I left the states on August 21st and just arrived in Spain the other day on September 2nd. For the two weeks in between my arrival and my departure I was on my program's seminar for business and economics students called Eurovision. Eurovision was a seminar where we travelled to 5 different countries visiting different political/economic institutions and businesses. We started in Heidelberg, Germany where we stayed for our first four days, Heidelberg is very old city with a lot of charm and culture. For a small city it is very diverse in terms of the people that live there and believe it or not but it gets quite a lot of tourism because when we were there I'm pretty sure I saw more tourists walking around than locals. Heidelberg was a great place for us to start because it literally has one main street so it was a good place for us to adjust to life in europe and get to know each other since it's impossible to get lost on one street. Although we stayed Heidelberg the purpose of our visit to Germany was Deutsche Bank's head quarters in Frankfurt, Germany. We only went into Frankfurt for one day, our second day there, and it is a very built up city that when you see it is quite clearly a financial hub. While in the big city we went and walked around the EU building before our meeting, then we headed over to Deutsche Bank and got a talk about the history of the Bank and the role they play in the global financial world. The best part though was getting a tour of the Audi factory, unfortunately we didn't get free Audis but the plant was really cool and we saw some sweet R8s and even some models that haven't come out in the US yet. After Heidelberg we went off to Amsterdam for 3 days; Amsterdam is a neat city and full of interesting people, it is 7 feet below sea level (or 7 miles as one of my friends was convinced) and so there a serious of canals that create horseshoe shapes through the city. In Amsterdam we visited the Anne Frank house which was really neat to see, the houses in Amsterdam aver very skinny but long in order to avoid higher property taxes so the space where Anne and her family was very very small and it really made you appreciate how they did it for over 2 years. That night for dinner school treated us to a 5 star meal at a local restaurant which was pretty awesome, and then from there we went off to explore Amsterdam. At the conclusion of Amsterdam visit we stopped for a tour and tasting at the Heineken factory which is about 40 mins outside of Amsterdam.

 It was a good tour and I never realized just how big of a company Heineken was until that visit, the tasting at the end wasn't too shabby either. From Amsterdam it was on to Belgium where we stayed in the old small city of Bruges, which was a beautiful city with great architecture, but the purpose of our stay was to Visit the European Parliament and European Commission.
 The European Parliament was kind of a disappointment because we couldn't see the chamber because there were cracks in the ceiling and the guy who spoke to us was very boring and went on forever. The European Commission was a lot better, we had a English guy with a great sense of humor talk to us about the Commission and tax policy in Europe, which to his credit, he made interesting.

After Belgium it was on to Paris for a few days where we saw all the sights, had a great fancy 5 course meal underneath the glass pyramid at the Louvre, climbed the Eiffel Tower, visited the Arc de Triomphe, walked the Champ d'Elysees, and got a boat cruise on the Seine river. The business we visited while in Paris was a international ad agency called Publicis Groupe, they do a lot of work for many of the biggest companies in the world, their office was a really cool modern building and we got talked to by an  
American guy who has been working there for the last 8 years. From Paris it was on to Bordeaux where we spent less than 24 hours, while there we got to visit Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte and who happened to be there right before us but Spur's star SG Tony Parker. The vineyard was a really cool place and it was huge, they said they produce around 40,000 bottles of wine a year, we got a tour of the barrel storage area's, the fermentation area, and then we got to try a red and white wine. Bordeaux was a much bigger city that I expected, its right on the Gironde Estuary and has a lot of cool buildings, but again we weren't there long so I didn't get to see too much. After France we made it into Spain and stopped in San Sebastian in the northern Basque country for a night. In San Sebastian we got shown around by a woman who does wine and culinary tourism, San Sebastian is a food mecca, she took us through the big market and to a culinary club where we got to sample some cheeses, the traditional wine and cider and the best part we got an amazing lunch. We had fish soup/chowder, salad, chicken and melon for dessert. It was really cool visit and interesting to learn about the history of these culinary clubs which started out as all male clubs where guys would share recipes and ideas and cook for each other, smoke cigars and play cards. Since San Sebastian is in the Basque country it was a pretty different place not only because they speak Basque which is a pre Macedonian language but they also are separatist and want to be their own country from Spain. It is a costal city so we got to eat a lot of good sea food and of course we spent all our free time at the beach. The next day it was back on the bus and on to Madrid, I'm looking forward to finally settling in and to the semester ahead.