First Major Trip (within a trip)

Last night our program returned from our first "major" trip. My half of the group drove from Freiburg to Zurich and flew from there to Riga, Latvia in the Balkans. The other group flew to Tallinn, Estonia. From there we flew to Berlin for a few days. The main purpose of this trip was to see and experience what accession to the European Union has been like for the Balkan states. The stop in Berlin made since since it is the capitol of Germany, houses many international and European Union officials and diplomats and we were already in the area.

First Riga. The top picture is a freedom memorial with a woman representing freedom holding three stars representing the three distinct areas of Latvia (we saw only Riga). As a part of our first full day in Riga, we were assigned tasks in effort to put "Riga as Text". We went out into the older part of the city and generally had to find populated destinations (either for locals or tourists) and find out more about them by asking locals (they speak Latvian and Russian in Latvia; some English). This was a fun way to learn about the area. We also had the opportunity to attend talks by both an economics professor at the Riga-Stockholm School of Economics as well as the head of the department of Political Science at the University of Lativia in Riga. Both were great presentations where we learned much of what drives the economics and politics in Latvia. The second picture was taken outside the Stockholm Economics School which has influences of Art Nouveau, a popular architecture style in Riga.




The next leg of our trip took us to the Hauptstadt of Germany, Berlin. I had been here once before with my family, but this was a completely different experience. Riga was fun, but Berlin was better. There was so much more to do here (plus they speak a language I am familiar with). This picture shows the Berliner Dom/Cathedral. The ornateness and superb style of this church was truly something. In the background, you can see the televison tower built by East Germany during the Cold War to show how great East Germany was.

The lectures in Berlin were also great. We had two that all 35 people attended as well as course specific meetings. I only had to go to two, a meeting with an FDP parliamentarian (Mr. Hellmut Königshaus) in the Bundestag (Capitol building) as well as a meeting with a Dutch diplomat (Mr. Huub Drabbe pictured with me below) working in Germany's foreign service (state department). The two talks were very different but both very interesting. The picture above is of the students from Minnesota in our group. We also went out into the city to complete projects for our German courses. Mine took us to the DDR museum; very informative. All in all a great trip. I learned a lot more about the pros and cons of the European Union and how two very different countries operate within that entity. I was also able to grow some new friendships that will hopefully continue to become stronger. Just before this trip began marked the longest that I have been out of the country at one time, but all is well and I am having a great time! Now it will be interesting as classes get into full swing.