Tag: Diplomacy
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#57: Swarovski
This blog is a continuation of #56: The Heart of the Alps in which we visited Innsbruck, Austria. To begin, a relevant and humorous scene from the popular series Yellowstone: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tprs0QrUthg In the early 1890s, Daniel Swarovski registered a patent for a state-of-the-art machine designed to cut crystal with unprecedented precision. Born into a glass…
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#54: UNGA 80
In September 2023, my coworkers and I experienced our first United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). To those unfamiliar with the foreign affairs conference that takes place annually in New York City, I wrote in Blog #27 about the opportunity I was given to explain the event to a curious young man and his family while…
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#45: Zurich
As the largest city in Switzerland and a worldwide financial hub, Zurich lives up to a reputation described by one travel agency as “A sophisticated city with cosmopolitan luxury and an incredible atmosphere.” Statements like these are commonplace on the websites and brochures of hospitality industry businesses looking to claim a percentage of a person’s…
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#41: The 2024 Olympic Games
In 1972, the “darkest day in Olympic history” occurred during the Summer Games in Munich. Largely in part to the criticism of government forces having killed numerous revolutionaries protesting the 1968 Olympics in Mexico, it was decided that the German police guarding Munich four years later would be unarmed and nonconfrontational. Taking advantage of this…
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#40: Jordan
Considered by many historians to be the oldest continuously inhabited place in the world, present-day Amman is the capital and largest city of Jordan. Nearly half the population of the country lives in the immediate area of the Biblical city which was once known as Philadelphia thanks to Ptolemy II (Philadelphus) so humbly naming it…
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#39: London
The center of the world. At least, that’s what it felt like. Coming from a relatively new country like the United States, the history of London England is too much to fathom. Experiencing the traditions and architecture of “The Square Mile”, as the City of London proper is occasionally referred to, is something one could…
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#36: The 75-Year Flood (Part I)
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a relatively new country as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Situated on the Arabian Peninsula directly across the Persian Gulf from Iran, its modern fortune arose from beneath its own desert floor in the form of oil and gas. UAE’s initial ruler quickly reinvested much…
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#34: Pretzels and Beer
Continued from Blog #33: Munich Security Conference Hallway reputation. Personal brand. Leadership shadow. Regardless of the buzzwords we use to describe the way others think about us in the workplace, a bad reputation can be hard to shake. The concept isn’t exclusive to humans, either. Amsterdam banned the smoking of cannabis in public in an…
The Dark Passport 