Europe or North America on exchange?

I faced this question myself in my first year - choosing between schools in the EU vs. those in North America for my fall exchange semester of 2009-10. Ofcourse, you all know what I chose - Schulich School of Business in Canada. Now here's why. First, make a list of things you want to do on exchange. Then think hard about it. Do you really want to tell your grandson a story and a hear his response like this:

I once went to Vienna and we had this great sandwich by the riverside with your Sarvesh Uncle, and it was beautiful.

Where's Vienna and what's so great about a sandwich and why go with Sarvesh Uncle in the first place?

OR like this:

When I was in New York, I met this crazy French dude and we went to this bar across the Grand Central Station. And just as we were starting to have fun, guess who walked in ? Yeah, George Clooney!

Yeah, the big Apple is awesome and the party must've rocked hard for George Clooney to be there!

You should go to Europe if:

• Tourism to you means staring at a bunch of really old rocks in Rome...
• ...with a bunch of Indian dudes...
• ...after sleeping over in a Eurail train the previous night to save some money...
• ...while not being able to even order coffee in the city's most popular coffee shop because none of your groupmates can speak Italian.
• If exchange to you is about blowing up two lakh rupees you paid as fees for this term on pointless lectures...
• ...which you will try to bunk as many as you can...
• ...instead of even trying to take an interest in their teaching methodology and content.
• If exchange to you is only about tourism and a having a checklist of the number of countries and cities you have visisted.
• If you want to make contacts in a part of the world which does not speak your language, has a declining population and is destined for economic oblivion soon.
• If you can live without access to Indian food or edible and cheap western food OR can cook well enough
• Have a larger budget but lower appetite for fun
  

You should go to North America if:

• Tourism to you is more about doing exciting stuf...
• ...with people from all over the world...
• ...while sleeping over in cheap youth hostel the previous night where btw you meet a whole lot of interesting and wierd characters...
• ...all of whom can speak good English in addition to the eclectic mix of exchange students you are traveling with from all over the world. Its true, in Quebec city, I was with a gang of people in which there was atleast one native speaker of Spanish, Portuguese, German, French and Italian besides English, ofcourse.
  
• If exchange to you is also about experiencing education in some of the world's best MBA schools and getting your money's worth...
• ...during which you will be required to study in challenging courses and compete with students here...
• ...since the teaching style and way students work is a bit different.
• If exchange to you is more about meeting new people, relatives and friends who are in the US working or studying
  
• If you want to make contacts in a part of the world which contributes 30% of global GDP which has an increasing population and is on track to remain the engine of the world's economy for a fair bit longer and make good friends with the gang of exchange students in your university while touring around
• If you crave for parathas with makkhan often since you have to walk just 10 minutes to get it in most cities here at cheap rates OR cannot cook well enough
• Have a smaller budget but big appetite of fun
  

So basically, as Sarvesh has often heard, in North America:

• You get better tourism - less rocks, more people
  
• You make better friends from European exchange schools and better contacts in North America
• You get quality education from universities global recruiters recognize
• You get to meet most people you know in the US who can also accompany your travels (make note of the italicized most, NJ)

But not everyone has a 3.8 GPA. Hence, Schulich and Toronto. I rest my case.

Schulich life

Schulich School of Business, south entrance

View of the courtyard from the 3rd floor looking east

Writing names of coursemates in the class break of the International Business course

 

  Raghav and Audrey in deep conversation

 Steve and Jo post the lecture

nice friday

Iceskating (with its inevitable hurting legs, falling on your ass and other embarassments), beauty sleep for three hours and a night on the town - today was a good day :)

Though the bumps I am discovering on my body (knee, skull) as a result of falling on the ice are kind of a party spoiler. And so is the sore feeling in all my muscles. But so long as I do not break any bones :) Ice skating is funnnn! The music last night sucked. But going out is still fun. Shady alleys to get into the club and a star mark on the wrist as a proof of entry makes the entire experience interesting.

Schedule

With no batchmates with whom I share all or most of the courses staying across the hallway to remind me of the umpteen projects and assignments, I have been forced to maintain a sheet of activities I need to do. Keep track of time tables, expenses, groceries, deadlines - it never ends.

Independence and growing up is overrated.

Scott library has like 200 books by Wodehouse! Another 25 on his life and writing style. I love it.

Consumerism and Anti-consumerism

I just won a book titled Dematerializing (about taming the power of possessions) for best debate speaking against consumerism. If not grades, atleast I am doing well in class participation :)

Was not a surprise though since I hate consumerism so much - it felt natural for me to debate against it. The amount of trash Americans produce daily is simply mind boggling. For a person like me who feels bad if I use one more plastic bag than is necessary and actually feels guilty of throwing away water bottles instead of reusing it since it would add to the pollution, watching the incredible amount of consumerism and trash generation here is like seeing Mother Earth being screwed over and over again. Hope things change for the better soon.c

A very nice, albeit radical, video we studied today on consumerism is available here. Helps put things into perspective.

SF and LA

Following my stay with Mama, the California trip became crazy intensive.

Stays in Marriotts with awesome views and learning about wines was over :(

Though I did make the most of the concierge services on the last day - heavy breakfast and a SF map which I pored over for over an hour to plan my next few days. The SF public transit does need an hour to understand and get used to - very complicated!

Shopped at the Zara at Nordstrom across Powell St station for a sweater

On the cable car

Which turn around at either end of the tracks

And travel the steep inclines of SF at a steady 9.5mph. Its scary!

An American city without tall buildings? No way!

Went around Fisherman's wharf and Pier 39 - nothing impressive there except for the nice roadside characters. A couple was walking along stark naked along the seashore oblivious to the astonished and smiling faces of passersby like me. This city has character and is very unlike any other American city I've seen. Loved it! Then went to meet my professor in Fremont and had a nice Italian lunch.

The sunset at Berkeley where I stayed with Kaustubh was just too beautiful for words :)

A little bakar and some more Rosé sparking wine with H8 and iitb junta

A tour of the beautiful Berkeley campus - crown jewel of the UC system. Its 17 Nobel laureates get special parking spaces. I saw one of them. 17 of them! Too much. Btw, Haas is tiny compared to even WIMWI.

Next stop - LA on Southwest. It is easily the most efficient airline I've flown. It did have an amazing turnaround time - totally worth deciding to fly instead of taking the bus. LAX is huge!!! Like a little city unto itself - and I've seen Newark, Chicago's O'Hare and Singapore's Changi by now. Enough to let them build skyscrapers between runways.

Next stop - Hollywood. These Incredible India ads are everywhere! In SF and now in LA. Nothing interesting in LA or Hollywood to make it a must visit.

Michael and Marilyn talk on the Hollywood Boulevard.

A short trip later, I was in Pasadena with JK. As you can see above, he has not changed much. I think that might be the same tshirt he was wearing back in iit :P

Jhagda karne se to pyaar badhta hai it seems to suggest! :P

Road trip on California reminds me of this one song - California by Phantom Planet
Also reminds me of how I was christened Abhishek thanks to Piya

Had lunch at a charming Mexican place called El Paseo which is tucked away in a corner of Santa Barbara's main street. When I hated the food but still was willing to pay the 11 dollars (really cheap for the kind of place we were in; we expected much higher), I commented that 'we don't pay for the food we eat, we pay for the experience'. To which JK said how I have grown horns akin to Dilbert's boss and he is so happy to become a professor so as not to be reporting to a jackass like me :P

The gang is satisfied after a wonderful lunch

We walk around the small, town with a European feel where a lot of celebrities are apparently moving.

Did some silly stuff in Berkeley like throwing stones into the water and competing with each other (competition doesn't get out of the system, does it?)

Highlight of the day - Crookedest street in San Francisco. Its a steep and highly crooked street where driving is a big dangerous but fun activity. Very picturesque.

JK being his usual self. I mean smelling bath salts is one thing but to pose for the camera?

These are some of the things besides having icecream in the world's most famous ice cream parlour (or something like that) in Ghirardelli Square, lunch at Lori's diner - amazing place again, walking along SF bay with random dogs (people love dogs more than their kids here I guess), spotting a whole bunch of gay looking people and other activities. Also once found ourselves in a really shady neighborhood with crazy people - I mean all the people we saw on the street were lunatic looking or extremely shady. We got the hell out of there as soon as we could. But all in all, a lot of fun.

Detroit and Buffalo look like ghost towns - you can clearly see that unemployment and decline in  manufacturing has hit these cities bad. I was in the heart of downtown for4 hours but I dared not step outside the bus terminal since the area looked so shady - homeless people and similar random scary characters were roaming about and I did not see much traffic or security outside so I kept to myself in the terminal. Similarly, the airport at Detroit gave a similar feeling to me. Spooky.

But it was the return journey which killed me. A 4 hour wait at the SFO airport followed by two flights back to Buffalo. Another 6 hour wait at the Buffalo airport/bus terminal. Followed by a 3 hour bus ride to Toronto and another hour of Toronto's public transit. All of this with barely any sleep is enough to kill someone. But it was not enough for me. The lecture I had to attend after that followed by settling accounts and some studying for the Entrepreneurship exam did me in. And then I slept like a very satisfied log. And now I have a long weekend ahead to recharge - Yay!

SF trip till now

It has been a great past few days! I left my Consumer Behavior class in the middle to catch my Megabus to Buffalo. Flights from Buffalo to any US city are atleast 200 dollars cheaper than from Toronto btw. But I had to stay overnight at tha airport for 6 hours since the flight was at 6AM and I reached the airport at midnight.

Buffalo Airport

O'Hare

Luckily, I met an interestingly crazy 19 year old Canadian girl who bicycles 50kms daily on her job delivering courier packages! She guessed my age to be around 20 - I liked her right then! But 3 hours of talking is all I could handle of her and then we left each other at peace. 3 United flights, 2 stopovers (O'Hare is enormous!), 3 hours of sleep and looking at a number of old and ugly air hostesses (and hosts - wtf?) later, I was in SFO airport. Luckily I found Mama very easily - in the same place we had decided to meet. A not-so-quick Hertz rental car later, we were on the freeway and my high life was about to begin :)

Wooden benches on the golf green

A view to kill for

Mama is an entreprenuer and a researcher. We met his friend in his house south of San Francisco. Its not a house but a 10 million dollar mansion with a basketball court, swimming pool, jacuzzi, miniature golf course, a fountain, a budding vineyard and a huge garden. And that is just the outside. It's like a scene straight out of Entourage! I enjoyed the views and the sunset.

Nice view, eh?

I am not used to staying in 5 star hotels, much less changing one everyday. But being on a vaction with an Uncle who is a loyal Marriott Platinum customer has its advantages. Free upgrades to suites, stellar service and free English breakfast (my favourite meal ever - I ate heartily, didn't feel hungry till the evening!) being some of them :)

As a stroll, we went to see the work of some New York surrealist called obonski in a random store near Union Square followed by some good Trius wine from Ontario. Hmmm.

San Francisco is wavy!

Wine teacher

Went to the Robert Mondavi winery in Napa Valley and had a brief winery tour with expensive wine tasting at the end. She double checked if I was 21, that always makes me so happy :P I started getting some aspects of wine, but not all of it :( I think I have to soon accept the fact that I do not 'get' wine (like art) that well; but I like it over any other drink nevertheless. Ofcourse, talking out of my ass about wine is a natural talent most MBAs can do and so can I. But that is not my intention in learning about wine.

Dinner

Mama and his friends had some good news to celebrate and hence we had a fancy Italian dinner in a fancy Italian restuarant, Rose Pinola, which I suspect went upwards of $125 per person! But they deserved it that day I guess from the happy looks on their faces. Plus the fact that 2005 Masi Costaera Classico Amarone wine does not come cheap either. And 2 of them definitely do not come cheap! Well, so long as they are happy...

Sitting in Renaissance and typing this out is a good feeling  but have to leave for my English Breakfast soon... :)