Back from Brussels...Final Weeks in Deutschland

Cologne, 4th largest city in Germany.  Also...main train station where we stopped on our way back from Brussels.  I had decided about a week before Brussels that I would go to Cologne on our way back.  I talked to some of the people from AIESEC Cologne who I had met in the conference a month and a half ago (so long ago...) and asked them for a place to crash, and people to hang out with.  One of the girls was awesome enough to let me stay at her place, and to show me around even though she had exams.  AIESEC...providing great experiences and networks, while lowering GPA's all around since 1948.

When I arrived, the girl whose house I was staying in picked me up at the train station after I said my goodbyes to the rest of my group, which was headed back to Koblenz.  We went straight to her place, and then went back out to do some walking around the city.  Cologne is a beautiful city, and I just got a little tour through the university and one of the main bar-heavy streets.  Then we went back and I pretty much fell asleep instantly because I was so damn tired.  Next day, I would be meeting up with Luisa, another AIESECer from Cologne, who would be giving me the proper touristy tour of Cologne.

I hoped to wake up around 11, but I didn't move a muscle until 12:30...at which point Luisa had already called me twice.  Oops...but oh well, after this we walked around the old part of Cologne, where the Cologne Cathedral is located.  This thing is...well...huge.  Largest cathedral I have ever been in by a mile.  We decided to go up all the way, so we paid and headed up the stairs...

Think this...533 times over

Vini, vidi, vici!

...so many of them...but finally...we made it!  533 steps.  The worst part was running into tourists who would say "You're almost there", when in reality, you weren't.  Eventually we made it all the way to the top and the view was amazing!  We took some pictures, took in the view, and then proceeded back down.  All the way back down the same 533 steps.  Now it was my turn to tell people they were almost there.  :)

All the way back the down we went...

After this, we moved to the delicious Chocolate Museum.  This was...omg so good!!!  The place itself is nothing too special.  They show you where cocoa comes from, blah blah, then they show you how they make it into chocolate, and then you get to the back and BOOM!  Machinery!  Chocolate flowing everywhere...delicious, yummy chocolate.  And then...KAPOW!  Chocolate fountain glory!

Seriously, if I could I would dunk my face in there and start chugging.  The nice lady with chocolate covered wafers was great enough to give me like 6 or 7 wafers (being nice gets you places), so I had a good share of chocolate.  Then, it was time to head back to the real world, where Luisa had to go home and I had to get my ass back to the other girl's place to get ready for the fireworks show that would happen later that night.  Dinner happened somewhere in between all that.  Nothing too special...hehe.  Oh yea, and I got lucky by rubbing the nose of these two statues.  No big...


Many much fireworks!


The end of my stay in Cologne involved a super cool fireworks show on the Rhine.  It's an annual show called Kölner Lichter, which means Cologne Lights.  Kölner is the possessive of Köln (Cologne), so it's intended meaning is something like "The Lights of Cologne."  We got to the riverside around 10:30pm, and we sat down with the rest of the people from AIESEC who were there.  It was a wonderful show!  It must have been even better for the Cologne people because all of the music was from artists from Cologne, and the songs were about Cologne, and it just felt like a very city pride huge deal.  They say pictures are worth 1,000 words, so I'll let the pictures do the talking for this part, 20,000 words' worth of it.

Imagine this for an hour and a half!  Impressive, right?  :)

It was time for some hanging out after the fireworks were over, but we were too tired for clubs so we hung out at the apartment.  Finally went to bed at 5:30am, and then spent the next day watching TV while I waited for my ride to call me.  Instead of taking a train I talked to one of the Koblenz students who lives in Cologne to drive me back on Sunday when he went back.  Roberto - 1, the system - 0.  I win, and I don't pay for the train.

Summer Academy Wine Tasting


After a week of hard work, the following weekend arrived and we had a wine tasting event planned for our students.  Since the Summer Academy event planners handled this event, I had no idea what we were in for.  I'm quite lucky that I decided to wear shorts because the weather was pretty hot and we were going to be walking around 15 km.  We had to walk along the vineyard to stop every once in a while to try different wines.  I may or may not have had a little bit more than expected, which resulted in a very happy Roberto who was talking to everyone (so basically normal me except twice as happy and twice as excited about everything).  I've always said wine gets me in the best moods out of all kinds of alcohol (vodka and Jägermeister are at the bottom...which is why I refuse to drink them), so it was a nice little walk back to town, and then we got on the boat that would take us back to Koblenz (we came in by train).  The boat ride was very nice, except for the fact that my camera died while we were there, which is why I have no more pictures since then.  I have continuously forgotten to buy batteries...so no more pics from here on.  I need to get some from others.  All in all, good day, except for the fact that wine from the Rhine is mostly white, and I'm a red wine kind of person.  Oh well...I'll have to open a bottle of red sometime soon.

It's the Final Countdown!

The final week of the Summer Academy is finally here.  I would have to say that the program itself can be divided into two parts: Pre-Brussels and Post-Brussels.  During Brussels I feel like I got to know a lot of the students very well, so after we got back we really bonded and now I have to say goodbye to them.  We had the goodbye BBQ on Friday, and it was a great time because everyone was there.  At 10pm we closed up, and everyone went to the bars around 10:45pm.  Since I had to clean up I couldn't go, but one of the students stayed with me and he told me we could go to the bars after.  We went to the local Irish pub, and a group of about 30 people was there, a combination of international and German students.  It was great!  We kept hopping to other bars, and before we knew it, 4am had arrived.

I have a gift.  It involves befriending restaurant/bar owners and getting everyone to buy more drinks after the bar is closed.  At the last bar we were in, they had last call around 3:30am, but one of the guys decided to do a round of drinks after this.  I told him "don't worry...I'll find a way", and I talked to the bartender, who directed me to the owner.  One minute later, and the round was mine, as well as 2 more rounds that I got on the house.  I got  3-4 drinks and I paid for 0 of them.  :)  Sweet talking people really does get you places...I need to do this to get myself a job next year.  Oh, and talking about my job...my boss said I am done officially on Tuesday.  This means I get a full week of hanging out in Koblenz, sleeping, packing and doing some last minute sightseeing in the city.  Life is good.

However, as happy as I am about this being over, I am having very mixed emotions at the moment.  I am very happy because I talked to a lot of the students and they were incredibly happy with both the work I had done and the Summer Academy as a whole.  I am actually pretty proud of the job I have done, and I definitely would love to do it again if I had the chance.  Maybe I'd do some things differently but I would do it again.  On the other hand I'm really sad at the fact that I'm now all alone in Vallendar again.  The first two months I got used to being alone on the bus, reading and listening to my iPod, but then the students arrived and I saw them every time I got on the bus.  I barely had times when I had no one from the Summer Academy around me, and now for one more week I'm going to have to get used to not having them around once again.  This is sad, but at the same time I am very happy that I got to meet them all.  The whole point of exchange through AIESEC is to further develop individuals, and if what I have gone through these three months isn't development, I don't know what is.

What's left?  Just two more days, in which I have to create a report about the Summer Academy.  Not many of the feedback forms have made their way back, but at least I've talked to many of the students and I have good action steps that can be taken by next year's team to make sure the experience is even better.  The final report will probably be posted here...we'll see once I finish.  But for now...let's rejoice in the good things!  I'm about to start thinking about this report...kinda crazy about going home in 9 days.

Sprechen sie...wait...parlez vous...ahhh!!! Englisch? Anglais?

Mind you, this post is about a week overdue.  I've been really busy, so I haven't had time to write anything.  But this is good, since it means I'm keeping myself doing things.  Can't wait to get home soon...14 days.  I miss home and home 2.0 (aka Ann Arbor), so I have two dates that are making me very excited.  August 2nd I go to Puerto Rico, and September 1st I go to Michigan.  Woohoo!


Now for the stories of Brussels...

You would normally think that not being able to speak one language or another is the same thing. Well, I thought the same until I went to Brussels last week. Everyone around me was speaking French, and I have grown so used to not understanding German that French sounded incredibly strange. I was in Brussels for 3 days, and the language barrier was a bit less than with German, but it felt so weird to be speaking French.

Now, why was I in Brussels in the first place? The International Economics class from the Summer Academy was going to Brussels to see some of the European institutions. They needed someone to go along as a representative of the Summer Academy staff to organize the transportation and accommodations so...it was me and my co-worker without my boss. Overall it was a great trip with beautiful scenery. Brussels is truly an international city. I hear so much Spanish being spoken there...which was pretty nice because no one speaks it in Germany.

Day 1


Anyway, the first day we arrived there and we made our way to the hostel. We got a bit lost, and when we got there we had to assign rooms. My co-worker took care of this, but it kinda turned into a shitshow, which ended up in me having to sort the whole thing out. Ended up that one girl didn't have a bed because all the girls rooms were full. Lo and behold, I was tired so I moved to a room with 6 guys and gave the girl my single. Actually worked out really well because I got to meet some really cool Germans that I've been hanging out with since.

We had about an hour or two before we had to leave, so of course I went to do some sightseeing.  Important thing to do in Brussels:  eat a waffle.  Now...I thought...waffles, I've eaten these before.  Absolutely not.  This was beyond heavenly.  I wanted to cradle this waffle and take it home with me as a pet, so I could breed more of them and eat them daily.  I will probably dump all the Brussels pictures into another post later today.

Excuse me while I go eat ten of these...

After the wait we went to the Representation of Rhineland-Palatinate (the German region where Koblenz is) at Brussels. We had a slight overview of how German representations differ from other countries' regional representations. Because Germany is a federal republic, where each of the states has a lot of political control, the representations actually have a bit more political power than they would in a non-federal government. The representation was beautiful.

damn mirrors making me think there's another room...

beautiful garden in the back

who are those sexy people in that other room?  oh, wait...it's another mirror!

After this, we left to go to the hostel.  I had another waffle and then we ended up going to the bar part of town.  Prices were pretty much exorbitant, so I decided to go get food with the professor's 15 year old son and a couple of Germans.  On my way to the place where we were eating, I saw a little shop with drinks in it.  Mental note, made...

Second thing to eat in Brussels: fries.  Belgians have a science about making fries, which I don't really understand but they tasted great.  However, drinks were super expensive.  What to do?  I bought food, ran back to the little shop, got myself a beer for 1.50 that would have cost me like...2.50 at the place where we were eating.  Economics, for the win.  Now, we got back to the bar, and then some people realized that we had found really cheap beer at this little shop.  Therefore, like 6 of us got up and went back there.  We got some beers and just hung out there, then 1 more person joined, then 2 more.  We started joking that everyone would show up, and lo and behold, 15 minutes later even the professor joined us (even if it was only for 15 minutes or so).  The night finished with us going back, some people staying in front of the hostel drinking and me going straight to bed.  Waffles and fries and that much walking make a man tired...along with a couple of Jupiler.

1.50 for this, 1.80 for a Stella Artois.  Woo!

Day 2


Now, it's really cool when you get to wear a suit in a group of students who are all wearing jeans.  Makes you feel like you're the boss, which was really cool.   As I may have told you before, I was the one who had been in contact with the European Commission, planning our trip and the sessions.  It was really great to finally get to meet the famous Judith Jakab who I had talked to via email and Skype multiple times.  It was actually a pretty long day, since we had five hour-long sessions back to back to lunch to back to...you get the picture.  Lunch was really good: two baguette sandwiches each (I managed to get three cause I'm awesome) and some Coke.  The sessions were about 50-50 on the boring/cool scale.  I felt like I was gonna die for a couple of them, but the others were quite good.  And then there were the microphones...

You might be able to see that we have microphones every couple of seats.  Well...they sounded like the announcers at a supermarket, so some of our students started having some fun with them in between sessions.  It was hilarious, needless to say.  He was saying it in German, but the effect was the same.  Crazy how humor can break language barriers so easily.

Later that evening we returned to the same bar that we had gone to the day before.  This time, however, we were prepared and we didn't even sit down.  We went straight back to our little shop, got some beers and then went to walk around the city.  Turns out that on that day there was a parade and show of sorts, so we stood around for hours watching the parade, talking and stopping at various little shops around town.  We had fun...

Drinking legally on the street while sitting on a police car...classic

We're quite the international group: Lithuania, Morocco, India, Germany, USA.  Boom!

Two of the girls in front of a dragon.  Someone has a group picture with the dragon...

We later ended up at a club, which was pretty much empty, so it was just our group dancing there.  It was ok...but then it was time to go home around 3 or 4 in the morning.  Seriously...Europeans party way too late, I don't know how they do it.  But...alas, it was bedtime, and time for resting up before the big finale.

Day 3


Welcome, everyone, to the European Parliament...

and to the hemicycle...

and the outside view...

Ok, you might be thinking "Cool, Parliament"...but seriously, the session could not have been more boring.  Institutions everywhere need to understand that someone who knows a lot isn't necessarily someone who is good at speaking, especially to students!  If you have a monotone voice, I would rather not hear you speak.  Institutions like this need to be able to find better speakers so that they can keep my attention for more than half a second.  Interesting topic + boring speaker = nap time.  Boring topic + good speaker = amusement.  The speaker makes a world of difference!  Get better ones!!!  And yes, this applies to everywhere, not just Europeans (I'm looking at you, US Capitol tour guides!).

[EDIT]: One weird thing to note about the Parliament.  Representatives are not organized by country, but by political parties.  I thought that was very interesting, especially considering there are like 5-6 parties.  In the U.S. it's simpler because there are only two major parties in the Senate, whereas the House doesn't even have assigned seats.  One would assume they're coordinated by country like the UN.

After that painful hour or two (or 100 days, cause I'm sure that's how long I was in that room) we got to go outside and take a group picture in front of the flags.  Thankfully, there were better cameras than mine.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get a hold of these pictures.  They'll be up when I have them.  I got to say my goodbyes to Professor van der Beek, who was leaving for University of Illinois that day, where he will be until October.  Maybe I'll see him if I go visit AIESEC Illinois, which I probably will.  That same day we took our train, and we went on our merry way.  I would be staying in Cologne for the weekend, and everyone else would be continuing to Koblenz.  Great trip, good friends made, life is good...