Tag: Europe

Written by Edward Bouldin, Master’s of Accountancy, ’19

On a typical day, I travel from Wiesbaden to arrive at the Ostrich-Winkle but on this particular day I stayed with some friends in Frankfurt. The train from Frankfurt to Ostrich-Winkle takes some 45 minutes to arrive. Surprisingly tons of people actually travel by train from the Frankfurt “Hauptbahnhoff” towards Ostrich-Winkle everyday. Frankfurt is a busy city not unlike DC.

As I walked around the University for the first 30 minutes before class I peaked in just about every room. Old chandeliers and cabinets adorned the sides and rear of each class. It looked like New York Library meets West Minister Abbey. Adjacent to our classroom I found a grand piano so I began to play a little bit of John Legend. Within 30 seconds the smooth melody of “We’re Just Ordinary People” filled the old halls of the school. It was only me there at the time. A tree fell in the woods and nobody heard it. Once that was out of my system I continued my observation outside.

The school has a large courtyard where students can gather and hang out during breaks in the class. There are a few tables there for people to sit and eat as well as lunch is offered at a very small fee. The food was generally pretty good. I think I might have paid five euro or so for everything, including a Euro Snicker bar. I say Euro because it’s just not as sweet as I remember from back home.

About 30 minutes elapses and the class begins. Dr. Niels Deschow is now about to stand in from of us for almost eight hours teaching us about Auditing and its future. He talks in front of us until he is almost out of breath. The general rule in the states is for every hour or hour and a half you teach comes a ten-minute break. Not here. It was a little something I had to get used to. Good thing I had the cappuccino from earlier! Homework for the week consists of four separate articles on the future of Auditing practices and two case studies. I look forward to what the next few weeks bring.

Written by Edward Bouldin, Master's of Accountancy, '19

Hattenheim has one of the smallest train stations I have ever seen. In fact it's more like a stop in between than a station as there is no real building where people can go inside and physically buy tickets. In fact there is only a small-automated machine that allows you to purchase tickets. After I left the Hattenheim train stop I began looking for the direction of the EBS, which I saw immediately after, is located a short walk over a bridge past a vineyard. Usually that would be where I need to go but today I was starting my German Intensive Course offered gratis by the EBS and needed to go to the language center located on the Burg Campus, which was about, 2km walk in the same direction. Thinking I was smart I jumped on the first bus I saw going in that direction and that's where the fun began.

A quick look at my cell phone made me aware that I was about an hour and a half early for the class, which at the time I thought I wouldn’t need, and regretted having came so early. Again, the Burg Campus was about a 2km distance from the Hattenheim train stop with no turn in direction.

That’s where I thought the bus I was on was going until it made a left turn from the path. I thought ok no big deal, this is the time that I must get off and find my way back walking. In theory that was a good idea but the next stop was about 2.5 kilometers away. I got off the bus and switched to the other side thinking that the next bus should be coming soon. I was mistaken. The next bus wouldn’t come until one hour and fifteen minutes had elapsed! Unsure what to do I looked at the “MyTaxi” app (since Germany doesn’t have “Über’and the next taxi would have to come from a city that was 15 minutes away. My direction app told me that the campus was 2.8 KM away and I would need between 35 and 40 minutes to walk there. I than began walking by foot. My first piece of advice to the students thinking of studying here abroad is to ensure that they have done a thorough reconnaissance of the location prior to embarking on a journey that they have never done and also to have some sort of smart phone with internet on it. The EBS Business school is located between two very small communities and beyond them there is nothing else but vineyards, mountains and packs of wild pigs…. Yes, packs of wild pigs.

The rest of the week was much better than the first day. We all had to be in class at 0830 daily so I took the train from Wiesbaden at 0700 and rode 30 minutes to Hattenheim. This time I let the bus to Hallgarten pass me by J. I walked for about 2kms to the Burg Campus and arrived with about 30 minutes to spare before the class started each day. The second day I immediately began looking for café’s to get a coffee as I am an avid coffee drinker and that is usually true for the entire day. I think that may mean I don’t get enough sleep. Anyway there was no coffee shop or café to be found save the one located at the Swan Inn about 30m walk away from the campus. Unfortunately that café was not what we as Americans would consider a café and I was unable to get a coffee. I went the rest of the week without it. Argh!

Next week I’ll be starting the first class of my two that I will take throughout the semester. I really look forward to taking it all in and documenting every part of it.