So, what's been happening in the past week? ...

Ok, so I've been a little slack at keeping the weblog up to date over the past week or so. Truth be known I've been busy travelling, sightseeing, and absorbing the b-school scene in the north-east.


Last Monday I visited Columbia Business School in Morningside Heights in New York. This b-school has everything I'm looking for - well established, well regarded program, a campus atmosphere and a city location. There's even accomodation on campus for international students at subsidised rates - awesome! It is a little heavilly focussed on finance though, which is not surprising given its proximity to Wall Street. All up - pretty good. I've added it to my short-list and will be carefully watching how its entrepreneurship program develops over the next two years.


My final night in New York was pretty memorable. At the hostel I met a musician from Chicago who was on a similar quest to me (searching for a graduate program), and we went out on the town to the Village, visiting an entertaining bar/restaurant called Lips where all the waitresses were drag queens (hello to Ginger and Gusty Winds if you're listening). We also went out to a cool Jazz bar called the Blue Note - great music, but the drinks were way overpriced.


B-school number eleven was the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philapdelphia. Wharton's aim seems to be to be the biggest and the best. They take around 700 students a year (slightly less than Harvard), and have the most clubs and the most electives. However, I fear they may have spread themselves too thin - some of the electives are hotly contested, whereas others have very few students. Interesting b-school, lovely historic campus, but if I lived there I think I'd find myself wondering off to New York all the time as there's not a great deal to do in Philadelphia. It was unfortunate that I visited Wharton the day before Thanksgiving as most of the students seemed to be discussing where they were going for the weekend rather than immersing themselves in the latest business concepts.


I spent Thanksgiving day checking out the historic sites in Philadelphia, went to see 'Unbreakable' to see the rest of the sites (quick review: worth checking out, great twist at the end, won't be as much of a classic as 'The Sixth Sense'), and then caught a train down to Washington, DC.


I've been in Washington for the past three days, absorbing myself in the Smithsonian, and taking heaps of photos of sculptures, monuments, and memorials. Amazing town - definitely one up on Canberra. The Smithsonian is huge - I've been to the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, the National Air & Space Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the National Museum of Natural History, and the National Museum of American History, and there's still more to see. The Thanksgiving weekend crowds were rather annoying, and the queues to visits special exhibitions and the Whitehouse are ridiculous, but overall its a great experience. When I originally allocated five days to visit Washington I thought it was a bit excessive, but it turns out that I could probably keep myself busy here for up to two weeks.


Alas, that won't be the case, as I'm off to Florida on Tuesday to pay homage to Disney and NASA.