appenzeller alpenbitter!!!

yesterday was our first outing as a class. with our program coordinator, jennifer (new yorker), we went to the EXTREMELY TINY town of Appenzell. we took the train there, which took about 45min. we got a city tour while there, then had lunch. during lunch a group of us were together at a restaurant; me, lannette (my roommate), maureen (from UCLA anderson), all three SC trojans (armond, katy and arthur chief dawg), martin (from austria), john (from houston), jaakko (from finland), marie carmen (from mexico) and marie-astrid (from belgium). i seriously hope i named everyone correctly. i think i got all the names down, usually pretty good with that after a bunch of embarrassing encounters of forgetfulness in the past. so we had lunch and chit chatted for a couple hours (laughed a lot), and then met with the rest of the group at the train station where we walked to the Appenzeller Alpenbitter brewery/factory. alpenbitter is the name of this all-healing (so they say) alcoholic concoction made of 42 natural herbs and some strong-ass alcohol; its website is found here

from left to right: john (houston), sunil (my roomie, india), jaakko (finland), me, arthur (trojan), armond (sherv look-alike, trojan), martin (austria), andreas (switzerland)

imagine jagermeister, except this drink tasted a little less like black liquorish than Jager does and is not as sweet or as tasty as jager. we watched a video about the drink before heading onto the tour of the factory. the video was a huge advertisement for the drink, and was a lot less informative than i had hoped. as far as business management goes, it makes sense to advertise the drink as much as possible in the intro video, considering that your subjects will end up in the tourist shop, drinking samples of the drink, various other drinks manufactured by the company and have visible and very close access to the factory store that sells their products.

left to right: lannette (my roomie, minnesota), armond, me, sunil

after the video we went on the tour and got to see samples of all the herbs found in the drink (not all ingredients, as the drink has many secrets that can't be dispelled, which is also the reason the company cannot import to the US since the FDA requires them to disclose all ingredients in the drink and they refuse to).

our program coordinator (new york), buying the drink.

after the tour of the herbs, tanks, condensers, warehouse where they keep the rest of their products, etc... we got to their sampling room and store. this drink is STRONG. in the video it said that many doctors recommend it to heal many ailments (bullshit in my book), and we all found it ironic that the english speaking tour guide that works at the company was out sick.

after the tasting was over, we went back to the train and came back to st. gallen. when we arrived many of us went home, but a small few of us (me, my roomies and the trojans) went to the local Orange (that's the name of the cell carrier) mobile store so that they can also get cell phones while here.

after that we lost one trojan, and the rest of us went to the main and largest grocery store by the train station to get some food. we met about 5 more international exchange students in the grocery store (of which 3 were in the ISP). after shopping we came home (long long walk, first to the bus, then from the bus stop to out house, carrying many pounds of groceries and bottled water). we were dead tired when we got home; i even accidentally fell asleep in my room in a weird fetal position, sideways on the bed. nevertheless i did get up at around 9pm to make myself and lannette dinner (i make her food, which is always the same as my own food, and she does the dishes; great deal, as all i have to do is add exgtra ingredients to whatever i'm cooking in the first place).

i have to say, i'm really glad school has started...i was beginning to get bored during the days. now i've made some new friends and we're having lots of fun hanging out, at school, on tours and soon on company visits, etc...

these "company visits" i speak of are basically visits to various companies in and out of switzerland for tours and insight into the companies strategic and managerial ways. we are all very excited for these company visits. each company's location we go to is considered that company's main headquarters, or at least the company's main european headquarters (most of the companies are european. for a list of the companies and locations we go to, please see below:

BMW (main corporate headquarters in munich, germany)
IBM (european headquarters in zurich, switzerland)
IWC (very famous watch company in switzerland: website)
European court of justice (luxembourg, with our european business law prof. who is also a famous judge in switzerland.)
ICRC (international committee of the red cross, geneva, switzerland: website)
UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency, geneva, switzerland: website)
and either one or two other companies that have yet to be announced.

for anyone that hasn't heard of IWC, it is a very famous watch company in switzerland. we had a whole lecture on the importance of time here by the head of the school (the director, if i'm not mistaken, but i very well could be). it is really a big deal here. people are very punctual, and 7 o'clock means 7 o'clock, damnit! even when the trains leave the station here, if it is scheduled to leave at 9:07, then you can be 100% sure that that train will leave at exactly 9:07, and at 9:06:59, the clock will wait a tiny bit just so that it can click to 9:07 exactly as the train starts moving, it is that much in synchronization here. so it's no wonder it's become known that the swiss are famous for their watches. this is a reason that i am VERY excited to go on the IWC company visit. i love watches, and these guys are the sheiks of the trade. i'm really excited for the rest of the companies as well (just like everyone else in the program), except i just have a personal affinity to nicely made, technically produced and meticulously managed, criticized and scrutinized watches. hopefully one day i'll even own some of my own.

so, things are finally rolling here, and it's a very good time.

will update soon...