Arrival in Leiden

     On Saturday morning at 10 a.m., I left Memphis on a flight to Amsterdam. With the hopes of trying to sleep the entire flight, I did not sleep the night before. I'm not sure my friends would not have let me sleep if I wanted to anyways.

     I arrived in Amsterdam Schiphol airport at 6 a.m. on Sunday, and caught my train to Leiden, the first location for grad school. When I arrived, I quickly threw my bags down in my room and began to wander around. I was too excited to try and sleep. I walked around Leiden for an hour or two, and was fascinated at how laid-back the city (more like town) was. The weather is perfect, with highs around 65-70 F. It has been mostly overcast, but little rain. So far so good, but I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.

     Leiden is a college town, with roughly 118,000 inhabitants. Leiden is home to the Netherlands' oldest university, Leiden U., with about 20,000 students. It is also the birthplace of the artist Rembrandt. What may be even more historical, Leiden was a location in which many Protestants fled to in order to avoid persecution. Here, many people, along with John Robinson, met regularly in a church before setting sail for America aboard the Mayflower. Pretty historical, right? I'm surprised I had never heard of Leiden.

     The city is conveniently located between The Hague (10 minutes) and Amsterdam (35 minutes). In fact, one of my courses, Marketing, will be in the Amsterdam World Trade Center. Being near the coast, Leiden is full of canals, arguably just as beautiful as Venice. There are also lovely old-style dutch windmills all over the Netherlands, and Leiden has two of its own.

     My program consists of 14 members of the Global MBA cohort. Everyone seems very friendly and well-educated. There are 7 guys and 7 girls, ranging from ages 21 to 30. We all seem to have a passion for traveling, and everyone has specific places they are trying to see. We will have class on Mondays (6-10 p.m.) and Wednesdays (1-5 p.m.). Outside of class, the teachers are expecting us to do quite a bit of reading and writing. However, as long as we do it (fingers crossed), we should be able to work while traveling.

     My goals for the near future are to attend class, form travel plans for the next few weeks, and buy a used bicycle to ride around the Netherlands. Hopefully the next post will be a little less informative and, perhaps, contain some stories of our settling in.

Hike over San Gottardo

    On Friday morning, August 6, Rose Dawydiak-Rapagnani, Jackie Delie, Kevin Jorde, and I hopped on a train to Ambri-Piotta. Upon arrival, we walked to Switzerland's steepest funicular with backpacks stuffed to last us the weekend. When we got off the funicular, we began our two-day hike over one of the biggest mountain passes in Switzerland. The goal of our hike: to spend two days hiking over the Gotthard Pass to Andermatt, where we would catch a train to Zurich for their annual Street Parade.

     The Hike began at the furthest lake pictured above. We would hike from about 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., until the sun went below the mountains and we were losing visibility on the trails. So, we decided to set up camp. I was not prepared for the evening ahead of me. Growing up, I had plenty of experience camping. But, all the camping I had done was in the South (USA). I was used to hot nights, so I only packed shorts and short-sleeved shirts. Well, our camp site was at 7000 ft., and we would sleep next to snow. Lucky for me, Kevin was very experienced in camping, as he had done numerous survival camps and other trips of the sort. So, he had the great idea of boiling water, pouring it into a SIGG bottle, then putting the bottle in a sock. During the night, I would hug the bottle in my sleeping bag to keep warm. This worked pretty well, as I got enough sleep to be ready to hike the next day.

    We woke up at about sunrise, prepared oatmeal for breakfast, and continued our hike through the Alps. We hiked all day, arriving in Andermatt in the early afternoon. Here we walked around in search of a good campsite. Camping isn't exactly legal in Switzerland, unless you pay to camp at designated camp grounds. Being college students on budgets, we decided to break the rules a bit and find a place to camp in the woods. We found a spot in the woods where people had been chopping down some trees up the mountain from Andermatt, and decided it would be a good spot. We left our stuff and returned to Andermatt for a decent meal and some celebratory drinks.
     The next day, we hopped on a train for Zurich Street Parade, dressed in silly animal hats that Jackie's mom had given to her. If you have ever been to Zurich, you may recognize the picture below.

This is Zurich Hauptbahnhoff, or Zurich's central train station. They had turned it into a dance club. After arriving in Zurich, I realized that their Street Parade was probably pretty similar to San Francisco's Gay Pride Parade. There were a lot of strange people here, and everyone was dressed in strange outfits. People were everywhere. At the end of the day, after street parade, there was a huge concert in Zurich's hockey stadium. They had 20 of Europe's biggest DJ's come to what was called Energy '09. I had never seen a larger dance club in my life.

Surprisingly, especially after seeing this picture, we somehow ran into friends that were there for the event as well. It was quite an experience, to say the least! Not sure I'll ever make it back to Zurich Street Parade, but it was one of the best weekends I have had in my stay in Europe.