The Alps

It is the last day here in Geneva, Switzerland. Tomorrow, I will be in Paris, France. The mountains here are amazing. Especially in Innsbruck, the mountains were giant walls surrounding the city. In Austria, we stayed at the facilities of the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck. While in Austria, we visited the Swarovski headquarters for a lesson in luxury and branding. After the corporate visit we went to their Crystal World museum (aka Kristallwelten)--probably one of the strangest/most interesting places in the world. It was like a cross between a modern art museum, a science museum, and being on LSD (at least what I would expect being on LSD would be like). We spent one afternoon at supposedly the highest mountain lake in Europe while we were in Austria, and then a couple days later we were at another mountain lake in Switzerland as we were passing by on our way to Geneva. Both of these places were astounding and definitely highlights on the trip. In Switzerland, we went to the Nestle headquarters and the WTO headquarters. The only downer about Switzerland are the prices. Just to give you an idea of the prices, a Big Mac costs about $12 USD. Everything else generally seems to cost at least twice of what I would expect to pay for it.

I have tried but am currently unable to post videos of Kristallwelten and the Swiss mountain lake, I'll post that when I can. 

Finally, for Dad--my video of the mountain lake was me saying that I love you and wish you a happy Father's day. Hopefully, I can post it soon. Our bus driver, Ronny, exclusively plays James Taylor on the bus quite often and it always reminds me of driving in the car with you.

The people of Europe

Its been a busy week, an update on Austria is coming, but for now...

My friend Keith and I are having a bit of a competition as we traverse the European continent. We all know that in general Europeans have a greater fashion sense than we do in the US. The game is to get the best photos of the most "fashionable" people of Europe. Here is part of my collection. Keith has some good ones that I missed out on, but I feel like my portfolio is quite solid. Enjoy.


Latvia: With suspenders to support his sweat pants, this man proves that you are never too old to make a fashion statement.

Germany: The beautiful view from the top of the city of Heidelberg. : )

Czech Republic: Sexy Saxman, Sergio Flores, rides a horse-pulled carriage through the historic streets of Prauge

Austria: A tourist from India styles a beautiful orange bandanna at the Swarovski Kristallwelten.

Corporate Visits

Most of what I have mentioned here on this blog has been mostly describing the different cities that I am in, but one of the key elements of this trip has been the corporate visits. The corporate visits are what sets this trip apart. The five that we had in Germany and Prague were particularly good.

We had three corporate visits on our second day in Germany: Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, and a John Deere manufacturing headquarter in Mannheim. The Deutsche Bank presentation was not as inspiring as I was hoping, but the company headquarter building was amazing. It is one of the most state of the art buildings in the world and one of the "greenest" buildings in the world. The ECB was a great presentation. Our presenter was a extremely knowledgeable guy and we all got to discuss some of the recent events in the Eurozone with him such as the sovereign debt crisis and what the ECBs role is in that. This was all stuff that we were talking about in my comparative economics class. We ended the full day with the John Deere visit. I was impressed with the kind of technology they have in their tractor equipment and how much they invest daily in R&D. Probably the highlight of the day was touring their manufacturing facilities. I never thought that I would learn so much here. Every process was evaluated and they seemed to squeeze every bit of efficiency out the facility, even with all the necessary customization. We saw tractors ready to ship to the US, Africa, and all over Europe. 

In Czech, spent the afternoon at StanleyBlack & Decker manufacturing facility. Specifically this facility manufactured DeWalt power tools. These were the tools that I handled on the construction sites a couple summers ago. The expat managers seemed to do a great job of understanding the local environment and adapting to the Czech mindset. Again, their manufacturing processes were managed proficiently. I think that there was a lot of carry over to my global strategy class. Finally, we sat down with an Australian expat who worked for the global marketing firm, DDB. They were responsible for the local add campaigns of companies like McDonald's and Volkswagen. This was our first marketing-centric presentation and it was a solid presentation.

I think that touring these facilities has given me a broader perspective of business and all of the industries that contribute to global business. I have been trying to soak up as much as possible. 

Heidelberg and Prague

Sorry that it has been a while since I’ve updated this blog. By the time I post this I will be in Innsbruck, Austria. The past week and a half has been busy with corporate visits classes and exploring the cities.

Heidelberg was our first stop after we returned from Russia. It has also been my favorite stop until this point.  I am not sure whether to call it a city or a town, but it is a kind of place that I could see myself living in someday. Its home to Germany’s most reputable university. The 5 days that we spent there were just about enough to enjoy everything about this quaint city. I probably logged about 10 miles of walking a day. Our hotel was a few blocks away from the city center. There was a mile long main street that had shops all up and down it. I probably walked this about 4 times a day. As you can perhaps make out in my pictures, the town is surrounded by hills and has a river running through it. Just across the river there is a beautiful path that we hiked up where we could see out over the whole city. A few of us did this at night so that we could watch a fireworks show from above the city. Fireworks shot out of the castle and the bridge—probably the most spectacular fireworks show that I've seen. The day after fireworks, we went to church and then the castle. This great time in Heidelberg does not exclude the great corporate visits we had in Germany. I’ll highlight some of the corporate visits in my next blog tomorrow. (I intend on posting a new post for the next three days. That should make up for the week and a half of nothing).

Prague is another city with a great view from the top. Out hotel was above the main part of town about 30 minutes outside the city center. The walk down into the city is amazing. I did it a couple times on a couple beautiful days. One observation about the service and the people in Prague: I found that at restaurants and stores the people where a bit surly and not helpful. I had a couple bad experiences with unexpected added charges on our bill. Prague was similar to Russia in this way. I've wondered if the lack of good service is a repercussion of a communist past. (BTW note about restaurants in Europe: I'll be happy to get back to the states where water, refills on drinks, and all restrooms are free.) 

Tomorrow, I'll update you on my corporate visits and the next day I'll show you some funny pics from the people, after that I'll let you know what is going on here in Austria. Thanks for reading. Here are some pics.

 Heidelberg: Near the river

 Heidelberg: Our tour guide pointing a stick at a model of the castle

 Heidelberg: view of the city from the castle.

Prague: View as we walked into the city.

Prague: "Little Venice" 

Prague: me in Prague!

From Russia, With Love

So internet has been difficult. I didn't have any while I was in Russia. I am sitting at a Starbucks in the beautiful town of Heidelberg so that I could get internet here to update this blog. I'll say more about Germany later, but since it has been a while here is some experiences from my time in Russia.

Moscow, Russia is a giant city. We could spend an hour on the bus and not even leave the city, and that is when there was no traffic. I was just starting to get the hang of the Russian alphabet as just as we left. For example, the "C" makes the "S" sound and the "P" makes the "R" sound. One of my favorite parts of our time in Russia was going to the Russia IKEA. On this trip we have had a wide variety of corporate visits all of which have expanded my view of all that goes into business and global economics. We had gone to one of IKEA manufacturers in Lithuania, but today we where at the actually IKEA and headquarters for the Russia & CIS region. The Swedish expats that spent the afternoon with us were inspiring and passionate about what they did. We also visited a Mars chocolate factory. We also explored the more historic parts of Moscow including the Kremlin some other major buildings. 

They also have security guards everywhere in Russia. Just about every building has its own security guard. Germany has been a bit of fresh air. Not only is there less security but the people here smile more. 

The Hill of Crosses

Hi everyone,

Thanks for  keeping up with me and my travels. I am on a train right now, recently departed from the Latvian capital, Riga. On the way from Klaipeda, Lithuania to Riga, Latvia, we made on stop at a wonder of the Lithuanian countryside: The Hill of Crosses. I heard that there are over 100,000 crosses on and around this hill. It seemed like there was were much more than that even. Various people have scattered crosses throughout this hill making this such a unique man-made wonder. I was a good reminder of how significant the cross has been in the history of our world. 

 

The Baltic Bash

After a few days in the capital Vilnius, we traveled to Klaipeda, Lithuania. (just a few kilometeres from the Baltic Sea). We are now hanging out at Lithuania Christian College (LCC). We arrived yesterday. Some of the more interesting happenings of the last couple days involved visiting the US embassy in Lithuania, dancing with a group of Polish lawyers, storming a Lithuania castle, and swimming in the Baltic Sea. At this point we haven't had more than a couple hours of class time, but the next few days will be full of classes before we catch a train to Russia. 

Lithuanian is a difficult language. Basically, the only word that I have been able to master in Lithuanian has been "thank you". Communication would be extremely awkward except for the fact that just about everyone younger than 30 speaks English, and most of them speak it quite well. 

Here is a picture of our group standing in front of the presidential palace in Vilnius. It has been fun getting to all these people. Over half of the group is from Messiah college, but there are others from Biola, Olivet, Anderson, Taylor, Milligan, and Houghton. 

Here I am standing in front of the 14th century Trakai Castle. One of our stops between Vilnius and Klaipeda.

This is the Baltic as seen from atop a sand dune. It was about as cold as the Pacific Ocean in Oregon (it will make you legs numb). We could go out really far without the water rising above our knees, subsequently there were not really any waves here. This picture is actually looking out on the small Russian territory called Kaliningrad. I got some dune jumping in. 

-AJW