Back to INSEAD

Photos from my Swiss summer are now up on Picasa.

• Geneva (including pictures of my office)
  
• Montreux (the Swiss Riviera)

First time blogging from the road, since I'm currently at O'hare waiting for my plane to Tokyo, and then to Singapore. I left Geneva last week to come back to the US to visit friends/family, and now 1 week later, it's time to go back to Singapore. My summer has completely flown by incredibly fast. I had a great internship in Geneva, made some great friends/colleagues at the VC firm, and was so fortunate that they've involved me at very high levels, including due diligence, interviews, and providing advice about their future investments.

Like Belgium, I think I'll miss Switzerland, especially Geneva. It was so incredibly international, almost like the UK or US. And there are quirky bits, like all the Arabs who visit during the summer, with their fancy cars. You know that there's a huge Arab market when even the street musicians have signs in front in French, English and Arabic! And Geneva was very quaint, easy to get around, beautiful views and weather. But unfortunately, sometimes, VERY expensive.




For example, check out the picture above. This is for a regular piece of rump steak. The price: CHF65/kilo. With an exchange of 1 USD = 0.95 CHF, that works out to be $28.06 per pound! No wonder the Swiss are so healthy and thin, you can't afford to eat meat! It's also a bad sign when even the simple ethnic restaurants (Turkish or Asian) are charging nearly $18 for simple dishes like kebabs or fried noodles. Actually, the problem is because of Swiss protection of their farmers. It's cheaper to cross the border to France (2o mins away) to shop for food, but the border guards actually check to make sure you didn't bring more than 500g (about 1 lb) of meat back into Switzerland.

And now, time to say good bye to summer vacation.. and hello to INSEAD. Can't wait to start classes again, and meet up with all my friends there!