Jessie McDowell

The first two months of our European adventure involved country hopping to everywhere from Amsterdam to Switzerland with a little school stuck in between. We always arrived to our flats on Sundays completely exhausted from our weekend traveling, but excited to do the same thing the next week. 

Internship life is not the same. We went from acting like crazy college students traveling around Europe on a whim, to being real adults with big kid jobs. To be honest, I hated it. This could be due to the fact that my internship was straight out of “The Devil Wears Prada”, or that on my first week I tripped over a computer cord (franticly running around for a scary boss will do that to you) and demolished the company laptop. Yup, it was a rough week. Stay in school. The real world sucks. 

Luckily there is a happy ending to this story... well, so far. Surviving my third week  in cut-throat fashion PR has given me a new perspective. I got told my press release was “well written” yesterday, and I have never been happier. I worked for that. Hard. Having an internship in a foreign country isn’t supposed to be easy. You wouldn’t grow and learn that way. I am lucky enough to have an great career opportunity, move to an amazing city with the best, most genuine people I have ever met, and see the world with my best friends. I never want to go home. 

Nicholas Love

The third week of our internships is already coming to an end! This experience is actually going by really fast, even though I am working 40 hours a week. Many of us are (hopefully) starting to get settled in to our placements. I am interning at EDM Media and they are a direct marketing company that does a lot of work for non-profit organizations and charities. I did not pour one cup of tea my entire first day at work! I was shocked when my colleagues made it for me. My co-workers have about 7 cups of tea everyday and I think I am slowly starting to become addicted to Earl Grey. I am glad to report that work has been very challenging for me and that I have learned quite a bit thus far. Dr. Mee would be very proud; I am doing statistical analysis everyday at work. I am so thankful that we took statistics this semester, I feel like I am filling in for a guy with a PhD in stats! I have been able to implement many things that I learned in statistics and in BA 207.

Because of our busy work schedules, many of us are not traveling abroad as much as we were. We have been using our weekends to truly appreciate and enjoy the great city of London. Thankfully, spring time has finally struck London and the long awaited blue skies and sunny days have arrived! Last weekend everyone explored the many parks found around the city. A group of us went to Regent’s Park for a day full of activities in the sun. We brought a football, a soccer ball, a frisbee, a hammock, and books for a whole day in the park. The weather has been glorious the past few days it reminds us all of home. My roommates and I have been visiting new parts of London and trying different ethnic foods, such as Indian, Persian, and even Lebanese. Audrey Webster and I went and saw Swan Lake this past Monday at the Royal Opera House and it was my first actual ballet. I am not going to lie, I was pretty lost in the story. So, naturally, I went home and googled it and now it makes complete sense. I just thought that Prince Siegfried was weird for falling in love with a bird, but now I get it. I feel so cultured now!

James McDonald

"Around people I don't know, I'm totally at a loss" -Barbara Streisand

Spring break saw GLS'ers traveling all over Europe. From Switzerland, to Italy, to Austria, our group had representation all over the continent. I was fortunate enough to visit the French Riviera and experience the Carnival celebration in Nice, France, win (and then lose) 8 euros in the Monte-Carlo casino in Monaco, and even more fortunate to survive hiking the Cinque Terre trail in Italy. After being lost for nearly 5 hours, we finally found the correct trail only after crawling through thorns, balancing on the edge of cliffs, scaling vertical rocks, and falling into creeks on the reg. In a race against the remaining sunlight, we made it to Vernazza with less than an hour of light left. We moved on to Florence for the remaining part of our trip. After haggling down street leather vendors, avoiding fake rolex salesmen, and eating way too much pizza, pasta, and gelato, we managed to visit some great art galleries such as the Uffizi and the Gallería Académia. I also snagged an illegal picture of the statue of David by Michelangelo! My only regret is that I never gelled my hair and rode a vespa around the city. I was totally DTRAVAGMH (down to rent a vespa and gel my hair) but we never got around to it.

As everybody's spring break week came to a close, we were faced with a reality check as our work placements were to start the following Monday. I work with a company called FareShare that collects extra food supplies from major food distributors and then redistributes it back out to food kitchens. However, some people have struggled with internships that do not exactly fit what they wanted to experience. This has caused for a stressful week for many of my classmates.

This weekend was my first in London in over a month. We used it to experience new parts of the city and find other nightlife besides our usual hotspots. "Barbara Streisand" by Duck Sauce has found its way onto my ipod, as this techno song seems to fuel all of Europe's pubs, bars, and clubs. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to relax and not stick out as a tourist, but in the next month I will be in Paris, Amsterdam, and Alicante, Spain, so I don't think the feeling will last long.

Kristen Kerr

Time is flying! The adage "time flies" holds a bittersweet truth in acknowledging that our adventures in London are already halfway over. The past couple of weeks have been two of the most eventful: our classes ended, we traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland as a group, and we dispersed across Europe in pursuit of week-long Spring Break ventures. With all of our traveling and cultural immersion, rest assured that we are gaining an invaluable global perspective and forming lifelong relationships with one another. Furthermore, our internships are right around the corner, and by right around the corner I mean they begin tomorrow! Blessed, Privileged, or Lucky? All of the above.

After our excellent performances on our final exam in Dr. Morris's class, we were able to relax and look forward to visiting Edinburgh for the next three days. I was particularly interested in this trip because Kerr, my last name, is Scottish, and I wanted to learn more about the Kerr clan and my heritage.

Upon arrival in the land of the bagpipes and kilts, we were able to check into our hostel and spend the afternoon visiting Edinburgh Castle. I could understand why it is a popular tourist destination. It is beautiful with fascinating history. Later that night, our group went on a ghost tour in the city. Dominic, our guide, was entertaining and great at painting eerie pictures in our minds. Overall, the tour was a lot of fun.

Our bus tour was scheduled for Thursday. With an early start, we rode through Scotland to our final destination of Loch Ness, where we were all certain to see the Loch Ness monster, Nessie. The mountainous terrain along the way was breathtakingly beautiful: snow capped mountains with streams of water flowing along the sides towering over the green grass-covered land below. Wow. The sunshine and scenery we had been missing in London was more than enough to keep us from too much disappointment when Nessie decided not to come out and play. We enjoyed a peaceful lunch on our boat ride across Loch Ness followed by a couple of picture stops to end the day.

On Friday, some guys decided to go to the famous St. Andrews Links golf course and a group of girls and I hiked up to Arthur’s seat, the highest point in Edinburgh, where we were able to get a spectacular view of the city. The remainder of the day was spent roaming and souvenir shopping.

After our trip to Scotland, a group of fellow Global Leadership Scholars and I were off to Nice, Cinque Terre, and Florence. From Carnaval to an empowering hike along Italy’s coast to a climb to the top of the Duomo, Spring Break 2011 was one of my most memorable trips yet.

Olivia Harris

Berlin, Germany

Twelve of us spent a weekend in Berlin, Germany- aka- The Fatherland. Wow, what an adventure! We left early Friday morning to experience and explore the nightlife capital of the world. After landing, we managed to find our way on the train/subway system to the main area of town and grab some lunch at a German restaurant. Knuckle of pork, meatballs, sauerkraut, currywurst, and Weiner schnitzel is a snippet of the delicious delicacies we enjoyed.
Using a Germany guidebook, we ventured out into this large historic city! We saw Museum Island (a bunch of museums all in one area), saw the Parliament building, delighted in a nice walk through the park, saw a ton of monuments, and went to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum to learn all about the Berlin Wall. I wouldn’t doubt if we walked 10 miles with our backpacks. 
After grabbing a bite to eat, we all played “the name game” for a while in the hostel before heading out to experience the nightlife. Can’t say it was world-class…we may have been in the wrong part of town. Definitely represented the “East Side” that night. We still had fun!
Saturday was a blast!! We took a Fat Tire Bike Tour! The tour guide was Irish/British and really funny. We made some new friends from Texas and hung out with them rest of the day. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and got to see the Jewish Memorial, the place Hitler died (under a parking lot now), and even got to see where Michael Jackson hung his child off the balcony. We also visited this museum (sorry I can’t remember name- it's German)… but it was basically about the Jewish people, concentration camps and political scandals. We ate dinner at this hole in the wall Turkish place. The chicken kabobs were a hit. We explored more that night and just enjoyed taking everything in.

Interesting facts:
-Berlin is poor. In fact, they are 800 billion Euros in debt and their industries tourism and government. The rest of Germany keeps them afloat.
-All the buildings are fairly new (as everything was bombed in the war). However, all the statues are very old. Hitler had a fondness for all statues, so before the bombing began, he had all the statues sunk under ponds outside of Berlin so that they wouldn’t be destroyed. They were later salvaged and put back onto the rebuilt buildings.
-You can tell a difference between the East and West (building wise). It’s eerie. It’s insane how all this history happened so recently.