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Published: April 20th 2009
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Kerianne and KatrinHeading to Holland. Tuesday night my whole host family was out and Emily was already in Berlin so I had the house to myself. It was a little weird not having anyone else there, but I just put in a movie and went to bed early and enjoyed the peace and quiet. I had to get up early Wednesday morning to catch the train to Differdange to catch the bus with my business class. Everyone is in a base course and each base course goes somewhere different. The English class went to Berlin, the history class went to Krakow and the music class went to Brussels and Paris. I was definitely excited for my trip. We had a three hour bus ride to Eindhoven. On the way there everyone caught up on everyone’s Easter break travels. It sounded like everyone had a really good time and luckily no one was affected by the earthquake in Italy. When we got to Eindhoven we already got the chance to see how much bikes were a part of the Netherlands culture. We passed a high school and instead of a large parking lot there were bike racks packed on top of each other. It’s
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in front of the DAF museum funny to think that people would fight over a bike rack spot versus a close parking spot. As we drove around the town we passed dozens of people traveling around on bikes. We started our museum visits by going to the DAF Museum. DAF is a type of car manufacturer. They are now owned by Volvo and the DAF car is not made anymore. The car was a popular European car back in the 40’s-late 50’s. The museum was a lot different than what I expected, but it was interesting to learn about a car that I have never even heard of before. Our walking tour guides met us at the DAF museum and we started our tour of the city there. We walked down the canal and saw where old factories stood and the main churches of the city. It is interesting how Eindhoven became the city it is today. It started by them opening up a canal into the city so that factories could get supplies and products it needed to create other things and then has a mean of transporting the finished products. The big boom of the city came when the Phillips factory opened up. Everything
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in the DAF museum around the city seemed to be focused on or relate in some way to Phillips. Our walking tour led us to the Phillips Stadium. We had another tour set up there to see what the Phillips Football (soccer) team was all about. It started with a snack and drink, which was so nice after our afternoon of walking around and seeing everything. We got to sit in the corner seats which are a high priced area so it was fun to see how the more wealthy people had it. We got to go up to the high rollers area and then down to the field and the locker rooms. It was interesting to hear how the system for the tickets worked at that stadium. You could only go to a game if you were a season ticket holder. There is no option for single game tickets. In the box seats we were at it cost 9,800 Euros for one season. If you buy multiple seasons at one time each additional year the price increases by 8%. Where we started the tour started if you wanted a table for 4 season tickets it cost 54,000 Euros, or just one seat was
12,500 Euros. Prices were crazy, but they still have hundreds of people waiting on the waiting lists. The youngest person to currently hold a season ticket is a little boy who is four years old. It was interesting to be able to see the locker rooms. I was surprised that it was not as extravagant or nice as I would have thought it would be. It was large and nice, but the chairs weren’t all that comfortable and there was nothing too striking about it, but then who am I to say? There was a fun room that the players receive their pre-game speech. The carpet was turf and had a soccer field outlay and then the walls were pictures of the four edges of the stadium blown up full of people. After that tour we set off for dinner. I swear every time we walked somewhere new I would almost get run over by a biker. I have to keep reminding myself that even though it seems like a sidewalk it is NOT. There is a tiny sliver of grey bricks for walkers and a large red brick ground for the bike path. We ended up eating at a
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a cool DAF car really nice restaurant. It ended up that all of our dinners were included for the trip, which was really nice considering it saves so much money and we were eating like kings and queens. We got to pick our 3-course meal from a list of options. After dinner we were all really tired from traveling so when we got back to the hostel we all showered and headed to bed for our next big day. Thursday we had a nice, early wakeup call and had to be out of the hostel by 7:30. We drove to the Phillips office in Eindhoven. There we met a Miami and MUDEC alumni who is currently working there and she showed us around for the day. We started by hearing a presentation on their different areas of products. The main area we focused on was Phillips health equipment. I never really realized how many products Phillips puts out besides TVs and light bulbs so it was interesting to learn about their other areas of business. We were on the technological campus of the medical area so we got a walking tour of all the factory work of the machines. Then we also got a
walking tour of the “showroom” of the equipment. It was really cool to see all the machines and hear how they worked for the different types of body scans. They have an ambient experience with an MRI machine. We got to experience what the room was like and see how it works. Lunch was included and we got to eat while having a question and answer session with the marketing team. From the medical building we went over to the High Tech Campus for Phillips. We were really short on time so we didn’t get to do much, but we had a very entertaining tour guide so I think we all wished we had a little longer there and a little less time on some of our other tours. We then had to hop back on the bus another time and head to dinner. We ended up at a fun rib restaurant. There was music, good food and lots of commotion. We had to rush to get to our hostel before our check-in time. Once we got to the hostel we got our room assignments and then put our stuff down and got ready to explore Amsterdam a little. It
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a church in Eindhoven was a new culture shock to see the way of life in Amsterdam. I still had to watch myself and at all costs avoid getting hit by a biker or causing a bike accident. Friday we woke up and had planned to go to the flower market, but due to a car accident ahead of us we were late and did not have time to make it there. We ended up just heading to our next destination, Keukenhof, a tulip and flower field. The flowers were so pretty and elaborate. There were 9.5 miles of flowers and then fields of flowers on top of that. Not only were there flowers, but there was also a playground and petting zoo. Once we all realized that we all flocked for the petting zoo. Imagine 40 college students taking over the petting zoo and playground. After a while we discovered a zip line and took over that for a while. It was pretty small so we tried different tactics to get people to go faster. Others started watching and laughing as we all were trying so hard to make this a better ride in different ways. After that we headed to the Rotterdam
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a gift to Eindhoven from the French port. We took a boat tour through the canal to see the different business ports on the shore line. The majority of them were oil companies and other factories. The weather had started to clear up so it was nice taking a stroll down the canal. After we got off the boat we headed to the Port Experience which is the business connected to the boat ride where you can learn more about the port and have a more real life experience with it. It ended up the “experience” was more like a 7 year olds dream Disney World simulation ride. We started by having to take an elevator ride that was simulated to make you think that you were going up 200 floors, but luckily I was one group later in line. The group in front of me got stuck in the elevator. Supposedly it had gone one too many times and it shut down so it couldn’t go anymore. They were stuck in there for 30 minutes, if I had been in there I would have been freaking out, so good thing it wasn’t me. We had a simulated ride in a boat. Though as the ride began
we found out we were like a car, boat, submarine and plane. No one could figure out what exactly we were supposed to be, but it was over the Rotterdam Port so we got to see some of the sites that we had just seen on the boat tour. We all just had fun with it. We went back to Amsterdam after that and headed to our dinner. We ate at a pancake place. Everyone was so excited to finally have some pancakes. When we got there we all were shocked when we found out it was typical Dutch pancakes, which are more like crepes. Though, they were some of the best ever. I had an apple and banana one with cinnamon and powdered sugar. It was delectable, but so sugary. After everyone was stuffed and feeling a little sick. We went out to explore more of Amsterdam and we found an Irish Pub that we all loved. They played really good music and then we got to know the bartenders and they became our friends. There was such a fun atmosphere and we met people from Ireland and Scotland that loved the place too. Everyone in my class loved
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Phillips, what this town is all about! it there so there would be 30 of us who would show up at one time to hang out. Our business professor has a friend who owns a bar in the city and they were having a karaoke night so everyone pilled there. We were a pack of flocking birds all moving from one place to the next. It ended up that it was more of a sing-a-long versus karaoke so most people didn’t stay very long. Saturday we woke up and we headed to Dem Hagg. We were surprised when we got there and our professor took us to this café and had coffee and Dutch apple pie all set up for us. It might have been one of the best apple pies I have ever had. We then were set up to go on a walking tour of the city. It was actually a really interesting and informative tour. We went into the parliament building and saw where the Queen comes every 3 years to present the next years plan. We also saw the Queens daily working palace. The city was very pretty and there were fun walking streets. We then had our lunch at the best restaurant
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the Phillips Stadium, for soccer in the city. It was set up buffet style for us. We started with mushroom soup. I cannot remember ever having that, but it was creamy and tasted so good. Then there was bread, meats and salad at the buffet that we could all get. I made a salad with the lunch meat cut up in it and it was the best salad since I have been in Europe. I wish I could have made a bucket of it and brought it home with me. Then it was time for the moment of truth; we had to get our bikes. They were all backpedal break bikes. Most people were really nervous about getting them and having to remember how to ride them. I was not nervous until we actually hit the streets. I have never seen such an intense system for bike riders. If you are in the way or not doing some exactly right you are getting a bell ringed at you which means you better move or watch out. Let’s just say that I heard that bell way too many times. The lights are so short and so we kept getting stopped and separated and so we all
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at the Phillips Stadium had to try and stop and wait and then go and try and keep up with each other. We had time before dinner so I headed to the I Amsterdam letters. It was in a really pretty park so we enjoyed the weather and walked around and took pictures with the letters. Getting the pictures was a little intense because people were all flocking to take over different letters and jumping in other people’s pictures. You had to be aggressive to climb up on them and then get a picture fast. We got really close on time so we had to rush to meet everyone for dinner. We went to a comedy club, Boom Chicago. The night’s theme was based on America versus Holland. They did half improve and half stand up. It was entertaining and it was funny to see what comments and jokes they made about America. Anytime they said anything negative or funny about America my whole class would be making noises and we ended up entertaining the other audience members as well. It was a fun night to do something different and new. Sunday was our day around Amsterdam. Before leaving we all had to pick
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in the Exec room different places we wanted to go and then our professor picked which two events he would get us tickets for. My two events were the Anne Frank house and the Heineken Experience. I started my day by riding my bike to the Anne Frank house. It was such a pleasant ride because there were no cars and hardly any other bikers out because it was 8 AM on a Sunday. There were 10 of us set up for that activity so we all waited for the place to open and then we got to walk through. I found it very interesting and powerful. After learning so much about Anne Frank throughout school, it was really cool to be able to see where she hid out and see actual artifacts. There were different videos playing throughout the museum of people who knew her and her family and told stories. It was also very sad to walk through and read about the different history and the life of her family. I was surprised by the size of the place. The area that they hid in was a lot smaller than I was expecting for so many people. I had forgotten about a
lot of the details from all the books, so I had to be reminded of them while I was at the museum. I’m really glad I got the opportunity to visit that and see the history of the place. It is something that I know I will always remember. I had free time until my next activity so Katrin, Kerianne and I rode our bikes around to see more of the city. We wanted to find some souvenir shops to get postcards and look around. We found some so we walked around and looked at everything before heading back over to the park to hang out and wait for our next activity. They were going on a canal cruise next to where the Heineken Brewery was so we took another stroll on our bikes there. Once we got the hang of the rules and the how our bikes worked we felt like pros. I think I could have taken over Amsterdam on my bike if I had more time to ride around. It was surprising because it really was a lot faster to ride your bike places than to jump in a car and take that. Half of that was
because there was so much traffic and every street is only a two lane street. It is a completely different culture to have a main form of transportation be riding a bike. I really enjoyed riding my bike around so I think it is something that I could get used to, but then it is so nice because I think Amsterdam could have been flatter than Texas. There were basically no hills so it wasn’t like mountain biking in any way. I went through the Heineken Brewery with Sarah and Tyler. I was surprised by how much fun I had on the Heineken Experience and how interactive the museum was. We started by learning the history and seeing the progress of the company. We then learned about the four ingredients of the beer; water, barley, hops and Heineken’s ‘A’ yeast. Then we got to see the machines they mix the ingredients. We got to go to Brew You Ride. It was like a 4-D movie. We stood on platforms and we became the beer. So we went through each step and got to experience what it would be like to be made into beer. Then we got to walk through
all the different areas to see each step of the process. I was impressed by the museum, I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy it that much, but it ended up being a lot of fun. Then we had to sadly return our bikes and grab all of our luggage from the hotel. We loaded up the bus and got ready for our six hour drive home. I cannot believe that the trip is over. At the beginning of the semester when we would talk about it the trip seemed forever away and now it is over. The time has just flown by and I want it to slow down some so we can have longer here. I am really glad that I got to be in the Business base course and go on this trip. I got to see how many different businesses worked and the international business aspects that these companies have to deal with. With each trip we take I feel I am taking in more business aspects that will later help me understand the complications and rewards you can gain from international business. It was nice to have a trip with some people I
would have never really had the chance to travel with and get to know them. It was a great way to end one of our last weekend’s here in Luxembourg. Now I only have to four more days of classes left and then three days of finals and the semester is over 😞 AHH where has this semester gone? Though I cannot wait to see what is in store for these last few days!
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