Blogs from Grenoble, Rhône-Alpes, France, Europe
April 24th 2012
We still have serious Jet Lag. Susan and I both woke up at 3:00 a.m., but she was able to get back to sleep with the help of some hot milk, while I went to the little kitchen to surf the web and learn more about Grenoble. Rebecca says that she feels that Grenoble is her home town and that she could live here all her life. Yet she says she is coming back to the little Canadian town of Kamloops in early August to finish her degree. By 7:00 a.m. I was walking the streets as Grenoble came alive – street sweepers, little delivery vans dropping off beer kegs or produce to restaurants, and finally school children and workers filling the streets. By 9:00 a.m. Susan joined me and we explored the historic sites of ... read more
February 29th 2012
Over the past two weeks, I've managed to really settle into daily life at GEM. However, I've really felt like part of me has not left Georgia Tech! I'm finishing up a teams seminar at Georgia Tech next week (I've been attending the class virtually from 8:30 to 11pm from my hotel room) and have been collaborating with the researchers at Georgia Tech, George Mason and Northwestern University on various papers. Not only am I studying globally distributed virtual multiteam systems, I definitely feel like I am a part of one now....with all of the challenges inherent in these systems. When students working on their projects say that they have trouble scheudling and attending meetings across the six hour time difference on a regular bais, I completely understand. I am also really enjoying meeting new people ... read more
February 17th 2012
After 3 planes (Air France is great!), 1 train ride, and one automobile ride, I arrived in Grenoble on Wednesday Feb 15th, 2012. Then, right away, Bart Chollet (the collaborating professor at GEM) and I prepared our presentation for the business students. I was pretty jet lagged, but the presentation went well... The students seemed really excited about the project, and interested in learning about the virtual communication tool that they will be using throughout the semester (WebEx). My hotel in Grenoble is really comfortable and actually larger than my current apartment in Atlanta haha. On Thursday I took a train ride to Geneva to attend a Management and Networks conference at the University of Geneva. The train rides to and from Geneva allowed me to see some AMAZING french and Swiss countryside with great views ... read more
The Alps : A little bit of heaven on Earth
Published: February 8th 2012Europe » France » Rhône-Alpes » Grenoble
February 8th 2012
Hello All! I hope that these cold months are all treating you well. Here in Grenoble we are experiencing one of the coldest temperatures on record for February and all of us here are sick of it! Even for a Canadian like myself I am finding the cold disagreeable. But like any good Canadian I look to the slopes to have fun during the long cold winter months! Last week I got the chance to go to a ski resort with some of my old Belgium friends to have a little fun after the exams that I passed at the end of January. We stayed at a station called St.Francois Longchamp which is about three hours away from Grenoble in the heart of the French Alps. The station was huge! It had around 20 chair lifts, ... read more
January 4th 2012
Hello All ! Sorry that it has been awhile since my last blog! I have been very busy, but one of my many New Year’s resolutions is to write on my blog more so I promise more blogs will be coming to you all soon! So as the title of this blog suggests, I whole semester has passed during my stay in Grenoble. It is incredible how time flyes! It seems like just yesterday that I was preparing to leave for France and stressed out about what awaited me. Now that I have spent a whole 4 months in Grenoble, I feel that it is my home because I have a whole new life there. This semester I made tons of friends, had many new experiences and even.. dare I say it? Have a new French ... read more
November 6th 2011
Hello everyone! Here is Grenoble it has been rainy for the past couple days, which is a first because usually it is nice and sunny! This weekend has been pretty quiet for me, I went out with some friends on Friday night and on Saturday I went skating with some other exchange people which was fun. Courses are going well; I have a midterm in my economics class in a couple of weeks so I will have to work hard for that. I also have a couple of presentations due this month, so you see November is going to be a busy month! I will now fill you in on what has been going on the last half of October. I told you that I was going on a weekend trip in the mountains with a ... read more
October 11th 2011
Hello Everyone! I am more than a month into my experience in France right now and I can truly say that I am loving my new life. School is going pretty well, I can understand the teachers and am arriving at taking notes at the same time as listening which is very difficult for a non French student to accomplish! I am starting to work hard and study, especially for my third year economics class which is pretty difficult. We even have to do an oral presentation in class sometime this semester which will be very frightening for us exchange people! I am determined to do well however! I also have been doing a lot of trips during the weekends with a group called CUEF, which organizes activities for the exchange students. They are really well ... read more
September 22nd 2011
Hello Everyone! I am writing this to you from my little room at Grenoble. I have been here for less than two weeks, and already it feels like my home. When I arrived in Grenoble with my Belgium family I was blown away by just how beautiful it was. The whole city is surrounded by mountains, all different shapes soaring towards the sky. City center is amazing as well. Most of it is just for pedestrians to walk, all the buildings are old, and there are lots of green places and parks as well as fountains. Not to mention all the restaurants and shopping there is! My University is part of a campus where two other universities make their home as well. It is a huge campus, filled with very different and sometimes bizarre buildings. I ... read more
Witnessing Aussie glory at the Tour de France
Published: July 25th 2011Europe » France » Rhône-Alpes » Grenoble
July 23rd 2011
It was amazing to witness the Tour de France in action at the time trial in Grenoble and even more incredible to witness Australian sporting history as Cadel Evans became the first Australian to ever win the Tour de France with a huge performance in Grenoble to smash the Schleck brothers! After spending much of my work day on friday following stage 19 of the tour, we flew to Lyon and picked up our car to drive to Les Duex Alpes, quite a large, slightly tacky ski village in the French Alps, which was quite close to where stage 19 had earlier finished. Thankfully I had an automatic car with GPS to assist me driving on the wrong side of the road. The road up the mountain was pretty hair raising at midnight, but more amazing ... read more
July 22nd 2011
Le Tour? What, was that yesterday? Shoot! Forgot all about it... Just Kidding. What a day! It will be very hard to capture the thrill of the day's events but I will try...We left the house early - 8am. It was just over an hour to Grenoble on the highways but once we got off the main highways and on the mountain roads the driving was slower (switch-backs) so it took over an hour to get to where we finally stopped and parked the car. By the way, we passed HUNDREDS of cyclists making their way by bike to watch the tour! We missed a critical turn going up the mountain and kept following the lineup of cars. But we did eventually find a place to park 3/4 of the way up this mountain (which turned ... read more
