Oktoberfest!

I have spent the vast majority of this week catching up on schoolwork because I spent last weekend in Munich enjoying the madness that is known around the world as "Oktoberfest." It happened to be the 200th Oktoberfest! The week of work is well worth the weekend of fun! I am lucky enough to have a friend who is working in Munich to not only give me a place to crash, but also show me around the city and surrounding area.

Munich is a beautiful city and I'm lucky to have been able to get around to see the Olympic Grounds, some of the main "old city" as well as the BMW factory! Unfortunately, they didn't let me take out a car...



The first thing I will note, is that Oktoberfest was very different from what I expected. Of course it is massive, but it is also much more family oriented than I expected. There are just as many rides, fair games, food and restaurants as there are beer tents. I'm happy I was able to see German families wearing dirndls and lederhosen walking around and having generally a good time as opposed to just foreigners over-indulging.

Another amazing facet of this festival was the amazing food. I expected the festival to just be about drinking, but the culinary aspects of the festival were just as impressive to me. I was able to have such traditional foods as Schweinshaxe (roast ham), Brezn (Pretzels), Weisswurst (white sausage), and Knodel (potato dumplings). I am going to miss the German food!

I was also able to get out of the city and check out the Alps for a bit. We went to a beautiful town called Garmische, just outside of Munich. While this was an absolutely gorgeous place, one of the most exciting things about it was driving on the Autobahn to get there! I have to admit, driving the Autobahn through Bavaria is a greater adrenaline rush than driving from Columbia to St. Louis on 70 behind trucks.

Schoolwork has still been a bit difficult to adjust to. Back at Mizzou, I was able to gauge my process throughout the semester through tests, quizzes, and papers. Here, it's more all or nothing and I will find out how I did at the end of the semester. Further, classes are very small (largest are 13), and the students are expected to have read all of the information and come with enough knowledge to teach one another. I honestly didn't think this process would work at all, but in Organizational Change and Consultancy classes it seems to work very well. It has been an interesting practice in group dynamics for me. Back home, most of my small classes were still dominated by the professor. Either way, I have to wait until the end of the period to find out if this has prepared me enough! And whenever my head is stuck in the books I can remember this:

Amersfoort/Amsterdam

The past week has been amazing in Maastricht. The weather has been perfect, no sign of rain, 75 degrees every day... pretty much perfect. So, I have been doing a lot of my studying outside. I found a great park and study next to the statue of d'Artagnan (one of the 3 musketeers who died in Maastricht). I'm still adjusting to the style of school here, but it's going pretty well.

Last weekend I went to Amsterdam to hang out with my friend Laura, an Ambassadorial Scholar from Canada, and also to head to Amersfort to meet all of the other scholars in the Netherlands. Walking the streets of Amsterdam both during the day and at night was really astonishing. It would have been nice to skip out on the rain, but besides that it was an excellent journey. I thoroughly enjoyed wandering around the canals, viewing the wonderful Canal Home architecture, and checking out the houseboats.

In Amersfort I was able to meet with the other scholars in the Netherlands as well as meeting most of the host Rotarians as well. This was an excellent opportunity to discuss different projects we will hopefully be able to collaborate on throughout the year, as well as just getting to know scholars from around the world and from vastly different backgrounds.

We spent most of the day together talking about our experiences so far in the Netherlands, life in our respective countries, and our plans for changing the world. After spending the morning inside we took out to the streets to wander around the city of Amersfort (which is a beautiful city as well), saw the market, had a drink, and took a wonderful boat trip through the canals.
This past week left me busy, but I know for sure I will be back to Amsterdam and that I will definitely see many of the other scholars again. For this weekend: Munich!

Start of Classses

I've made it through a week and a half of classes in beautiful Maastricht. Here they pour on the work quickly. I have already made one class presentation, finished one group project, with two more due next week and read at least 250 pages of articles/textbook. But, I have still had time to hang out with friends and explore even more of Maastricht.

I found out that for 1 euro 50 cents you can climb to the top of a church right on the Vrijthof (the town square in the picture above) and was able to get a great view of Maastricht. I also quickly realized that no matter how much I've walked around and biked this city, it is very small, and it's streets very confusing.
I also had another friend come and visit this weekend. Silvio, from Germany, who was lucky enough to receive my wonderful Maastricht city tour (basically a big circle that goes by most of the impressive buildings I've found so far) before he took me off on my first journey out of the Netherlands so far- to Aachen. Aachen is right on the border of the Netherlands and Germany and is only a 20 minute drive from here, so it was not an incredibly long international journey, but it was fun nonetheless. Unfortunately, it was raining there and my camera died, so I guess I will have to head back to get those photos.

For this weekend, after I get all my assignments and group work done, I am planning on heading to Amsterdam to stay with Laura Morrison, an Ambassadorial Scholar from Sault Ste Marie Canada. From there we will head to Amersfoort to meet with other Ambassadorial Scholars and host counselors.

Second Week in the Netherlands

My second week here in Maastricht has been just as great, although very different, from Inkom week. I had plenty of time to continue exploring this beautiful city. I also have been able to continue strengthening relationships with friends I made my first week here, as well as adding new friends.

One of the more eventful days was Wednesday, we had our Master Orientation Day. This was more like what I had expected orientation week to be. It started with a discussion from the director of the program of working hard and working early, and then continued with a city/campus tour, meeting students who've gone through the program/are half way through the program, and making new friends. It was an incredibly helpful day and I feel much more ready for class to start tomorrow than I had felt a week ago.
On top of that, I had a friend, Christina, come visit from Cologne, Germany. She had actually come to stay with my aunt and uncle as a Rotary Youth Exchange 8 years ago, where I met her. We had a great time walking around town, meeting more friends, and experiencing a few of the restaurants. I was amazed to find out that Maastricht has 4 Michelin Star restaurants! In such a small city I think that is very spectacular. I was also able to watch the Mizzou-Illinois game (via the internet) with two friends I met last week. I think I've converted 2 more to love the Tigers!

The last event for the week was a free outdoor concert! I do not think I've ever seen such a diverse group of artists on the same stage. There were some jam bands, alternative music, heavy metal, and (of course) a few DJ's as well. Either way, it was a great time to get out on the beautiful weekend and listen to some live music! I am really hoping events like this happen all the time...

Besides that, classes start tomorrow... Hopefully it's not too difficult to make the transition.