London and Brussels were with a my business and economics program, so included many businesses. Zurich and Milan were just with friends. I will get more into that shortly. I will go day by day. You can click on the pictures and they should enlarge.
Sunday, March 9: When we arrived in London, we had fish and chips for dinner. Since it was Sunday, there was not much to do, so we just wandered around near our hotel. We ended up going to a casino, since that was the only thing opened. I don't gamble, but some of my friends did. One guy ended up making about 100 USD and one guy ended up losing about 50 USD. It was fun to watch.
Monday, March 10: We had a company visit to Wimbledon. We got a tour and then learned about their finances. Two interesting things to note:
1. Wimbledon is a non-profit with the goal of promoting tennis.
2. Due to this goal, the competitors are required to interview and answer any tennis related questions after the match. If they do not, they are fined 10,000 pounds. I found this interesting because I argue with many of my friends here about the importance of sportsmanship. Many of my friends believe in sports all that matters is winning and losing. While I believe that is a top priority, in doing so, I think you need to represent yourself, your team, family and the game well. They do not agree. Wimbledon agrees. But, I must admit, watching sports being played without class is entertaining sometimes.
Here, I am at spot where the players get interviewed. Pretty cool, huh?
Here is a picture of me at Wimbledon with the statues of the best players at Wimbledon getting rained on.
After Wimbledon, we had a guided tour of London. We saw all the major sites; Big Ben, the Parliament, one of the Queen's palaces, 10 Downing Street, etc.
My buddies and I in front of the castle.
Tower Bridge:
Tuesday March 11: We had a visit to the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development. It was a pretty cool organization. They invest in markets that are transitioning from communism. Mainly in eastern Europe and central Asia. One of their divisions is micro loans.I still need to do more research about them and their policies, but it is another good organization to keep in mind for the future.
Afterwards we went on the London Eye, which was pretty cool. It's a large ferris wheel with some great views of London.
Afterwards I went to a museum, but to be honest, I really regret not going to the British National Museum and seeing the Rosetta Stone.
That night, we saw Avenue Q. It's a play using puppets about life after college living in NY. Very witty with lots of truisms. I would highly recommend it. Then we went to the student bar. I met up with two of my friends who are studying abroad at London School of Economics for the entire year. It was interesting because one of them thrives in the study abroad environment and one of them was ready to go home. The one who was loving it was not doing too much school work and would have to do a lot later, while the other was steadily doing his work. Granted, they are probably doing a little more work than me, but it was an interesting perspective. I think I have a nice balance of work and fun, which has made my experience so great.
Overall thoughts on London:
London is actually where I have felt the most culture shock so far in my travels. Granted, I have experienced little culture shock, but I have been to Israel, Australia and all over Europe from east to west(I guess we'll see how culture shocked I am in Russia tomorrow. . .) What made London so weird for me was it was so similar to the United States, but still had a European feel. It has tall buildings, but European architecture. Everything was written in English, but spelled funny. It felt like the US with vinegar poured on it (I think Vinegar is kind of funky, some people love it, of course). So, London was like I was almost home, but not quite, which was an experience. I think this image describes that sentiment. Tall buildings and small European buildings together.
However, by the end of my few days there, I could see staying their long term.
I also found the Roman history of London very interesting. There was an old city that the Romans defended from invaders on one side of the river and on the other side there is the new city.
I was thinking a lot about culture shock throughout my trip. I was doing all the reading for my service learning seminar(I finally got placed, but I'll discuss that more after break). One of the readings was about cultural IQ and adapting to other cultures. I think my strength and weakness is I don't change much for other cultures. I try to be less loud like every American, but I do not change the way I dress or my body language, which supposedly makes you more adaptive to other cultures. I also do not speak any other languages. I admit that would make me better in other cultures, but does not come easy to me at all. My point is that I use fairly universal communication methods like smiling and being nice. When something doesn't quite work culturally, I do not get frazzled by it. I think this allows me to enjoy being in other cultures and thrive for the most part, and when I do not, I don't worry about it too much. So, I experience less culture shock. When I spend more time in less developed countries after graduation(hopefully), I will really put my culture shock theory to the test.
Brussels:
Wednesday March 12: Upon arriving in Brussels, we checked into our hotel and then had a guided walk of the city.
I think our hotel is worth mentioning. It was nice, but basically a large Chinese Restaurant. The complimentary breakfast included lomein and chow fun among other things. The TV had about 50 channels, 2 of which were in English and about half in various Asian languages. I mainly watched Euronews, which had interesting Euro-centric news. I also watched BBC back in London. I like seeing different perspectives of news while abroad. On the TV in Copenhagen, we get Al Jazeera, which is very interesting, albeit biased and poorly produced. That is what makes foreign news interesting though.
So, the guided walk of Brussels. A really sweet old lady took us around the city. She showed us many of the historic sites. My favorite was probably the monument of the little boy peeing. Apparently when the French attacked the city and burned it, this little boy was peeing to put out the fire. It is a major symbol of Brussels. Every souvenir store sold them.
Another cool thing that I saw in Brussels were guys dressed as statues. They sold bottled water and you could pay them to pose in a picture. I'm fairly certain you can guess which one is real:
Brussels is known for chocolate, waffles and beer. The Belgian waffles were so delicious.
I must say that the beer didn't do it for me in Brussels. We went to a bar with over 2000 beers. They even had chocolate beer, which was pretty good. However, there are some pretty good beers in Europe. I would say from the many beers I sampled, Belgium barely made my top 5 in beer, which right now is:
1. Germany
2. Czech Repubic
3. Switzerland
4.. . Belgium might fit in right here but Austria and Denmark are no slouches.
To its credit, the amazing beer is supposedly brewed by monks and other random groups outside of the city, but if you wanna be the beer brewing capital of the world, I would say you need some good beer in your capital.
Thursday, March 13:
On the subject of beer, we went to the Brewers of Europe for our business visit the next day. They are a lobbying group for beer producers in the EU. It is important to note that in Europe, lobbyists do not have a negative connotation. Unlike the US, European lobbyists are considered an essential element of the democratic process. I think one reason may be because they take a proactive strategy to lobbying. My Doing Business in the EU professor is also in the beer industry. He explained that the beer companies attempt to stay ahead of the commission. Rather than reacting to government and popular measures, they attempt to work with the commission to make the regulations work from the start.
We have to do a paper on a policy measure and how it affects these companies for class at the end of break. I think we are going to write our paper about how subsidizing biofuels affects the beer industry. By paying farmers to produce biofuels, it may provide less incentive to produce hops for beer.
After the meeting, we went to the Hoegaarden brewery. Everyone in Prague loved Hoegaarden, but I am not a huge fan. The brewery tour was real short and they gave us too much time at the brewery, basically doing nothing. I wish they took us to NATO and the EU, which I think are more essential to Brussels.
Friday, March 14:
We went to see how chocolate was produced. The chocolate was really good. After that, I used my free time to go see NATO and the EU.
I think the architecture of both structures explains the respective organization's view on the world. The EU had lots of grassland/forests, cobble stone and these futuristic looking buildings. Probably because they see an environmentally sustainable Euro-centric environment.
NATO, on the other hand, was really far outside of the city. When we finally got there, the guard told us that NATO was "not a musem" and that we can only take pictures across the street. It was basically just simple buildings, surrounded by intense fences, with a lot of flags. I believe that is how NATO sees the world. A lot of flags and fences. Of course, NATO was developed right after WW2 when Europe was broke and it does need to have high security, but it is still interesting to look at structure the way I looked at it.
After visiting those sites, we had a Chinese food at our hotel and took a 13 hour overnight bus ride back to Copenhagen. The bus ride included a ferry at 6AM, but I slept through the whole thing.
Saturday, March 15: Upon returning to Copenhagen, I basically had enough time to go for a run and unpack and pack again. That night, I flew to Zurich for some traveling on my own.
Zurich and Milan:
I arrived on Saturday night. It was pretty late, so I just caught up with my friends there(2 from high school and one from Denmark).
Sunday, March 16:
We were all tired from traveling. Jet lag or a week of traveling can ware one down. It was also Sunday, so not much would be open. So, we took it easy for the most part. We were staying at my friend's dad's place. His dad was not home, so we had the whole place to ourself.
There was a nice hiking ground near by. So we did a little hike. It was beautiful(a word I will be using a lot to describe Switzerland). It was a clear day and you could see the hills of the area. We were planning on grilling food, but could not light a fire because it was windy, so ended up going back to the house to cook and roast marsh mellows.
Monday, March 17:
We took the train into Zurich. It was cloudy, so the view was not that clear. We went to an old Roman square and got some nice pictures of the city.
We also saw various churches and explored various monuments and alley-ways of the city.
A common theme throughout the trip was our Swiss smiles. It's almost a frown, but one does not look upset. This seemed to be the demeanor of most Swiss people we saw. Tom(left) does it best because he is 100% Swiss.
After a pricey lunch(another common theme of Zurich), we decided to go to a museum. Most of the museums were closed, but the guide book we were using said one was opened. We walked about a mile to this museums. It was a beautiful walk that included a harbor and an arboretum.
Despite the nice walk, it was frustrating to discover that the museum was in fact closed and then it started to pour.
We took a cab back to the center and went to an Irish pub. After all, it was St. Patrick's day. We hung out there for a while, enjoying the atmosphere. We even met some Swiss students from the table next to us. We tried to pretend to be Canadian, but they knew were Americans. It is always interesting talking to foreign students. Look at Tom(right), charming his people.
I found the Swiss to be very approachable. In many countries, you have to come up with a good excuse to talk to the natives and with a little luck, they'll speak English and actually be interested. I guess because Zurich doesn't get that many tourists, people were very interested in talking. Just saying "are you from Zurich" started many conversations. Most countries are used to tourists, so many of the people who hang around in the center are not that interested in Americans. That was especially true in Prague and somewhat true in Copenhagen. In Zurich, the people I met seemed eager to chat.
Tuesday, March 18: We went back into Zurich and checked out the National History Museum. A lot of it was under construction, so it was pretty unimpressive. There was an exhibition about Mary Magdalene and the rest of the museum consisted of your standard spear heads, paintings, architecture and other natural museum stuff. The outside of the museum was probably the best part. This is the best picture I could get, because, like the inside of the museum, much of the outside was under construction.
After the museum, we walked around and saw some more of the city. Then we got a traditional German dinner, which was really good.
Wednesday, March 19:
I had lunch with Tom and his grandparents. Although Tom understands Swiss German, he does not speak it. So, the discussion between him and his grandparents was limited. And my conversation with them was even more limited. What was interesting was they still had the typical Grandparent qualities. The smile and interest in his well-being. I guess those characteristics transcend any language.
We spent the rest of the afternoon in Winterthur. It is the 6th largest Swiss city and known for its museums. We went to a technology museum which was kind of like the liberty science center and walked around.
Thoughts on Zurich:
Zurich was probably the most expensive city I've been to. The train price was comparable to get into Copenhagen (about 13 USD each way), but in Copenhagen, they subsidize our passes. The thing about Copenhagen is you can still find somewhat cheap food. It is about $4 for reasonable sized hot dog and you can get a gyro for 4 USD. In Zurich, the cheapest I saw a hot dog was 4.50 and it was tiny. Gyros were 8 or 9 USD.
Switzerland got me thinking about the importance of international relations. Zurich supposedly has the highest standard of living in the world. It was very nice. However, they stayed neutral in many morally pressing instances(WW2!) and are not part of NATO or the EU. Is it more important to focus inwardly on your own country and possibly sacrifice others or attempt to improve the world? Then one must also ask whether these international organizations or conflicts are morally right. Countries and people also do not always look at what is morally right. It is probably in Switzerland's best interest to stay neutral and not join these bodies.
I have continued to ponder this question because Denmark operates on similar principles. They are partially a member of the EU, but do not use the Euro. The homeless drop in center i have been working in only gets funding if it helps exclusively Danes. It is inhumane to not help people in need. On the other hand, if they help everyone, can they really sufficiently help anyone?
On another note, Switzerand is absolutely breath-taking. The train ride through the Alps and pre-Alps to Milan was something else. Here are a few of the photos:
Thursday, March 20:
Upon arriving in Milan, we checked into our hostel right by the train station. I met up with Lelio, my 2nd cousin. I have not seen him since I was 12. First he took me to meet my Great Aunt Sally, then he took me to two churches, including the Duomo in the city center which was spectacular.
Lelio said it is always under construction from repairs and that an expression of something never ending Milan is it is like repairing the Duomo. It also has an amazing view of the city and the Alps on a clear day.
That night, my friends and I went out to dinner with one of my friends from college who is studying in Milan. She took us to a place where you buy a beer for 6 Euros, and a buffet is included. It was delicious.
Friday, March 21:
We spent the day exploring Milan. I had to go the Duomo again with my friends. We also saw a cool castle.
Afterwards, went to the Brera museum which had some amazing art.
That night, I had dinner with Lelio and his girlfriend. Then went to a bar with my friends. We met some pretty cool Italians who spoke some English(rare). Here, you can see Tom(left) being an excellent cultural ambassador.
Overall I really enjoyed Milan. I can't wait to get back and see more of Italy.
Saturday, March 22: I flew back to Copenhagen. It was an interesting flight because I could see the Alps before it got cloudy. It was another breath-taking image that represents many of the breath-taking things I saw over my first two weeks of spring break.
The last day has been spent packing and sleeping. I am very excited for Russia tomorrow and am certain it will be an amazing experience.
