Greetings from Maastricht!

"A group of students reporting to class about their weekend in Berlin

(below is their blog entry)."

"A reason anyone might avoid going to a foreign country could be the confusion of traveling. Luckily, the people of Germany do speak English normally, but some Germans might require one to speak English slowly. One interesting thing that occurred is that they seemed to understand members of our group from Chicago easier than they did one of our members from southern Illinois when talking in English. The German residents are very willing to help with a tourist locating the right train when arriving and leaving Germany; twice residents went out of their way to make sure we reached our destination. Most likely, if an American just strike up a conversation with a local, and asks for help, they will receive it.

If one is expecting a place filled with old buildings in Berlin, they will soon learn that Berlin has many modern buildings, built since the destruction that took place during World War II. Also, despite all of the evidence against socialism from an economic standpoint present in Berlin’s history, surprisingly, some people still support it. While our group was in Berlin we were invited to a socialist picnic, a socialist bar, and came across people that were still protesting Berlin being united after the fall of The Berlin Wall. The reasons why they still support socialism we did not learn. One very nice thing about Berlin is that it not only has so many historical sites, but also the place in general is relatively cheap!

An observation of not only Germany’s culture, but also much of Europe is that Europeans seem to take their dogs a lot more places than Americans do. In Germany, and some other places in Europe it is not unusual to see an owner with his or her dog off its leash, or even a dog in a retail store. The dogs are also very well behaved. In America when some owners are walking their dogs they can have a hard time controlling them. The dogs in America seem to like to investigate things more when being taken for a walk, but in Germany the dogs were all very well behaved.

Overall, Germany has many historical sites, cheap food, and people who are very friendly to American tourists. Our group would definitely recommend Germany!"

Julianna, Kyrie, Jesse, Brenton, Mark, and Ryan

"Marc Croijmans, Maastricht City Official responsible for attracting business to Maastricht, along with Hank and David, after he gave a talk to students about international business in Maastricht."

"Four students (Stavroula, Brenton, Jim, and Mark) during a tour of Brussels"