Archive for November, 2008
Prague, Germany, & France
November 14, 2008 by nate, under Photography, Travel.
I know it’s been a while since I’ve been able to update but it is mostly because I have been very busy traveling and presenting some research the past few weeks. In Prague, my team and I presented to two executives of a luxury watch company called Prim. Overall, I won’t go into much detail now, I was very happy with our presentation. We gave them three main recommendations and they were actually already in the process of performing our suggestions. Since we didn’t have all the inside information, this was impossible for us to know. However, they then asked us many questions regarding how we felt to perform the recommendations in comparison to what they have done.
Besides my project, was able to travel through out Prague and see the castles, and all the old architecture. It’s really a great city because during WWII, neither the Germans or Allies bombed Prague, so it has so many old buildings from the 13th – 14th century. We flew back to London, and I was in the UK for about 6 hours before leaving to fly to Munich, Germany.
Munich is a great town, it was outside of the touristy season of Octoberfest, which made our hostel stay and flight much cheaper. We went on a tour of the city but the most distinct part of the trip was our tour of Dacau, a Nazi concentration camp. Seeing this concentration camp in real life was probably one of the most eye opening experiences I’ve had. I saw the gas chambers, the crematorium, the dorms that the ‘invalids’ lived in. Dacau was the longest operating camp out of all the camps. It actually started before WWII, to house Hitler’s political prisoners. The original capacity for the camp was 5,000 people. However, towards the end of the war, there were 80,000 people confined there. The rules they had to undergo were outrageous. If they were to break any rule, they would receive 25 lashing on the back with this gruesome beating stick… They had to count out loud in German to 25 for each hit as well.. there were stories of victims who did not speak German, so they would be beat until they died.
Here’s a scenario for perspective that actually happened:
A persons button fell off on the ground, they bent over, picked it up, and put it in their pocket thinking they would sew it back on later. However, by doing that, they broke 4 rules, so subject to 100 lashings. 1. Sabotage of Nazi Property (button falling off) 2. Stopping Work (Bending Over) 3. Theft of Nazi Property (Button in Pockets) 4. Hands in Pockets (Prohibited by Nazis)
At the end of the tour, we went to the airport and rented a car. We then drove to Paris. Paris is also a great city. I had time in the car to review many of my french notes and read through a dictionary for a bit. I was surprised how much the few hours of study helped me remember! The total trip was about 10 hours long, but we were stuck in traffic for about 2 hours in Germany. The Autobahn in Germany is quite insane. If you think i80 is bad, well don’t drive in Germany. We were doing 180kph, which is about 110-115mph.. That may sound insane, but we were being passed like we were standing still. In Paris, we had some excellent food, go to see the Eiffel Tour, Arch de Triumph, and tour the Louvre. We didn’t have much time to be in Paris so that’s all we did.
This past week I got the chance to go see a Premiere League Chelsea Football game. It was great, they really love their ’soccer’ over here. I was in a sea of 50,000 people upon leaving the stadium.. It was a really close game but Chelsea lost in overtime penalty shots. There were over 100 policemen around the area and many of them mounted on horses. The next day I found out there was a huge brawl between the Chelsea fans and the other teams… Crazy Brits! This weekend, is going towards some much needed rest. As for pictures, I have about 1000 pictures I have to go through and have not had the time yet.
