Loong long time since i last posted

Things just got crazy in Switzerland.The work just piled up and amidst all of the visits and class time my only free time was spent exploring Lucerne and Geneva. I liked Geneva much better than Lucerne. It was a much larger city, but more expensive... I can see why this is considered one of the best cities in Europe to live in. The entire city is on the end of Lake Geneva, again an amazing site. The drive into the city allowed us to see the French alps across the lake, and Mailbu can't touch the scenic drive that the highway had to offer around the lake towards Geneva.

Back to the city, the place we stayed wasn't the greatest. I can say I am now eternally grateful for Messiah's dorms, I will never complain again. We were only in Geneva for three nights; we visited the WTO and the headquaters for Nestle (in Vevey Switzerland). The WTO visit was not quite what I was expecting, perhaps it has to do with the fact that I see no point to the WTO anymore. Okay, personal opinions aside, Nestle was also quite underwhelming. It was fascinating to see the scope of the company - it is absolute HUGE; it has double the sales of companies like Procter and Gamble, Kellogs, General Mills, etc. I had no idea just how large the company was. More than 15 of its brands sell in the billions each year. They said that a million Nestle products are sold each day in the world.. crazy. But it was just a corporate visit with a presentation... not the same as the visit to the Mars factory in Moscow. I still enjoyed the visit, and the company really impressed me with their social responsibility. A lot of their work is done in Africa, and not only do they ensure Nestle employees get fair wages, but they will only work with suppliers that pay apropriate wages. That was awesome to hear.

So we left Switzerland on Friday. That night we stopped in Koblenz, Germany just for one night. It was an amazing night. About 6 of us headed into town and came across a party going on following a marathon they had had that day. A bunch of Germans were dancing (all of them drunk) and so we joined in. At one point, one of the guys in our group suggested we make a train. We started weaving in and around everyone thinking it was just us. Chelsea, one of the girls on the trip, turned around to me as we chugged along and asked how many people were on the train, thinking it was just the six Americans. She glanced over her shoulder and shrieked - there were a good 30 people in our train! It wrapped in and around the entire dance area. For me, I thought I had Clinton behind me. He kept stepping on my flip flops, and I thought, how does he not know how to do the train? I turned around and it wasn't him anymore but a German girl. Once the song was over we all just got together(the six of us) and we did the stereotypcial goofy American dances: shopping cart, lawn mower, the fish, haha soo many. A lot of the Germans would look over at us and then start to imitate us. It was an amazing night!

The next day we got up early and headed down to the Rhine (which our Hotel overlooked) and took a three hour cruise up passing a lot of old towns and castles up in the hillside. Ronny, our coach driver, picked us up at our stop and took us the rest of the way to Oisterwijk, where I am now. We stay here for three weeks doing intensive studies (two classes: International Trade and Finance and Global Marketing). It is really nice to just relax in one spot. The hotel we are at is rented out totally to us, which is also nice. We all got bikes for the time we are here, and there are bike trails everywhere! I have already spent a good 6 hours on my bike in the past two days. The town of Oisterwijk is quaint and tiny, but really nice. 10 minutes in any direction and you are out into the countryside which makes for a great bike ride. I even got lost last night and had to eventually ask for directions.

Tonight we are supposed to see Transformers, it is supposedly in English with Dutch subtitles.. lets hope so. I will try to be better at keeping up on this blog, sorry I missed so many days!