Variety

One of the best unexpected places i've been so far was Bruges in belgium, it was absolutely beautiful. I never really knew much about if before coming to Europe although i didn't know much about Europe really before coming to Europe but thats ok. The city itself is great as you can see from my pictures on facebook. There were never a ton of people wondering about, like an over-abundance, there were always people around but never like a huge city feeling. The streets were all brick or cobblestone and the houses were so cool looking. There were so many interesting buildings and I don't know it is hard to explain I just enjoyed my time there immensely. I went on a day trip with one girl from indiana and we had really no prior knowledge of the city or map or anything just kind of wandered around for the day and I wouldn't of had it any other way. It was so peaceful and casual. Insted of taxis or many cars there were a ton of horses with carriages that would take people from place to place. Just a nice overall city. Now having done two smaller trips the past two weekends I had planned this out for a reason because this past weekend which I just returned from was a 2 1/2 day trip to London and next weekend is Rome. I loved London so much as well but for completely different reasons. The entire city was so proper and professional. All the men walking around were wearing not necessarily expensive clothes but just had a nice style which appeared more fomal. The city was very clean and seemes and seemed more like an American city more than any other ones i've been to(I did not expect any different since US and England are very similar). On top of that everything was finally in English again which was so convenient. No guessing what you were ordering to eat (except the night we ate indian food for some reason), no confusion in the stores or on the metro. The one thing that took a bit to get used to was the traffic on the streets, not just the fact that it was a big city and there was a lot of traffic but they also drive on the opposite side of the road so when crossing the street you have to look the other way. It is nice because they painted like "look left" and "look right" on the street right before you crossed. The taxi cabs were also very classy looking too, they looked almost like a 50's style car but a little more modern but not like a normal taxi you would see anywhere else. They did also have all of the double decker busses and the telephone booths. I was a little disapointed though because one the guards at buckingham palace were so far away you couldn't get close to them and two the ones you could get close to at the palace where the princes and stuff lived they put up like a chain rope thing so you couldn't get close enought to take a picture with them. Funny story though apparently the reason they did this was because some guy pissed one of the guards off so much recently that the guard just flipped out and went off on the guy haha. So I guess that makes sense but still they were wearing grey coats instead of red, Lame. Oh well haha still really cool to see. I also got the chance to check out this evening service at St. Paul's Cathedral which apparently is pretty famous i had never heard of it. But that place was insane and the service was soo cool. The Organ and choir sounded amazing in the giant dome of the cathedral. Did a lot of other random stuff as well in London tough to recall though just thinking about it because a lot of it was random when you were walking around and it was sparatic. I did love the fact that they called oatmeal porridge, and yes I had two bowls of it haha. I also had two types of fish and chips while there which was delicious. Overall I enjoyed London a lot and the trip was a lot of fun, the 7 hour overnight bus ride there wasn't the best but was interesting when the bus got on to this train that took us under the water to get to London but definitely glad we took a speed train home instead.
The best thing about seeing all these different places and cultures is being able to take what I enjoyed the most from all the lifestyles and implement them into to my own. I love how professional they were in London and have always admired that type of style and the contrast between big city or more of a chill place like Bruges will always be a tough one. I have learned that all big cities are definitely not the same and even different parts of different cities are very different. Well that is enough reading about my two trips but if you have any more questions feel free to email me!
This week is also thanksgiving but as you may realize they do not celebrate it over here for obvious reasons haha. But a couple of my American friends and I are trying to organize some type of dinner for thursday with turkey and potatoes and green bean casserole and pie so wish me luck in that haha. Really trying to just let all of our friends from other countries experience our culture a little bit while we are here too. It is nice also to have a little bit of home while i'm here. Definitely going to miss seeing all the family and friends over the holidays. I will be in class for those day but oh well make it through this week and the working ahead for next week and it'll all be worth it for Rome!
Thanks for all the support and it is always nice to hear from everybody from back home and always trying to respond as soon as possible,

Much Love,

Devon Latimer

The Cultural Differences Never End

I think there are something like 45 days left here which seems like a lot but since my entire trip is a total of like 120 days it actually isn't that much left. I know though that 45 days is a lot of time so going to be trying to make the most of it and things do tend to become more exciting everywhere as the holidays close in. This thursday 11/11/2010 marks the begining of carnival.... not exactly sure what that means all i know is that this thursday at 11 am i'm supposed to be at one of the main squares downtown. All i'm pretty sure that in the months of november and december all shops are open on sundays too which is a pretty big deal here and they have already started decorating for christmas. I think a big part of this is the fact that they don't have thanksgiving here so like their next big thing is Christmas. But do not worry we have not forgotten about thanksgiving, all the kids that we normally hang with are so excited to feast on thanksgiving haha. We're going to borrow my German friends kitchen and just go to town so that we do not dissapoint. I dont think any of us have ever made a turkey or most of anything that we normally eat for thanksgiving but it will be fun haha. For the meal I'm pretty sure we will have Germans, Indians (from india, not the actual native americans), Austrailians, Americans, Portuguese, and Chinese people so should be fun! This weekend I'm looking to go to maybe Luxembourg for the day on saturday but that is not set so not completely sure will just have to see what comes up. I did go on the biking trip last weekend on saturday and will have pictures up sometime soon but let me tell you it definitely and adventure. The place I rode to was definitely not that far from here but like once i go there i decided to ride around some too and took a couple random paths and roads around and long story short ended back up in Maastricht without seeing the one thing i wanted to see so ended up biking bake to Kanne again. Kanne is a small town located just accross the border in Belgium so that was cool riding in to another country and honestly apart from the flags and a small sign you couldnt even tell haha. The trip in total was like 18 miles or something but done in jeans and a cardigan haha so not the ideal apparel to ride in but hey it was a little chilly. Classes are going good still these two new ones are a lot of reading which is occupying my time but they aren't terrible cause they're pretty interesting topics. In one class i'm learning about sustainable development and different aspects of that and in my other one we're going in to the differences in cultures and how that affects their management strategies. Both concepts are pretty basic thus far but it is relatively new information to me so pretty interesting. Ok well I have a lecture in a little bit so need to get going. Hope all is well back in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!

Much Love,

Devon Latimer

Half-Way Point

So... sorry for not blogging for a while but had finals last week and i thought that i would have more time because only had one exam and a final paper and no classes but not what i thought it would be haha. The paper I had to write was 4000-5000 words which normally wouldn't be too bad I mean in the typical format in the states you just write down a bunch of opinionated crap that flows and sounds like you know what you're talking about but this one was different. It was actually considered more of a test because we had to compare these 14 scholarly articles based on 4 broad topics given to us and tie them together and show how they relate also while proving some point from them, and the whole time we weren't allowed to have an opinion so quite difficult. The other exam didn't seem like it would be too bad with the average grade ranging from the equivalent of a C+ to a B+ so wasn't too concerned when all i had to do was pass and it was open book open notes with mostly formulas and three hours to do 5 long problems. I swear in Europe they try to fail you (and this is actually true because our tutor told us they change the format of this other classes test not so people wouldn't score as high but so that more people would fail) but it was kinda tough and not well put together like some parts were very vague and one sentence wasn't even proper english haha. But I talked to my german buddies from Cologne and they agreed it was very difficult so they said that he would end up having to curve the tests. The other cool thing about finals was the place where we took it. It was in the "Mecc" which is like this warehouse thing with lots of conference rooms and one huge warehouse thing where probably 1000 people in there taking a couple different exams so that was slightly intimidating but cool. After those were over we got back to the dorm and rounded up the 10 people going in our group and headed out on our way to Berlin in the two cars we rented. I actually like this way of traveling compared to train and flying for trips about this length because it ended up costing us about the same amount of a train even a little less and we had the freedom of traveling where and when we want. On the way there what was supposed to be a six hour drive turned into an eleven hour one due to traffic and other things, we hit some mild traffic right when we left Maastricht which delayed like 30-45 min and then finally got going and got to the Autobahn which was nice cause there are some portions with no speed limits but the roads were a little crowded so couldn't get going too fast traveling about 120km/hour which is a normal speed limit when on the road (74mph). Then around 10pm we were going great until we ran in to traffic and it was soo bad stuck in bumper to bumper stop and go traffic for like 2 1/2 3 hours so normally that would be horrible but we had a blast we were pumping the music and dancing haha, got a couple people to dance with us in cars including an old couple in a nice sports car haha couple people gave thumbs up and such. Then ok to set it up, in my car was a girl from India, a girl from Portugal, a boy from Indiana, and another girl from indiana so the girl from India and girl from Portugal had never heard of a chinese fire drill so once we explained it to them we decided to do one on the Autobahn haha. Then once again with the two girls not from the U.S. had never heard of the stanky leg and if you haven't heard of it, that's ok haha (it's a dance move). It was a good time but lasted a little too long. Once we got out of the traffic we were driving for a while and saw our exit to berlin to veer off and follow for an hour or so more to Berlin we saw that the sign for our road had a giant red X through it. So long sotry short they closed down the road to Berlin and thank goodness for GPS which led us around the closed highway and took a bit longer also. We finally got to the Hostel at 4 in the morning and thankfully the hostel had 24 hour reception so we got checked in and got to sleep. The next day we got up and got breakfast and walked to downtown to go on this free tour which was amazing! I learned so much about the history of Berlin and like WWII and stood above the Bunker where Hitler committed suicide and just all kinds of random stuff. It was such a huge city and so much history could have spent a long time there. Then that night we went to a cool bar to chill and the reason it was so cool was because they had a separate tap in each table. So like they gave you half-liter steins (or cups if you asked) and then you got to pour your own beer from the tap and the tap kept track of how much you poured and you got charged at the end. It was so sweet because then they kept a tally of the half-liters from each table and had huge projectors where they showed your table vs, other tables in the bar. They then showed the top table in your bar compared to all the other branches of that bar (which were all in the czech republic and it was only the second day this bar had even been open) to other bars so it was like you were competing, very cool concept. Then on sunday we drove up north of berlin about 30 minutes to see a concentration camp called Sachsenhausen which was crazy. I don't even know how to explain it because it just was almost too much seeing all the stuff there and they had a lot of information on stuff and just very overwhelming but worth the 4 hours we spent there. Then after that we took off and made our way home which took about 6 hours flat including stops,which was great! Now I get to start all over again and do another period of it. I think this block may be a little more calm with traveling as far as going every weekend, i may do a couple day trips on a couple weekends to see some stuff and may bike to berlin one saturday just cause I kinda think that'd be cool. Right now i have London and Rome booked for the end of this month and apparently one thing I'm really looking forward to is Aachen. Aachen is this little town in Germany which is about an hour east of here by bus, but every December they apparently have an AMAZING christmas festival and like shops and decorations and it goes on for the entire month of December also. I've been told by quite a few people that people come from all over Europe to see it so may have to go there a couple times because I think that'd be a blast!
Ok well this is quite a lot to read in one sitting so i hope i havent lost you and i hope you enjoyed it.
Much Love,

Devon Latimer

Oh, and! today marks the first day of no shave novembeard which a lot of guys here are participating in so that'll be fun haha