Land of mountains and Lakes

We headed into Switzerland and saw some beautiful scenery in Austria on the way to Zurich.  Brittany is staying with a very generous and warm family, Lisa and Chris and their three beautiful sons. They took us in while in Zurich and we had a wonderful home experience just when the travel was a little wearing.  Brittany is researching Contemporary Swiss Figurative art, by creating a body of figurative drawings and interviewing artists.  We had a good visit with a few at an art exhibition in town and talked about the figurative work we found there.  In between our journeys to see art I was able to review her drawings and research while having fabulous, meals, play and conversations with this wonderful family and their friends.  The whole visit was a tremendous treat on every level.  Then on to Lausanne, about 2 hours southeast to see Whitney.

Whitney is working with CPW, a company that is joint venture between Nestle and General Mills through an introduction by Dan O’keefe who is working now for them in Switzerland.  She is working with the Health and Nutrition Team in the marketing division. I met her colleagues and supervisor of marketing and everyone is extremely pleased with her performance as she works on a variety of tasks: gathering visual art to create a free visuals resource, redesigning cereal packages for emerging markets, researching product placement in emerging markets by other companies, researching the use of vitamin C as a supplement in cereals and consumer perception of that practice, to just name a few.  I am so proud to see the level of value Whitney is adding to the company and their recognition of her contribution. I think a good relationship with the company could be forged with other strong interns, an advantage for our students with General Mills in our region. I am grateful to our friends the Okeefe’s from Hudson who gave us our lodging and are helping house Whitney during her stay- we missed visiting with them but hope to another time when they are here.

The trains strikes in France are affecting the rails and flights so we broke down and planed an Easy Jet flight from Zurich to Barcelona for tomorrow.  I admit I am not sad to miss one of those marathon overnight, multiple train odysseys, but we'll see if this is actually easier!  Hopefully it is a rare occurrence as we are trying to keep costs down.

Until next time when we are in the warm again...