Drake

January 5th, 2013 - After a very short layover in Bahrain, we finally made it to Dubai to meet up with the rest of our MBA class from the University of Iowa. What we arrived to was very different than what we had experienced over the past 6 days. Dubai is a very modern city with tall buildings, wide roads, and construction projects on nearly every corner. It wasn't going to have the historical significance of the sites we visited in Istanbul and Jordan, but we were there to learn about global business. The class took the place of an international business course requirement for the MBA program. While in Dubai, we visited with 8 different multinational corporations and organizations to learn about doing business in Dubai and the Middle East and how it's different than ... read more

January 3, 2013 - We arrived in Petra around 5:30pm and were originally scheduled to be at a Jordanian cooking class at 6. Since it had already been a long, busy day and the class was a little pricey, we decided to forego the Petra Kitchen and enjoy the buffet at the hotel instead. But before dinner, the hotel was running a special for their Turkish bath that was attached to the building. For only about $18 we sat in a steam room and then each had separate massages on hot slabs of marble before being doused in hot water. It was a pretty relaxing end to the day. After dinner at the hotel we flipped on a movie in the room and were sleeping by around 10 or 11. We woke up early again the ... read more

December 31st, 2012- As part of my MBA program, I had the opportunity to spend a week in Dubai to meet a Global Business course requirement. Before I arrived in Dubai, I toured around Istanbul, Turkey and almost all of Jordan over the course of 6 days. The time in Istanbul and Jordan was not a part of the MBA program, it was just personal travel. I traveled with my good friend, Mike Crow, who is also in the MBA program. Mike and I were in the same fraternity at Drake University and we coach a few hockey teams together in Des Moines. Our first destination in the Middle East was Istanbul, Turkey. We chose Istanbul simply because it was the cheapest round trip flight over to the Middle East from Chicago ($550 each!). We had ... read more

Sunday April 29, 2007 - Meggie’s sister studied abroad a few years ago and traveled to Switzerland. She heard of this tiny town in the mountains called Gryon. Meggie’s sister told her that if she did not go to Gryon, that they would not be speaking once Meggie returned to the states. It is just that amazing of a place to go. So, Meggie, Jacqueline, Monica and I decided to check it out. We met up with Monica again on the train ride up to Gryon. She had been in Zug, and Lucerne for a few days with another guy from our program. We weren’t sure that she would find her way to Gryon because it was so small, but she came through. Meggie’s sister told us of this good hostel right in the mountain ... read more

Friday April 27, 2007 - Jacqueline, Monica, Meggie, and I flew from Vienna to Zurich, Switzerland on Friday. We were immediately greeted by friendly people, even at the customs check in. We had a 10 minute conversation with the lady that checked our passports at the airport. She didn’t really care that people were in line. She wanted to know where we were going and wanted to tell us her favorite parts of Switzerland. It was great! Then we took a train to the main train station in Zurich. There was a sand volleyball tournament going on inside of the train station. We sat and watched for awhile and then met up with another friend from our program. Monica went with him to a town 20 minutes south of Zurich. Meggie, Jacqueline, and I stayed ... read more