Pctures from Christine's Visit

It appears that I have misplaced the cord to download pictures from my camera, and I know there are more pictures on my external hard drive that I loaded there during the computer boondoggle. However, for now I will share these! This is part of the Weinachtsmarkt in Jahnplatz. Christine and I each had a cup of hot gluhwein----super! as they say here.

Finally, a picture of Rainer, Riza, and me. Rainer Lenz has been my main contact person and he and I are working together on an article about international education. He is a finance prof and heads up the international team with Riza. Rainer is the one who gave a speech in my org. behavior class last year, at NMU, saying that there is no such thing as international culture, that all culture is individual, right after I'd done a unit on international cultural differences. He told me awhile ago exactly what I had said after that, that our NMU finance profs wouldn't even know the concept of intenational culture but that we had learned this somewhat diffeently, though I could see his point. Evidently he gave the same speech at another partner school on the same trip, and that faculty member, also a woman, got angry!

Riza Osturk and his family came from Turkey when he was about two. He and Wolfgang, another member of the international team, have written a math textbook in use at the fachhochschule. Riza is the Bielefeld delegate now to IBSEN, the group of schools who have an exchange relationship with other business schools. NMU is also a member of IBSEN.

Sparrenburg castle is a significant landmark for Bielefeld. Here it is at night!

Christine and I took Wolfgang Kohn and his wife Coco out for dinner one night. Wolfgang and Christine had an interesting conversation about the various cultural differences in math, such as how 1s, 7s, and 9s are written. Wolfgang and Coco and their children took care of Brandi several times when I visited places where I could not take her, and we wanted to thank them.

Christine chose black noodles for dinner!! Evidently these noodles were colored by the ink from an octopus.

Christine took this picture of the front door of this house. I was surprised how well the picture turned out, and isn't it pretty?

Down the street from the house we saw this little truck parked. It has one wheel in front and basically functions as a super-small pickup truck!

My Roommate and Travel Companion---Brandi Bicardi Bananas

Brandi and I went downstairs today (Sunday) to surprise Henrich and Ulla. They absolutely loved Brandi in her outfit and took pictures. Ulla worked with the hat so that the ball would come forward, so I am including anothe picture even though many of you have already seen the Santa suit in pictures I emailed, which are also below.


I adopted Brandi through the Midwest region of the national Chihuahua Rescue and Transport group. She was three at the time, so she is about 10 now. One of the foster mom volunteers makes these little vest harnesses which fasten with velcro and a buckle at the neck, and velcro around the tummy. They are far more secure than just having a leash around the neck, and don't pull on the dog's neck. I hadn't thought about the fact that Brandi certainly advertises the fact that she is from the United States, but her harness vest certainly says it!

Brandi under her blanket on the couch, with one ear evidently testing room temperature!

The full Santa suit effect

Jaunty, aren't I

So, you say you've been nice? Don't think so!!

What a surprise! Just look at what I have to put up with!

I always tell my friend Margo that her dog blends so nicely with her couch color. Brandi also blends with the blanket on the couch here! No matter what, her tail is always tucked under her, safe out of harm's way.

We are warm but we are watching.....

This is typical. I have never figured out whether her nose or head gets cold, or whether she figures I can't see her if she can't see me, or what!

Warm nose and alert ears

Rotterdam University---International Business Week

During November, Patrick Ostendorf and I participated, on behalf of the fachhochschule faculty, in the "International Business Week" hosted by Rotterdam University for its business students. I was quite impressed with their gracious hosting and the manner in which the programs were run. The speakers were outstanding, including people from all around the world. If I had known how good the presentations were going to be, I would have done something different with classes so that I could have attended more of the week. Patrick and I went by train to Rotterdam on Sunday afternoon. The conference started at 10 on Monday morning, and we each gave 2 presentations on Monday afternoon. There was a wonderful dinner at a soccer club for speakers on Monday evening. All expenses were paid for in that the Rotterdam University paid for our lodging and meals, and Bielefeld paid for our train tickets. We came home again on Tuesday afternoon.


This is the business school dean, Dr. Michael Molier, opening the conference. He was a wonderful host and made arrangements for me to talk with the people in the international students' office, which I'd given up on because I had not made prior arrangements, between my presentations on Monday afternoon. Furthermore, he evidently told one of his professors that I had expressed interest in her presentation topic during lunch because she came directly to me during the evening and asked if I was the American who had asked about her topic.



We found 2 boxes of materials, the tote bag in the upper left hand corner, and the blue book, wrapped as a present and about an inch thick, in our hotel rooms on Sunday evening. Quite an impressive start!


This is a view of one of the main student areas on the first floor of the university building, taken from the second floor.

Another view of the student computer/lounge area

Not knowing Dutch, I'm not quite sure what these boxes are about but they looked impressive!

The business department is apparently supported by many prominent companies who are in the university's business club, and various rooms were named for different companies.

First floor students area. There were plugins for computers nicely situationed between the tables.

The room was full, with almost 50 seats, for my first Monday afternoon presentation. The second presentation, at 4 p.m., only had 4 people. Most of the students were from countries which had little or no snow, so I think the title of my presentation mentioning skiing and sled dogs made have done more to entice student attendance than anything else. I spoke on how I teach management skills via the academic service learning methodology by having students help manage the ski marathon and the sled dog races in Marquette.

Patrick's presentation on international law issues, in the auditorium

Another picture of Patrick presenting. He and I were presenting at the same time so we couldn't hear each other's presentations, but my presentation ended shortly before his so I took pictures. This was his first professional presentation. Patrick is a lawyer, has been involved in international legal business, attended school in London for a year, and speaks English quite well but with a British accent, as you would expect. It is his first year teaching here. We had fun traveling together.

These two people are in charge of international students. I have just misplaced the woman's business card...her first name is Tinike and she was very helpful. The man is Leo Klienbannink, the course director of international studies. Tinike had come to my presentation; you can see her toward the front and the middle of the picture of the class.

Patrick and I laughed about this. Our hotel had this sign right by the front door....Brainpark??

The hotel room was luxurious, in my opinion. I was impressed with the reading lights built into the headboard!

The other side of the room. I had trouble getting the TV on and found out later that I needed to touch any number after turning on the power in order for the TV to come on. The same thing happened later when Christine and I were in a hotel in Flensburg.

The bathroom was nice, and this was the first or second time I encountered a glass door covering just half the bathtub to act essentially as a shower curtain. Every shower I saw in Europe had a mobile shower head that you could detach from the wall.

The part of the room across from the desk. This couch looked so lovely that I had hopes of watching TV and cross-stitching, but our dinner Monday evening was so late that I never did get to do it!

A duplicate if I don't get this removed!

The Dutch trains are yellow and blue rather than red or silver as they are in Germany.

Vic University in Vic, Spain

I went to visit Vic University in Spain in late October. Following the fiasco of the bus trip, Angels and I went to visit the international dormitory. The Residence Director, Toni Carrasco, there was quite intent on showing us everything and in being very hospitable. He spoke in fast Catalan, but I picked up some words here and there when they were similar to Spanish. This building is relatively new and seemed spacious, light, and clean. There is no carpet so that the building can be easily mopped and cleaned.

There are several study rooms of different sizes and shapes, including a computer lab, so that students can separate themselves physically into study rooms for work, and use their dorm rooms for relaxing.

There are also several student lounges varying from rooms with tables and vending machines to this large open area with a pool table.

This is the cafeteria for everyone in the building. If I recall correctly, about 80 students live in this building.

This sign lists the hours that the cafeteria is open. Again, this is not Spanish, but you certainly can understand it.

This is one side of a dorm room for three people. On this side, there are two bunk beds.

The othe side of the room has one bed, which can convert into a bunk if needed. There are 3 desk areas along one wall, with bookshelves available.

Each student has a closet with drawers, cabinet areas, and space for hanging clothes.

This made me laugh. This is the laundry room, with only two washers and two dryers!! I questioned this, Angels translated, and we were told that many of the students go home for the weekends and "take the laundry home to Mom!" Some things are truly the same the world over!

Later on Friday evening, Angels took me through one of the two main sections of campus. This building smelled wonderful, and it turned out that there was a baking class going on. This class is held for the community and often includes immigrants as class members in the hopes that they can find employment as bakers. Angels asked permission for me to take this picture and told these men that I was sending the picture to America. They were pleased to pose and got more bread out than had originally been on the table!

Angels had been a bit distressed that I came the weekend that I did because there was some kind of party occuring on the Thursday night I came. However, this class was meeting so again with permission, I took this picture from the front of the room.

The next day on my way to meet Angels in her office, I went by this sculpture which was built in honor of a poet.

This is the legend of a campus map, posted on an outdoor wall. Remember you can click on it to enlarge it.

Same map, showing the layout of the buildings. This is basically one of the two campuses of Vic. I supposed they're half a mile or so apart.

This campus had quite a setup for audiovisual and communication work, including sounds rooms, rooms full of equipment, rooms for recording audio, and rooms for both television and radio productions.

A room for television broadcasts, with appropriate scenery behind!

This is a top-of-the-line kitchen used for cooking classes. Angels told me that they sometimes have professional chefs from television shows come in to demonstrate.

This is a shot of the patio between buildings, with students studying left of center. And yes, the sky was that blue---it was so nice to have sun and warmth after rainy Bielefeld!

This area was to the side of a building, between the building and the road. The area had been cleared, planted, and is maintained by occupational therapy students and clients, if I recall correctly. Previously, it had been just dirt and rocks. It was so pretty!

This library is in the main, downtown portion of campus

This is the international student staff. The two young women on the left are both named Anna

with one in charge of incoming students and one in charge of outgoing students. The woman with the green blouse is Merce Prat, Head of the Office. She had dinner with me and Angels on Thursday evening. Angels Pinanya is on the right in gray and black. She is the international study director for the business school.

Cesar Duch is one of the business profs, with Angels, me, and the business dean, Maria Antonia Pujol. We all went to lunch together (at 2!!) on Friday. Spaniards eat late! I don't remember the name of the woman on the far right---she simply came by shortly before a student took this picture for me. Cesar was very helpful with instructions about how to get from Vic to Barcelona and then on to the airport.

Somewhere along the way, I saw this cigarette package on the ground. It seems to me that Europeans are far more blunt about the health hazards of smoking than we are. The warnings are in bigger print and are just mor graphic.

The signs on these doors of the 2nd floor of the building are so explanatory. I had never seen signs like this before!

On the way back to my hotel, there were birds in cages on one of the balconies, singing and squawking to themselves. Definitely not something I see in Marquette!

One of the narrow streets I walked on my way back to the hotel from school.