Hank Davis compared studying abroad to a piece of chocolate.

“Everyone has seen a piece of chocolate, held it, but studying abroad is like tasting it. Walking along the cobble stone streets, viewing a Cathedral of some sort, standing under the Eiffel Tower, that’s the chocolate melting in your mouth,” said Davis, a business department professor.

A group of eight Eastern students and three faculty members studied abroad in Europe this past summer, and took time to get together for dinner Tuesday night.

“The thing about dinner overseas is you sit down at 7 p.m. and the table is yours until midnight, in America you are a little more rushed,” Davis said.

The students looked at different businesses while studying in Europe, the Mitsubishi Plant was one of them.

The students studied how they were operated, and the differences between American and European functions.

The plant had contained 32 different cultures working within.

Madeline Trimbile, a senior accounting major, said she already wants to go back to Europe for her masters.

“You won’t be able to have an opportunity like this again after college,” Trimbile said.

Trimbile received six credit hours for one class taken while studying abroad.

Eastern offered the same class, but for only three credits.

Classes took place Monday through Thursday and then the students were given the freedom to do what they wanted.

The only rule was they had to be back Monday morning, ready to learn.

“I would hear about the things they did over the weekend, and hear why they did not have their assignments completed,” said David Boggs, a school of business assistant professor, another faculty member who helped lead the trip.

The students joked about Josh Poshepny, a junior financing major, who frequently found himself lost while on the trip.

Train passes were part of the trips expense that allowed students to travel to neighboring countries.

Some of the countries the students visited were the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Rome; and it took a lot of walking to visit them all.

Jarrod Scherle, a senior financing major, said he lost 12 pounds after the trip.

The students said many of them met people while on the trip and are now friends through Facebook.

“At the beginning the students hung around the faculty members like bees to a honey hive, by the end they were one their own,” Davis said.

Allison Twaits can be reached at 581-7942 or altwaits@eiu.edu