Tuesday, October 12th - Boat ride on Lake Geneva

Our whole group left early this morning for Morges a town past Lausanne, but not quite as far as Geneva.  In Morges we met with Thomas Caine one of the product managers for Medtronic, a medical device manufacturer. Medtronic founders created the first pace maker and since then have moved into many other areas of production.

Mr. Caine is originally from Salt Lake City and has been with Medtronic for two years. He works with a product they are in the process of launching that will allow medications to have easier access to an individual’s spinal column. There is more complexity behind it, but for the sake of space and understanding I’ll leave it at that. Prior to our arrival at Medtronic we read a case about some of the issues their company faced in the past.

Mr. Caine was very informative and honest on the company’s stance on these issues, and addressed them front on. The research and development side of their company was very fascinating to me. There are many new technologies and avenues, in terms of areas of expansion, and their company has to look at what specific areas they would like to expand to with the realization that they do not have the money to explore every avenue. We toured their production facility and saw the production process in action. It seemed like a very rewarding company to work for and I really enjoyed this corporate visit.

Mr. Caine openly addressed the challenges of living in Switzerland and I again appreciated his honesty and perspective on living in another country and what cultural differences he has seen. I learned that open honesty is the best policy in business practice as it builds bridges of trust and understanding even when the topic might be controversial and have other implications.

After our Medtronic visit we boarded a train headed for Geneva. We were given the rest of the day to explore Geneva. The group I went with hit Old Towne Geneva and did some shopping and sightseeing. There was almost this sweet cardigan sweater I bought at H&M, but decided to wait until Paris before purchasing any clothing. The sleeves were too long and the sweater was too red. Why those details are important I’m not sure.

Steve Larsen and me in H&M wearing the red sweater mentioned above...

Geneva, Switzerland

After perusing various shops we ended up just wandering down these amazing little streets that had the typical “European” feel. We hit up St. Peter’s Cathedral and unfortunately barely missed the tour of the tombs below the Cathedral. We then went down to the shore line of Lake Geneva and met up with another group. Several of us decided to take a fun little boat taxi ride across the bay. In the bay there is this large jet stream that shoots really high into the air, but unfortunately the wind was too high so when we actually boarded the boat taxi it had turned off.

In front of St. Peter's Cathedral

On the boat taxi!

Steve doing his "Park City" Impersonation...he had this specific voice, laugh, and face every time he did it.
In this picture "Park City Guy" is outside the Geneva Yacht Docks .

We wandered around and finally found a little pizza bistro for dinner. We thought the price wasn’t too bad, but when we realized the large pizza was no larger than 9 inches in diameter we realized the major cultural differences in what “large” actually means. That’s life I guess!  It was really good pizza though, and Lynne Petit, one of our professors, was so generous and paid for all of our pizzas! It was very nice of him and we really appreciated it. We made the agreement that we would buy him one stellar dessert somewhere else!

The crazy thing about life here is that grocery stores, shopping centers, and even clothing boutiques large and small are mostly closed by 6-7PM. After 7 PM you are very hard pressed to find anything open other than restaurants and pubs. Eating and leisure time are very important in the culture here and especially free time. So to thank Lynne for treating us to dinner we promised him this wonderful dessert, but as 6:30 neared we realized that we were not going to have anything open and didn’t want him to not get him something to thank him for a nice dinner. We found some ice cream cakes at the Co-op grocery store and bought some plates. They were out of plastic forks and spoons so we bought chop sticks and took it all back to the Hotel to eat. We quite enjoyed the cake and also bought some great Swiss chocolate ice cream.  We stayed in Geneva because of the visits we have tomorrow and I am glad because I am ready for bed!