Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary & Slovenia

I like France.  Americans may view it as laziness, but from a French perspective it is time well-deserved off.  Since Oct. 15, I have been off of school and will not be in school until Nov. 1. (This is with the exception of 2 days that I had a final on).

FYI, for anyone who is following the French Government raising the retirement age to 62, it isn't a war over here like the American Media is portraying it.  I can stream some American news over  here and they have only highlighted the one or two small incidents in Paris with rioters.  Granted, about 1-2 million people over France are striking, and it is quite annoying, but it is highly peaceful.  And the gas shortage, well it wasn't like the gas shortage in the 70's, and it is all fixed now.  If you haven't heard, the French Parliament voted 170-something to 150-something to approve the raise in the retirement age to 62.

Currently, I am uploading all of my photos from this trip to my Facebook account.  If you would like to see them, add me as a friend so you can.  Since other people are pictured in these photos, I do not feel comfortable making them public.  Granted they are not in any way indecent photos, I just don't like it when others see photos of me in my private life without my permission.  Therefore, this is I haven't made the photos public.  Also, it may be hard to find me searching on Facebook.  I have made extra sure that it is difficult to find me, so if you do what to add me as a friend, just comment on this post and I will find you.  But Brother Google might be able to search me down.

So about the trip.  It was a 5 day excursion form Western Euro to Eastern Euro.  I went from some of the richest Euro countries to the less poor ones, and was it quite and experience.  We left Strasbourg and headed to Wien (Vienna), Austria, on the first day.  We stopped in Nuremburg, Germany, for lunch.  I have decided that Bavaria, the region that Nuremburg and Munich are in, is the second best place to live on this earth besides the U.S.  The food is amazing and the beer is by far second best to my homebrew, which means it is pretty darned good beer.  I have already started planning a Bavaria/Bohmeia beer tour in the spring. I drove the first way to Nuremburg, so I could buy the beloved Bavarian beer and drink all the way to Wien.

We arrived in Wien at night, got in our hostel and slept. The whole trip was overcast and rained on and off, so that wasn't fun, but all the sight-seeing outweighed this fact.  In the morning we went to the Schönbrunn Palace and then to Wien city center.  The Palace was cool, we only look outside at the gardens.  We were on a tight time schedule so we couldn't do the inside tour.  The city center was cool, got to see a lot of architecture.  Let me tell you a secret, no matter where in Europe you are, it all looks the same to some degree.  There are a lot of churches, that look the same on the inside and out, and the buildings look the same also, and there are castles EVERYWHERE.  I found this quite disappointing, but it is still awesome to see them anyways.  We also saw a Picasso and Michelangelo exhibit at the Albertina Art museum.  The Michelangelo's were the practice drawings for the Sistine Chapel.  I didn't take any pictures, but I got 1080p video of some of them.  I wasn't supposed to be doing it, and they caught me...oh well!

After our day in Wein, we headed to Bratislava, Slovakia, for the night.  Three of the girls were supposed to sleep with a friend, that is the only reason we actually stopped there.  The funny part was after got home for the bar, they attempted to find their friends place with the GPS and couldn't.  So instead of coming back to the hostel and sleeping in the room, they slept in the car.  I am still trying to understand this one, but I'm pretty sure it was a pride thing. 

This was a Sunday night, and when we arrived the girls wanted to grab a beer.  I wasn't quite in the mood, I was still feeling the Bavarians from the night before.  But I wasn't going to let 6 girls walk around Eastern Europe in the wee hours of the morning by themselves, so I joined.  We walked into the only bar open and...well it was a Communist bar.  The girls, of course, were quite unaware of this but I had an idea when I saw parts of the USSR flag as their logo.  When you walked in, you saw Cuba's flag hanging and pictures of Lenin, Castro and Castro's son.  The guys in there looked like neo-nazis also, but they were very very hospitable.  I waited an hour to see if the girls would notice anything, and they didn't.  So I brought it up, and of course they shrugged it off.  Now i'm not a risk adverse person, but you always need to understand your environment and this one screamed that finding another place could have been a good idea.  And this is why I felt it was a good idea to escort them in Bratislava.

The next morning we work up and headed to Budapest.   If you didn't know, Budapest is actually two cities.  They are separated by the Danub and Buda is the older part while Pest is the new part.  It isn't the richest city in the world and that is what was neat about it.  The further East you went, the more depressed the cities became and looked.  The Hungarian currency is in thousands.  I have a 1000 ft. (Florentine) bill that is worth about 5 U.S. dollars.  I had a 5000 also and wanted to keep it, but it needed that money for dinner. Budapest is under construction, and so was a lot of the places we visited.  Highways, cities, and historical renovations galore.  While in Budapest, we saw some Palaces, Parliament, and Churches.  Also, if you didn't know, paprika comes from Hungary.  But the highlight of the Budapest story was quite annoying for me.

When we got to Budapest, parking was a nightmare.  We finally found a spot, but it was 3 hour parking only.  We dropped our stuff off at the hostel and then came back.  Five of the girls were belly aching about moving the car while me and one other warned that if we keep it here, it will get booted or towed.  You have to remember I was with 6 girls (ages 19-21 except for on who was later 20's).  First off, there reasoning was "because I don't understand how they can keep track of how long we are here, therefore they won't do anything to our car."  Well, needles to say, this became a "I told you so situation."  We came back and low-and-behold our car was booted!  Well, I was pissed to say the least.  I went from happy tourist to terrorist in a matter of milliseconds.  It all ended well, we went to the hostel owner and he spoke to the Police.  We met them at the car, paid our 11,500 ft. ($65) fine and they removed the boot.  To all guys, no matter where a woman comes from, they are all the same.  Not that I'm saying it negativity, but yes they all reason and act the same, THE EXACT SAME.

After our night in Budapest, we went to Bled, Slovenia.  Slovenia, Austria and Germany are amazing countries.  It is a mix of Augusta, MO, with some mountains from North Carolina and throw in a Rocky Mountain or two.  It is just plain amazing, I took a lot of video and I will let you know when it is all edit.

Bled was very nice.  It was quite different because the other destinations were populous cities, and Bled was country. Words can't describe it, but the pictures I have can.  We visited a castle where they had medieval dancing and actual sword fighting.  They hit the swords, sparks flew and one sword broke.  In the morning we work up and visited a national park and saw a cool river and water falls, then headed home.

The trip home was long and we stopped in Munich for dinner, and of course for beer.  This is when I found out more bad news and started to think that next time I will play a bigger role in managing the trip.  Well, it started when I was calculating the distance we had driven.  We drove 2600 km, 1600 miles, (but we knew this beforehand because on Google Maps it put us at roughly 2500km on our road maps).  Then all of a sudden I hear a voice, "Bill, we had a limit of 1750 km." I about soiled myself.  After I read the contract, I realized that we had to pay an extra 380 euro for the mile overage, which doubled the car expense, and we had driven in countries in which it was forbidden to be in (Slovakia, Slovenia, and Hungary).

This was quite an experience in cross-cultural communication and patience.  Although the good far outweighed the bad, I had one hell of a learning experience.  I learned a new level of leadership and human management.  By the time I had found out about the distance limit, I was too tired to be upset, therefore I reached into my leadership tools and dealt with it in a more appropriate manner.  I have come to learn that you should never leave leadership to the side, be a leader in and outside of the business world.  Once I figured this out, it made life easier for those next 12 hours.

Cross-cultural communication.  I found myself having to be the translator for all the girls.  First off, none of them had English as there native language.  I had 3 Spanish, 1 Polish, 1 Brazilian, and 1 Greek. When they spoke to each other with the same words, they ultimately had different meanings.  Because of my natural grasp of the English language, I found myself re-wording a lot of what they had to say.  I found it an interesting challenge and realized this is one I will face in the future when I become the World's Entrepreneur.

In the end, we all made it back safe and happy.  I saw a part of the world that many won't get to see, I experienced life in ways most will never and I took away lessons that are difficult, if near impossible, to find in any school except The University of Life.

This coming Wednesday I am off with a different group of people to visit Normandy and Paris for 5 more days.  Get this, it will be a trip with Americans, Germans, and Russians but this time we won't be shooting at each other.  Not that it is totally ironic, but if you think in historical terms it can be viewed as a unique experience.

I need to get back to my French wine and Brie.

Cheers, Prost, Santé, Salud (Whichever language you may speak),

Bill

Oktoberfest, Alsace, Culture, Eastern Europe...

WARNING: I am quite tired and this is a long post.  I did my best to proof read it, but I have to be up early and it has been a while since I last posted.

It has been a couple of weeks since I last posted up here.  I have been busy and a lot has happened.  I have been to Oktoberfest, took a tour of Alsace and now am packing for a trip to Eastern Europe. 

Tomorrow morning, I will be heading on a 5 day excursion with 6 other friends.  We are driving to Vienna, Austria, then to Bratislava, Slovakia, then to Budapest, Hungary, then to Bled, Slovenia, and back to Strasbourg.  We rented a mini-van.  It wasn’t too bad, but they also have the 25 year-old rule like the states.  Although one girl coming with us is 25, so it saved us about 170 Euros.

I’m kicking myself in the butt right now for not pulling all my money out when I got here.  When I arrived less than 2 months ago, the exchange rate was $1.26, today it is $1.41.  I keep reading that Bernanke is going to start his “quantitative easing,” which means I’ll probably see the exchange rate jump up to $1.50.  This little economic war with China that Japan, the U.S. and the E.U. are having better end soon or my travel plans for the rest of my stay here are about to diminish. 

Alsace is amazing.  When you see those Christmas pictures of snowed in town nestled in little valley’s among the mountains, you see Alsace.  The history is wonderful and we toured it while they were harvesting grapes.  I was supposed to go on a “class trip” but it filled up so fast that I couldn’t get in.  Then four of my German friends invited me with them.  We drove one of their cars and followed the tour bus.  It was awesome.  We saw a monastery, a castle and different Alsascian villages.

While driving with them, it was the usual sorting through cultural stereotypes, stigmas and other B.S. that people get jumbled in their head when they know nothing about other cultures.   Since I have been here the biggest thing I have learned is that nobody really knows anyone else’s culture, including me (but I will speak further about this later).  They made a good point about something, and it was cars.  We were driving 5 in a Ford Focus, not like the ones we have in the states.  It was quite small, but overall not too bad.  The engine was 1.6 L and had about 90 hp.  We talked about my truck, 5.7L with over 300 hp, and they were amazed.  First, the biggest motor they have in Germany is our smallest motor, 2.0L roughly.  Lukas, the driver and owner of the car, made a good point.  He said “I don’t understand why you need 300 hp, I have 90 and I do 110mph (I converted it from kph) on the autobahn and you can only do 75 mph, legally, max.”  I thought to myself, that is a damned good point.  Why do Americans drive such big cars and trucks?  Well I had to let him in on a little American secret, Americans like big things.  If we were really concerned about resource conservation we would have smaller houses, smaller engines, and smaller eating plates.  He asked about gas, and I had to let him know that we pay 60% less for gas than they do here in Europe, although he knew gas was fairly cheap in the U.S.

And houses, I was using Google Earth to show some friends my parent’s house in St. Chuck where I grew up.  The first thing out of their mouth was, “Wow, America is just like the Simpsons.”  I had to think for a second, but next time you watch the Simpsons, think of how much it resembles suburbia!  I saw some of their houses, all in apartment looking buildings with no yards or anything.  It is one of those things you really never think about, but once you do, it explains a lot about value differences.  First off, houses are jammed into what we would call apartment buildings.  They don’t believe in mechanical dryers here.  I have what looks like a heated towel rack…that is my clothes dryer.  And the washing machine is awful small, but any bigger and I’d be washing more clothes than I could dry.  When I first got here, I saw my roommates washing clothes in the sink.  I thought that was weird, until I realized that it isn’t uncommon for them to do that.  Then something made sense, AMERICANS DON’T REALIZE HOW CONVIENTANT THEIR LIVES ARE.While we, Americans, value timeliness and convenience, the meaning of those two words are different in Europe.

The biggest difference between Europe and America is a simple idea which is the basis for the cultural differences.  Some conservative Americans would call it Socialism, but I will refer to it as Collective Thinking.  Where Americans think primarily of themselves first then others around them secondly, Europeans think of others around them first and then themselves second.  That is why such things as governmental health care and other programs the U.S. is trying to model after the E.U. might be doomed to fail form the beginning.  First off, nobody here self-medicates.  I never realized how self-medicated Americans are.  I was coming back from Oktoberfest and had quite the hangover.  We stop 5 times and 5 different gas stations, none of which had Aspirin.   I then asked my friends if they even carry it, and they said “No, you need to go to the pharmacy.”  So when a Euro is sick, they might have some type of medication, but they let it ride its course.  Nope, not in America!  We see the doctor twice and get 3 weeks of prescription medicine for a cold, which we only use 1 week and the rest rots in the medicine cabinet until spring cleaning.  Now I see why healthcare can cost so much, not including the issue of malpractice insurance and such.  Here, they get sick…no doctor visits (even though it is FREE) and no medicine.  Maybe some aspirin for the aches or some over-the-counter antibiotic from the pharmacy, but that is pretty much it. 

So enough about Socio-Economic babble, and onto Oktoberfest.  Without exaggeration, words cannot express what Oktoberfest is.  That only word to describe it is simply, Oktoberfest.  I went with a school group and it was about 115 people who took 2 tour busses.  We met about 9PM the day before at the School and tried many different German beers.  Then we left at midnight and arrived in Munich around 6:30 am.  The first thing we did was have a French breakfast…cookies and orange juice.  That isn’t what they really eat for breakfast, we non-French poke fun at the French because they tend to lack perception.  We will be drinking for all day, and do you think cookies and orange juice is supposed to be a good foundation?  Anyways, so we started drinking again at 6:30 AM and headed to the fairgrounds.  We arrived by foot at 7AM and the lines were starting to get long.  At the tents, which are just huge temporary buildings, only let a certain amount of people in then it is done.  So we got in line 2 hours before it opened, and boy was that a good call.  When we arrived at 7AM, we saw about 5,000 people and at 9AM, close to 25,000.  When the doors opened, all you felt was pushing from every angle, it was mob mentality.  They have big bouncers with interlocked arms attempting to hold the crowd back, and they did.  When we got inside, after about 15 minutes of non-stop pushing, the bouncers checked your bag.  Well nobody told me that I couldn’t bring anything into the tent.  I assumed food and stuff was a no-no, but since I planned on drinking a lot, I pack 5L of water.  The look on the bouncers face was priceless when he saw how much water, but he took it all away.

We were finally in and I swear it is what any picture of heaven could look like, it was the Paulaner tent.  Check out my facebook photos to see.  The beer is served by 1L and is called a maß (pronounced “mass” the ß sounds like “ss”, In Germany, the signs to Strasbourg say Straßburg).  It was awesome; I have never seen so many happy people in my life.  In America, with a crowd this big and this drunk you would expect to see fights.  Not in Germany!  I saw happy, and later on in the day passed out, people.  Everyone was everybody’s friend, didn’t matter what nationality.  When you met someone, it was “Prost!” (This is German for “Cheers”).  I have never experienced anything like it and I have found my new life’s goal, I’m going to start an Oktoberfest in St. Chuck that will rival Munich’s.  I have so much I can say about Oktoberfest, but I will spend the $1200 for a round trip ticket just to come back to it next year.  It is a huge festival for everyone, not just beer lovers.  They have carnival rides and food on top of the beer tents.  It is now primarily a foreign attraction; a vast majority of the people weren’t German at all.  I don’t know how to express it in words, but all I can say is go visit.  I can guarantee it will be worth every penny! You need at least 4-5 Days in Munich for Oktoberfest.  Munich is a very nice city and the festival is huge.

Now I feel like a giggly school boy talking about the class hottie, yes Oktoberfest is on that level, I do think I have found a new love.  Anyways, onto other things.  Vending machines, I don’t think Strasbourg has been introduced to them.  Nowhere are there vending machines.  Found that out the other day when everyone in France was striking, I needed a snack and all food places on campus were closed.  The favorite pastime of the French is to strike.  When one group strikes about an issue, they all go on strike.  It is quite annoying because they like to walk in the middle of the tram tracks, and the government lets them do it.  So trams get shut down, I have to walk a ½ hour to class, and it just makes for a bad day.  The biggest issue over here is the French government is thinking about rising the retirement age.  Let me tell you something, the French value, and I mean VALUE, their free time.  They value it so much that they take lunch from 11AM – 2PM.

So onto that point I said I would discuss further on in this blog.  AMERCIAN COLLEGIANS, BE VERY AFRAID, THE CHINESE, RUSSIANS and INDIANS ARE COMING FOR YOUR JOB.  These three cultures have an extremely high standard when it comes to education and I see them, speak with them, and are friends with a lot of them.  They have drive and ambition that will rival most American entrepreneurs.  They are on the cusp of, in my opinion, of culture change and they are ready to be successful.  They speak 3-6 languages, fluently, and have working experience in multiple countries.   They don’t stop at their bachelors; they go straight to the masters.  College isn’t finished for them until they have a masters degree. 

And talk about not understanding culture.  I remember hearing Obama talk about wanting to require American collegians to spend a year to two abroad.  I thought to myself at that time, “ehh, I do understand the value, but I still question the necessity.”  Holy hell have I been sold on this argument.  I think that American student should spend at least a year in another culture.  The things you learn, the perspectives, the reasoning, and the logic.  I see these Chinese, Russian and India students and I am quite jealous of them.  They have been educated in 2-4 different cultures/countries and they have a breadth of cultural knowledge and experience that would make a Fortune 500 HR foam at the mouth.

I always like to have conversations with others about America; it is insightful to see exactly where their perceptions (and misconceptions) come from.  To wrap this up, because it is late and I need to get to bed; our media screws us, flat out.  When you don’t understand America from an American perspective, you cannot understand our media.  When you hear me talk about the French, it might sound like they are lazy.  Actually quite opposite, you just have to understand they values and beliefs.  It is really amazing that when you pull back the cloak of cultural differences, everybody values the same Macro-ideas.

Bonne Nuit!

Billy