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Dawn's Diary

July 21, 2003

Dear Diary

Sorry I have not written for a while. At least I have a good excuse for last week, I was on "business" in Switzerland. See, since our company is being sold my boss decided that we needed one last HR meeting to discuss the very important issues we have before as, as well as to form some closure as the odds are slim that all of us will make it through with our jobs. Anyway, he graciously volunteered his home country to be the location of the meeting. And wouldn't you know it...the Montreux Jazz Festival just happened to be going on at the same time....

Anyway....me and Renee decided to go just a day or two early to get some site seeing done. We flew into Geneva via Zurich, arriving on a Tuesday. Geneva is in the French portion of Switzerland, and is really different from Zurich (in the German area). It is absolutely beautiful, and a lot of people spoke English...which is a real plus from my perspective. We arrived just in time for lunch and ate a million dollar pizza that wasn't very good. We then spent the day touring around Geneva. We saw all the main tourist attractions ......we rode a Ferris Wheel, took train tours, saw the fountain and the floral clock....you get the picture. Renee and I shared a room, and it was great! She likes to unpack her entire suitcase even if you are only staying at that particular location for one night. I never unpack and prefer to live out of my suitcase no matter how long I may be staying. This was the biggest of our challenges to overcome, so you can see we got on pretty well. We had dinner at the hotel that night and it wasn't very good. We soon discovered that Switzerland is suffering from the hottest summer in something like 200 years....it felt like Texas! Luckily, I had thrown one pair of shorts in my suitcase at the last minute. They got worn a lot and I actually had to chase them around the room when I had to pack up to come home. As happy as I was to have the forethought for the shorts, I unfortunately packed only one pair of shoes. I discovered that even your most comfortable pair of shoes become torturous if worn for 6 days straight while walking an average of 10 miles a day. Oh well.

Wednesday we decided to take a bus tour into France to Mont Blanc. Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in Europe and our first activity was to ride a cable car thingy to a lookout station way up. We were not prepared very well for our trip, as we went dressed for the incredibly hot weather that is happening in Europe right now. Well, it isn't cold on top of a mountain or on a glacier. I regrouped quickly and bought a million dollar sweater, but my feet were still cold. Luckily, once you make it to these attractions and look around, there isn't a lot else to do so we quickly made it back to the town. We toured around the little town called Chamonix and did some shopping. We had an uninspiring lunch with our tour group that wasn't very good. That afternoon we saw the glacier, Mer de Glace which means "Sea of Glass". It was very interesting. After we got back, we met up with our HR friends who had arrived that morning and went to dinner. Again, it wasn't very good. The presentation was interesting, as we all had these Bunsen burner like devices to keep our dinner on, but the food itself was pretty lame. Renee and I decided that thus far, breakfast was king.

Thursday the group of us took a boat from Geneva to Montreux across Lac Lemon, which is a giant lake. It took almost 5 hours to make it there. Once we got there, we met up with our boss (Matthias) and our Swiss colleague, Beat . We ate lunch along the shore of the lake and here I had the best meal of the trip....a cheeseburger. This was no ordinary cheeseburger. It tasted like a Kip's Big Boy! It was chargrilled and had this great sauce on it with this cheese that was just out of this world. The Pomme Frittes were pretty good too. Anyway, all along the shore were tons of vendors all there because of the Jazz festival. Shopping everywhere, a real party environment. We then went to our hotel, which was more like a bed and breakfast, up the mountain in a town called Caux (pronounced "KO"). We rode this little train to get there. The hotel was great, small and quaint. My room was on the top floor and there was no elevator, so getting my suitcase up there was a challenge. It was great though, I think the members of our group were the only guests there, so it was like being in our own resort house. That night the hotel staff grilled barbecue for us. It was pretty good if you like that sort of thing. I went to bed early that night.

Friday was the day of our meeting, which we held in Lausanne at the University. We parked in town and rode the bus to the university because we were told the parking was an issue. When we got there, however, the parking lot was almost completely empty. No matter. Our meeting lasted a grueling hour and one half, then we broke for lunch. We ate at this organic farm restaurant and I had tomatoes and mozzarella cheese with tabouli (however you spell it). It was OK, I mean...there is only so good that tomatoes and cheese can be, right? It was a really cool place though, they grew all their own vegetables and fruit there. We were planning to meet again after lunch but opted for shopping instead. I found David a Swiss soccer shirt and bought a few other things. That evening, it was time for the concert. We ate at an Iranian restaurant. I had Chicken cous cous. It was inoffensive but nothing to write home about. All of the food was very interesting. The formal closing of our gathering was the jazz concert. The show was sold out. Matthias was very generous in getting us all tickets and we are all very grateful!!! Randi Crawford and the Crusaders performed first...they were fantastic! Ray Parker JR is part of their band (Ghostbusters song). They were really great. The next act was Lisa Stansfield, who I think is much more famous ("Been around the world and I can't find my baby") but I thought she wasn't as good. She had this Julie Andrews hairstyle that I couldn't get over. But, she put on a great show...sang for two hours straight with full energy. We got back to the hotel around 2 a.m....late night for me these days.

By 10 a.m. Saturday, all that was left was me, Renee and Beat. Beat kindly drove us down the mountain and we stored our luggage at the train station. We then went to Vevey to find Charlie Chaplin's grave . We then shopped, had lunch (I talked them into going back to that Cheeseburger place, and they agreed it was delicious), said goodbye to Beat and headed back via train to Geneva. Renee and I got our same room, and basically bummed around and did nothing but wander around looking for the laundromat. We had a nice pizza for dinner and turned in. I flew home on Sunday, tired but thrilled with a great vacation! Click here for the rest of the pictures.

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