Many many things to discuss today, as I sit on the second floor of the Insead library, contemplating life, as I do, while watching the sun set, dripping magenta trails on the lone and lonely high-rise in Fontainebleau, calm as a tranquilized zoo animal shot due to symptoms of severe logorrhea, which now seem to be fading.
I had intended several days ago to write about last weekend's trip to Amsterdam, which went swimmingly well. I met my friend at the airport, and we commenced two days in a city where everything seemed to work just right. If I ever start a business in Europe, I'm betting that it will be based in The Netherlands. Or Oslo. But I digress.
The focus of this trip was food - there is not much opportunity to eat well in Fontainebleau (besides French food, OK, so stop your protesting) which makes it all the more enjoyable to have epic epicurean experiences when on leave. This trip included one Rijsttafel dinner, bagels for breakfast (twice! oh glory!), and one Cajun/Mexican dinner. It was lovely. While walking around, I took some great photos, and one of these days I'll figure out how to post a photo, and then everyone can help me become a better photographer.
I returned on Monday night and got sucked into an overwhelming week. We had more classes than normal, one group project for Finance, several company presentations, tons of homework, and grade release for Period 1 on Friday. Suffice it to say that there were a couple hundred stressed-out students cracking open their grade envelopes on Friday- some very happy, some very sad, but most people were all smiles. We had made it through one-fifth of our MBA careers, and it was time to celebrate a bit.
What followed was a quick period of self-assembly, where large and small groups formed to drink, grab dinner, and party. I ended up in a group of 14 who drove to Paris for dinner. The only difficult part was that we were in 4 cars, and there were all coming from different directions, and one person chose not to drive over 110kph (about 65mph), while everyone else wanted to go 160kph. That was solved without much difficulty, but it would have been completely impossible without mobile phones. OK, not impossible, but it would have taken a few stops on a highway and high frustration levels. Thank you modern technology!!
I hadn't driven caravan-style with someone in a while, so I had to concentrate on where I was, where the other driver was, how fast we were going, and how much surrounding traffic was impeded as we tried to stay together. It was surprisingly stressful. It was helped a bit by a system that the other driver and I developed as we drove: I would flash my hazards, and she would flash her high-beams back; that way we could keep track of where we were, which was important since it was nighttime and you couldn't tell one car from the next. What I find completely fascinating is that we never discussed how we would keep in touch when on the road; only when we actually got onto the autoroute, it was clear that we needed to be sure of the other driver's location, so this request/response system arose to solve that need. We didn't even mention it after we got to Paris, even though by that time it had developed into a regular, periodic action, every five minutes or so, very much like visual radar. I still don't know exactly how it happened, and the way that this system came into existence is very much on my mind today.
Back to Paris - dinner was great, we went to La Favella Chic afterwards, where we ran into about 20 other students. It was a great party atmosphere, the DJ was playing some fierce drum and bass, and the crowd, composed of a disproportionate number of scantily clad Brazilianas, was dancing on the tables. Extremely enjoyable, it was, especially when the bartenders turned the soda guns on the sweaty, heaving crowds.
When that bar closed, we went to another, but didn't stay too long - by this time it was past 3am and we were finally feeling a bit tired. I drove various people to their respective homes and arrived at mine just before 5am. It was the nicest night I have had with my student friends in a long time. Can't wait to do it again!
7:29:35 PM 
|
|
