photos

i'm in geneva, switzerland right now and just finished my first class (of 4) this morning. geneva really isn't that cool, so if your planning on coming to switzerland, bring lots of money (8 dollars for a frapp at starbucks) and don't come to geneva. we are driving all day tomorrow to koblenz, germany, then taking a rhine river cruise, then driving to the netherlands where we are going to be for the next three weeks. MOM: yesterday we went to mt. blanc and chamonix in france. absolutely amazing. so beautiful. we took a trolley-tram thingy all the way to the top. so so cool.

I have a couple albums on facebook, here are the links:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044618&l=7871e&id=55303386

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2043454&l=f7e36&id=55303386

the joy of switzerland

denny, yomi, and john walking through lucerne

looking out over the lake in lucerne, switzerland. alyssa, myself, sara, and denny (all from messiah).
denny jumping over me
this is what happens when you study too long. denny and I had our hair done by the two girls in our group project. went to visit our program director and decided to take a photo with us.
we just finished a group project in our global business strategy class were we had to come up with a strategy of bringing a car into china. me, with denny and two girls, did our project on the smart car (which is pictured). 13pg paper and 10 min presentation.



denny and I on our way to switzerland
in the mall in moscow
in the train to moscow
i stole some photos from denny. this is our group in the presidential's palace in lithuania.
a place were we went one afternoon. although i hate diving boards i did jump off all three levels of this platform. doesn't look that high but the middle one was about the height of a normal high dive.
dad, you would love this place. absolutely amazing. water was "warm" based on what i'm used to at home, so i went swimming at least 5-6 times in the 3 days we were here. i went one morning before breakfast also. way good times.
in a jesuit church in lucerne
yomi (from nigeria, goes to messiah), in lucerne, switzerland
downtown lucerne
a sweet memorial in lucerne to french soldiers who died back in the 1800's
house we saw in town.
our hotel. i was in the building in the right.
my view out my window in lucerne, switzerland.
we had lunch in liechtenstein. got to check off another country.

me and tanner.
on the way to switzerland. we stopped at a rest point and ran around in the snow.
up at a lookout point in austria. i tried to imitiate a photo of my little brother, nick, when we are at niagra falls back in the day.
me with marianna (from brazil, goes to messiah) and wairimu (goes to messiah, from kenya) havin fun bowlin in austria

the hills are alive (or something to that effect)

so the internet is kinda slow here, which makes it pretty difficult to upload photos. in the place of photos, hopefully i can give you a general idea of what has been going on in austria through my words. we arrived in austria sunday night, and some of us decided to go for night hike since there are some amazingly beautiful mountains here. we started off on roads, ended up on some trails, then went off the trails, and eventually some how made it back to our htoel. overall pretty fun.

monday schedule was breakfast, devotions, class, class, then lunch, then free time, which i spent walking around town and catching up some homework and studying.

tuesday: breakfast, devotions, test, professor lead discussion on grad school, lunch, and that night as a group we all went bowling. my score wasn't spectacular but overall it was a great time.

wednesday we had breakfast, devotions (which i lead with a girl from our group), class, class, lunch, and then we had a corporate visit to Swarovski Crystal. the girls loved it, i was kinda bored. they also had a section of their plant dedicated to art, which of course was modern art, and was weird.

thursday was more of the same, with class, except today we went to a mountain lake about 45minutes from where we are staying. and let me tell you, the water was freezing. we had a fun time "swimming" but it was fun to be outdoors, play some frisbee, and walk around town. we have a big project due on monday so a lot of our free time the past few days has spent working on this project.

today we had class this morning and this afternoon i have no idea what i'm going to do. not much to do in town, so might go for a hike, work on the project a little bit, and i need to get packed up because we are leaving for lucerne, Switzerland tomorrow, with a stop at Arlberg Pass along the way.

innsbruck, austria

innsbruck, austria. euro2008 (soccer) is still in full swing and a few games are hosted here (including one on thursday, should be nuts). boy do they love there soccer here. dad, you should definitely come here. hahaha.
entrance to Dachau. after taking about two photos, i decided to take the rest in black and white.

these building was used for interrogations and solitary confinment.
the "showers." probably the worst experience i've been through. . these were made to function as gas chambers, but supposedly the nazi's never used these specific ones for that. needless to say, thousands still died here. ceilings were about 6'10", it is rare for me to get claustrophic, but it was definitely a very unnerving experience standing in this room.
the beds. if i remember correctly, the barracks were each made for about 500 people, but they crammed at least a couple thousand in each one.

stolen photos and a full stomach (finally!)

so i stole a bunch of photos from friends. this one is of me and ben outside a mall in russia (don't worry, i didn't go there by choice, they made us go. i swear)
in the overnight bus from latvia to russia. 17hrs. so fun.
after another one of our all day bus rides (and i really mean all day), we decided to take a stroll through the countryside in the netherlands and happened upon these cows.
walkin through moscow
creating fun in moscow
group shot. i'm the short one in the front.
in lithuania

on our boat trip down the moscow river


me and denny on the baltic sea


i just ate a huge meal. I am so happy. the serving sizes here are a slightly on the smaller side, so i'm kinda hungry all day. but since tonight was our last night in prague and I had alot of extra crowns (the currency here), i pigged out at dinner. Had this huge pancake thing with pork inside, also ate what was left of the meals of the two girls i went with, then had some ice cream. life is good. since my last blog a couple of days ago, not too too much has happened. we've had a couple of classes, we went on a corporate visit to black and decker and saw the assembly lines that made dewalt tools, went to a five story club, ahhh, what else? walked around the city a couple a times, watched some soccer in the town square, a bunch of us played ultimate frisbee for a couple of hours today. that was definitely what i needed. I think i have a mild form of ADD or somethin because i'm realizing i can't focus in class or on our tours, and i think it is because i've really had no opportunity to exercise. at college, i'm either lifting, running, playing tennis, or a combo of those everyday, and here that isn't happening. i'm trying to pushups/crunches every night, but it isn't enough. so a few hours of running around throwing the frisbee this afternoon was amazing.

tomorrow we are off for another all day bus trip. we are going to innsbruck, austria for 5-6 days, which should be cool. but on our bus trip we are stopping off at Dachau (concentration camp). should be pretty intense and depressing but it is a significant part of our world's history, so I'm glad we are going.

and happy fathers day!