2 fantastic weeks....and now im back =(

sighzzzzz.....i am SAD to be back......i have had two fabulous, no fantabulous weeks in Switzerland and am soo sad to be back....
Well week one was crazy with the mad rush of the conference and week two with the mad rush of trying to see as much of suisseland as possible - till two days before my departure i realized i needed to cool my heels or would need a vacation to recover from this vacation!!!...anyhoo, i will space out my updates on my time there, so i have something to write about over the next week or so.....

Well first of all i can say without a doubt that the symposium was one of the most memorable experiences of my life!!....it was just wonderful meeting people from over 50 countries interacting, learning, discussing....
sure there were 600 business people and world leaders, people like Martin Wolf (he is as articulate in person as in his book and his columns), Christine Lagaard (the extremely impressive and elegant French foreign trade minister), Daniel Borel, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw and not to mention President and Vice Presidents of institutes like the IMF, ADB and Kiel Institute for World Economy.....
yet, the best part of the symposium and what made it so very special were the 200 students there.....as i reminisce on those three days in May i remember what my friend told me before we left.....that the conference is in Switzerland is immaterial, what makes it so special are the students there, it could be held ANYWHERE in the world but if you had the same set of people it would be just as fantastic.....how very true.......
it was amazing to meet such a varied group of people who had in common that they were smart, intelligent, warm, well traveled, well read, concerned about so much, not indifferent and who had an opinion on almost everything!!....conversation flowed so easily on everything from unemployment in Europe, what's wrong with the US, gay marriages to traveling by train in India, Tom Cruise, Sex and the City and Schengen visas....as Grace and I discussed on the flight back more than anything its the intellectual stimulation that we missed.....its been only 2 weeks yet is feels like a month.....