000 km just to pick us up!!! That’s insane. Anyways we got here in Nürnburg and went to go get dinner. We had the famous bratwurst and kartoffeln salat (potato salad). After that we walked around the city and found way too many casinos. But it was a nice little/big town (500,000 people but nobody was out). I came back to the hotel and just uploaded all my pictures.
I just can’t wait for tomorrow though. HEIDELBERG!!!! I’m stoked!