Well today is the last day here in Maastricht.  We decided not to do any travels this weekend and it has been quite relaxing.  This past week was full of class and finals so we attempted to focus.  The two Australians we met in Barcelona visited on Wednesday and Thursday night so that was a lot of fun.  Friday was the day we had our final for ICC( intercultural communications) and the international business class.  To celebrate the end of the program CES put on a nice evening for the xavier students, lebanon valley students, and our teachers.  We had drinks and appetizers in the afternoon at the CES building where we received our UM t shirts.  Afterwards the Xavier students went to the d'Artagnan statue to take group photos and then we headed to the dinner.  The dinner was absolutely delicious and CES picked up the bill!!  I had an interesting appetizer that was like a prosciutto wrapped piece of goat cheese on a bed of field greens.  The main course was a ribeye steak with a cheese rub served with carrots and potatoes.  The dessert plate was a combination platter with a lemon liquor drink, dark chocolate mousse, and a coffee pudding.  Afterward we visited shamrock, Cest la vie, and alla.  These are some of our favorite places here in Maastricht.  Several people left Friday night with some more leaving on Saturday and Sunday.  The main group heads home Monday morning.  Yesterday we had kind of a lazy day with just a bit of shopping around.  We had sushi for dinner that was very good.  Today the plan is to head to a local park, where for like 6 euro we can canoe and kayak for the afternoon.  The wake up call for tomorrow is 5 am so we wont be out too late tonight.

I have really enjoyed this trip and will probably never travel in this same way again.  I learned so much about the world, myself, traveling, europe, and other cultures.  Sure we had two classes but what we learned was our observations and interactions every day.  I liked the experience but in many ways it has reinforced the aspects of America that i cannot live without!!  For all of us this trip has reminded us of why we love home and ultimately we want to be there.  Can't wait to see everyone this summer!!! Cheers!

Hey. Just wanted to give a quick update.  We are heading to Brussels in about 5 min for a tour of all the EU headquarters buildings and the city center.  We leave at nine tonight to head to dublin for the weekend.  We get back to Maastricht sometime monday afternoon.  I probably wont have any internet access the rest of the weekend.

Hey... well yesterday we had the day off so we spent most of the day relaxing.  We have group projects today in our intercultural communications class so in the afternoon our group met to plan out our project.  Yesterday was a holiday to celebrate Pentecost (which is intriguing to have a religious holiday like that in such a secular country) and as such most stores except of course bars and coffee shops were closed.  We eventually found our way to McDonalds for lunch after trying endlessly to find a local place.  For dinner we hit up Nora's our favorite kebap and pizza place.  We have class today through thursday before heading on a class trip to the EU headquarters in Brussels on Friday.  It should be very interesting to see all the EU buildings because of the wide influence of the EU in our everyday lives while visiting Europe.

Hello.  Well we just returned from a one day visit to Amsterdam.  We took it easy friday night because we had to get up early on saturday.  We ate our first really nice dinner in Maastricht at a place called Edd's (eat, drink, and dance).  I had a veal cutlet appetizer and then some sort of pork dish for my main course.  It was so good and as a part of the three course meal i also got some homemade chocolate gelato.  After a nice evening we left for Amsterdam around 930 on saturday morning.  When we arrived we were somewhat rushed because we were trying to meet some more friends from our group here in Maastricht.  We ended up arriving at the Heineken factory a little late so we missed them, but we caught up to them later in the tour.  In the Heineken factory we got to see the process and all the ingredients they used in production.  They had all sorts of interactive programs and lots of information on the history of their marketing schemes.  Afterwards, we ate a late lunch at a little cafe across the street.  The hamburgers weren't amazing, but like so many places in the Netherlands their french fries were the bomb!  We went on an hour and half canal tour of the city.  There is so much beautiful architecture in the city and so much history.  After the tour we spent a little while looking around and some people ate some pizza before the pub crawl, i was still full from lunch though.  The pub crawl was alot of fun and we went to several bars around amsterdam.  The fun time sorta fell apart around 3 in the morning when we realized our master plan had one enormous flaw: what were we going to do from 3 in the morning till the train at 7?  After a walk through the red light district( probably the weirdest place ive ever been!) we tried to find someplace to sleep.  We ended up getting to an egyptian restaurant and ate some food before heading to the train station.  We finally got the train and were home by 1100.  Everyone slept all day and we are planning on heading to our favorite bar in Maastricht, The Shamrock.

Maastricht

Hey everyone, sorry I haven't blogged in a while, but it was a hectic weekend in munich.  Last weekend was a four day weekend here in Europe so we decided to take advantage of that and headed to Munich.  Last Wednesday we had a class trip to Bayer in Leverkusen near Cologne.  The tour was set up by the professor from Lebanon Valley College (there are four students from there in our program).  It was very informative for me from the research and development standpoint of their healthcare division.  But as this is a business program study abroad it wasn't as useful for the other 27 kids who could care less about chemistry.  We spent the evening in Cologne and visited a nice beer garden  Wednesday night.  Thursday we headed to Munich and arrived in the afternoon.  Everyone was exhausted so we slept for a while in the hotel and then went to an italian restaurant nearby to have some pizza.  Friday we headed to the concentration camp memorial near Dachau.  It was a very informative experience and at times very difficult to grasp the emotions and terrible history of the place.  We decided to head back to the hotel and then an evening at Hofbrauhaus and Hard Rock Cafe.  Saturday we went on mike's bike tour around Munich.  It was very relaxing an informative and the guide really knew the history of many of the 3rd Reich buildings.  We headed back to Maastricht on sunday and spent most of the evening relaxing and calling friends and family.  We have five days of class this week before we head to amsterdam for two days this weekend.

this one was a bit late due to internet availability issues... but i wrote this several days ago

Currently I am riding on my first high speed train journey.  We are on the way to Brussels in order to connect to our program in Maastricht.  Yesterday we spent the day in the great city of Paris.  I thouroughly enjoyed walking around the city and experiencing the justle and bustle.  We saw a lot of sights in only a couple hours so we were pretty exhausted last night.  In the afternoon before we checked into our hostel which was very near to the large church on the major hill to the north of the city.  The name of this cathedral escapes me but it had one of the most amazing views of the downtown and of course was packed with tourists (and the ever accompanying pickpockets).  Later after naps and showers we went down to the Champs de Elysees to see the Catdedral de Notre Dame and the Arc de Triomphe.  So absolutely amazing!!  There were thousands of people surrounding Notre Dame and there also was a bread festival outside.  We bought some crepes on our way to the Louvre.  The Louvre was so much larger than what I imagined, it seemed to go on forever.  We got pretty hungry so we decided to have our first pretty nice meal because the food in Paris smelled and looked amazing.  We ended up at a small place right off the Champs de Elysees.  I had pate with carmalized onions, duck, and a french beer.  It was one of the best meals I’ve had in a long time.  The duck was absolutely perfectly cooked!  Later we split into two groups to do a bit of shopping, and ended up meeting at the end of the night at the Arc.  We went on top for only 5 euro and saw the entire city from the very center.  Very cool view!  We decided it would be prudent to head to bed early v=because we had to be on the train by 825 today.  We are just now arriving in Brusseles and later we make our way to Maastricht.  More to come in a couple days.

So yesterday was one of the craziest days of my life. We spent most of the evening after dinner browsing the La Rambla stores and people watching. There was a large department store called Corte Ingles that was much like a Macys except that it had a huge grocery store on the lowest level. That night was a championship futbol match in which FC Barcelona won some championship. The main square Plaza Catalunya was packed with high school and college students. They had a public broadcast of the game and after the team won, thousands of people took to the streets to celebrate. It was crazy! There were people lighting off fireworks and climbing anything and everything they could find.
Today we are planning on heading down to the beach and doing dome sightseeing, but it is supposed to rain a lot so not sure how well that will work out.