Thursday, October 26, 2006

Posted 1 year, 6 months, 2 weeks, 1 day, 23 hours, 26 minutes ago

I am unwinding from that crazy OAT.  My next finals are not until Tuesday (Halloween!!).  I have to take my Dutch and IC exams in the afternoon, so I have some time to post some of the pictures from my autumn getaway.

These first ones are of Paris:

These are from our day at the Louvre:

And these are the breathtaking pictures from Germany and Neuschwanstein Castle:

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Posted 1 year, 6 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, 10 hours, 50 minutes ago

So I am back from my crazy trip around the neighboring countries! Tomorrow is the final exam for my Strategic Management block! They call them OATs for “Over-All Test”.

Keith and I went from Amsterdam Schipol to Den Haag (the beach and the center) and through Rotterdam to Breda. After taking a day’s break, we started our journey to Paris (through Antwerpen and Brussels).  We stayed in Paris for four days, then traveled to Switzerland and stayed in Austria. We drove to Neuschwanstein Castle near Füssen in Germany, stayed in Wurzburg, Germany, and checked out that beautiful town on the Rhein. Afterwards we ended up in Amsterdam for the weekend and our vacation ended yesterday!

I have about a thousand pictures, but I will post the Neuschwanstein Castle’s picture (even though I have a bunch of castle pictures from Germany, this is the famous castle which Walt Disney tried to replicate for Sleeping Beauty’s castle in Disneyland!). This is the view from the mountain next to the castle that we climbed at sunset (zoomed in quite a bit!):

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Posted 1 year, 7 months, 1 day, 15 hours, 8 minutes ago

Yep, after working on my last project every night until 6 a.m. and then meeting at 9 a.m. at school for the past week, my last group project is finished, proofed, printed and as we speak being binded!  I have been drinking RedBull 24/7!  It has been the only thing that has kept me going with 3 hours of sleep every night for the past week!  I am dead-tired.  But then again, so is everyone! Eighty-eight pages!  And 42 of them were my marketing section!  Whew!  I am just glad that I finally got my phone and internet hooked up and can access the web!  It really helps to have access at home instead of riding your bike all the way to school!

Our bike garage was broken into, and my two flatmates’ bikes were stolen.  I had bought a brand-new bike a couple weeks ago and had it locked to my first bike.  They busted in the door sometime early Saturday morning.  I really didn’t think there was much hope for finding my flatmates’ bikes, and had counted my blessings that the thieves were too rushed to take mine!  But Monday, the cops found the bikes and they weren’t even painted or damaged!  So we all were very lucky.  Our door is now fixed and the lock was changed.  But it just shows how crazy these guys are about bikes!  They’ll get into a locked apartment lobby, go down into the garage hallways and break down a door just to take two old, used bikes!  Crazy!

We still have a presentation to do on Friday, but then on Saturday my boyfriend is arriving at Amsterdam Schipol!  I am leaving Friday night to stay with Claudia, outside Amsterdam - close to the airport, so we can get there easily.  I am excited because we have autumn break for the next week and a half, so our plans are to go to: the Hague, Rotterdam, Breda (home), then: Antwerpen, Brussels, Paris, Switzerland, Germany, and end up back in Amsterdam!  It will be an extremely active break!  I have been looking forward to this for a long time!

I promised the Delft/Amsterdam pictures, so here they are!

This is Delft:

And this is Amsterdam:

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Posted 1 year, 7 months, 1 week, 12 hours, 2 minutes ago

Sorry guys!  I have been sooo swamped with the project weeks here!  I thought I was going to die working on that first project last week, but I had no idea of what pain really was til this PepsiCo project came along!  We have been working in groups for these projects, and I believe that this is the hardest part for me.  I am used to just doing my own work, getting my own grade, and whatever happened, I knew I did my best.  But it is definitely not the same in a group project!

At Western, we did have to do some group work and presentations, but usually all the group members were straightforward and sincerely put forth the effort.  I was never let down in any group work at Western.  Here, it’s a different story!  Let’s just say that this will be a good experience for me when I start working with different international groups!  The first project, I worked on management, and this project I am working on marketing.  All in all, I am truly preparing myself for the final exam.  I will just have to put in some extra study time for the finance part of the exam!

I did visit Amsterdam and Delft the weekend before the first project week, and have many, many pictures, but I will have to post them after I am through with the last project and presentation! 

Wish me luck!