Whoopee! The first subject is complete!

I can’t believe the first subject, European Hotel Management, is over. And the best thing is that I passed with flying colours. Today we had to hand in and present to the class our Final Project which was in 2 parts. The first dealt with being an American Hotel Manager with multi-cultural staff and how you would handle the communication aspect to ensure all staff was catered for. The second part was to discuss being an American expatriate manager in another country having to communicate with employees who are natives of that country. My group used the situation where American management took over an Australian company (sound familiar?) and we discussed the issues that arose on the communication side when they tried to operate within the Australian culture too quickly without first acclimating to the Australian culture and finding out how things are done in Australia. All groups did remarkably well considering some where drunk or stoned when they were writing their paper. I can’t believe how well these kids do even though they do things under compromised conditions and at the last minute.


One criticism I have with the syllabus is that although it allowed us to analyse different cultures and make comparisons with our own and put it into a hospitality context, it was too theoretical and required lots of writing of papers and case studies. The fact that we had to pay for our internet access didn’t help when we had to research topics. They should have organised it with our lack of normal facilities in mind. I’m hoping our next subject will be better. It will deal with cuisine and food preparation and, from what we have heard, the facilities will be better in Le Bouveret, Switzerland. I believe we will have free wifi, only 2 students to a room (it has been pretty cramped up to now with 4 girls in a tiny dorm, and 3 of the girls are a little messy).

Tomorrow my group (Sally, Allison, Stephanie and I) are checking out of our home (the StayOkay in Maastricht) to catch a train at around 7am and head via a circuitous route (3 or 4 changes of train) to Salzburg, Austria. We should arrive at around 4pm.

We had our last dinner at Kiwi Restaurant and then I went to the supermarket to buy some nibbles for the train. I’m kind of sad to be leaving Maastricht as it is a beautiful little town. I have already packed my stuff and will set my alarm for 5am. It’s really interesting listening to the girls chat over dinner as they treat me like one of them. I get to hear all their tales about smoking pot and quite frankly, I am usually totally oblivious to this activity. Arleigh divulged that she was quite high this afternoon when we went for a tour of a lovely church which is the oldest church in the Netherlands. I must pay more attention in future. It’s fun, fun, fun here – sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. Even the most straight-laced kids are up to mischief.

I had a chat to Dr Bartlett and his wife and thanked them for everything and allowing me to participate in the program.