Dinner with the Canadian Girls

Last night was a great night. My Australian friend Kristie and I went to the Canadian girls' house for dinner :) Laura and Madison are from Toronto (they just met here, but back home live like 20 mins away from one another) and Kristie is from Brisbane in Australia. Madison and Laura don't live in Honigkamp with the rest of the exchange kids, they live in a shared apartment 2-3 blocks away from our place. It's like the "halfway" mark to school. We had candles, pasta, bread, a cute tablecloth - the whole bit! It was so cute and they were so nice to have us over. Kristie and I brought the wine and dessert :) We talked about everything under the sun. Of course we chatted lots about Oktoberfest > WE ARE LEAVING WEDNESDAY! But a lot about geography and "stereotypes". The canadain girls think its so cute that my mom's boyfriend, Dennis goes to Canada fishing every year. Madison was saying that just 2 hours outside of Toronto is "cottage" land. We also had to explain to Kristie the whole sorority/fraternity thing as well. They don't have them in Australia so she asked us lots and lots of questions. She thinks it is like such a different "world" with the whole hazing and rush week and all that. It is funny what random topics come up in conversation when 4 girls from different areas come together for a night of food and wine. We also talked about Holidays of course! In America Thanksgiving is the last Thursday of November, and in Canada it is the second Monday of October! I think that is just crazy! But of course Laura was like "You have it in November! Why not just have your Christmas dinner then!?!?" and I'm like - you have Thanksgiving before Halloween! OMG! And of course we sat and explained Thanksgiving to the Australian, she thinks it's so cute that we have turkey and go around the table at dinner time and say what we're thankful for. It is just so funny that we're all from english speaking countries, but how different things really are. Then Kristie had the chance to talk about "Australia Day" which is in January and is REALLY big in Australia. It is the "official day" of Australia. She said that her and her friends all have a HUGE cookout that day with a bunch of food and the radio because they play the top 100 songs all day (so cute!).

All in all, it was a great night and really fun to hear the different things from different backgrounds. And the stereotypes that go along with it.

Autumn Break Plans Are Officially MADE!

So we have an autumn break (I know totally cool, right!) and a group of us finally made plans! My friend from San Fransisco has a friend that lives in Porto, Portugal, so we are going to visit him! Our school break is Ocotber 18th - Ocotber 22nd, so on Friday, October 15th we are taking a plane from Eindhoven, Netherlands to Porto, Portugal. And better yet, he'll be celebrating his birthday while we are there! On Monday the 18th he's having a huge birthday celebration with friends and a big dinner with over 40 guests! I'm getting excited just typing about it! We'll be in Portugal the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th. Then on the 19th we'll be taking a plane to Madrid, Spain - staying there until the 21st. On the 21st we'll then go to Barcelona, Spain and stay there until the 24th of October. The 24th we'll be coming back home, taking a plane to Eindhoven.

Totally excited :) :)

School/Classes

This is on the walk to school. Its pretty random? But its right at Presikhaaf Park in which I walk through every day to get to HAN.

Classes so far are not bad at all. I am enrolled in 4 courses and have class Mon-Wed. This will correspond to 12 credits at UW-W and then in my graduating semester (In January) I will be taking 15 more credits. I'm taking all marketing courses here, so when I get back to UWW I only have one more marketing course to take, the rest will be electives. I'm hopeing to get into an Advertising Course & PR course! And maybe a fun one like Scuba Diving or something like that ;)

E-Marketing/E-Commerce Course: This course has an exam at the end, but one semester long project. We have to take two similar, but international companies and compare their websites and everything available ONLINE. We have to explain what we think is right/wrong while explaining theories and why. This is a personal opinion with directions of improvement. Also with this is compare the two companies with their promised vision and mission statement and if what they are doing in "real life" corresponds to these corporate values. We have to analyze if what they do and offer online actually matches up with the companies goals. So, our professor told us to do any company without it being "too big" (for example PEPSI Vs. COKE or DELL Vs. APPLE) there is just too much to analyze. I thought a lot about which companies I'd like to choose as I did an Internship at CUNA Mutual Group (Business-To-Business oriented) as well as an Internship with Remington Personal Care Products (Business-To-Consumer oriented). I really wanted to do Remington Vs. Conair or other hair care competitor, or Braun/Panasonic as the Men's Category competitor and because I know the companies and products so well. Buuuuuutt, I decided against it. I figured that because I know so much about these companies I'm not sure if I would get out of the assignment what I really wanted. I'm extrememly interested in Consumer Products and Brand/Category management, so I thought of a bunch of brands and last minute chose two. Other kids in the class are doing: Blackberry Vs. HTC, Disney Vs. Universal, My friend from Canada, Madison is doing Old Spice Vs. AXE and my friend, Kristie from Australia is donig Gloria Jeans Vs. Starbucks --- I chose NIVEA Vs. DOVE. I'm excited about the project and to really dig deep in to the products and how the companies do E-Commerce (and if they do it well or not) and I'm a huge fan of women's products (of course). I thought of make-up brands and things of this sort, but to be honest - my mind jumped right to Dove because of all the marketing campaigns they are doing surrounding around Women's Self Esteem. There are a lot of print ads, YouTube things, commercials...etc. regarding this - so I though - WHAT THE HECK, shot in the dark and chose two random companies. This is an individual project.

Business-To-Business Course: Kind of Ironic that last summer I worked in B2B and also was an E-Marketing intern, now I'm taking actual courses with these two elements, but B2B is also a group project. We have to start our own car-lease business in Europe and develop a business plan. We have to study theories, competitors, what is relevant and explain why - all surrounding car lease companies. The professor set us up in groups and I have one American in my group, one girl from France and one girl from Russia - so this should be fun!

International Distribution (Translates at UW-W for External Logistics): This course is what is sounds - Logistics. This is a topic I know little to nothing about, and in the Marketing "profession" I know that it is necessary. This class in particular has A LOT of students from China. There are soooo many. The class is 42 people and right now we're doing a case study in regards to TESCO which is a real life food retailer in the UK. We're analyzing their distribution/purchasing/delivery/R&D models.

Marketing Communication (This course is OUTSIDE of the exchange program so I am with Dutch students!): This class is broken up into numerous parts and meets twice a week. Right now I have 3 "classes" 1. Communication 2. Branding and 3. Public Relations. This whole class is surrounded around the Publishers Project (group project) and we have 2 professors. We have to introduce a magazine from our home country, on to the Dutch Market. So this cannot be on the Dutch market already. My group decided to do an American magazine (which I liked) because it is in English, and we all speak English. Our magazine is SPORTS ILLUSTRATED. We have to look at the positioning, brand, concepting, target market and the whole sha-bang and present to the "publisher" - our professor in how we would introduce this American Magazine on to the Dutch Market. Next "period" (after the Autumn break in October) we start media and design classes as well with this Marketing Communications Course.

There is the school update for ya!

Antsy

I am currently in the library, class starts in about 15mins, but I have to say I'm extrememly ANTSY! We've finalized all of the plans for Oktoberfest and I'm leaving next Wednesday night (22/9/2010)! We're currently going with a group of 13 people (though I'm sure the # will grow) and we booked our flight to leave Wednesday night. I don't have classes on Thursdays or Fridays now with my revised schedule, so hopefully that will leave a lot of time for travel :)



We booked through airberlin.com (though normally we've been doing ryanair, but airberlin worked perfect for this) and we are staying at 'The Tent' in Munich (http://the-tent.com/). Check it out! The gallery and ammentities look awesome. Its VERY cheap for all of us, so last night we were all happy "campers" after we booked it and realized how much $$$ we'd be saving now that we are camping. I've read the google reviews about "the tent" and it looks SOOO FUN! We're camping and have two reservation forms so we can have up to 20 people. We're going to the city center this weekend to purchase 2-six person tents (or something relative to that) and I'm really excited to camp while being there. Its too bad we can't rent tents in Munich though. I'm sure we'll meet people from all over the world, and it'll be a rough and rugged weekend, but I'm looking forward to it day after day. Luckily our flight comes back Saturday morning so that we have some recovery time from all of the travling.

Sunday Night - Of course the pack had it's first "W"!!! Very exciting! I've been finding lots of websites that you can stream games live and also TV shows live, while I am abroad (Ch.131.com being one of them if anyone is interested). I have to say something a little strange, I haven't felt homesick at all, but when I turned on the game and heard Joe Buck announcing - I was like "OMG! I wish I was home with my family right now!". AAANNND On top of that my family was making pork chops for the game!!

I think that goes for everyone during football season though, they just want to be at home. I just didn't know Buck's voice had that affect on me :) All in all I'm happy the pack won > And even skyped with my family during it!

Next Sunday (Vs. Buffalo) is a noon game, so at about 7:00pm a group of us are going to the city center - an Irish Pub to watch the Packers. I've heard they have REAL PINTS there (normally what we consider a "pint" really isn't one) -- So the American's will be showing everyone else how to cheer on AMERICAN FOOTBALL! There are some students here from UW-Stout as well, so the Whitewater and Stout people will be cheering GO PACK GO! I'm excited to go with the international students as well so we can share what "American Football" is really like :)

XOXO,
B

Amsterdam! Sat. 9/11/10

Sorry to my Grandpa - - Yes, yes we DID go to the red light district...



You are NOT AT ALL supposed to take pictures. They will get extrememly upset. My friend Sara caught this one during the day. I've heard that people will scream at you and even grab your camera and throw it on the ground. NO PICS! It takes away what the "red light district" is all about...

We left Arnhem on Saturday at about 3pm, got to Amsterdam about 5pm and stayed all night, returning to Arnhem Sunday morning at 9:30am. It was a LOOONGG and tiring process but we had fun. Two of my friends - Kristie and Zuzi got sick, so we spent yesterday just relaxing.

Here is just about all of us - CANALS ARE EVERYWHERE!

The Honigkamp Group @ The Park

This was Monday night at the park. A bunch of us went down for a cookout for our friend Austin's birthday. The cookout didn't work out like we had planned but we had a blast! Its starting to get chilly out, but we always do things in a big group and I'm getting to know everyone really well :)

A Lil' Thursday Night Update

We finally booked our flight to Munich! I'm soooo excited. We are taking a train from Arnhem to Dusseldorf Wednesday night Sept. 22nd, and flying to Munich! We'll be back to Arnhem on the 25th. We're going with a few Germans too which will be awesome because I'd love to spend time with THEM while there! Alex, Manuel and Michael are the ones that I've gotten closest too while here (from Germany. Mom - Michael and Manuel want to Skype and meet you! I talk about my family all of the time. So Oktoberfest will be awesome and I'm getting really excited.

Tomorrow we're going to Amsterdam for a night. There is a huge group going so hopefully we can check out a bunch of stuff while there. So many museums and things to see! Luckily it is close so we can go back a few more times, the train ride there is only one hour and pretty cheap.

Everyone has gotten bikes except me! I had a morning and afternoon class last Tuesday and that is when a lot of people got bikes, but I will be going to Nijmegen, Netherlands tomorrow to pick one up with my friend Inma from Spain. She also hasn't gotten one yet. Last night a big group of us went to the City Center (Because we have NO classes Thur/Fri) and my friend Austin from San Fransisco let me use his bike to ride with everyone else and it was a blast! It was the best night ever! I love biking here and EVERYONE does it and you really feel as if you are a part of the "culture". We were singing on the bikes and everything, it was the most joyful evening I've had (just like little kids). We got to know the owner to one of the pubs here - "The Cavern" really well and we had the "politics" talk and we were comparing everything in America and things everywhere else - its so interesting to hear about what others think about America after being here in the Netherlands. I love talking to others its so exciting to hear about the differences and what not.

On a "down-er" (But really not a down-er), my friend Brittany and I were biking home last night - with no bike lights! (BAD MOVE) and two police officers stopped us! (Don't worry our big group of friends were right behind us)

No tickets/fines or anything. We were ONE BLOCK away from where we live in Honigkamp. All the police officers wanted to do was talk about America and ask if we are liking it here and it was so nice to meet them! One police officer asked me what the police and authorities are like in America becauase in the Netherlands people don't have "respect" for the police. Shame on the Netherlands people! I said it can sometimes be like that in America, but not all the time. We sat and talked to the police officers for about 20minutes before getting on our bikes returning home. They just said its a 40 Euro ticket if you don't have a light (which we knew) so I'll be buying one tomorrow once I get my bike and lock. Funny story of the night though :)

Right now it is 6:34pm in Arnhem and just POURING rain! A few of us girls are cooking pasta on the 3rd floor kitchen (we do this just about everynight) and we're just chatting and my Australian friend Kristie was just talking about the election in Austrailia. They have their first WOMAN PRIME MINISTER IN AUSTRALIA! She said no one thinks a woman can run their country. She said it was 50, 50 and then the independent parties voted and Julia Gillard is it! I enjoy spending so much time with her because there are SO many differences between Australia and the US (in my opinion). Sure, a lot of things are the same but education, healthcare and all of that is pretty different. She was just talking about the Kevin Rud government (He's close with Obama) in Australia and that Julia was his Deputy and she stepped up saying she could do a better job than him and look at her now!

Care package - My mom sent me my care package today! It was the best thing ever today! She knows about my Australian friend, Kristie and sent me AUSSIE Shampoo and Conditioner! Soooo funny. The best part was pictures from back home. I've finally decorated my room and now it is more "home-like".

Theres an update for now :) Stay Tuned!

MISS EVERYONE!
B

Beautiful Saturday

Here is all of us sitting outside on the lawn at Honigkamp. Saturday was a beautiful day outside! Then the 5th floor Canadian guy spilled water on us out of the window!

Electronic Music Festival - Zirkus 8Bahn

Here is a part of the entrance before entering the festival right by our University this weekend. We went Saturday night and the cost was 15 Euros ahead of time, but we were able to talk to the front desk guy and I got in for free! It made the night that much better!

Though Electronic Music really isn't "my thing" it was a blast and we had a lot of fun. There were numerous stages set up, DJ's and food EVERYWHERE.

This festival was so nice because it was right at Presikhaaf park which is right near where we live at Honigkamp. It was a blast - we had a lot of fun!



We had to drop our ENGLAND friend, Millie off after the Festival and as we were walking her home we found a block party! It was soooo cute and so fun so we stayed for a while. I couldn't even believe it.

Article about the exchange students

Sorry this is in dutch, but COOL NON-THE-LESS!!!

I did this!

(Click on the link above titled "Article about the exchange students")