Tuesday was spent listening to case studies of coalition building (failures and successes) from all around the world. I made a more detailed post about it here. Here are Pedro, Beatrice and I during break. Pedro is from Venezuela, and Beatriz from Brazil. Future Presidents of their countries 🙂
And here is another view from the balcony of the Academy. This is Gummersbach. A nice, quiet place.
We made our way to Dusseldorf to visit a State Parliament. The Parliament building is made up of circles with the session area in the middle. Nice architecture where everything is transparent and the MPs can see each other. Good idea for our own Congress which is still classroom type.
We listened to one of the MPs and how they try to form coalitions to pass legislation. Well, here is our “listening” – me and Antoaneta from Bulgaria.
At the end of the day we dropped by Koln. We had 6 hours to spend, and knowing me, that seemed like torture. 6 hours of walking around! But seeing the Cathedral was just AWESOME. I was able to spend time in the Blessed Sacrament, visit the relics of the three wise men, attend the saying of the rosary in German, and go to Mass in German too. Well worth it.
So beautiful. The Cathedral was spared during the war because the Allied forces used it as a reference point to bomb other places. That was more of an act of God in my opinion. He spares the faithful. So, please, be faithful.
And outside, while waiting for our colleagues, I bumped into old College AIESEC friends! Talk about random and a small world. They are on vacation here. hi Joy and Jeff! Nice to see you after more than a decade!
The Padilla 7 