Waterloo

As we were

As we were traveling to Belgium, we passed the famous site of Waterloo as depicted in the picture above. Dean Anderson began to quiz us if we knew what was so significant about this battle. I remembered the Battle of Waterloo was fought in the early 1800's between Emperor Napoleon and the Duke of Welllington, but I learned that it was this battle that put an end to Napoleon's reign as Emperor of the French and ended his return from exile. It was very neat to be traveling next to such a historic sight and reflect how far Europe has come from constant war to now working with the European Union unifying European Countries. I also reflected on our chocolate simulation in class and reading our book on understanding the European Union. It's amazing to think that Europe is fighting political and policy battles rather than combat or other types of war. Even though it can be frustrating at times nobody agrees on an issue, the advantages and progress made over the last 50 years is well worth it. After reflecting on all this, we arrived at Huntsman Chemical and were given a very nice discussion of European History and its significance. This was very appropriate and our class was able to make certain connections between European History and culture norms found in European business.