I’m glad I’m done this Friday with school, never did it cross my mind that school would finish so quickly. I remember as if it was yesterday the day I started, but that’s partly owed to my “outstanding” attendance record hehe. Now I really need to start studying and cramming everything in my head by thursday and friday, when I have 1 and 2 tests respectively.

I wonder what I am going to do starting on saturday, of course there will be a celebration on friday and most likely saturday as well…. and then… we’ll see. I definitely can’t go out and drink much anymore due to shrinking budget problems, well more like bad financing from my part. I also need to narrow down some possible travel destinations and book them now before it’s too late.

I had a great time in this exchange, I was able to meet great people from different backgrounds who brought in so many interesting stories and anecdotes. We’ll see if the possibility of studying abroad pops up again, then I will surely take it as long as it doesn’t slow me down or keep me from getting my double major in 5 years, which means I have 2 left… man I am already thinking about returning.

Along with studying for finals in my other classes and making the final adjustments for our group blog project and my individual blog, I am highly anticipating my hopefully not last getaway. That is why I’ve started reading a little about my future destinations: Dubrovnik “The Pearl of The Adriatic Sea”, Split, Zagreb, and hopefully a short trip to Slovenia. I heard wonderful things about Croatia and it’s Dalmatian coast. I’ve heard that the people are very friendly, that it is not very expensive and that it’s a beautiful place to visit. I’m very excited yet sad at the same time because I fly back to California on August 10th. Hopefully I’m able to squeeze in more trips after friday, when school is over for me.

I’m highly considering revisiting Madrid or just doing a little traveling inside Germany. Hard to decide, however I should do it soon and avoid an increase in prices and possibly even spoiling my plans.

Unless you have been living as a hermit, have not surfed the Internet, stared at a TV, newspaper or another human being, you must have heard the incredibly sad news that Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, had passed away over the weekend.

Fans all over were hoping to see him again at his “This Is It” comeback run this summer, with tons of concerts scheduled in London at the O2 Arena. Hotels in the area were offering MJ-themed packages, but the truth is that with or without the packages, lots of people booked hotel room around the concerts.

How will this be resolved? This is yet to be seen, once the mourning stops, conflicts may arise.

I guess this is one of the first things I have come to dislike. Maybe I’ve been unfortunate and hopped on buses and trains sans air conditioner, but I want to incline towards me being mistaken. Must admit that public transportation and rail network in Germany is one of the best, it goes literally everywhere. But…. buses, U-Bahns, and S-Bahns, where is the air conditioner… I don’t think it’s just me, maybe I have grown to become somehow dependent on it, but that’s because of the intense heat where I live in California. But regardless, here in Berlin  I often prefer to walk than take the public transport because it’s cooler outside, often I find myself sticking my head out at every station just to feel a cool breeze. There’s often over 50 people in the bus and no open windows, no air flow… and the odor… I guess I better not get there. But there should be air flowing through keeping people cool instead of sweating.

What is couchsurfing? A lot of people asked me that after I told them how I traveled through Europe before school started. Well, when I travel, I don’t pay for a hotel room, but instead contact strangers before I arrive and ask to stay on their couches or spare beds. And, in return, I have my couch available in California and have also hosted on multiple occasions.

I am not nuts, I am also in no sense cheap, and have no obvious psycho-pathologies. I am very social. I am exceptionally interested in what people think, feel, believe, do, and want. But still, why stay on a stranger’s couch?

For those interested in why strangers cooperate with each other (like me), couchsurfing is a fabulous laboratory. Briefly one creates a profile and then this is verified by, for example, by a small credit card charge that confirms one’s address. You then can have other couchsurfers who have met you face-to-face vouch for you. Lastly, whenever you stay on someone’s couch, they rate you as a guest. All this information is available to prospective hosts. Trustworthiness is engendered by the social network one is embedded in. The internet allows this web of information to be updated nearly instantly, making it difficult for couchsurfers to scam, steal from, or generally misbehave.

Some statistics. Couchsurfing has occurred informally for years, but its modern internet incarnation is due to Casey Fenton who started the site in 2003 after getting a cheap ticket to Reykjavik, Iceland but being unable to afford a hotel. So, he stayed on a friend of a friend’s couch and found it was fun. Today there are 800,000 couchsurfers in 50,000 cities worldwide. Fully 85% of these are under 35 years old with half of couchsurfers living in Europe and nearly the other half coming from the U.S. About 10,000 new members sign up per month for this awesome cultural exchange. When traveling alone couchsurfing is a great option!

Studies performed by Mark Mortensen of the MIT Sloan School of Management and Tsedal Beyene of Harvard Business School have produced a paper titled “Firsthand Experience and The Subsequent Role of Reflected Knowledge in Cultivating Trust in Global Collaboration”

Their research consisted of 47 semi-structured interviews and 140 web-based survey responses conducted by them, which focused on a multinational chemical company and tries to explain why we should continue to travel to meet distant colleagues and customers.

The authors concluded that by heading abroad, you can gain valuable insights not only into those cultures you’re visiting, but also into your own domestic operations.

“Most important, visiting people at their locales and gaining awareness of their point of view help you understand how you and your operations are perceived – what we call ‘reflected knowledge.’ In other words, you develop knowledge about you through the eyes of the other. This knowledge helps you adapt your own work processes and behaviors, which in turn, fosters mutual trust and reduces work misunderstandings.”

Day by day, globalization constantly requires workers to routinely collaborate across vast geographical distances

My friends and I had for a while planned a trip back to the country in which we were raised, Bolivia. First on our list was the immense Uyuni Salt Lake. We were all in the city of Cochabamba where we were support to depart from, well I had gone out the night before and slept in a little longer, I didn’t noticed that I had over 10 missed calls and when I called my friends, they were 2 hours into the bus trip to the next city of Oruro, where we would take the train to reach the town of Uyuni. At that point I grabbed all my belongings and rushed to the Bus station, I was fortunate to reach them in Oruro, we met at a Pizza joint, not bad at all. We bought some beverages for the train ride and hopped on what would become the oldest train I’ve been on. The train was pretty good……….we inhaled enough dust to choke an elephant, jeje. The ride itself was pleasant because of the company and the couple beers we had along the way.

Eight hours later… we had reached our destination. It was 3 in the morning and we were scrambling to find a hostel that would open its doors to us. We found one, rested for a couple hours and headed to the main square to book a 3 day tour of the Salt Lake, Colored Lagoons, Geysers and Deserts. After bargaining for a while, we found an agency that lowered it’s price by $150, which was pretty well considering starting prices were $600 for the SUV. We ended up paying $75 each which included the food, the places were we would sleep, and the gasoline for the vehicle.

Our first stop was the train cemetery, many locomotives and wagons in bad shape yet cool to take pictures there. Minutes later we headed to the main attraction, El Salar de Uyuni (Uyuni Salt Lake), we stopped at the edge to buy some souvenirs and there we encountered a Baby Vicuña, it was funny so see tourists trying to take pictures close to it, it would immediately spit at them, hehe. After purchasing souvenirs we drove into the Salt Lake and stopped at what used to be the only hotel made almost entirely out of salt, it stopped functioning due to contamination of the salt lake, so now there are more being built on the outskirts. We took some pictures in the hotel and then we pulled up at Incahuasi in our Land Cruiser.

At Incahuasi, the island covered in cacti, our guides gave us a while to do the little hike to the top of the island, while they prepared our lunch. There we had to pay a small fee of Bs. 10, equivalent to 1 euro, which covered hiking the trail, and using the WC on the island. We hiked up to the top, where we had a great 360° view of the salt flats all around, and where we took some nice group photos. We had lunch, took perspective photos on the salt flats and then headed to our first night stop. The town of San Juan Bautista.

The next morning we drove by the “Laguna Hedionda” (Stinky Lagoon) named this because of the high amount of Sulfur found there, then we drove through the Salvador Dali desert located in the department of Potosi in Bolivia where one could appreciate various rock formations. We then stopped for lunch around a table and chairs setting, but in reality they were all rocks, and kept driving on to the Siloli desert where one can see the “Arbol de Piedra” (Rock Tree) along with many other rock formations.  The last stop of the day was the “Reserva Nacional Eduardo Avaroa” in southwestern Potosi, bordering the country of Chile, there we were able to appreciate many different types of fauna and flora as well as the “Laguna Colorada” (Red Lagoon). There we made our last night stop and early the next day to see the sun rise we headed to Sud Lipez, Potosi where one can see the geysers and the volcanic activity.

After the sunrise we headed to some hot springs in the middle of the Andes, the sights were breathtaking. There we were also within walking distance form the Licancabur volcano, right on the border of Bolivia and Chile, and at its base you could appreciate the “Laguna Verde” (Green Lagoon)

. This was the last stop on the list, after being checked, we drove back up to Uyuni to catch the train back to Oruro where we encountered strikes, so we had to wait until the situation improved to catch a bus back to Cochabamba.

I really didn’t know how powerful those Toyota Land Cruiser SUVs where until this trip, especially after seeing then handling those terrains and climb the Andes. It’s only when you’re bumping along Bolivian roads with every second pothole sending you two feet out of your seat like a deranged jack-in-the-box that you come to conclude what a brilliant invention asphalt is. And just how necessary a road maintenance actually is.

What an Adventure!

My friends and I decided to rent a car for a weekend of clubbing in Munich… you have to love spontaneity… We ended up visiting

Neuschwanstein in our very comfortable rented BMW… I wish I was old enough to rent cars at home, anyways, after seeing the castles we came up with the idea of lunching in Sankt Gallen, we headed there for Fondue and Rösti, amazing lunch, and how did we close it off? Well we headed to Zürich to buy some Sprüngli chocolates. I sort of wish I was not the driver, I had to drive to Berlin for about 7 hours straight, just on time to shower, deliver the car and come to class . Definitely looking forward to another crazy and spontaneous adventure in Europe.

Aircraft similar to the one Air France lost

a thunderstorm. Brazilian authorities began search and rescue efforts around the Island of Fernando de Noronha where air traffic controllers believe was the location overflown by the airplane as communication ceased. For 24 hours people didn’t know what happened to the 220 passengers and 12 crew members but Brazilian authorities claim to have spotted debris belonging to the Airbus A330 that belonged to Air France, the airplane had only been in operation for the past 4 years. No crew has yet reached the two possible wreck sites, these two possible sites have been identified by the Brazilian air force’s R-99 synthetic aperture radar-equipped surveilance aircraft. The Brazilian military mounted a large search operation, including C-130 transports, Super Puma and H-60 helicopters, and Bandeirante search and rescue aircraft. It is surprising though that the pilots seemed to have ignored the possibility of flying around or over the storm. Search for the aircrafts black box will soon start, and hopefully the real cause of the catastrophe will soon be revealed. My condolences to the relatives and friends of the victims of Air France flight number 447.