June - Month of Travel

So....June was been a busy month of travel that initially started with a 25 May trip and concluded with a return trip from Bratislava on 29 June with only 5 nights sleeping in my Geneva apartment during that time frame...

Luxembourg

The day after landing from the Norway ski trip, I flew to Luxembourg for a one week internal firm review, back to Geneva for the weekend in between and then back for a 2nd week of review.  Luxembourg was a very pretty city with large city walls from its historic city center and was very hilly so running was not the easiest!

Crans-Montana

After spending one night at home, the Romandie office year-end party was in Crans-Montana, which is a mountain town about 2.5 hours from Geneva.  The year-end party is a weekend long event with a different site each year to get the office together and celebrate the end of the busy season with team building activity (mud run in the current year), large dinner, and a night out.

Dubai

The same day returning from Crans-Montana, I swapped my weekend bag for already packed bags to fly to Dubai for a work site visit.  We landed in Dubai and 11:30pm and it was hot (11:30pm)!

The city itself is quite modern with many sky scrapers and large infrastructure projects everywhere.  Our hotel was located on the mainland near one of the artificial palm islands and the entire area was quite nice.

Our first day at the plant featured a unique twist. Most foreign companies operate in the free trade zone (FTZ), which is a tax free area with gated entry.  Once at the gate, we had obtain pre-approval; however, our taxi driver was not licensed to drive in the FTZ so we had to walk from the border to the plant offices.  This was not far (~300 meters), but it was quite funny as the team wandered the desert.  That evening, I went for a short indoor run and we ate dinner near our hotel at a Benihana, which none of the European team members had been to or heard of the restaurant concept as this is a fairly common chain in the US.

The following day, we had the same issue at the FTZ entrance only this time our taxi driver must have been more persuasive as the driver didn't have the pass, but convinced security to let us drive to our drop off point.  After work that day, we went for a team swim in the pool.  Note that this is an outdoor pool that is cooled rather than heated.  We then had an Iftar dinner with our local contact; this was quite good as there was tons of food and we were able to try many types of the local cuisine.

The next morning was my final day so I woke early to jump in the ocean (5 min.) walk from the hotel.  The sand here was white sand and quite nice and the seawater was warmer than the pool!

For work that day, we successfully entered the FTZ with no issues and I worked a half day and headed to the airport for the first stop of the multisite journey before returning back to Geneva.

Greece

I flew from Dubai to Athens and stayed the night before boarding an early morning ferry to Mykonos for a friend's 30th birthday weekend (7am).

Day 1 Dinner - Greek Salad and Octopus

The birthday party weekend was 5 days long and about 20 people where we rented a villa in the city center.  Each day we went to a different beach club to enjoy the Mediterranean and then dinners were typically souvlaki within the city after watching the sunsets from the mountain restaurants.  For the actual birthday dinner, we had a family style dinner at the villa that was catered with many different types of Greek food; it was quite fun as we even had a bartender for the dinner!  I really enjoyed my 2nd trip to the Greek isles; the weather is always great and the food is amazing!

Mykonos Beach Club

Birthday Dinner at the Villa

PwC Crew

Following Greece, I then had two work trips back to back.  The first to Amsterdam for 1.5 days to see a plant visit and the 2nd to Bratislava.  Coincidentally, Bratislava was the first international location that I ever visited for work back in 2012.

It was quite a relief to get home after these trips after spending the past 5-6 weeks out of town; I flew home on Thursday and then on Friday I had my first visitors for the summer.

Weather wasn't great for their trip, but we visited the Olympic museum in Lausanne; this was actually quite interesting as the museum has medals from all of the Olympics as well as the torches that are carried around the world to then light the flame at the open ceremony.  We then had a glass of wine in the vineyards at Le Deck, saw a concert at the Montreux Jazz Fest, and on Sunday did a day trip to Yvoire for filet-de-perche before my friends returned home.

Montreux Jazz Fest