Today marked our last full day in Bilbao. It still feels unreal that the trip is already coming to an end. Over the past week, I’ve had the chance to meet so many incredible people, learn from amazing professionals, and experience a completely different culture and healthcare system. It has been such a meaningful experience!…
Day 12: Farewell Bilbao!
Sadly, today was our last full day in Bilbao before flying back home tomorrow, but it was still a great day! We started the day with another delicious breakfast at the hotel before walking to the engineering school for the last time! At the engineering school, we got a final presentation from Saioa where we…
Driven to Perfection
Day 5: Glass Egg: A Virtuous Studio We went to Glass Egg Animation Studio. It was my favorite site visit so far. They are the number one animation studio in the world for cars. As a self-proclaimed animator who takes four hours to animate a simple ball bounce on Procreate Dreams, I found particular appreciation…
Today’s site visit took us to Glass Egg Digital Media, and I can say without hesitation that it has been my favorite of the entire trip so far. Walking through the studio floor by floor was genuinely impressive. Each level was dedicated to a different area of game development, with sections focused on car design,…
Research Makes the World Go Round
So it turns out I left Pitt just to end up at another research institution. POSTECH, Pohang University of Science and Technology, is a university based out of Pohang, South Korea. We started the day with a presentation from the admissions team. I learned that POSTECH is only about 40 years old, but it has…
Day 5: Gaming, Growth, and Global Connections
Today’s visit to Glass Egg was a very informative experience because I had very limited exposure and knowledge about the gaming and digital art industry before this session. Hearing the company’s story and learning about the work they do gave me a much better understanding of how big the global gaming industry really is and…
Day 5: Cracking open GlassEgg
As someone who doesn’t love video games, hearing about the GlassEgg took me by surprise at how cool I found it. During the informative session before i was shocked to see how much they do and how the company operates. For example, I didn’t realize they were able to reuse design outlines and vary simple…
Day 5: Glass Egg and Boxing???
Today we were given a tour of Glass Egg, a rather popular digital media drawing studio. They’ve done the animation for games like Lego Fortnite, Forza, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and more! The tour began with an information and Q/A session, where we learned that they have partnerships with some games/companies for over 20…
Day 5: Glass Egg Site Visit
I believe that Glass Egg is able to dominate the design market by prioritizing their workers lifestyles and abilities, and by building and maintaining relationships with reliable developers that fund their work. Glass Egg is a company that excels in designing 3D cars for the electronic gaming industry, so I also feel like this is…
South Korea 12: The Reflections Will Continue Until Enlightenment Occurs
Today (and it is actually today, since I’m writing this on the plane the night of the last day) was our last day in Korea. Rather than do the responsible thing of sleeping in, I did the alternately responsible thing of waking up early to get as much out of the trip as possible. Saltbread…
Exploring Nature and Traveling Ecuador
Wednesday started with a gift: waking up to completely clear skies and a direct view of Cotopaxi right from the hotel. After breakfast, we headed up into the volcano and visited a crater lake at the top of the mountain, getting a guided tour with views that made you feel like you were standing inside…
From the Andes to the Amazon
We have now been on our trip for almost an entire week. It has been going by very fast, but we are still having a lot of fun. We went to Cayambe, which is a lake inside an old volcanic crater, and we got a boat tour of it. The views were amazing, and they…
South Korea 10-11: Ulsan Plant and TOPIS
So I’ll be perfectly frank in saying that I’m writing this on the long haul flight back to the USA. Got a bit behind on the blogs, it happens. Also, no huge revelations or intellectual (as my peers have been calling it) ideas, so a bit more objective reporting here. Also, since most of day…
From Cotacachi to Cocoa
It has been a few days since I last blogged, and I have a lot to fill you guys in on. Wednesday, we woke up and headed to Mama Cotacachi. This is the name the locals call the volcano we climbed. Once we got up there, and were on the lake, it was incomprehensible. I…
Happy Travels
Time flies quickly when you’re having fun, and these past two days have flown by. Our travel day started bright and early, around 7:30 am, where we grabbed a quick breakfast. While I was sad to leave such a beautiful area of Ecuador, I was also eager to move on to this next section of…
Crossing The Equator
Going into this trip I told myself there was only one thing I wouldn’t try. However after learning about how important it is to Ecuadorian culture, I decided I could not pass up the opportunity to try guinea pig. I am glad I tried it, but I probably wont be doing that again. Thursday started…
Days 4/5 – Before the Amazon
Last full day in Otavalo and it was a busy one! We started off early with a bus ride to a volcano with a massive caldera lake, where we had a boat tour. We then went on a hike around the perimeter of the lake and got some pretty cool drone shots with Skip’s piloting….
Happy Travel Day!!
I took a break from blogging last night, and lets just say that was a mistake. Looking back on my past two days, we had jam-packed days with amazing stories! On Wednesday, we started the day by driving to the volcano, Cotacachi. There were beautiful views of the volcano and we even got to take…
Day 12: Bedankt voor alles, Nederland!
Today was officially our last full day in the Netherlands. At around 10am, we headed to the metro and took a 45-minute train ride to The Hague. Upon arrival, our tour guide, Enno, explained how this city is home to the government and parliament of the Netherlands. We took a short but interesting tour around…
From Public to Private Hospitals (Day 6)
Day 6 was filled with many different visits and activities. We started out the morning by visiting Sanatorio Mater Dei, a private catholic hospital in the Palermo area. They are an institution owned and managed by Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary. Although it is located in Palermo, they receive patients from all over the area, which…