After a month of trips around Europe, visiting schools and
universities, attending conferences and finding out what are the new
introductions to higher education and K12 too, I thought I must write my
experience in each place.
We started our trip in Sweden, the time limitations compelled
us to just stay in Stockholm and visit the three main universities over there,
lovely place, wait for my Vlog on those three universities, my son will publish
them once he is done with editing them.
One thing for sure, any student going to Sweden will be welcomed, no
hostility, a lot of friendly people and a great place for living, learning and
exploring. Stockholm is a very
cosmopolitan city, so it will be easy to find the same culture, or even to
experience new cultures whilst over there, no need to stick to your kind,
merge like a zip with the Swedes and also with the other nationalities,
everyone speaks English, so you will have no problem at all in
conversation. If you are the sporty type
you have reached your target, as everyone goes for walks, runs, other sports
and Gym; if you are more of a cultural person like me, then lots of shops,
cafes, museums, galleries and the famous Gamla Stan will welcome you in utter
honesty. The buses and underground is brilliant, you cannot get lost. Just
remember to buy the correct ticket, as a month ticket works our cheaper than a
weekly or a daily ticket. Students
beware, taxis are so expensive, so walk, bus or underground are the preferred
methods to go around.
London is of course London, we all know it by heart, us the
Arabs think that London is the neighborhood, so no introduction to it this
time, except of course it has more of a bistro culture now, with hundreds of
new cafes opening on the side streets and lots of ingenious varieties. My favourite is a place my daughter in law,
who happen to take a course on makeup artistry in London, took us to. It served all day breakfast, and had lovely
juice mixes and smoothies. One thing I
remember that a family came in, ordered lots of the pastries and cake on display,
each of them had one bite of their lovely dishes and left it and gone. I had tried one of the varieties that they
chose, it was so tasty, I guess the thrifty ones of us don’t really care. What I am trying to say here is that, if you
as a student go to a place, and pay seven pounds for it, take it home with you,
leftovers are great when you wake up middle of the night and feeling pickish.
Whilst in London I also visited some universities and
colleges, one of them was my surprise, it was nestled in between Regent Park,
very unusual place to have a university, and of course a very expensive place
too, apparently though it was a school for girls long ago, and got converted
into a university, so if a student goes there he or she will live in a lovely
park with a lake for fantastic four years.
Wouldn’t that be nice?? It makes me want to go back to school; I hope my
family will not read this as they are sick of me already wanting to study
anything that anyone offers!! Cursera is surely happy with me, I am one of
those that make up the 1% that finish their courses!
Prague (They call it Praha in Czech) is a different kettle
of fish, one thing for sure here is that you don’t need to learn the names of
the roads, every building has various types of statues, so you could say old
town, the building with the four saint Mary, or the one with the four falcons,
or the one with the four soldiers. Also
Charles Bridge is one of kind with all types of status on a never ending
bridge. We saw merchants, painters,
artists, jewelry makers, people proposing to each other, people getting
married, old men, young men, old women, young women, tourists from 191
countries round the world. I think
Prague gets a fair share of the tourists market more than any country around
the world, but I must check the statistics to confirm, it safe to say that it
certainly had many tourists. Street
performers were plenty, today a fat man was holding a stick that has on ts
other end a fat woman, we saw them and after an hour of roaming round we
returned to see them in the same meditating position, my daughter thinks that
there is a metal rod with a little chair for her to set on within their cloths,
maybe, whatever it was, it marveled the tourists and all were taking pictures of
them.
In Prague I had two conferences, in the first one I met with
40 universities, many new ones, some are just to talk over some issues that we
are having with them, or to reconnect so we know what is new; there is nothing
better than face to face discussions, we can say so much in an email, but one
word face to face makes all the difference.
The other conference was the amazing EAIE, I cannot wait for
the next one that will happen in Glasgow next year, as the amount of learning
is immense, and if one wants to see differing opinions on higher education,
than that is the place to be. Guess how many people attended the conference??
Over 5000 people from around the world.
So its as if you have visited every country in just one congress hall. What I like about this conference is the motivational
speakers that they bring to entertain and raise the moral of the attendees.
This year we had two of them, one was the Europe chairman of Microsoft, and the
100things.com.au guy. Both were great,
opening our minds to different possibilities.
But I must stop here, my plane is calling and I will write about them in
different articles.
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