July 25, 2009

Wow, what a day. Getting up at six, after 5 hours of sleep was rough. But a bunch of us trudged over and got great views of the city around 9 am. I am glad we went when we did since on our way down the place was becoming packed - mainly because the Tour de France ends here tomorrow. We climbed up to the second floor, which was 43 flights up! Quite the hike - but it was worth it. 

After the Eiffel Tower, our group split up again and Amy, Emma and I headed over to the north side of the river - we wanted to go to La Defense. We stopped on the way at a place to take a picture of us resting on the Eiffel Tower - it didn't work too well... Anyways, we took the metro out to La Defense to see the new Arch. The Arch de Triumph can fit inside this arch - it is basically a big square with the middle cut out. It was an awesome sight to see. Plus, La Defense is full of neat office buildings. The modern architecture is so cool to look at compared to the basic square buildings of the US. By then it was around 11 and we were exhausted. We ate a quick lunch then headed back to the hotel for a nap. I woke up and grabbed some dinner then went downtown on my own to see Notre Dame. Unfortunately it wasn't open, but I got some nice pictures outside of it. I then headed back and packed, as tomorrow we take the Eurostar into London. I can't believe that I will be home in 5 days!

July 24, 2009

Today we had our visit to the OECD - Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. I was really excited for this visit since I just took Economic Development in the spring and loved the class. Unfortunately the visit wasn't anything that I expected. The first half was quite interesting, though too short, and the second half was a drawn-out explanation on how to use the data online. On the plus side, we go unlimited access to all of this data - literally millions of dollars worth of data for free.

Visit aside, we headed back to the hotel for a quick change and lunch and then we were off towards Versailles. We stopped to visit two Christian missionaries living just outside of Paris. They gave us a presentation on the state of the Christian faith in France - it is not good. It would take 150 years to get France to a saturation point (sorry for the business term) even close to ours in the states. Still though, this couple is working hard. Their kids all went to Messiah, one just graduated last year and even worked with Reid in the dining hall! I really enjoyed their talk and it was cool to see a couple know and trust that while things may not be growing very rapidly now, they are planting the seeds for a serious harvest in the future. Afterwards, we headed to the Palace of Versailles. No house in Orange County can compete with this place! Hundreds upon hundreds of rooms make up a palace so large the thousands of acres of land and gardens that surround it seem tiny! There was more gold in this palace than in all of the Prince's bedrooms in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. It was neat to walk in the same palace that so many French Kings and Queens have walked before me. The hall of mirrors was abosluteley astounding... pictures will hopefully come soon!

From Versaille we got the evening free. A bunch of us stayed downtown and walked around. We headed over to a church on a hill that overlooked the majority of Paris. It was an amazing site, and the Church itself was astounding. We hung around for a while and then split up. Amy and I were tired while Billy and Chelsea wanted to head to the Eiffel Tower and go up at night. Amy and I decided to walk back. As we moved on we kept noticing more and more red lights... until we saw that we were in the red light district of Paris! The cool part was getting to see Moulin Rouge. Beyond that, it was getting dark so we hurried along and got back quickly. Well, that leads me to now and I should get to bed. We have to get up at six tomorrow to go climb the Eiffel Tower! One more day in Paris!

July 23, 2009

Today was quite the long day, mostly because from 4 till 10 or so we were walking around Paris. We started the day off with class. We discussed the economy of France; it has been so amazing to be in the very countries that we are studying. After class we had lunch on our own until 2, when we had our tour of Paris. For lunch we had, of course, kebab! It was dirt cheap, and I now have saved 20 Euros! After lunch we took a tour of the city and got out at a few places. It was an okay tour, we had seen most of it the night before.

Me at the Arc de Triopmhe

 After the tour we had the option of being dropped off by the Opera House (which was the same house that Phantom of the Opera is based off of!). From there a bunch of us headed towards the Seine River and then on to the Arc de Triomphe. We took the route that went along one of the most famous shopping streets in the world stopping at some neat stores including a Renault Sport store that showcased some of their race cars. The Arc was amazing to see in person after having seen it or read about it so many times before. From there we headed back towards the river and across the oldest bridge in France that Russia gave in the beginning of the 1900s to France. 

View from Alexandre III Bridge.. look at that sky!

It had been raining on and off all day and so on the bridge the sky gave an amazing display of light and darkness with the Eiffel Tower in the scene. From there we headed down the river passing by one of the palaces where oddly enough the President of Cameroon was coming in for a visit. We got to watch him and his reception – it was amazing. A bunch of us got tired after that so we took the metro back to the hotel, only we went one stop too far and had to walk a bit more. I would say we walked, all in all, around 4 miles or more tonight. Hopefully it will stay clear tomorrow and Saturday. The Lourve is free for anyone 18-26 tomorrow night so we plan to go and see the Mona Lisa.

 

Notre Dame

One thing I forgot to mention when we were in the Hague. Some of you may have seen this on the news lately, but representatives from the North and South Sudan were in the Hague for arbitration on an oil field in the Sudan. The UN Court of Justice is in the Hague and so the leaders from both the north and south were in the city. It just so happens that the northern leaders were staying at our hotel! We got to see them and a few of the people in our group talked to them. They seemed nice, it was just surreal to see these leaders from such a ravaged country here so relaxed and calm.

July 22, 2009

Today we got up around 7 to get our luggage down. After breakfast we got on the coach for a day of traveling. I had trouble sleeping so I just looked at the Dutch, Belgian, and French countryside. France certainly is a beautiful country, even if the people do smell. There were farms everywhere with small towns dotting the landscape. That is one thing I do enjoy over here, seeing just vast amounts of land with towns taking up tiny portions of the land; and in each town, the tallest building is a church. So, despite the lack of religion here in France, there are hundreds of old churches in each town, and they are always the tallest building in the towns. When we finally got to Paris, it hit me just how large this city is. It is huge and expansive! We saw the Eiffel Tower from far off right before we left the ring for our hotel. While we are somewhat outside of the center of city, there is a metro stop right on our block. We ate dinner at the hotel, which is huge I might add. There are nine floors with a good 95 rooms to each floor. I am surprised at the size of the hotel given its location in Paris. The rooms themselves are tiny, barely able to fit two people, but I can’t complain. This will keep me out in the city. We have one full free day on Saturday, and all of our evenings our free. Speaking of evenings, after dinner, we got a bus tour of the city with Ronny our coach driver who does not like the “Froggies” (his nickname for the French) They surprised us with a cruise down the river, unfortunately it had been overcast and rainy all day and the rain really picked up towards the end of the cruise. We did get to see a lot of Paris from the river – the Lourve, Notre Dame, and the Eiffel Tower, to name just a few. Tomorrow we get a walking tour around town – lets hope it is sunny! I was really exhausted so when we got back around 11:30 I just collapsed in bed. Tomorrow we have our last class and then the walking tour!

July 21, 2009

After a nice evening of sleep, we headed to Ahold Corporation’s headquarters in Amsterdam. They are a grocery chain operator with presence in Europe and the US. They own both Giants, the one in the DC area and the one up by Harrisburg along with Stop and Shop. It was an okay presentation, a lot of their focus was on their accounting scandal of a few years back. They went from sales of around 65 billion euros in 2006 to 24.5 in 2008 – just to give you guys an idea of how big the scandal was and how they have come out of the problems a much smaller, yet more successful business. The funny thing was that after their presentation on corporate responsibility an assitant walks in with a good hundred or so pages of all of the presentations we had had ready to hand out. About half of the Amazon was used. But it was nice to have the presentations to be able to look at afterwards. After our visit, we stopped at one of Ahold’s new concepts, Albert Heijn XL a store designed to compete with Wal-Mart-type stores. I thought we were going to get a tour by an employee, but all we did was get 15 minutes to walk around.. not like our tour of the mall IKEA runs – that was interesting! So some of us shopped for lunch, the rest looked around a bit and then we stopped for lunch in a quaint little town situated on one of the dykes. It is so odd to see houses below sea level and then a big mound running for miles blocking off huge lakes and rivers. Sounds like New Orleans… We had a tour of North Holland for the rest of the day, stopping at a wooden shoe factory and other places, pretty uneventful. Honestly, I am ready to leave Holland and see more of Europe. It also doesn’t help that from here we are going to two of the most famous cities in the world – Paris and London. That night we hung out in the hotel, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It ended up that two meals for three of us cost 2 euros each, so even if I do go hungry, which I won’t, I will feel good knowing how much money I saved. Tonight I have to pack, because tomorrow we leave for France and Paris!

July 20, 2009

Today we went and visited Shell. On the way over I got my first glimpse at a church being renovated for apartments. It was really depressing to see. All of the crosses had been taken off the tops of the buildings and flags flew in their places advertising these new apartments. I just couldn’t imagine living in an old church; it would really bother me. The Shell visit was fantastic. The man that spoke was a Christian and he gave us part of his testimony which was amazing to hear. I really enjoyed the Shell visit – mainly because of their technique of creating scenarios. They are constantly looking towards the future, and I mean by more than 5 years or so. Their latest scenario was developed in 2005-2006 and has now been released to the public. There are two situations Shell sees happening: Blueprint and Scramble. In blueprint, nations work together, and ahead, to solve these environmental issues. It is the “harder” course since action is taken before the need is seen, but in the end we end up in a much better place than Scramble. In Scramble, events precede actions, resulting in the world struggling to find a solution. While it still ends up working out, the disasters and problems are much greater through this situation. This new scenario released by Shell, being the latest in a line of 50 years of this practice, is the first time they are publicly stating which scenario they prefer over the other. In this case, it is Blueprints (obviously). It will be interesting to see how everything plays out in relation to what Shell sees happening. Either way, that business model is quite fascinating. After the Shell visit, we headed back to the hotel to have lunch downtown and then class. We only have one more class in Paris before our final exam in London! Again, dinner was on our own. A few of us headed to the beach for the evening. Me, Billy, and Amy all decided that it would be fun, since it may be the only time in our lives, to go and take a swim in the North Sea. So we did! The water was really cold at first, but once we were in and got used to the temperature it felt just like the water on the East Coast late in the evening. I can now say I have swam on both sides of the Atlantic, even if this was technically the North Sea. After our swim, we ate at McDonalds since it was the cheapest restaurant there – even in Europe, everything is overpriced at the beach. Afterwards we headed back and I just spent some time away from everyone – it was getting to me being around the group all of the time. 

July 18, 2009

So I am finally able to get back online again, so expect a bunch of updates over the next few days. I am in Paris now and we just finished our time in the Hague.

Today we left Oisterwijk for The Hague. On the way we visited Amsterdam. Not quite the city I was expecting. Based off of American stereotypes I thought it was all drunks and potheads and people looking for prostitution. It was an amazing beautiful city with some great architecture and canals that ran throughout the city. We first stopped at the Rijks Museum in downtown Amsterdam. They had a large collection of Rembrandt and his student’s paintings. It was cool to see the Night Watch, the most famous, and largest, Rembrandt painting. I have a hard time paying attention to artwork after an hour or so, so it was good we spent just under an hour walking around. One cool thing was a clock on the second floor. The entire face was a screen that showed a video of a man that would draw the hands of the clock, hour and minute, each minute. He would draw the time and then spend a minute fixing and admiring his drawing until it was time to erase the minute hand and redraw it for the new time. 

The Hague's Beach!

After the museum we had lunch and went on a canal tour of the city. It was okay, mainly due to the fact that it was drizzling and overcast all day (until we left of course!). We got some good pictures and were dropped off at a diamond factory – something I thought was a waste of time. I was tired and ready to move on and the girls were going gaga over all of the diamonds and jewelry. The next visit was my favorite. We went and visited the Anne Frank house. 

Stairwells in Amsterdam are so narrow they have to use hooks to lift furniture up

The Anne Frank House

It was absolutely mind blowing to walk through the very same bookshelf that hid her and her family for two years. To see the exact rooms and stairwells I had read about in 7^th grade was amazing. After the Anne Frank house we headed off to the Hague – a beach side city that houses the Royal Family. We had dinner at a restaurant on the boardwalk and then headed back to the hotel. Our hotel is very nice – apples in random bowls on every floor and hotel rooms that are really nice with some English language channels! I know I am going to enjoy my time here – it will be good to relax after all of the classes and tests and projects of the past three weeks.