Well, this is just going to be a brief post about my last week here and to say good bye! This week has been pretty relaxed, other than the fact that there was studying for finals to be done... Both of the finals went well, I think. Both of them were essay-style, to give you insight into what they were about, I wrote 4 page essays about the following topics: 1) How has Blair perpetuated the economic policies begun by Margaret Thatcher? 2) "To stand apart from the Euro...would be a betrayal of national interests." - Tony Blair. Discuss. 3) Have multinational enterprises had a detrimental effect on world welfare? 4) Has aid been successful? Right now I am officially done with class, so that makes me really happy! We had our fair share of excitement ... read more

Well, I would like to begin by saying that no matter what conclusions the title of this post may bring you too, I really did enjoy Paris! The weather was great the entire time we were there. It rained Thursday before we arrived and dropped the temperature from highs near 100 to highs near 80. It only rained Sunday, but we were in Versailles and actually enjoyed it...we were sitting at a covered, outdoor cafe watching all of the people in lines get soaked. :) Now on to the activities! The first morning in Paris, Nate and I went to the Eiffel Tower. It really is quite impressive to see- and a little factoid for you is that in heavy winds, the top of the tower only moves by 5-6 cm. Pretty impressive, no? So while ... read more

Well, I made it to Oxford safely! Today was my second day of classes, and I think that they will be a lot of fun. Our two professors are both very competent, and yet they both have an amusing sense of humor, which makes class much better! My daily schedule is as follows: ·8:15-8:45: Breakfast - The food here is really good. Breakfast is buffet style, and they usually have rolls (with jam, cream chesse, butter, and whatnot), cereal, eggs, toast, meaty foods, and yogurt to choose from. ·9:00-10:30: - Political Economy - This class is a non-mathematical econ class...it is really more of a history class. It is quite fascinating though, because I know very little about English history/politics/economics. Today, for example, we spent most of the class talking about what health care is like ... read more

We made it in to London safely on Wednesday afternoon. I sat next to a 22 year old girl named Kate from Hungary on the plane over who had never flown before, so we talked most of the time and that was really cool. When we landed in the airport, Nate was waiting for us and then he, my Dad, and I headed in to London to find out hotels. Wednesday night we walked around the Southbank area of the Thames River, and it was beautiful. We ate in a 350 year old pub called The Anchor and it had wonderful food and tasty desserts (picture of the desserts posted specially for Maria- you're welcome.) Then we wandered around the area and watched the sun set, plus we got to see the London Tower Bridge be ... read more

A quick forewarning about this post: the keyboard I am using has the z and y switched, so from now on those two letters will be transposed because I am trzing to tzpe this as fast as I can. sorrz! We left Venice this morning at 5:15AM and arrived in Munich at 9AM. We dropped our bags at the Creatif Elephant Hotel (interesting name for an interesting place...) and then headed right to Neuschwanstein Castle. We were expecting there to be a lot of crowds, but there actuallz ended up being hardlz anzone there. I posted a picture of the bridge overlooking the castle just to prove the lack of people for anzone who cares... Anzwazs, we didn´t tour Neuschwanstein, but we did tour Hohenschwangau, which is the original castle of the familz (Ludwig´s parents). It ... read more