a belated happy dad's day

i did not forget about father's day since my dad was actually here in switzerland! although he and mom were away for the weekend, we spent one day biking together soon after and i think that counts as a pretty good father's day. we rode part of route 62 backwards, starting in Chatel-St-Denis near Gruyeres. i'm a little embarrassed to say that we only made it to Romont, 33km total ride, because the hills of this region are deceiving! from the train the terrain appears gentle and rolling, but we managed to find some very fierce hills. on one of the downhills i reached a speed of 38 mph- so you can imagine the climbing we did.

the route is really nice for anyone looking for a moderate ride- located between Lausanne and Fribourg with no major mountains in the way. you just need to hop on a train with your bike and within 30 minutes you are ready to bike through the hay fields, "rolling" hills and small swiss towns with mountain vistas in view. not much traffic- but a few tractors...

i'm pretty sure that dad enjoyed the ride, and hoping that the rest of you enjoyed a great father's day!

so true.

"One of the interesting things about success is that we think we know what it means. A lot of the time our ideas about what it would mean to live successfully are not our own. They’re sucked in from other people. And we also suck in messages from everything from the television to advertising to marketing, etcetera. These are hugely powerful forces that define what we want and how we view ourselves. What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas and make sure that we own them, that we’re truly the authors of our own ambitions. Because it’s bad enough not getting what you want, but it’s even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isn’t, in fact, what you wanted all along."

[Alain de Botton]

found on Brain Pickings. we've been talking a lot about what we want to do after IMD and sometimes its so difficult to separate the 'want' from the 'should'.

sharpen your #2s...

howie is in his second exam of the week- three more to go after this. (including the dreaded accounting!) that means that after this week "classes" are over, and the next few weeks will be spent finishing up papers, preparing for their south africa trip, and some electives. howie will be traveling to mexico for a conference, because of his team's 2nd place finish in the video contest. even though he will have plenty to do, it will be great to be done with the 8 hour lecture days and move on to something new.

i can't believe june is here already and in just a couple of hours mom and dad are arriving! we've got some fun things planned, including a trip to prague to get a taste of the country where about 1/2 of my ancestors originated. hopefully we'll spend some time relaxing by the lake, too.

i've been recovering from last week's visit from erin and rob (& poppy)- we had a great time in the alps, lucerne, and lausanne. lots of cheese eating, wine drinking and good times with great friends! i am slowly catching up on my recent travels, so more coming soon :)

i've cooked a couple of great things recently- these meatball subs were amazing(!) and this cake is sitting in my kitchen and i'm trying not to eat it all...

(p.s. the swiss strawberries are so delicious right now!)

mbat (paris!)

partners make a great cheering squad

Howie and Houssam schooling the opposition

mbat- i have no idea what it stands for, but means something about mba students pretending to be athletes for a weekend and competing against all of the other european mba schools.

team strategy- easier than accounting?

celebrating after the win

paris? kind of. the mbat event was hosted at HEC Paris. Which, is not really "in" paris at all. apparently HEC hosts this event every year but uses the event as an opportunity to teach their students about operations or some other business-school related stuff.

IMD had the best team spirit!

Nisha and Lois brought Shakira with them everywhere

Caroline, Howie & Hannes cheering on badminton players

so the IMD students organized themselves into teams, made arrangements and set off to the mbat for a weekend. many of the partners joined as well, hoping to get a glimpse of their husbands, wives, girlfriends, fiances etc. for a few hours while they were on this short 4 day break. this was my plan as well, including hopes for seeing paris again after about 10 years since the last time.

as much as the weekend was a disaster, it was also great fun. i enjoyed cheering on Howie at his basketball games (they won one game!) as well as some of the other sporting events. i also enjoyed my short time in the city- i had forgotten how amazing the street life is in paris.

another glimpse at the Pompidou center

good memories

the disaster part is the fact that our hotel was even further out of the city than HEC, even past versailles. the event was so poorly organized that there were no shuttle busses corresponding to the schedule, and parties were so horribly done and difficult to get to that we went to none. it was even difficult to get around campus as many of the events were spread out to other venues.

paris has amazing street life

despite the run-around, it was great to have a weekend off, some time with howie, and great food in paris! we're definitely going back to that amazing city.

Howie and Rali

enjoying a drink after an amazing dinner of foie gras & duck!

Epesses+sun+wine

for an afternoon, i stepped into a whole new switzerland. disorderly queues, crowded streets, and even some singing in the streets. not that the swiss never let their hair down, but i live in the IMD/saving money bubble of the occasional bar night and once in a blue moon restaurant meal.

Epesses is a tiny town amongst the terraced vineyards on the hillside next to lake geneva. one day of the year all of the wineries (les vignerons) of the epesses region open their 'cave a vin' for tasting. one can purchase a glass for 20 fr. and can taste all they want for free.

I set out with Sharon, Verity & little Hemming for an afternoon of tasting. the weather was gorgeous and we thoroughly enjoyed tasting and meandering the tiny streets of epesses.  great views of the lake and the surrounding vineyards. too bad we packed our own picnic and couldn't partake in this spit-roasted cow.

Verity, Sharon, me. 

town of Epesses and vineyards overlooking the lake

an entire cow, spit-roasted.

of course, i give them props for investing in some decent graphics as well.

gummy spear!

watch their website for the 2012 date, this year was the 7th of May.