Getting Ready!

Posted by C.Kyte ,


Hey just wanted to make a quick post before we take off for our trip next week. For 12 days Wes, Anjali, Cody, Kelly, and I will be traveling to Zermatt Switzerland, Paris France, and Amsterdam in The Netherlands. Here's a little bit of what we hope to see..

Wes and I will get the chance to ride dirty (snowboard) in Switzerland for a few days, and we can't wait! Next we will travel to Paris for 4 days! In Paris, I get to see the Bowlby family which is going to be awesome. For those of you who don't know. The Bowlby's are the wonderful family I have spent a lot of time with over the years, especially with their son Justin. They even invited me to live with them when I moved back to Seattle. Justin is my best friend that passed away in 2007. I really look forward to spending time with them. After Paris, we are heading to Amsterdam to visit and sightsee! I can't wait for the trip and look forward to posting pictures and stories up when I get back!


Zermatt


Paris


Amsterdam

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Heilbronn, Germany

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Hello again! It was another great weekend, and arguably the best one yet. Cody, Wes and I set out to Heilbronn, Germany with our friend Claudius who is from there. He invited us to come home with him for the weekend and see the piston manufacturer he works for on Saturday.

Church of St. Kilian after 1945 bombing

We got there in the early afternoon on Friday and had the chance to see his parents family owned business which has been in his family for over 150 years. They sell high end mattresses and have 3 locations in Heilbronn. His sister Cosima met up with us when Claudius had to go meet his girlfriend and showed us around the city. It was amazing we got to go into the two highest towers in the city, one of which we could only get in if you are someone special. Cosima hooked it up! We got to go into the Church of St. Kilian which was initially developed in 1000AD. It was severely damaged by the allied bombing December 4, 1944, along with a majority of the city. The walls burnt out of the church after the firestorm. Parts of the High Altar were removed during WWII so it would not be destroyed. Only the wings were removed and hidden in a local salt mine..the rest perished and were rebuilt sometime later.

This is the High Altar located in the church today..notice the wings on both sides

After we did quite a bit of sightseeing we had a few beers then went to one amazing museum just outside of town called the Sinsheim Museum. It was crazy, there were planes everywhere, both inside and outside the museum. Classic cars like Mercedes, and new sports cars such as Ferrari and Lamborghini. There were old war planes, tanks, cars, trucks, and locomotives literally everything. To say it was amazing is an understatement.

You pop the trunk, I pop the hood. Ferrari.

After the museum we went to the home of Claudius's parents which was really great. I think we determined his home has about 15 rooms, it was pretty big. My favorite part was the train village his grandfather created down in the basement. Later that evening his parents treated us to a wine festival in the "boonies" as we described it to them. I had a delicious pork leg and white wine. Their family was very welcoming and we were very much appreciative of their hospitality, so we brought them wine!




I can't believe we did all of this in two days, but hold on there is more. On Saturday afternoon we went to visit Claudius's company. It was a very rare event, because they don't even allow visitors on a normal day so it was pretty special. His company manufactures pistons and engine blocks for Audi, BMW, Porsche, Mercedes, VW, SMART, military vehicles, container ships, cruise liners, and much more. We got to go in (without cameras of course) and see the whole process from beginning to end. We saw the mold they begin with followed by the machine which cuts and drills and shapes the piston. It is cooled in large pools and then dimensionally checked by a very detailed machine. Then it is moved to its shipping crate. Wes described it perfectly "It's like watching a real life show of How Stuff Works." Outside of the building they had many high-end cars such as the Range Rover, Porsche Cayman, Audi R8 and RS6. Each had a model of the engine block they manufacture sitting in front of them. It was something truly amazing to see.



Oh and by the way, we still are in school. We had poetry class last week, which is technically called "Cross-Cultural Management (A)," and part B starts tomorrow! Take care everyone.

Chad

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Stuttgart, Germany Day Trip!

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Hello everyone, I hope all is well! First I want to say HAPPY MOTHERS DAY to my mom! I love you!


We went to Stuttgart this weekend and had an amazing time. Team America is into doing day trips on the weekend so once again we got up just before 5am and got in the 550 train! It actually is pretty fun being up that early. The train makes stops in little villages along the way and this trip we got the pleasure of stopping 20 minutes into our trip in this little village while we waited an hour for our connecting train. Let me share a short story about this little town of "Lauda." It ends about as soon as it starts. By that I mean there is nothing there. We arrived a little after 6 am and we walked into the coffee shop at the train station. We were greeted by a "firecracker" to say the least. Almost immediately our new friend was in out face yelling at us in German. About 5 minutes later we figured out that she was yelling at us to get out because she wasn't open. We only realized this after Kristin bought a coffee from her. It was really funny for 6am.



We made it to Stuttgart just after 9am and Cody, Kelly, Kristin and I made the journey by subway to the Porsche Museum! This was was the number one museum on my list to see in Germany. It was such an amazing experience. Many of you know I'm a car nut, and I dream about having a Porsche (which I will). The building itself is simply amazing. They actually offer tours just inform those interested about the building. It was opened in January of 2009 so it is very new. I walked around for a majority of the museum with my jaw dropped to floor. To see these Porsche's in person is just crazy. Notably the 959, which still to this day is one of the more rare to find of all Porsche's. In America there maybe are 5 to 10. Bill Gates bought one and it had to sit on the import docks in California for 2 years before he could take delivery because of all the crazy smog restrictions we have. I bought a really cool coffee mug too, so I can remember my trip every morning while sipping my coffee. Someday I will put it will sit in my Porsche cup holder.


After the museum we met up with Wes and Anjali at the Frühlingsfest which is a spring festival. Some call it a mini Oktoberfest. It included rides and all the carnival stuff that we are used too. The main difference was the enormous tents for drinking beer, eating roasted chicken, with a lot of singing and dancing! Explaining this place just doesn't do it justice. It was such an awesome experience! We rode on the Ferris wheel, a log ride, and a roller coaster! We all had an awesome time. I think one of the best part of these trips is having a good group of friends to experience it with. We all get along well and enjoy each others company, which makes sightseeing a lot more fun. We made it back just before 10pm and everyone was exhausted and happy.

1975 911 Targa

Last week, we had "Project Management" class. It was good and bad. We learned how to use Microsoft Project, sort of. The professor was form Texas and was very interesting to say the least. I think one of the biggest adjustments of being here is the change of professors from OSU that we are used to where everything is explained and gone over, or at the very least we have a text book to read from. Many of the students struggled dealing with her. I kept my usual sense of humor about the whole class, and I felt it went pretty well. I enjoy learning programs on the computer so I found it very interesting working with MS project. The only thing was the professor didn't know how to even turn on the projector screen...haha..it was an interesting class. We were definitely ready for the weekend after that week. On Friday, we got our class overview for this week. It came with a poem, so once again I'm sure we are in for a treat.


We got our 12 day trip planned out, and I'm really looking forward to it. It starts in Zermatt, Switzerland where we will be snowboarding for 3 days. Then we are going to Paris, France where I get to see the Bowlby family. I am really excited for that! That trip is followed up by Amsterdam, then a long train ride home. We originally were going to travel to Venice, but many of our friends here said that Venice is smelly and we would enjoy Amsterdam more. That isn't for several weeks though, so check back when you have time! Take care everyone,


-Chad

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Back from Berlin!

Posted by C.Kyte ,

Hello! Well we all made it back safe from Berlin. It was an awesome trip that was non-stop touring and site seeing. Each day started at 8am and went till at least 8pm then it was time for “extra curricular activities.’ Berlin to say the least is an absolutely amazing city. I was completely blown away with all of the history this city has to offer. It has gone through everything from Nazi Germany, bombing of nearly everything in WWII, the divide of democracy and communism symbolized by the Berlin wall, then the German Reunification in 1990 made it Germany’s capital city. To try and explain each piece of architecture and its history in Berlin that we experienced would take forever but here are some the cool things we experienced that I enjoyed:

We stayed at a brand new Hostel right next to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof main crossing station. Which is an enormous and beautiful train station. Deutsche Bahn (thanks Svenja) is the largest train company all over Europe. As a side note, all of these pictures were taken by Kelly and Cody so I give all of the credit to the both of them! I can only post several pictures on my blog so if you are interested in seeing pictures of our Berlin trip please go to my Flickr website athttp://www.flickr.com/photos/chadpictures23/ my camera charger is missing so I am using Anjali’s amazing camera which she has been very generous about sharing with me!

We took a tour bus from Bad Mergentheim to Berlin, it took ALL DAY! In all honesty I did not mind it because it was really cool to 1) Ride on the Autobahn and 2) See all of the villages in-between. German law says that the bus driver must shut the bus off for 1 hour every 4 hours. So between that and people like my wonderful mother who needs to make 15 stops along a road trip the driving took all day.

The first day we got a very special tour which is not open to the public at the main government building of Germany. It holds all branches of government in the building. It’s a newer building that is nicknamed the washing machine because of its resemblance to just that. It was a very neat building. My favorite building we got to see was by far the Parliament building which is called the Reichstag. It was opened in 1894, and stands today still as It has arguably the most amazing history of any building in Berlin. It was in use from 1894 until WWII, where it was shutdown until being remodeled/rebuilt several times since the 1960’s. It wasn’t until 1999 that it was used as a modern Parliament building again. Along with being put back into use by the modern day German Parliament, a glass dome was added to the roof that allows visitors to see a 360 degree view of Berlin. When you walk into the dome you are given a headset and as you walk around the dome to the top you get to listen to an audio presentation explaining all the buildings and important structures you can see from the dome. Another neat thing about this building was the graffiti that was uncovered in a re-construction in the 1990’s. After WWII the architect decided during the first re-construction to cover the graffiti filled walls. In the 90’s those covering walls were torn down to allow the graffiti history to be visible. The graffiti came from Russian troops who wrote on the walls after the seizure of the building in June 1945.
After WWII

Current Day

From the glass dome looking down..

Cody and Kelly! I thought this was an amazing picture so its Blog Worthy!

This was a case with a gift from George W. Bush to Chancellor Angela Merkel - she is a big fan of film so W got her a bunch of American classic DVD's and CD's

We also visited the Holocaust memorial in Berlin that is dedicated to the to Jewish victims of the Holocaust. It was designed by Peter Eisenman, an American architect. Outside, it was very confusing and un-like any other memorial I have seen. For this I was a bit frustrated. The tour guide at first explained that the Eisenman wanted this memorial to be abstract, so my response was “Why? The holocaust was not abstract, why should this memorial be?” He told our group many questions like mine are asked, and that the architect Eisenman did not want any symbolism. The guide told us that this has drawn a lot of criticism over the years from many people across the world. As you walk through the cement blocks you have a very individual feel and this may be the intent of the architect to encourage guests to come up with their own conclusions. The second part of the tour was an information center located underneath the Memorial. It has many pictures, provided with text in several different languages. I spent quite a while in their reading and I found it to be the most important part of the Memorial.

This is the Jewish Holocaust Memorial

The wall was comprised of 2 walls this is one side..

This is the other side.

This is looking down at the 2 walls I have pictures of above, notice the watch tower on the left, which is seen in the photo above.

As I said we toured many things all day which was very cool, but at night we went out for some Berlin nightlife. The first night we went to several bars while the second night we went to the new Sony Center and watched a soccer game. The next night we went out to a Karaokee bar. That to say the least was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. “Sweet Caroline” was a hit. The last night was my favorite. We got a bunch of people and some beer and went down to the river and sat on the river edge looking out at the lights and buildings of Berlin. It was amazing!

Well I need to get organized for this week, take care everyone and thanks for reading!

Us guys having a beer in the sun during break! 7 -Man wolf pack!

-Chad

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This week!!

Posted by C.Kyte , Labels: ,


Hello! Well it’s Thursday and it’s a sunny and beautiful day! Cody Kelly and I just went to McDonalds for the first time. We had to experience an American icon first hand in Germany. We found that the food is the same, and you still feel just as terrible when you leave a McDonald’s in Germany.


We have our first business test tomorrow in “Organization.” The Professor was definitely interesting to say the least. We all believe that he is a private coach for businesses and not a real Professor. He has changed a lot of concepts that are known throughout the world into his own ideas. For example, instead of using the PDCA cycle (Plan Do Check Act), which we learned from Marla, he made up his own cycle, which he feels is better. It’s called the PICCA cycle (pronounced: Pee-SSSS-uuuugh). It stands for “Plan Implement Check Celebrate Adapt,” probably the most interesting part of this new idea is the “Celebrate” part. Our professor feels that we need to celebrate after checking, and I mean celebrating like a cheerleader. He brought a “pom-pom” to class. He also had a wooden toy that was the most annoying sound I have ever heard ever. I wish I knew what it was called, but instead I will explain it. It’s a wooden toy, where you hold onto one end and there is a piece on the top of the stick that spins and makes a really loud and annoying sound. I have one more story I would like to share about this class. I asked about LEAN practices in Europe and Germany and if it this kind of thinking plays a major role here. The German students hadn’t ever heard about LEAN before so I gave them a short definition: LEAN is reducing waste, eliminating non-value adding processes, and continuous improvement. Our Professor apparently thought all I wanted to do was shut down the business because the way to eliminate waste is to shut the business down, from his perspective. Needless to say this test should be interesting. Overall, we had fun in his class even though he was a bit odd. Plus its always-helpful going over concepts multiple times to really gains a better understanding of them.

We are all really excited because on Monday we are leaving for Berlin for 5 days with 20-30 students. All from Germany, America, and Singapore! We get to see some amazing museums sights and even a river boat tour that I’m getting pretty stoked for! We are averaging about 1,000 pictures a trip so I can’t imagine how many pictures we are going to have after the Berlin trip. I am missing my camera charger so I have been sharing Anjali’s camera, which is why I have such amazing pictures. Wes, Anjali, and Kelly all have really nice cameras and lenses so they get some pretty amazing shots. Getting to use their cameras has really gotten me interested back in photography. I have a nice camera back home but it’s a FILM camera!


Wes and I have been skateboarding with our new buddy Phillip it has been a lot of fun. They are both really good so it makes it fun to skate with them. I still am not very good, being I haven’t skated in several years but I still have fun with it. I built a skateboard from old parts I found in my dorm. I bought a new deck and some little parts to make it work and its not bad at all!


As many of you know my grandmother has been in and out of the hospital for the past year and she has made some great progress. She just had another surgery this week and is recovering well. I ask that you keep her in your thoughts or prayers.





Thanks for reading!

-Chad

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Bamberg!

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Wow, absolutely the most amazing city I have ever seen. It was about the size of Bend with 70,000 people but everything was packed in tight. It's located about an hour and half away from us here in Bad Mergentheim, in the state of Bavaria. Needless to say I have figured out where all of Grandma Gingers old German collector items come from..Wow! We made a day trip out of it, because you can buy group tickets for the train and travel as much as you want in Germany in one day it cost us each $10 to travel there and back..Bamberg is also similar to Bend because it has 90 Breweries only about 10 of them are well known. There are many hole in the wall breweries as well. We had an amazing trip there. Wes bought a complete skateboard, and the day before yesterday I bought a deck (the wood part) and found some old trucks and wheels for and made a skateboard! So were pretty pumped about that.


The consensus after only one day in Bamberg was that we all liked it better then Munich! Munich was amazing and fun, but lacked in the Bavarian architecture and community feel that Bamberg had to offer. I will absolutely travel to Bamberg again, maybe in another trip with one of you!

I got a cold this week and the medicine here (IB profren) is not the same, so I struggled most the week! Finally, I'm feeling much better. On Monday, we are traveling to Wurzberg which is a city about 45 minutes away. Its a school trip so our instructors are coming with us and were doing some museum tours and such. I will post pictures on Flickr from Bamberg and Wurzberg this week so check out my flickr page. Its located at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chadpictures23/

Miss all of you! check out a few pictures from yesterday!

-Chad

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Munich and School!!!

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HELLO!!!

First, to any of my professors back home reading this, I'm sorry for the very informal writing! I hope spring term is going well!

Wow to much to share its been an awesome week and last weekend was pretty sweet. I went to Munich with the other Americans (or Team America as the Team Singapore students call us). There are about 6 Singapore students here studying and we run into them everywhere. Lunch, Dinner, Bars, and then MUNICH!. It was really funny, we all got on the same train on Friday morning at 830am and we had 3 connecting trains to get to Munich and the Singapore students were all with us at 830. Then after about 2 train stops they were gone! We all laughed, but felt really bad. So then we get there and get into our Hostel and decide to do an english pub crawl which is where you go with a group who does tours of Munich and takes you through about 6 different breweries and beer halls. Being from Bend I love beer and being a bartender I feel I know what good beer tastes like...we don't have any beer nearly as good as the beer in Munich. In 2016 it will be the anniversary of the 500 year rule (Reinheitsgebot ) that beer can have only 3 ingredients. Although the law was lifted in the 1980's many brewery's still stick to the law! Anyways, sure enough as we gather at the meeting point for the tour, there was Team Singapore! We had an awesome time after that! So we saw a ton of amazing beer halls and restaurants. The food was amazing too, I had a pork knuckle for dinner one night and it was one of the best things I have ever had. Next to mommies cooking. I still am working and uploading some really good quality photos from Wes and Anjali's camera that I took, so I will upload those as soon as I can. But in the mean time I got some good ones for you all to see!

My International Business classes started this week and so far they have been great. They have their similarities to American college courses and there differences. The one surprise was all the fee's I have had to pay when I got here. I thought my tuition would cover everything but it costs a lot to stay here for 3 months on top of room and board!

I have made a bunch of new friends, I pretty much have made friends with the entire school for the exception of 1 guy, which is actually a funny story. One guy who had a little to much to drink one night picked me out of the group to yell at. He yelled in German "That guy isn't American, I know what Americans look like and he isn't one" I laughed of course and he got kicked out of the fiesta. I guess he felt like an idiot the next day when one of my friends told him who he was talking too. Honestly, I took it as a compliment I guess it means I fit in!

I hope everyone is doing well! There are 3 birthdays over the next 3 days so I should have some more good stories and even better pictures! We found out this week were going to Berlin for 5 days so I'm getting really excited for that! Take care everyone!!

Tschüss! (Bye)


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