Our last week in Gainesville, which we spent with regional discussions, ended with a very nice farewell dinner at Aida and Richard’s house. The relaxed atmosphere (incl. dancing, cigar smoking, and other funny stuff ) mirrored our groups’ good vibrations and Gainesville bid us farewell with a massive tropical thunderstorm.

It was a great [...]

Yesterday we had a 4th of July BBQ with Senator Steve Oelrich (R). On the picture below you see his residence at Cross Creek.

One of the highlights of the evening (apart from Joost’s pyrotechnical experiments ) was the ride with an airboat.

Click on the picture below to watch a short clip.

Happy 4th of July!
After four days in Miami and one day in Orlando we are now back in Gainesville. South Beach was fun and very relaxing (awesome breakfasts, sports, …). As you can see on the schedule, we also had a lot of meetings. Our visits to the Miami Herald and the Cuban American National [...]

Click here for a first series of pictures taken in Miami. Our hotel is literally only a stone’s throw away from the beach …

Approx. 701 mi (1.128 km) in three days … not bad.
On Sunday we traveled to St. Augustin, which is the oldest city in the US. The heat was stunning!

We then went on to an outlet center near St. Augustine, where the group spent a couple of hours shopping. A small sub-group of quick-shoppers and non-shoppers [...]

This week we had a number of interesting lectures on a variety of topics (click here to see the overview). Richard Scher gave as an overview of the different levels of the U.S. federal system and the tension between Art. 1 and the 10 th amendment of the U.S. constitution. Richard Conley lectured on the [...]

Today we went to the Alachua Sink to look for some aligators. Not only did we see a couple of them, but we also met Dominick Martino, a wildlife photographer. He has many beautiful wildlife pictures on his web-page. Click here to view it. The pictures below are definitely not as professional as Mr. Martino’s [...]

The first week was … excellent!
First of all, I really enjoy the friendly atmosphere in the group. It’s only seven days that we all met, but it feels like we have known each other for a much a longer time. That’s really, really cool. Second, I guess that my Amazon.com wishlist is a pretty good [...]