Pictures and videos from the International Trip

Here's some video clips I took and some pics from classmates:

Link to video of Tango dance show in BA

Domingo Cavallo clip1

Domingo Cavallo clip2

Public photo albums from classmates (thanks Gagan, Eve):
Eve's pics from Brazil
Eve's pics from BA
Gagan's pics from Rio
Gagan's pics from BA

If other people have public pics to share, please add a comment or send me a link.

There and Back Again: A WEMBA Study Tour Recap

Well, we had a fantastic time! Words don’t do justice to the South America International trip, which we shall remember for a lifetime. Those classmates of ours who weren’t able to make it (or who just wimped out) missed out on a once in a lifetime experience. I’m really glad that I helped lobby (through the power of The Blog) to go to South America on our study tour, as it’s a place that I probably won’t visit on my own. Although after this trip, perhaps I will return. No one was robbed, no one got hurt (well, except for Zia’s ironing board accident and the wild dog attack that Mike and Frank survived), and we had a great time.

The true value of the trip is measured in the relationships that were strengthened and new ones that were formed while we were here. A lot of people I talked to said that they had gotten to know a number of classmates that they don’t ordinarily talk to in San Francisco, as well as their wives, girlfriends or husbands. We experienced two different cultures and countries, which was great. I think we didn’t get a whole lot of sleep, and we all ate too much and drank too much. I was thinking that I would lose some pounds while we were here but after eating my fifth steak by day six I knew I was in big trouble.

If I were to give advice, here’s some for Class 33:

• Sample the local food and drink as much as you can. There’s nothing sadder than seeing your classmate high tail it for the nearest Mickey Ds. I literally ate 5 pounds of steak in about 3 days, and now I have tasted a real churrascaria, a caiparinha, an Argentine golden trout, and a Malbec wine.
• Lots of work on the committee. If you are on the committee, be prepared for a ton of work in organizing the trip. Props out to Clifton, Ale and Loren for all the hard work. You guys deserve a credit or three.
• Bring medicine. I owe a big thank you to Dr Lim, who had some antibiotics when I was sick in Rio. Thanks Charles! Lesson learned: the MDs in your class are really helpful if you get sick when traveling.
• Side trips are fantastic. I went to Rio before the trip, and then to El Calafate afterwards. Those were two great decisions, and they really enhanced my experience. We were talking about it later and those of us who went really had a much better experience. It’s hard to get the time off for work but it’s totally worth it. Use those Starwood Preferred Guest points on your side trips, and the rates we got were $45 USD plus points for each night’s stay.
• Don’t bring a laptop. There are internet cafes everywhere in South America, and all the hotels we stayed in had free internet available, even in El Calafate. I thought I’d use mine more, and I didn’t. Blackberry email was fine throughout the trip for the most part.
  Bring a Skype headset. Cuts your phone bill down tremendously! Be aware that Skype is blocked in some countries though. It was fine in both Brazil and Argentina.
• Study materials for Term 5. I’m not going to retain anything I read, but at least I got some reading done on the flights there and back again.
• The travel agency was below average. I got home and discovered that I had a big package from Accent with my itinerary and travel tags in it. Completely useless! You would have thought they could have sent it a bit earlier. It wasn’t a big deal, but you’d think they could do better.

Finally, I think that everyone agrees that we owe the South American International Study Tour committee a huge THANK YOU, because of all of their hard work. Clifton, Ale, Loren and other people on the committee did a fantastic job in dealing with a lot of things that most of us never saw. In addition, John Lyon deserves some big props for being our coordinator as Sandra wasn’t able to make the trip. Professor Dyer and Lodish also deserve a big thank you for all their work. Thank you thank you obigado and muchas gracias! You guys were great, and we think you should deserve some academic credit for all the hard work you put in. I’m sure glad we didn’t go to China, as Zia would have had to plan the whole thing himself!

Now it's back to work!

Argentina – El Calafate Side Trip

El Calafate is in the Patagonia area of Argentina, which is known for its world-famous glaciers. From Buenos Aires, a group of us took a side trip there from Buenos Aires, and it was definitely worthwhile. Calafate was beautiful and reminded me much of Alaska. The town was a rural mountain town, much like Tahoe City in California. People were friendly but it was a bit more difficult to get around in my broken Spanish as there were far less English speakers, which is to be expected.

Highlights of the trip: mini-trekking tour of the Monte Perito glacier, hanging out in the town, taking a hike by the lake, and just enjoying being a tourista. Mike and I were on a mission to find some golden trout (truta) at a restaurant, and we eventually found some called Restaurante La Vaca Atada, on Av. Libertador 1176 in El Calafate. It was prepared in four different ways: lemon sauce, grilled, camarones sauce, and another cream sauce that no one order. I ordered the camarones (shrimp) version, which was most excellent! One major bonus was that we ran into Zia and Anita both on the tour and for dinner.

Mini-trekking is a must do if you ever make it to Patagonia and El Calafate. El Calafate is right on the border between Chile and Argentina, where the Andes Mountains separate the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic Ocean. The wind and pressure create a perfect compression in the mountains to form the ice for the glaciers. You get to take a boat across the frozen lake to a small dock near where the glacier meets the land. A short hike takes groups of English-speaking and Spanish-speaking groups of 20 people to the glacier, where you put in crampon spikes on the bottom of your shoes or boots. Our one and a half hour hike was breathtaking, and we got to see some very interesting blue ice formations, crevasses, and some pools of crystal-clear, ice-cold water that form on the tops of the glacier. After the hike, we ate empanadas that were packed in our sack lunches back in town, and after a short break we were back on the boat to tour the front of the glaciers by water. The last leg of the tour was on land, where there is a site-seeing set of platforms and stairs that allows a top-down view of the glaciers. We got to see a number of large and small ice chunks break off the glacier, which sound like a gunshot with the echo in the mountains and walls of ice.

Mini-trekking in El Calafate:


Here’s a Korean Sadhu that was found on the side of the glacier:


In summary, Calafate was a fantastically great side trip. I’m really glad I did it, and it was great to see a part of Argentina that is closest to Antartica as you can get in South America.

From Calafate, we headed back to Buenos Aires for one last night before heading back to the US. I met up for business with some software engineers on my team down here in South America, and we met on an Estancia, which is “ranch” in Spanish. Argentines are proud of their ranching and cowboy heritage, and the Estancia was nothing like I thought it was going to be. There was a castle on the grounds, along with polo grounds, soccer or futbol field, horse back riding, a lodge, an airplane, and a really nice garden. My local friends there said that Estancias are used for special events, like honeymoons, wedding parties and coming of age parties (15 years old) for girls. We worked a bit of course, but we had some of the freshest steak I’ve ever had along with some traditional Argentine foods. After a long day, it was back to the airport for the ride home.

Here’s a picture of a castle on the Estancia:

Argentina – Buenos Aires International Study Tour Recap

Our travels on the second official leg of the trip brought us from Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires, also known as the “Paris of South America.” The culture and architecture of the city buildings has a distinctly European feel to it. There were a lot of nice shopping malls around, where a lot of us bought fine leather goods and clothes. There were a lot of suits purchased in BA.

Pictures of the city in Buenos Aires:


Nice shopping mall in BA - we could pretty much buy most anything you can get in the US. I think I turned metro for a few hours...:


In addition, the weather was very humid, as it had been raining for about two weeks prior. That didn’t stop Bolaji, Azar and I from attempting to go golfing on a free afternoon after visiting Turner Broadcasting in the morning. It was a swampland, however, as the only golf course in Bs As didn’t have a very good drainage system.

Attempting to golf in Buenos Aires:


Company visits included: Google, Turner Broadcasting Systems, General Electric, Boston Consulting Group, and a discussion with Domingo Cavallo, the former Argentine Minister of Finance that was responsible for pegging the Argentine Peso to the US dollar during the first Argentine currency crisis in 1991.

Ron and Sean at Turner:


Picture of Ale and Domingo Cavallo:


Maybe it was just me because I finally was feeling better health-wise, but I much preferred Buenos Aires over Sao Paulo. Or maybe it was staying in the Four Seasons Hotel, which was as great as they are all over the world. The five star hotel definitely was nice. Like Paris I found that it was very much appreciated when I used my limited Spanish speaking skills. After just a few words, most people were more than happy to be helpful. Many people spoke pretty good English, as it is taught early on in the schools.

Argentina is a town that never sleeps, and many restaurants and bars are open very very late. The first night, we didn’t finish dinner until 2am. And one club we went to called Asia de Cuba did not even open until 1:30am!

The last night, we had a big party for the everyone and their guests. The banquet was huge and it was really great! Afterwards, there were a bunch of WEMBA students that refined their late night dancing and partying skills in Argentina after sharpening them up in Brazil. Let’s just say that there was a lot of Malbec, scotch, and Cuban cigars consumed there.

The big dinner on the last night in BA:

Recap of Rio de Janeiro with pictures

Wow, this trip is going faster than I thought. Here's a very brief recap of the front end of the Wharton Internation trip to Brazil and Argentina.

Rio de Janeiro, Thu 09-06-2007
We arrived very jet lagged at 8:35am in the morning vis a vis Miami. I slept as much as I could on the plane and tried to drink as much water as I could, as I was fighting a cold. Rio was warm and about eight of us negotiated a van ride from the airport to the Sheraton Rio Hotel. It was about a 45 minute ride from the airport to the hotel. We checked into the hotel and then headed straight for the beach. While sitting by the beach, I had a fried calamari appetizer with my first and second caipirinha, the national Brazilian cocktail made with Brazilian rum.

Rio is very much a beach town, much like Oahu. Lots of tourists, lots of beach, beautiful women, and they even have bars right on the beach strand. You can spend forever just people watching. Everyone is friendly, especially if you attempt to speak a little broken Portugese. Most of the hotel and restaurant folks speak a little English, so it's not too hard to get around.

The weather was warm and mild, in the low 80s to high 70s during the day. The evenings were warm enough that we could walk around in short sleeved shirts, which was great.

Rio de Janeiro, Fri 09-07-2007
A group of us spent the day on a guided tour of the Christ the Redeemer monument and the Sugarloaf mountain tram. Check out the pictures. It was totally worth it to hire a tour guide because we got to skip all the lines. Otherwise we would have been waiting for a long time all day long, as it was a holiday.

Most of the pictures are from this tour here: link to rio pictures

Rio de Janeiro, Sat 09-08-2007
I was really sick and stayed in from Fri night to Sun morning. I heard that I missed some good and not so good parties in Rio but hey there's always another time....I figured that we have another 10 days to go and I needed to get better. Obrigado to Dr Lim, who hooked me up with some antibiotics. They really helped me and next time I am not going to travel without some.

Rio de Janeiro, Sun 09-09-2007
We left Rio and flew over to Sao Paulo, where we checked into the Renaissance Hotel for the study tour portion of our trip. More on that later.....