Catching The Blog Up...

If you are remotely curious about our activities during November and December, then this blog entry is for you. The craze of my second period at INSEAD kept me from finding time to add entries into the blog. I'll try to go in order, starting with the oldest activity that I can remember and is likely of interest. Before going further, let me say Bon Fetes et Bon Annee a tout. I hope everyone had a great holiday break and has a wonderful New Year's Eve celebration and most excellent New Year.

Nov 2nd: UEFA Champions League Match: Manchester United vs. Lille.

This picture is for Rob and Carey. I organized a trip to Stade de France for about 11 people from the INSEAD football club team. Rebecca joined us on our journey to watch ManU lose to the French team, Lille. United played poorly and deserved their 1-0 loss. Lille displayed a nice level of football and scored a nice goal to secure their victory. If you are keeping up with ManU, you know their team is on a downhill slide. We can debate later as to why this is happening...


Lille vs. Manchester United: UEFA Champions League Match on Nov. 2nd. 

Nov 5th: Tim Santori, our friend from Colorado, visits.

Tim and Rebecca made some day trips around Fontainebleau and into Paris. This was Tim's first trip to Europe. Since I did not have free time during the week, I was only able to join the touring fun on the weekend. We decided to drive to Ghent and Brugges (see Belgium Rocks blog entry). Ghent offers charming streets, fresh Belgium waffles, friendly people and fantastic food. If you need a sales pitch on the downtown Ghent area...


Ghent, Belgium...speaks for itself.  


Nov 10th: Hosting friends for dinner in Grez s/ Loing.

We had a few INSEAD couples over for a nice meal at our house. Rebecca did a great job of preparing the food. I made homeade salsa. From left to right: Rebecca, Guillaume (French), Snehal (Indian), Anne (American), David (American), Enrica (Italien), me, Paul (Australian), Gemma (Australian, WA), Ashish (Indian).


Dinner at our place. 

Nov 12th: Visiting family friends in Germany.

For those that did not know, Rebecca took a year between high school and college to live in Germany. She was fortunate enough to receive an invitation from a family friend to live and work on a German farm. Though she spoke zero German, Rebecca boarded her one-way flight to Germany and moved in with the Beckerhardt family for the years 1993-94. Ten years later, we made weekend plans to visit the Beckerhardts, introduce me, and catch up on old times. Flying into Cologne, we drove on the Autobahn to the town of Rhede and spent a lovely weekend with their family. Traditional German food, shopping at the local Turkish food mart, and getting to know Hannelore, Heiner, Christian, Marie-Katrine, and Sandra made for a very nice weekend away.


Rebecca and Hannelore in Rhede, Germany. 

Hannelore talked her eldest daughter and boyfriend into joining us for dinner at the family house in Rhede. From left to right: Sandra's boyfriend, Marie-Katrine, yours truly, Christian, Hannelore, and Sandra. Rebecca and Heiner are not pictured.


Ein gutes Abendessen. 

Dec 20th: Finished at last!

Three days, six finals, and a sigh of relief after we completed our second period of INSEAD. Ironic that this is the first picture of four people I've spent so much time with over the past four months. Meet my INSEAD team, a randomly assigned group of students that work together in all core courses on any team-based assignments. From the left: Pedro Domecq Marquez of Spain; Constance d'Aspremont of Belgium, Nil Kalagoglu of Turkey, me, and Ranjit Kamat of India. I already miss my team. Nil, Ranjit and I are staying in Fontainebleau for the third period but Pedro and Constance will study at INSEAD's Singapore campus during Jan. and Feb.. I'm jealous of the warm weather they will experience but...I welcome the snow and skiing trips in Europe.


My INSEAD team! Bonne Annee mes amies. 

Snowy Paris

Perhaps it is due to the fact that I've not had a proper winter in 14 years or so but I really enjoyed today's weather in Paris. I'm not certain everyone shared my sentiments. We woke up and joined Paul and Gemma for the 10:01 AM train into Paris Gare de Lyon. The sun was shining until we hopped on the train and the weather suddenly changed. By the time we reached downtown Paris, it was snowing. All told, it snowed about three times today. Paris is a wonderful sight under a snow fall.


Here we are at the Arch de Triumph. 

We snapped the above photo after our walk past the Eiffel Tower and down the road to the Arch de Triumph. We ended our day at the Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart of Paris. The Christmas tree looks really great in front of the freshly cleaned cathedral. The facade was dirty from years of pollution until they decided to clean the it. I remember the scaffolds and cleaning work in 1998.


Notre Dame Cathedral in downtown Paris. Located on an island in the Seine river. 

Our Christmas Day in France

We are adults now. Not only did we actually buy and decorate a Christmas tree for the first time ever, we've highly modified our Christmas gift requests. In fact, socks and underwear topped the list, for very practical reasons. High humidities and low temperatures create perfect conditions for bone chilling weather from time to time. French heating systems and home insulation are not as potent as what we've grown used to in the US so thermal underwear and "smart wool" socks topped our lists this year. Thank you to everyone for the awesome gifts that made it across the ocean and into our French barn house. After unwrapping our gifts, we decided it was play time for Roxy and Yum Yum.

Sammy, their feline cousin from the Lone Star State, was kind enough to send over a kitty present. The girls took an immediate liking to this catnip stuffed toy crab. When it comes to play time, our cats have no fear regarding heights, dangerous railings and the like.


Just a little further and I've got it. 

After a late morning in the barn, we packed up a few things and headed over to Paul and Gemmas' place. They live a few hundred feet away in a very cool house that is next to the town church and the Loing river. They put a lovely Christmas dinner together and we were very happy to share the day with them.


A wonderful Christmas meal, French-Australian cuisine. 


Aussie American Christmas 

After our late lunch, we decided it was time to enjoy the fresh country air. Since the next door rooster was pretty noisy during lunch, we went to go check out the garden / mini-farm area near Paul and Gemmas. Just past their garden lies the livestock pen. I think their landlord keeps these animals around for practical reasons. As you can tell from the picture, the lawn mower and alarm clock are friends.


Down the road from their house... 

We went for a walk in and around the little town of Grez sur Loing. Nearby and just outside of town limits are a series of lakes. We took our aged bread down there to feed the water fowl. (swans and ducks)


This way -> 

Christmas Eve at our house

I suppose we could claim our Christmas Eve was true to form in the INSEAD style. As you might recall, over 60 nationalities are represented in each INSEAD MBA class. It is probably the most internationally diverse graduate business school available.

A few INSEAD students and partners (significant others) decided to stick around for the holidays and we invited some over for food and fun on Christmas Eve. Rebecca made up hot and hearty chicken dumpling soup and we mixed up some hot spiced wine with the help of Paul.

Our snaphsot of international diversity is below. On the top from the left are our Australian neighbors, Paul and Gemma. In from Guatemala is Wilma and next to her is fiance Kannan, from Bangalore, India. Ranjit Kamat is next to Kannan. Ranjit is one of my INSEAD team mates and also from India. Fred, on the far right, is from Montreal, Canada. Karine, seated in front of Fred and Ranjit, is also from Montreal.


Christmas Eve dans nous maison. 

Happy Holidays Everybody!

Happy Holidays to everyone. For those that were curious, we are having a few friends over for Christmas Eve. We went to a small quaint market in the nearby town of Bourron Marlotte to buy some fresh produce, cheese, and bread. It is cold and gray today and here I am just back from the market with a full bag of goodies.


Back from the town of Bourron Marlotte market, chaque samedi! 

We live across the street from a giant French plant nursery so it was not difficult to buy a Christmas tree and decorations. The most interesting part of French Christmas trees is the stand...they drill a hole in a wooden log and you use this as the base for the tree. We like it and so do the little frisky animals in our house. Roxy looks like she has something in mind...


Mischief is too tempting. 

Meanwhile, I've discovered that Yum Yum is possibly responsible for knocking tree ornaments around as if they are punching bags. So far, she has only knocked a few of them out and one confirmed TKO. If you look past the tree against the wall, you will see one of our heat radiators...which are also called cat magnets. We've set up cat beds and blankets accordingly...


I don't remember wrapping that present.... 

Period 2 Ends...

The 1-year INSEAD MBA involves five intense periods (i.e. semesters) of learning. I just completed Period 2 final exams yesterday and it is nice to have the holiday break to recuperate from the hard march of the past four months. During Period 2, I took Strategy, Foundations of Marketing, Process & Operations Management, Corporate Financial Policy, Leading Organizations and Management Accounting. Though it was tough and nearly all seven days of the week were packed, I enjoyed the courses and fellowship with the other 280+ students from around the world. In any case, the six courses and jam packed cases, textbooks, lecture notes, and team assignments are to blame for my lack of blog entries...which I will correct in short order over the next few days. I have much that I would like to share...until then, happy holidays to you and good night from France.

Paris by Night...

Apologies for not blogging in a few weeks. I guess the intensity of a six course semester crammed into 7 weeks is taking a toll on me. I'll have a proper entry when I finish exams in 1.5 weeks. We begin final exam round 2 this upcoming Thursday.

To update you on weather and climate, the sun is fairly set just after 5 PM. We are approaching the shortest day of the year and you sure notice it here in Paris. When I lived in Manchester, England, the days were shorter so I'm not complaining too much. Typical days are cloudy and typical temperatures are in the 30's and 40's. (5 degree Celsius today) We've had some sunny days here and there and only one day of brief snow. It is not too cold for winter football (soccer). I'm playing every Sunday with the INSEAD team.

Anyway, we did make it into Paris last Saturday, December 3rd. I snapped this photo from the Louvre looking towards the Eiffel Tower. We had a nice day at Musee d'Orsay and then spent the evening with our Grez friends.


Paris Anyone?