Catching my breath, catching up

For the first time in our GSE experience I am concerned about my accomodations.  My host family has stuck me in the loft of their 200 year old barn while they are comfortably esconced in their farmhouse.  All in all, I am a bit concerned . . . concerned that I won’t be willing to leave.   I am staying with Theo and Gudrun Arkenberg on their farm.  They have renovated their 200 year old barn to be a beautiful guest house.  It is straight out of a design magazine – complete with an indoor swimming pool.  The “loft” is their master bedroom with down comforters and all the accutriments.  The pool has been a welcome respite for me this week.  Theo swims every morning and has been gracious to allow me to join him.  It has been nice to get my laps in.

Theo and Gudrun are two of the nicest people you can meet.  We have had wonderful hours of conversing – and have included Gudrun’s brother Franz (now known as the Don a.k.a. Godfather) and his wife Barbara in several of these.  The Arkenbergs have a daughter (Charlotta) living at home as well as two sons away in school.  I fully anticipate that we will soon see this wonderful family in Wichita!

As for my visits over the last week or so, I have had several very interesting visits to logistics companies.  I have seen two “lights out” warehouses complete with very sophisticated conveyor systems.  Today, I was allowed to film much of the process so that I can use the clips in my Operations lectures.  Often I have not been allowed to film because of the contracts with customers (i.e. Mercedes Benz) or with the workers (labor rules).  It was great to be able to do it today.

I also have had the opportunity to meet with a couple of administrators from the University of Applied Sciences in Munster.  We had the opportunity to compare notes on everything from faculty compensation to faculty research to faculty compensation for research.  We have also had tea and coffee – lots of it!  Tidbit I learned tonight – Germany’s most oft drunk beverage is not beer.  It is coffee.

Staying on a farm and driving to Munster today has given me the opportunity to see lots of the German countryside.  I would have taken pictures, but that would have meant stopping every fifty feet (meters if you prefer the European measure) and we would never arrive at our destination.  Suffice it to say, it is beautiful here.  As we drive through valleys and see the churches and villages in the distance, it makes me think of every post card ever produced from here.  The Raps (Rapeseed we think) are in full bloom – bright yellow.  Couple that with the green fields, the multicolored blooms from numerous Rhododendrum (however it is spelled) and you get an idyllic picture.  Add the numerous pheasants (seven out the window of my barn), shafe(sheep), reh (deer), and hase (a rabbit the size of Harvey . . . okay, maybe just the size of a cocker spaniel) and it is a beautiful place to take a drive.

I have also enjoyed the food – particularly breakfast.  A typical breakfast consists of several different types of bread including pumpernickle and a whole grain wrapped in sunflower seeds; various cheeses; various salamies, hams, and other meats; eggs (soft boiled or scrambled); cereals; orange juice; and black tea.  I could eat this every day and not bat an eye.  Of course I could not walk out of here if I did.  Somehow the tune “Roll out the barrel” comes to mind.

The people have been wonderful here.  We have been all over the county – visiting “raised bogs,” sheep farms, a shoe factory, a spargel (asparagus) farm, and on and on.  We have seen windmills -both old and new,  farms fit for paintings, and wildlife aplenty.  We’ve met mayors and been in the local papers.  What we have not seen is the inside of our eyelids.  I finally figured out what GSE really means.  It has to be “Gotta Sleep Eventually.”  Oh well, there is always June.  We are halfway through our visit.

For those on the 5690 GSE Committee; You can be proud of your team.  They have acted with such grace and humor.  I get nothing but positive comments on how nice they are, how much they like to laugh, how well they interact with each other and with the locals, etc., etc., etc.  In a conversation with the coordinator of D1850′s last GSE experience, I learned that our team has been so much better to work with than the last team.  That makes me proud to be their “Chef.”

Thanks for following us on the Blog and allowing us this tremendous priviledge of representing D5690 here in Germany.

News Alert – Husbands avert your eyes!

Went to shoe factory . . . bought shoes . . .  in heaven . . . more later.  – Deena

Lady and the Tram

I’ve updated you on my experience in Nordenham so now lets give you a brief update on Bremen. After leaving Nordenham and experiencing the oh so “fire” during our Rotary Presentation I could never imagine anything else crazy and interesting happening in our next stop. We arrived to Bremen and started our evening with a lovely Bavarian dinner, met our host families and transferred our few pounds of luggage to where we would call home for the next several days.

My host, Angela Meenzen, and I

My host, Angela Meenzen, lives in a lovely home. I was comfortable from the moment I walked in even after lugging my things to the 3rd floor (here it’s refereed to as the 2nd).

The next few days were filled with vocational visits. I was excited to visit the Universities and anxious what I was going to learn. In my visit to Nordenham I discovered that my occupation doesn’t translate to an exact occupation here in Germany. Lorretta did a great job of briefing me on the education system here so I wasn’t completely unprepared. A few things I learned: Post-secondary education in Germany for the most part is free for students. From what I have learned most public universities are free or have a nominal fee of 500 Euros for fees and then of course the student is responsible for their own living expenses. In Europe, the recent Bologna Accord established uniformity in three levels of higher education: Bachelor (three years), Masters (one or two years in addition to three or four years for a Bachelor), and Doctorate (an additional three or four years after a Masters). Students can acquire professional experience after their initial bachelor degree at any European institution and later complete their masters in any other European institution via the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System. Prior to the Bologna Accord the old five year first degrees were the Diplom (one subject, can be in all sciences) and Magister Artium (interdisciplinary, common in social and cultural sciences). The number of old degree courses is declining and they will be replaced by the new degrees up until 2010 in some states.

My first stop was to Jacobs University, a private international University. I arrived and was greeted by Peter and Anna. I was very happy to learn it was an English speaking institution so there was no issue with translations or anything. We started the morning off discussing the similarities and differences of our jobs. I realized quickly that they have similar job descriptions as what I do and job titles but in Germany they are referred to as Clerks of a University. That’s the best way to explain it. We toured the campus, which is similar to a University that you would find at home in the States, and learned how Peter and Anna handle recruitment for Jacobs. They divide the WORLD  into four and their Admissions staff attend fairs and schools across the world. They travel from country to country promoting and educating students on what programs and opportunities they can offer. I don’t think my co-worker and I can complain anymore about traveling throughout only Kansas. Currently, their enrollment is 1254 which is both undergraduate/graduate students, they have 98 nations represented and on average students speak 3 different languages. The cost of tuition, fees, and room/board for ’10-’11 is approx. 22,800 Euros. It was a great visit and was amazing to see how unique Jacobs University is compared to Universities in the states and what I would find out in the days following even in Germany. For more information on Jacobs visit: https://www.jacobs-university.de

Day two of vocational visits. Angela and I headed off to find the Universitat Bremen and were excited for my next adventure.  The excitement of visiting the university was temporarily put on hold however when we began driving on the tram tracks and were face to face with an on coming tram. Luckily, there was plenty of sidewalk to drive on and we found a parking spot. Never a dull moment in my world.

We were greeted by Dr. Christina Jung and Prof. Dr. Rolf Dreschsler were we started the day with an overview of the University. Universitat Bremen is a much larger university and is engaged more in technical and science fields and especially in research.   They have approx 20,000 plus students in their bachelor, masters, and PhD programs. All courses are taught in German however some of the international masters programs are taught in English but its required students are proficient in German as well. I was very impressed at the relationship they have outside businesses. They have approximately 320 businesses in the surrounding area, The Technology Park, that many students will do internships with and many students will even start their own business in the same area.

I also had a chance to visit with their international student department were I was able learn a bit more on how they handle exchange students. They are partnered with several countries. For a student from the USA to come in and study at the Universitat Bremen they must show they are proficent in German as well as show they have at least 8000 Euros for each year they plan to study. It’s approximately 600-800 Euros per month for living expenses and about 6 % of the students overall live on campus. US students would pay the same fees that German students do which is around 500 euros for administration and transportation fees but there is no cost for them for tuition. Very interesting.

We toured the campus a bit and enjoyed lunch in one of several cafeterias to end my visit. For more information on the University visit: http://www.uni-bremen.de/index_en.html

Day three of vocational visits lead me to Hochschule Bremen- University of Applied sciences, International Graduate Center. I met first with Ramon Speicker the head of administration. We briefly talked about my job at Hutchinson Community College and how we handle recruitment. Because of the recent changes many of the Universities are starting to attend college fairs and focus more on recruitment since students can change schools after they finish their bachelors degree and aren’t required to do their masters at the same institution. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I was able to share on the processes we use for recruitment. Ramon has his MBA and since I am in the process of finishing mine we had a change to talk about the difference and similarities especially when I mentioned I was attending classes only on every other Saturday. Essentially, a European MBA is equivalent to the American MBA. Nonetheless, European MBAs have additional scientific content; for example, European MBAs generally requires writing and defending a master’s thesis. I found that interesting and explained for my program we also have a final project that we present but a bit different than their thesis.

They offer 10 master’s programs some which are full time and others that can be either full or part time. There attendance is approximately 200 students from 40 nations. Also, all of the courses are taught in English. The school is also a public school but they do pay tuition cost. Depending on the program which all tend to be a year the tuition cost could be around 7000-8000 Euros. Programs start in October and go until the following June. Then they have until September to do their thesis. In the International MBA program they have partnered with six universities and students will receive a dual master’s degree while studying in 2 countries of their choice.

I talked with two others in the admissions office, Bjorn and Christian, as well as the Course Coordinator, Angela for the International MBA program.We discussed some of the struggles of the number of applicants verse what their actual attendance is each year. Since students are applying to many schools its hard for the Center to know how many will be in attendance each year. One thing I found interesting and something that seems to be a good selling point for them is they have a student services department that helps students with the visa process, find an apartment/housing before they get here and they even have activities and trips to help students become more familiar with the area and other students. Yet another great visit!  For more information on the Graduate Center visit: http://www.graduatecenter.org/en/

Each day has certainly been an adventure and I can’t wait for my next post to tell you about our stay so far in Vechta/Diepholz.

Cheers to Bremen! You showed us a wonderful time!

Cheers!

Sad Foosball Results

Emma’s team lost last night 3-1, so they are out of the state tournament.  Stacy said Emma played very well and prevented attacks from her side but that the other team scored two goals off corners.  Oh well, they had a good season and enjoyed themselves.

Danke, Bremen!

My host, Hildegard

Bremen was an interesting adventure for me in so many ways. My host for the duration of my stay in Bremen was Hildegard Rasch, an animated, strong-minded, force to be reckoned with. She told me some great stories about her life as a young woman in Germany and about her travels to the states. She has a very lovely home with beautiful gardens and lives a comfortable, full life. She made me laugh many times and gave me several fun little memories to take away with me.

Hildegard's house from the front

The garden in Hildegard's back yard

Me with Dr. Peters from Bremer Landesbank

My vocational days in Bremen were great fun. I think I mentioned my first two visits in previous posts but did not get a chance to tell you about my last vocational day. It was a wonderful visit to the Bremer Landesbank. I spent the morning with Dr. Chrisitan Peters, who was a great host and explained his very interesting job of financing ship building. I can guarantee you that he is making much bigger deals than anyone in Hutchinson, Kansas and travels all over Europe to meet with clients–it kind of makes my job seem a bit less glamorous than I thought it was. LOL

Our GSE Coordinator in Bremen, Thomas

We had such a great time with Thomas, our GSE coordinator in Bremen. He took great care of us and made certain that we were well fed the whole time we were there. We had an interesting experience at one restaurant during our visit that resulted in us having our meal at a bratwurst stand in the marketplatz. Let’s just say that it was a long evening in a restaurant that was cleary struggling to keep up with their customers. Enough said.

Our lazy, lovely, river cruise

Our "ride" to Worpswede

Thomas made certain that we were able to get some relaxing in before we left Bremen. Yesterday, he and his wife Claudia took us on a boat cruise starting on the River Weser and continuing on two of its tributaries: the Lesum and the Hamme. It was a relaxing, beautiful trip that ended at Neu-Helgoland, where we boarded a horse coach to the artist village Worpswede. We were able to walk around looking at art and browsing through a few shops (Believe it, or not, I didn’t buy anything!). We were taken by taxi back to Bremen-Vegesack to walk around the River Weser–the harbor and to see the Segelschulschiff Deutschland. We enjoyed a lovely dinner at Havenhaus before returning back to our host families to pack and to sleep.

Aboard the big ship

Ship's masts

Sunday morning, Alicia and I went to Pentecost Mass with Hildegard. The church was beautiful and very old. We enjoyed the service (even though we didn’t understand the language) but didn’t enjoy the hard, unpadded wooden kneelers. After church, we went to Claudia’s beautiful art studio in Lesum. The food was wonderful, the company was great, and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. Before leaving Lesum, we took a beautiful walk through the countryside to soak up some of the beauty of the area.

At Claudia's Studio

View of Lesum on our walk

Thomas transported us to Vechta–the next stop on our journey–and so we said goodbye to our new friends and set out on the next leg of our journey. Danke, Bremen!

Reporting to you live from Vechta…

This just in: Alicia Sanchez is in fact in Germany. Yes, ladies and gentlemen all of the photos that have been posted were not, let me repeat, were not cardboard cut outs of Alicia. She is here with the team and will be reporting to you from  her host family’s home later in our live coverage.

3,2,1 and we are live:

Moin! First let me apologize for my lack of participation on the blog. I know I have an avid blog following and I hate to disappoint…so let me begin.  There has been so much going on that I cannot catch you up on everything but I will give a quick top five moments in Nordenham in no particular order. (I’ll try at least to keep it to five but honestly everything has been great!)

1. Starting in Nordenham we attended a reception with the vice mayor and also had lunch at Landhaus Tettens.

Newspaper Clipping from Nordenham

2. Our visit to Xstrata Zinc. It was amazing to see the process that is involved in Zinc production.

Sign Posted at Xstrata

GSE Team at Xstrata

3. Bremerhaven: Emigration Museum, Harbour Bus Tour, and dinner!

Deutsches Auswanderer Haus

Stacey & I on the bus tour of the harbour

4. Industry Experiences in Nordenham: Sozialwerk Wesermarsch, Premium Aerotec (Subsidiary of Airbus), and Deichschaferei Feldhausen (sheep farm)

5. Staying with my host family: Joachim and Stephanie Toenjes and Lorretta Marshall!  I was able to tag along to work with Stephanie and Lorretta and visit the school there Stephanie teaches and Lorretta is a language assistant. I sat in an English course where the students were able to explain about their educational system as well as them asking me tons of excellent questions about the states and especially Kansas!

Stephanie, Joachim, and I

Zinzendorfschule Tossens

Sit down, you’re rocking the boat.

Yesterday was a very unique treat for all of us, courtesy of our generous Rotary hosts. We were taken on a boat trip, the first of this kind that I’ve ever had.

Heike, Deena, and Stacey in Vegesack. Those are bronze casts of whale bones in the distance forming an arch.

Starting out fairly early (for a Saturday, anyway) we traveled to Bremen-Vegesack, which is a harbor city along the river Weser that is technically part of Bremen.

Among other things, they have shipyards there where they build both luxury yachts and some military vessels as well. Even from a distance, these are terribly impressive.

Apparently the larger ship here is owned by the Russian billionaire who owns the Chelsea football club, Roman Abramovich.

Luxury yachts and military vessels. Which one is which?

From Vegesack we boarded a long, low boat that looks like a canal boat called the Alma. This was our passage up the river Weser and then up its tributaries, the Lesum and Hamme rivers. Our day started out fairly cool and overcast, but the sun burned all of that away to make a gorgeous day with extremely comfortable weather (part of the reason we saw so many sailboats heading out to sea while in Vegesack).

Boarding the ALMA in Vegesack.

We were provided a “2nd breakfast” of salmon, meats, cheeses, fruits, and breads to enjoy along our way. The view was gorgeous the entire trip and the pace was very easy. We passed under several low bridges (because of high water levels they had to take the bonnet off of the bridge of the boat) and even through one lock.

When I say pastoral, I'm not kidding around. Notice the black sheep.

Views from our boat trip. Yes, a real house and not a Disney prop.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves along the way with the help of our German hosts, and eventually arrived at Neu Helgoland, a very small village. From there we took a horse coach trip to the artist village of Worpswede where we were able to view galleries and shops and leisurely enjoy ourselves. The community has grown over the

No shortage of art to look at or things to buy. A beautiful little town.

years from what was once a small gathering of painters who came to this area to work because of the quality of the light and pastoral scene.

From Worpswede we took taxis back to Vegesack for a walk along the river Weser and a close look at the ship Schulschiff Deutschland, an early military sailing vessel that was later used just for training, now for historic display.

I'm pretty sure my travel insurance covers this. Yep, weigh anchor already!

A brief but well deserved rest before boarding the ship.

And, to make things even more interesting, there was a wedding that had just concluded on the boat when we arrived. Apparently the groom belonged to a German motorcycle club, so although he was in a very nice suit, all of his best men and friends were in their full leather riding gear. There were tattoos and piercings aplenty.

The food and service were impecable. Outside is a view of the Weser river.

Finally we concluded our day with a sumptuous meal at the Havenhaus there in Vegesack – an excellent chance to relax and discuss our day as well as those things we have learned and come to appreciate about Bremen and Germany thus far.

It was a remarkable day and a wonderful present to all of us as we come to the end of our stay in Bremen.

Hello from Vechta!

GSE Team work time

“Hallo” from Deena!  Bremen was a great time and a wealth of experience.  My internet access has been spotty, but looks good for our time here in Vechta (until Sat, May 29th).  Here is a bit of an update on my Bremen experiences in the last week.

I had 3 vocational visits this past week with lawyers in Bremen.  The law firm of Dr. Shackow and Partner hosted me all three vocational days.

The lawyer I spent the most time with, Mathias  (pronounced Mattees), was a great host and provided a good overview of the German legal system, the structure of law, and the main areas of legal practice for German business.

I also learned about the German higher education system, including what education and training is required to be a lawyer.  University allows students (without any or minimal cost-a few hundred dollars) to study whatever they want to study and go to any lectures they wish to attend.   You can attend lectures (no Q&A socratic method) of any topic without being signed up for a “class”, or you could choose to never attend a class and instead learn information from books or other ways.  Your only responsibility is to pass exams to gain “certificates”.  You are required to have certain certificates to obtain the requisite knowledge for your profession.  You can literally never attend a class and still become a lawyer.  You simply have to pass exams to get your certificates and then sit for a state exam and pass with a minimum score.  You then spend the next two years in experiential/practical training in preparation for your second set of exams – written and oral.  Once you pass those, you can find a job and practice law.  Your score on your first set of exams significantly impacts the kind of legal careers open to you  – Judge (yes, you work on becoming a judge from the start if you have very high score), private practice, criminal, etc.

I also visited Labor Court this week.  Of course, it was all in German, but it’s amazing how much you can still pick up if you have spent time in a courtroom.

Culturally, we learned a tremendous amount of the history of Bremen this week and how unique it is to the Germany experience.  We extensively toured the Cathedral in the town square, toured the downtown historic area, and ate great German food at serveral fantastic restaurants.  My favorite cultural experience while in Bremen was our boating trip yesterday (Sat, May 22nd) up the River Weser (pronounces Veh-zer).  We spent about 2 hours on the boat heading up river, even traveling through a lock, and ended our river trek not far from the artist village of Worpswede (Vorps-veed).  We took a horse drawn wagon ride to the village, walked around, viewed a few art exhibits, and did a little shopping (no, Rick – I didn’t buy anything – this time!).

Bremen town square

My Bremen host, Heike Fiedler, was such a great host.  I went to work with her each morning and strolled in downtown Bremen before my vocational meetings began.  I spent some time in a Starbucks one afternoon for the free wi-fi (!!!) and catching up on a few work matters (I know they can live without me, but let me dream of my significance!).

Deena and her host, Heike, on the River Wesser cruise

That leads us to today, Sunday, May 23rd.  We met at Claudia Wimmer’s art studio in a sleeply, wonderful village called Lemus.  We ate a tremendous brunch, prepared by Thomas and Claudia Wimmer.  We were able to view Claudia’s art (which I loved!), and then walked around the village.

This afternoon, we said our goodbyes to the Bremen crew and Thomas drove us to Vechta to meet our new hosts.  The Diepholz-Vechta (Dee-poltz/Vehk-tah) rotary group greeted us with a dessert and coffee time (I have to stop eating, already!).  Then, the three of us gals moved into the third floor of the home of the Gerhart family, who has graciously agreed to host us over the next week.  The Gerhart’s lovely daughter, Gatha (Gah-tah), is taking such great care of us, and even lugged a couple of our heavy suitcases up to the third floor!

We are definitely looking forward to a little down time tonight and our week in Vechta and Diepholz.

Old cities have a lot of history – and other news flashes.

BAM!  No one expects the Spanish Inquisition Dave to blog so often, but here it is, post 2.

Today started with changing my host family. The von Cossels were invited to go sailing with friends starting in Denmark (very nice) and I would have felt awful if they chose to pass up an opportunity like that. So now, and for the rest of our time in Bremen, I am staying with the Heise family. I have only met the father, Reinhold, so far, but he strikes me as a great guy.

That's Jen on the right. Small office, lot's of talent.

I spent a good part of my day at eWerk, which is a web design company. Speaking with Jens Zippel, the head of the company, I learned a great deal about a number of projects they’ve completed over the years and some of their current projects. They specialize in back-end systems, particularly their own content management system they’ve developed over the last 10 years, which allows their clients to be able to add, change, rearrange, or delete content on their own. They also design interfaces for private television channel selection tools – the things you use, if you have cable, to browse through the available content.

We then gave our group presentation for the local Rotary club at the Bremen Hilton. Everyone else is a pro at this by now, but this was my first time. I think it went very well, and it certainly seemed well received. I think it stems from my tremendous restraint to NOT conduct my part of the presentation through interpretive dance or begin anything with “There once was a man from Nantucket…”. But seriously, everyone was very considerate and gracious and made us feel extremely welcome. Go Bremen!

Then we got an extensive guided tour of some of Bremen’s most interesting historic landmarks and areas, including the Schnoor, the oldest area in Bremen. This is what Arlen was talking about earlier with it’s narrow and tall houses and shops, very narrow streets, and wonderful charm.

Arlen came across a shop in the schnoor (yes, I know – say that fast ten times) that sells paper sculpture. Some of it is designed by other people/companies, but many designs were created by the owner of the shop and his father. And many of these would have to be described as machines! Complex pieces of kinetic sculpture, usually whimsical, that you cut out and assemble yourself. They were fantastic.

Amazing paper sculptures at Atelier GAG, Bremen

The gentleman who owned the store (which was about as big inside as a large shoebox, by the way) was very generous with his time and showed us many of their designs, with emphasis on those kinetic pieces they had designed themselves.
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Everything you see here is a paper sculpture that comes flat, ready to cut, paste, and assemble. Fantastic work.

Dragons that flap their wings, lines of penguins that stand up on their toes in sequence, a working paper music organ complete with a paper bellows, as well as beautiful replicas of famous architecture from around the world, planes, boats, birds, and automobiles. So, yes, I had to buy one. I may post a picture when I finish it after we get home.

Then we had a wonderful dinner, in two different places, but that’s another story. And finally we went on the night watch walking tour, an entertaining theatrical perspective on what life was like in Bremen when the city was in its youth (think 1600′s for a rough idea). It’s been a great day.

Foosball Results for Friends in Nordenham

For those in Nordenham who are following my daughter’s foosball, they won last night 3-1.  This was against the team that gave them one of their two losses on the year so they were happy.  Now it is on to the State tournament.  This means her team is one of the top 8 in the state of Kansas.