WOW!!!! MOUNTAINS AND SNOW AND COLD WEATHER

This past week marked my first RBE experience at Thunderbird.  The Thunderbird MBA Program requires students to take 2 Regional Business Environment (RBE) classes as part of their curriculum.  The program offers 2 trips in the Winter, Summer and Fall.  The trips are broken down into regions, and you can't take two RBEs in the same region, so you get to choose.  Here's how my RBE break-out looks for my time at school:

RBE Winter 2011:
Geneva, Switzerland
Santiago, Chile

RBE Summer 2011:

Prague, Czech Republic
Beijing, China

RBE Fall 2011:
Hong Kong, China
Sao Paulo, Brazil

RBE Winter 2012:
Shanghai, China
Johannesberg, South Africa

So if you take your first RBE in Europe you can't take your second one in Europe; you have to choose a new region.  This is because the content and professors are specific to the region: Asia, Europe, Africa, South America

The RBE is an intense week.  The class starts about a month before the trip when a book is mailed to your house and a team assignment is laid-out on the class web page.  The team assignment consists of a 2-6 page executive summary on a topic chosen from a list provided to the class (first come first serve - no two teams can do the same project) and a 25 minute presentation at the end of the class week.  While in country, one day is reserved for company visits and the other 4 days consist of class lectures and case studies.  The average day runs from 8am to 7pm!

I chose Geneva and Hong Kong, and this past week I flew on up to Switzerland for my week of work.  Prior to the trip, a lot of students planned a few extra days in France or Italy as part of a vacation.   I didn't have the time to do this, so I decided, after reading-up on the internet and checking in with my traveling Mom and Dad, that I could fly into Zurich and take a train over to Geneva.  This would be a 3 hour train ride and would provide plenty of scenery.

Unfortunately it rains/snows a lot in Switzerland during the winter months, but that didn't halt the Alps from reaching down into Lake Geneva.

This is the view from the train, overlooking Lake Geneva.

Before I got to this point however, we traversed across an amazing countryside.  Switzerland is so clean and beautiful.  My train ride was definitely worth it.

Once in Geneva, we buried ourselves in work, with the exception of the one day we visited companies.  Our trip was highlighted by two particular visits.  One to Nestle, the world's largest food company (and chocolate bar maker) and one to the US Embassy in Geneva.

This is the view from the sixth floor of Nestle's headquaters.  Not bad at all.  I can't imagine what it would look like when the sky is cloudless. 

Before Nestle we had a class lunch in Nyon.  Despite the rain, the central town area was shadowed by this awesome museum.

The US Embassy was a treat.  The speakers were great and I grabbed my only non-Blackberry photograph.

I am sporting some style out on the far left.  My roommate is in the center of the picture.  Will Randle is the tallest guy in the picture.  My roommate, Ryan Collins, is the first guy to the right of Will.

So yes, I had a roommate in Switzerland, but avoiding an extra $845 to grab my own room was well worth it.  Ryan and I had worked together before, and we were on the same team this week as well.  That made being roommates really helpful as we could pound out our work in the room instead of having to meet in the lobby.

Ryan is a great Christian guy as well.  We share the same sense of humor, and it was on full display the first morning in Geneva.  Our alarm rang-off at 6am and Ryan volunteered to be the first into the shower (we agreed to alternate first up through the week.).  Ryan stumbles into the bathroom and I hear the water turn on.  Like most shower-baths, the faucet starts on and a lever re-directs the water to the shower head.  I hear the lever click up and then, "Oh man!  Goodness...."  Then all quieted down as Ryan took his shower.

5 minutes later Ryan turned-off the water and climbed out of the shower (my bed was right next to the bathroom so I could hear everything).  I hear Ryan fumbling with his travel pack, then some fumbling with the wall socket and on goes his electric razor.  No more than a minute later, "What the...."  There is no sound as the bathroom door opens.  "The power just went out."  "What do you mean, in the bathroom.  You probably tripped the breaker."  Ryan responds, "I tried to switch it but nothing works."  I realize now that nothing is on in the room.  The clock is off, the lights don't work.  Nice.  Ryan stumbles next to my bed and picks-up the phone to call the front desk.

"Yes monsier, wie, wie, bonjour, woo wu, sivuple...yes, the power is out in our room.  Ok, thank you....mercier."

"They're coming up."

Ryan then steps around to the room door and looks out into the hallway.

"Dude, the power is out on the whole floor!"  Ryan is back in the room.  "And I've got half of my face shaved!"

The knock at the door precludes some more French and then Ryan leaning out the door again.  "The guy is clipping over the breaker for the entire floor...I knocked out power for the entire floor." 

So with power restored I drag into the bathroom.  The past 10 minutes had completely erased my memory of the shower drama that Ryan experienced.  The bath-shower has the typical European half-glass that covers part of the bathroom from the water.  Our shower faucet is in the middle of the shower for some reason, and it moves up and down a bar that is mounted to the wall.  I flip on the water and let it warm up for a minute, then pull on the shower lever.  Without warning the faucet jumps out of the holder and starts spraying me and the entire bathroom.  I feel like a kid in Harlem playing around the open fire hydrant.  Things are completely out of control until I finally get my hands on the shower faucet and re-attach it to the holder.  Aren't watches made here?  That's all I can conjure up as I duck into the shower.

Great trip everyone.  Thanks for hanging in with me between posts.  More adventures are to come!