7/15/11- Last Full Day in Brussels

Today was our last full day in Brussels. In the morning we met with our program director, Dr. Ali Peyvandi, to perform instructor evaluations. During the afternoon I grabbed a quick shwarma pita sandwich with my roommate Jerry from Taiwan and then worked on class projects. Tonight we officially concluded our study abroad with a certificate ceremony, cocktail hour, and formal dinner. Following our MBA event a group of classmates and I went back to the Delerium Tremens bar to say goodbye to one another. Tomorrow I will be meeting up with Ani in Paris!!!

7/14/11- European Parliament Visit

Needless to say, getting up this morning was a little rough after the festivities from yesterday. Leaving the hotel in somewhat of a hurry we made it to the European Union Parliament around 8:30AM for a presentation and tour. In the presentation we learned about how the EU functions and were given some interesting statistics on the parliament member countries and their representatives. Apparently, Turkey is on the list of candidates to be accepted into the EU along with Iceland and Croatia. Our speaker mentioned that it may be another twenty years before Turkey is ready to join the union. On the other hand, Iceland and Croatia will probably become members of the union within the next two years, making the total number of EU members twenty-nine. We were shown the parliament room, had lunch and spent the second half of the day with another employee of the EU whose main focus was on heading EU financial reform. There are still a couple hours left in the day and I'll take advantage of this time to try to wrap up some other assignments.

I'm looking forward to the free day tomorrow!

7/13/11- Presentation Celebration

Today was our last day of classroom instruction for the summer study abroad. All of the groups in our International Entrepreneurship class presented their projects and we finished class around noon. Retiring to my room I spent an hour working on other homework assignments before going back out to the lobby to meet up with some friends. We had a few drinks and played card games for a couple hours. Gathering a couple more people we made our way out into the city to a popular bar named Delerium. The bar is famous for having over two thousand types of beers and, similar to other bars in the area, pitcher sized glasses in the shape of a boot. We spent the remainder of the day/night celebrating our final day of class!!!

7/12/11- Guest Speakers and Trip to IBM

Feeling a little better this morning, I was prepared for a long day of class activity. We started the day with two guest speakers. The first speaker discussed hi-tech entrepreneurship in Belgium and the major issues entrepreneurs face in the European Union, (e.g. language barriers, human capital, and angel investors). The second speaker discussed human resource research his group had performed over the last few years. The central argument of his presentation was that there is no correlation between job satisfaction and increased productivity, however, there is an increase in productivity when employees are "engaged" at work. Following the speakers' presentation we grabbed quick lunches and then headed off to the IBM offices just outside of Brussels where we were given a presentation on IBMs global expansion and strategic evolution. This included insights on IBM's acquisition of the PriceWaterhouse Cooper consulting division and business initiatives to diversify services and provide greater value to clients. To finish the visit we spent an hour with the IBM interns working on a consulting exercise, the winners got special Belgian chocolates....we lost. :(

When we returned to the hotel it was around 5PM. I spent the rest of the night with one of my groups to put some finishing touches on a slideshow to be presented the following day.

Sorry, no pics today!

7/11/11- Back to Class in Brussels

Hey guys! Sorry I haven't posted in the last few days, I'll get you all caught up to speed today!

Between battling a sorethroat/cough and school functions I haven't had a whole lot of time or energy to spare.

I should mention before talking about our daily activities that our hotel provides a great breakfast buffet to its guests every morning, (omelet bar, sausage, bacon, yogurts...the works!). So on Monday, after a hearty morning meal, we finished our human resource class early and were set free on Brussels around 10:30AM. I connected with a few classmates who I hadn't spent much time and we hiked through more areas of Brussels that we'd previously not discovered.

As we walked through the city we joked about the fact that none of us really understood the history behind any of the monuments and that we had only been appreciating the buildings for their vast sizes and antiquity. After close to two hours of walking we reached the end of our tourist map and caught a metro train back to the hotel area.

Upon our return to the hotel area I found a laundromat to drop off dirty clothes and hurried back to the hotel and got to sleep around 7PM in hopes of putting my illness to rest.

Here are some pics from our walk around the Northeast area of Brussels:

7/10/11- Hanging Out in Brussels

Today was a very laid back day in Brussels so I apologize for not having a whole lot to talk about. After sleeping in I met up with other students to meander around town. Seeing many of the same things we saw yesterday we became more familiar with the area. We had a quick lunch at McDonald's, (I know that's pretty lame), and then ate at a kebab restaurant for dinner. I should mention that an popular icon in Brussels in the Manneken Pis statue. The Manneken Pis fountain is a statue of a little boy peeing and was fashioned at the then of the 1300's. The original was lost and a replica stands in its place. There are souvenirs of the statue all over Brussels, (see the site of the original fountains location below).

7/9/11- Traveling to Brussels

Before talking about our travel day to Brussels I wanted to let you guys know that a group of students and I went to a restaurant and ate frog legs last night, (the picture of food below). The entree also included rabbit, salmon, scampi and cuddlefish (I couldn't make myself eat the cuddlefish). After dinner we finished the night early, around 10:30PM, and got ready for our morning departure, (I should mention that the sun hasn't been setting in Dijon until 10:00PM each day!!!).

We left the hotel once we finished a quick breakfast and started on a 7 hour bus trip to Brussels. Arriving at 2:00PM we checked into our hotel and toured the surrounding Central Brussels area. I'm not familiar with Brussels' history and I don't know the names of the cathedrals and squares that we visited so I haven't included them below. The size and intricate art on the building facades were amazing and it would seem that the monuments require continual maintenance and restoration. For dinner we grabbed a set menu meal at a restaurant near the Galerie Ravenstein. Many of the residents of Brussels speak English so it was nice to see menus in English and order from waiters fluent in English. Finishing dinner we returned to the hotel to drink some locally brewed beers, Jupiler and Stella Artois.

Last couple pictures from Dijon:

First afternoon/night in Brussels: