The Cheeseheads

'Ello All

So I know... I have been slacking. I'm sure you have all been doing nothing but waiting on the edge of your seats for the next one of these blogs. Well here it is. You can stop waiting... I know I know... most of you are probably thinking, "Thank god. It's about time!" Well... Prepare yourself. Sit Back, Relax, and Enjoy...

First I need to say two things.

1.Happy Belated Valentine's Day! Missed everyone from home, but got a Beautiful rose bouquet and Belgian chocolates sent to me! So Happy! Best Surprise Yet :)

2.The sun does exist! Yes. I saw the sun today. It was amazing. I literally walked outside, stopped, looked up and just stood there smiling. I'm sure I got quite a few stares from strangers.... but what a glorious sight! You wouldn't believe how much you begin to appreciate what you don't have until it's gone!

Ok I'm sorry... I just needed to share my happiness with all of you. Let's move on.

Ok so the last time I spoke with you I believe I was just beginning classes. Well here we are on week two. All four classes. One day a week each for roughly 2 hours. I'm sure you are thinking, "Wow what a life. Seems pretty easy." Well I just need to let you know... You're right. It is almost a joke as of right now. I hear they are harsh graders on the one project and final report we do have though.

As for classes I have International Marketing, Consumer Psychology and Buyer Behavior, Retail Marketing, and Advertising. I love it, all these topics are so interesting. A lot of it overlaps, but no worries.

Let's go a little further though and break down these classes, shall we?

International Marketing - My teacher is from Romania and hates Americans. Pefect seeing I am the ONLY american in the class. She seems very harsh and strict, but I will win her over... I hope. But it will be hard seeing she is supposed to be neutral towards all countries seeing she teaches "International Marketing..." but he will stand there and talk about how good everywhere else is, and once America comes up... she goes, "yes well such a very "big and important" country. Always taking advantage of everyone else." etc. etc. This should be interesting.

Consumer Psychology and Buyer Behavior - Ugh. My teacher is so boring. I mean he stands up there and repeats the slides. That is all. and everything he has "taught" so far seems very redundant and basic. Oh well.

Retail Marketing - Love Love Love! My teacher is from Italy, a very small, round man with a BIG attitude. I love it. Today a girl walked in 15 minutes late to our class and she was in the wrong class and he goes, "what are you doing here? Quit wasting my time and get out!" very sarcastic, yet serious at the same time. I enjoy his seminar sections. I am just doing my best to stay on his good side. Being Italian his anger flairs up quite easily and he has little tolerance, but on the upside he is very funny and pleasant to be around when he is happy. It's funny as well because in his seminars he always looks to me, again the only American, and asks to see what it is like in America or how we are different/similar. Today he asked if we had trains and if we all travel on "coaches." This meaning coach buses. Hahaha I said we mainly drive everywhere and they were all so amused by this concept.

Advertising - Again a very interestin class. The first day we sat there, listened to him talk a little bit, and then just watched roughly 16 TV commercials. Yes. This is just one long lecture as opposed to my other classes which are broken into a short lecture and a short seminar. But it's ok in this class because my teacher is very amusing. He is the typical British Man. I don't know how else to explain him. He is straight out of a Monty Python Movie. I can't wait for the day when he begins to walk across the stage with a silly walk from the Ministry of Silly Walks. (Yes I understand most of you won't get this reference except for my dad... but I am trying to cater to everyone, ok?) And he always tells us to buy his textbook because his daughter "needs a new pair of shoes." Awesome.

As for being in my classes; I have group projects in every single one. And the craziest part are my groupmates. They all seem very intelligent, welcoming, and nice. I think I lucked out. Or else they just feel sorry for me. Either way, I'll take it. And it's so interesting cause they are all from another country. They are from everywhere incluing Hungary, Siberia, Columbia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, China, Taiwan, Japan, and Ecuador... just to name a few. To say this is a cultural landfill is a BIG understatement.

Otherwise life has gone on... This past weekend we went and saw a Magic Show in a tiny little basement of a pub in nowhere's land. It was adorable though! We even went on a pub crawl! It was like 12 pounds and we got to go to five bars where we would either get a "free" drink, shot, or both. So that was nice to visit different places of where we may visit again in the future.

Besides that, we went out and were jumped by promoters again, but got ripped off this week. Booo. They took us to a really empty "club" after paying a five pound cover and there we found overselves in a whirlwind of awkwardness. There was a woman dancing by herself in the middle of the club basically doing a modified "woman on drugs line dance." Very interesting to say the least. While she was doing this, to the right of us (cause to the left was an open door letting in the bitter cold, only to our table mind you), we found ourselves in the middle of three people enjoying one another's company way too much in public. So with that we found it to be just the right time to leave and move on.

Then we found a club called Tiger Tiger. Love Love Love this place! You are supposed to be 21, pay an entrance fee, wait in a queue, and all of these things... Well we took our chances and walked up and walked right in! It was awesome. They enjoy Americans in their clubs for some reason haha. So we get into this really posh club that is two stories and head upstairs where we meet some Scottish men probably in their mid-fifties attempting to dance with us.

Clearly we were only entertained by this notion for a short while. We moved on....

We then met a pair of gentlemen celebrating a Birthday. We start to talk and one of them decided it would be a great idea to buy a bottle of Don Perignon Rose Champagne. I have no complaints! $150.00 later, we have a fun night, but head on home where we make friends from all over on the night buses. Probably one of our better nights thus far!

Well there is it. That's it. Was it worth it? Hope so... But prepare yourselves because within the next month I will be traveling to Amsterdam, France, Ireland (with my seester!), Italy, and Greece! Crazy Stuff!

Miss you all and have a "Splendid" Day!