First Study Tour Week

Allow me to introduce this blog post about my week long study tour by explaining what exactly our study tour is in the context of my MUDEC semester. Each student at MUDEC is required to take 3 specific types of classes: a language class (German or French), a "Base Course" (History, Business, or Anthropology), and a "Mini Field Study Class" (Business, Art, Music, Anthropology, or Theatre). For both the Base Course and Mini Field Study Class, all students get a week long break, part of which consists of a "Study Tour" where one travels with their class to relevant destinations around Europe and part of which consists of independent travels. So, our chocolate business class study tour began on Monday in Differdange.

Day 1:

I left Esch on the 10:14 train toward Differdange, where I met everyone else at the Chateau, and proceeded to board our chartered bus. Due to some stragglers, the bus was held up, and we left a few minutes later than expected - at approximately 11:25. We drove straight from Differdange to Koblenz, Germany, which took a little over two hours. The bus ride itself was relatively uneventful, because the only real entertainment consisted of watching the movie Chocolat, but it was in German, i.e. no one understood any of it. Luckily, we were however, provided a delicious packed lunch of sandwiches, water, and chips. We disembarked and walked around on this little pier in Koblenz, because (and this was a surprise for us), we were taking a boat up the Rhine River for the rest of our journey to Köln. As it turns out, the other 3 Miami students who were supposed to meet us in Koblenz didn’t make it on the boat, so Kelley (our student activities coordinator) had to stay behind and retrieve them. Turns out we had to change boats halfway through our voyage, so luckily the lost students and Kelley were able to meet up with us then. Our second boat was actually a dinner cruise, so we had a lovely meal aboard a very fine vessel. I had the fish and chips.

We docked in Köln at around 20:00. From the dock, we had to get back on the bus and took a short drive over to Hotel Leonet, where we were staying. The hotel was really nice and fancy, which I had not expected. After checking into my single room (I just kind of happened to get a single since I was the last student to sign up for a room), I met some friends in the lobby and we proceeded to head out into the city. We probably walked for about an hour through the streets of Köln without finding any interesting places to stop, so we ended up buying some Radler (a mix of beer and lemonade), and going back to our hotel where we played some purportedly fun (but rather uninteresting in reality) pictionary-esque game. I returned to my own room, and promptly slept.

Day 2:

I woke up at 6:45, showered, shaved, and headed down to breakfast at 8:00. As I was finishing breakfast, Professor Rollins came up and told me he needed a favor. Of course, being the responsible, young professional that I am, I said no problem. Now, I had no idea what I was getting myself into at the time. Turns out he needed someone to get in a taxi with Hoover (our chartered bus driver) and go with him to the buspark (where our bus was parked overnight), and then "spot him" (i.e. help Hoover maneuver our massive bus around the narrow streets of downtown Köln,) and get Hoover back to the Hotel to pick the rest of the class up. Ok, so first of all - the taxi driver was a crazy driver; I'm talking like weaving in and out of tramlines crazy. I did learn some interesting things on the taxi ride though: Hoover was pointing out the fact that a ton of the city of Köln had been destroyed during the allied bombings of WWII, and that you could actually see some buildings where parts had been rebuilt from previously leveled buildings. I also learned that Hoover had gone out the night before, wandered into some Turkish bar, and ended up doing some hookah with some strangers. Yeah, that was the guy in charge of driving our bus. So the taxi guy drops us off at the buspark, and I learned a few more interesting (read: terrifying) things about Hoover. He notices a large scrape on the side of the bus and says, "Shit - I must have hit something last night." I'm speechless at this point. He then tells me about how last night he got lost trying to get to the buspark, and ended up on a bridge where the bus couldn't actually fit, so he ended up having to pull a u-turn and almost got hit by a tram. That being said, I was almost hesitant to get on the bus with him. We left the buspark and began our trek back to the hotel. Unfortunately, Hoover's GPS was a piece of junk, so we almost got lost. Thankfully, I remembered parts of the city from walking around the night before and was able to get us close to our hotel. Hoover then illegally parked in a taxi stop, and called Professor Rollins to get everybody to walk to us. Madness ensued as 33 students had to throw all their luggage back onto the bus amid traffic in downtown Köln. It got so crazy that Kelley (again, our student activities coordinator filling in as a sort of chaperone) was hit by a biker. No injuries though.

Schokolademuseum) in Köln. It was awesome - as in they gave us free chocolate as we entered the museum. So we had like an hour-long guided tour of the building, which actually housed a chocolate factory as well. I learned a few interesting things, like that Ireland is the world's highest consumer of chocolate per citizen (about 10.5 kg per person per year). We also were able to taste more chocolate straight from a giant chocolate fountain (I had four of these "samples"). Because we had learned so much about the history of chocolate from our class, we as a tour group were able to ask some very solid questions to our tour guide. We even were able to spot some discrepancies between what the museum said about chocolate and what we had learned in our studies. Anyways, got out of there without buying any actual chocolate, and rolled out into the city, where we were supposed to meet at the Dom (cathedral) at 1:30 pm. We found some lunch, schnitzel and French fries, for a reasonable price, and then wandered over to the Dom. So, we got to take an hour-long guided tour this time, and I learned a lot of cool new things that I had not learned the first time I had walked through the Dom (a week earlier). I learned that the difference between a church and a cathedral is home to an Archbishop (which is apparently a big deal). Let's see, so we also saw the apparent remains of the Three Kings (like the ones who gave Jesus presents), which were housed in the Dom. Oh, and there was this cool sarcophagus of this one guy, who apparently just wanted to be buried in the cathedral, though he was of no real importance and just thought it would help him get into heaven, so he left all his money to the church in his will and was thusly buried in the Dom. His grave had small statues of dogs at his feet, which apparently indicated that he was of the lower nobility - if he was a king or part of the king's family, he would have had lions at his grave, and if he was an emperor, then he would have had eagles at his grave. That's what I'm getting on my tomb - eagles (America!). So after our tour, we had like 45 minutes before we had to get back on the bus. So of course, all the students decided to climb to the top of the South Tower again, which implied that I had to as well, again. This time though, it was a quite a bit easier. The 509 steps to the top flew by considering I wasn't lugging my backpack and a bottle of wine this time. Took some more pictures at the top, which wasn't as nice the second time since it was considerably foggier. After a nice, leisurely descent we hopped back onto the bus, and headed for Brussels.

That bus ride was much more swag - considering we watched one of the greatest movies ever produced in American cinema: Top Gun. We got into Brussels, checked into the Hotel du Congres (where I had stayed a few weeks earlier), and got settled. Now, I was staying in a room with 5 other guys, so it was quite cramped. Anyways, we didn't have much downtime as we had to run out to make our 7:30 reservation… at Pizza Hut. Yeah, we had reservations at Pizza Hut, which was actually really nice. It was also the first place we had been with free refills and an actual soda fountain like in America. After dinner, a bunch of Miami students (I included) headed to this bar, Delirium. As the name suggests, it was a happening place. We snagged a table and headed to the bar to order some Belgian beer. Basically, I chose my beer because there was an ad for "Delirium Tremens - elected best beer in the world!" on the wall. And by god, it was right up there. Now, I know I don't have a lot of experience with beer, but it was by far the best beer I've had in Europe; it had a sort of fruity flavor with a smooth and crisp finish - just wonderful. Also, it was cheap and strong (9% alcohol by volume). We then walked back to our hotel and called it a night.

Day 3:

I woke up at 6:45 (as per usual, the first one in our room up), showered and headed down for breakfast. I was supposed to meet some friends at 8:00 am for breakfast and because they were late and didn’t show up, I ended up eating with Professor Rollins and Kelley, the only other conscious people I knew at the hotel. I also got to meet Mark, our chocolate guide for the day, and learned that he had just returned from a trip to Nepal where he had been guiding a glacier-climbing tour. Basically, Mark = awesomefest. Here's a picture of him leading us around Brussels:

 He knew everything about chocolate and took us around the city of Brussels, stopping in and tasting chocolate at the best shops. We started in the Grand Place at Godiva - where I had one of the best chocolates I've had yet - an 85% dark chocolate truffle that came as the recommendation of the guy working there. Truly majestic it was. Next, we went to Pure, an all-natural, organic, and fair-trade chocolate shop where I had some sort of like espresso shavings thing. It was again, solid. Next, we walked to Whitamer's, which is a very famous Belgian chocolatier. It was there that we had these white chocolate, cassis-flavored truffles; it was incredible. I was in heaven. Next, we traveled to Laurent Gaudot's chocolate shop, where we actually got to make our own chocolate. It was so chill (as in sweet - no pun intended). I ended up buying a small assortment of chocolates from there, since we got to taste 8 different chocolates from their shop. Their specialty was adding interesting new flavors to chocolates, so we had like some with apricot in it, some with ginger, some with speculoos (which is like graham cracker taste), some with nuts - all of it delicious. Then, we got back on the bus after having a quick sandwich for lunch, and drove to a suburb north of the city.

So for the last chocolate stop of the day, we went to Manon's chocolate factory and shop. The proprietor was this old guy who looked like Jepeto - the guy from Pinocchio. Anyways, he was super cool - he learned the chocolate business from his grandpa, who opened the shop in the early 20th century. He makes all his chocolate by hand, which is real cool, and though he runs a really small factory (as in he has one other employee), he has won several international awards for his chocolate. He told us he had never entered any competition for these awards, they just came to him because people had learned of his incredible chocolate. This guy was quite the character, turns out he's also a magician, so he did some sweet magic/chocolate tricks. For example, he asked for a volunteer to come up and pick a card from the deck. So this girl picks a card, and he asks her to show everyone the card (the 8 of hearts). Next, he takes his "magic cocoa powder" and rubs it on the card before putting it back into the deck. He shuffles the deck for a little bit, and then builds the anticipation by again describing how "magical" the cocoa powder is. He then takes some of the powder, pulls up the sleeves of his shirt, and rubs the cocoa powder onto his arm - the powder then exposes on his arm "8 Hearts" and he asks if that was her card. Amazing. Also, he was all about his dark chocolate - he told us he eats 250g every day for energy. Oh, and he was very particular about what was chocolate and what was not - "White chocolate" as we know it actually contains no cacao beans, it's simply milk, sugar, and cocoa butter. He said they don't call it "white chocolate," the just call it "white." So after getting more free chocolate (and a business card so I could order some online to send home?), we left Manon's and headed back to our hotel.

After chillaxing at the hotel, we headed down to dinner with the rest of our class at Chez Leon, a nice restaurant near the city center. We had an appetizer of rabbit (Yum! - seriously, it was quite nice), salad, some superb Belgian beer (Grivermacher or something like that), turkey for dinner, and a cherry sorbet (possibly with alcohol) for dessert. All in all, a splendid feast. We then just sort of chilled around the Grand Place, watched the light show for the second night in a row, and walked back to the hotel. We played cards for a little bit before going to sleep. As it turns out, some of my roommates made the immature and foolhardy decision to go to a strip club that night. They got really drunk, got back to the hotel at like 3:00 am, made a bunch of noise, ran around and caused a ruckus in the hallway, woke a bunch of people up, and caused several other guests to complain to the hotel staff - thus embarrassing Professor Rollins, our entire class, Miami University, and America. To all you out there, please don't blatantly disrespect people like they did. It's not even that it was a cultural thing - you wouldn't do that in America and it shouldn't be done in Europe, especially when you represent our university and our nation.

Day 4:

Woke up at 6:40, tired from being woken up several times during the night. Ate breakfast early, and got on the bus to Bruges. We finished watching Top Gun on the bus, which started the day off right (except for the fact that Goose died again). After arriving in Bruges, we started our walking tour of the city right away. I learned a lot more from the walking tour than I did from wandering the city when I was there a few weeks before. Actually, I take that back, I didn't necessarily learn more, I just learned different things. So I learned a lot more about the history of the city - for instance, Bruges was once the largest port in northern Europe (which is crazy considering it is landlocked now, and 50 km from the North Sea). So apparently the North Sea used to come all the way to where Bruges is now and boats could literally pull right into the market square and dock. I also learned a lot about the architecture of Bruges, which is a very medieval city. So I guess what happened is that Bruges was pretty much all Gothic architecture, and as the renaissance spread northward from Italy, some cities (like Antwerp in Belgium) started changing their architecture to be more renaissance-y. Bruges however decided that they wanted to preserve their own unique identity as opposed to their rivals in Antwerp, so they just kept up the Gothic architecture. Even today they have strict standards as to how buildings must look in the city (kind of like Oxford?). Our walking tour ended in the market square of the city, and we had lunch as a class right there. We yet again had a delicious meal provided by MUDEC: I'm talking carrot soup, chicken with pureed peas, and a Belgian waffle for dessert.

Then we walked to two other chocolate shops - first we went to Dumon Chocolatier, an apparent favorite of the infamous Rick Steves. There, I chatted with the proprietor and asked her the few key questions to ask in a chocolate shop - "What is your specialty?" (to which she replied, "chocolate," not very helpful), and "What is your personal favorite?" (to which she directed me to a dark chocolate crème brulee truffle). So I had to try this crème brulee truffle (and for 60 euro-cents, it was awesome). From there we walked to Chocolate Line, an interesting store to be sure. Ok, to set the scene, Professor Rollins had mentioned the day before that in Bruges there was a store where we could snort chocolate. That's right, snort chocolate. I was intrigued, even mystified as to what this would entail. So when we get to Chocolate Line, we find out that this is where we can supposedly snort the chocolate. I was thrilled. So we ask the lady at the counter, and she says for one euro we can do "a sniff." Of course, it was worth it - so we made it happen. She busted out this small plastic contraption, into which she put a scoop of powder. We could choose either ginger or raspberry mix - I went with ginger because she said it was stronger. Then, she held the contraption up to my nose, and told me to inhale on the count of three. On three, she like launches the powder and I inhaled deeply. It didn't hurt or anything like that, it just smelled very chocolatey and minty (not very much ginger). And, it felt like there was something stuck in the front part of my nose. It was awesome. So yeah, I snorted chocolate. Here is what the set-up looked like:

We then hustled back to the bus for yet another adventure with Hoover - I'm talking a 2 hour trek through downtown Brussels rush hour traffic, which got so bad that at one point we started going into a tunnel and realized the bus wouldn't fit, so we had to stop all traffic, get the police to move cars, and back out through a roundabout so we could get going in the right direction. Anyway, finally got back to the hotel at around 5:30 or 6 (my memory is a little fuzzy now). After chillaxing / showering / sneezing a bunch, rallied the troops and headed down to the Grand Place, both to meet some friends who had flown into Brussels from the end of their study tour in Madrid as well as to find food for dinner. After rendezvousing with our friends (who were wearing shorts by the way - much nicer weather in Spain than in Belgium, apparently), we ate at some gyro shop near the Grand Place, before going back to watch the light show. Now, we actually had an interesting experience at this point. So we saw a group of college-aged kids in white shirts walking around, apparently covered in dirt, flour, and a variety of other crap. It appeared as though they were being directed (read: yelled at) by several other college-aged kids in blue uniforms with funny hats. So when they started marching and chanting in the Grand Place, I had to know more. So, I did the easiest and most difficult thing to do when you're in a foreign country - ask someone. So I asked one of these guys with a hat on what the dealio was - turns out it was basically an initiation of new students into the university. He told me it was different for each type of student (as in each different school or major), so he was pointing out that his group of 15-20 students were all new education majors ("people who want to be teachers"), and that he had been put through it himself in his first year at the university. He said that this tradition had been going on for over 100 years. I was intrigued at the acceptability of such public humiliation. I asked him if he knew anything about fraternities or sororities - and he said he just knew what they saw on television. So, I explained to him the striking similarity of the group hazing and ritualistic behavior between American fraternities and what his organization seemed to be doing. It was interesting, to be sure.

So went back to our hotel, where we may or may not have let our friends stay in our already overcrowded hotel room (which may or may not have been ok with the Miami chaperones who had held our room for us), so I ended up sleeping sideways across two twin beds pushed together so that they could accommodate three people. Not exactly the most comfortable night I've ever had, but it wasn't bad at all.

Day 5

Unfortunately though, two of the guys in our room had to get up at 3:15 am to make a flight, so I was woken up then, and then again when our friends left for Oktoberfest at 6:30 am. After a leisurely 8:00 am wake up, breakfast, and shower. I got all packed up, and headed towards the train station at around 11:00 am. Turns out it was just going to be Tony and I headed to Zurich, Switzerland, and our train didn't leave until 13:13 (unlucky train?).

So we ate lunch in the train station, and hopped aboard our direct train from Brussels-Centraal to Zurich HB. It was a long 8 hours and 11 minutes, but it was very calming and relaxing to sit on a train all day after having been running around the continent for the past few days. We even had outlets on our train seats, so I got to work on writing this blog entry then. We also met this girl on the train who was a Miami student who had just graduated in the spring, but was doing her student teaching in Luxembourg City. So we at least had someone else to talk to on the train. It wasn't very crowded except while we were going through France (stops in Strasbourg and Metz), and then the train pretty much emptied out for the last two hours between Basel and Zurich.

NOT A GOOD SITUATION: So it kind of hits me all at once that Tony and I are in deep. Upon arriving in Zurich, we have several problems that need to be resolved:

1. We have no money - Switzerland uses the Swiss Franc, not the euro (note: 1 Swiss Franc = about 1 US dollar).

2. We have no idea where our hostel is - I forgot to print off directions to our hostel from the train station. 

3. We have no idea where we are - I know we're at the main train station, but I have no idea where that is relative to the city.

4. It's 21:30 on a Friday night - all the shops are closed, as is the tourism office at the train station.            5. Zurich is close to the Swiss-German border, so they were actually having an Oktoberfest celebration and concert going on in the train station, which only furthered our disorientation.

6. We're starving - we should have packed some dinner for the train ride, but we didn’t and now everything is closed.

HOW WE SURVIVED: Obviously, we didn't die or panic or get lost forever in Switzerland, here is how we handled the problems we faced, and what to do if you find yourself in a similar situation.

1. There was still a currency exchange window open at the train station, so Tony and I ran up and exchanged some euros for Swiss Francs. Even if the currency exchange had been closed, we would have just needed to find an ATM and we could've scored some cash.

2. We followed a mob of people out of the train station, and just kind of walked in the same direction as a bunch of people. Then, majestically, we spotted a Starbucks across the river. We walked to it, and when I got inside the first question we asked was, "Do you have wifi?" Thankfully, they did, and we were able to find the directions online to our hostel, which we then transcribed onto paper. Oh, and we got some Swiss hot chocolate albeit from Starbucks.

3. This was pretty much solved by using Google Maps at Starbucks.

4. Not really an issue, since we had managed to walk over to the student district of the city (near the University of Zurich), so everything, or at least Starbucks, was open later.

5. We just didn't panic. It's important not to panic.

6. As we walked the 4 km from the train station to our hostel, we made our way down some busy streets, and as fate would have it, passed a McDonald's. Yes, that's right, at like 23:00 on a Friday night, the McDonald's was still open. America (as in Starbucks and McDonald's) saved us that night.

So we checked into our hostel, and after having a quick and much needed drink at the bar in the hostel's lobby, we called it a night.

Day 6

Got up around 7:30, never saw the other two guys who had stayed in our four-person hostel room. We had a nice little breakfast provided for us in our hostel - bread, jam, coffee, and orange juice. We then headed out for the city at about 9:00 am. We walked down to the lake shore before walking north into the downtown area (now I was nice and oriented correctly!). It was quite a sight, you could see the Swiss Alps off in the distance beyond Lake Zurich, here is what it looked like:

and this:

and this:

Anyway, so we rolled into town, and walked around for a little bit at a flea market. It was sweet, lots of stuff for sale, and huge, considering that they put the whole show together every Saturday. We didn't buy anything, but that was chill. We walked around for a while, and strolled over the Grossmunster, the typical large church for the city. Our hostel receptionist had recommended that we climb it to get cool views of the city, which was spot on. It looked like this:

Yeah, it was pretty cool. Then Tony and I made our way over to the University of Zurich. On the way, we grabbed lunch at this little bakery/butcher shop. We then got the Zentrum (which I believe is the equivalent of the Shriver Center, our student union back in Oxford). It was pretty deserted, but there was some kind of little reception going on there. Anyway, I had my computer, and we saw some students working on their laptops, so I decided to try to get the interwebs. I was able to hack onto their internet, and we found out some interesting things about the University of Zurich. Apparently it's the 11th most prestigious university in Europe - oh, and Albert Einstein went to school there. So yeah, it's kind of a big deal.

Then we walked across campus (up the street) to the University Library. Turns out they were having an exhibition on algebraic surfaces in the library that day (oh boy - math!). So Tony and I went up and started asking questions to one of the students who was working the exhibit. She quickly turned to English, and we ended up having like an hour-long conversation with her and her friend. Here is what we learned from them about Zurich and Switzerland:

1. People in Zurich speak Swiss German, which is a strange dialect. They told us that even if we spoke German fluently, we would still have problems understanding the locals.

2. People in Switzerland do not like people from Germany. Apparently, they view Germany as an aggressive and arrogant nation, and since Zurich is relatively close to the border, it's especially bad in Zurich.

3. There is nothing cool to do in Zurich - they said that most people just sit around all day and look at the alps. We asked what students do on the weekends, and they said, "study."

4. University of Zurich students have class on Saturdays - we heard a bell ring in the middle of our conversation, and asked what that was. Turns out it was the 15:00 bell releasing kids from class. I thought that was hilarious / unfortunate.

5. There are similar cross-cultural understandings of what constitutes an "easy major," I talked to them about math, because they were both math majors, and we were able to joke about communication majors (no offense to communication majors - I was just using what I perceive to be the most stereotypically understood "easy" major, based on no factual evidence of my own. So don't get mad at me). 

So that was really cool, it's always nice to talk to locals, and the most friendly people are always other students. They even invited us to a big university party that was going on that night downtown (we did not end up going). Then we walked all the way back to our hostel. We started chilling in our room, and decided to take a little siesta. Just as I was about to fall asleep however, Roy showed up. Turns out one of the guys staying in our room that night, the aforementioned Roy, wanted to make a lot of noise when he walked in. So we talk to Roy for a while - he's a cyclist from New Zealand. Apparently he spends a lot of time in Europe, and has biked all over the continent, which is pretty cool (but it kept me from my nap). 

So we got up and headed back into the city around 4:45. Casually strolling through the downtown, we found this cheeseburger take-out place on the Niederdorfstrasse, the main shopping street in the old town. So we got some burgers and fries to go, and then ate dinner on a bridge, looking at the Swiss Alps. Awesome. So then, on the suggestion of our friends at the University of Zurich, we had to go to the grocery store and get some Feldschlossen (a Swiss beer). So we went to the store, got some free samples of chocolate (which was delicious), and bought some Swiss beer. We then walked down to the river, sat on a bench, people-watched, and drank. We had a sweet view of the river and Zurich at night:

Swiss beer could not really hold a candle to Belgian beer, but it wasn't a problem. Then, around 20:30 or so, we decided to try to find this Irish Pub, Nelson, downtown. Unfortunately, the map had it mislabeled, but we found it. No big deal. After a pint of Murphy's (an Irish beer, which was cheap because it was Happy Hour, apparently). We took the long road back to our hostel and crashed.

Day 7

The last day of the trip was quick. We got up, ate, and headed out the door at 10:00. Strolled into town, chilled at this park, had really cheap hot dogs for lunch (as in, mine only cost 50 Swiss franc cents since the guy gave me too much change back - not sure how that makes me feel about the whole Swiss bank thing...), and went back to Starbucks to check the internet and make sure we had the right time for our train. We got on the train at 14:36, and had a straight five-hour train ride back to Lux City. It was a long week indeed.