Evain – Paradise!

The best thing that happened after joining my new Job is ‘Evian’. An executive programme for ‘Rohm n Haas’ was conducted at Evian. The program was for one week.
The programme was conducted in hotel Royal, Evian. It’s a gorgeous place. G8 – summit was conducted at this hotel, that explains how good the hotel is.

Evian is on the bank of Lake Geneva. It is on France - Swiss border. From my room, I have a beautiful view of lake, and I could see Geneva, Lausanne.

Day 1: I took train from Paris to Evian. The view on the way was very pretty. Train passed through Mountains, lakes, valleys, small villages etc. I fell asleep for sometime. Then suddenly I woke up and saw a cliff and few people doing paragliding. The train journey was a big treat for the eyes. I reached hotel, ordered my lunch to room and saw French open finals. Met with another colleague from Wharton and had dinner with her. Awesome dinner it was, I ordered Moroccan dish, and I was told that the fish they served us is fresh from lake. We looked around the hotel. There are indoor and outdoor swimming pools. The speciality of the swimming pool is that you feel as if you are swimming in the lake when you swim in the pool.

Day 2: Setup for the programme was made. I doubled checked everything. And I was waiting for my professor, who was supposed come a day before, but due to French open finals, he could not come. I met my professor during lunch. And I was told another professor from Wharton will join. We were discussing about the programme when geekish looking guy with beach shirt came. He was another professor from Wharton. I was so impressed by him. I think I never met a guy a great/successful/impressive (professionally) as him before in my life. The programme started with cocktail party and dinner. Dinner had 5 courses with 2 different kinds of wine. I like it so much. I usually don’t like French food. But after this dinner it became my favourite.

Day 3: Lectures were started and I was back to my work. There were breaks during which I talked to few people. I was feeling completely out of place. First reason being, they were all regional managers who use a lot of chemical vocabulary and they mostly talk about their new projects. Second: They are very old. Lunch and dinner were great, except that table discussions are about ‘Rohm and Haas’ which I could not participate in. When I tell about my work, they don’t understand much. So I started talking about India, S’pore and France. It was good, people ask me few doubts about India, or discuss about its strengths, weakness. But after couple of meals, I was out of topics and got bored of repeating same things.

Day 4 & 5: Every thing was going fine. I had chat on cricket with a British guy. I talked about ‘South of france’ with a guy from Cannes, about Airlines with a Singaporean, about Shushi with a Japanese guy, about my future career plans with some person, who offered me that I can join ‘Rohm n Haas’ anytime. He assured me that a computer science background does not matter, even though it’s a chemical company. I was shocked and did not know how to react.

Day 6: I got to know more about the place. That Evian mineral water is from the French Alps. The hotel is famous for its gardens. Evian is vacation spot both in winter n summer. I actually got to know few people well. We took a boat ride to a near by village and had farewell dinner there. Wharton professor gave a small speech and that was the most memorable day of my life.

Day 7: Last day of the programme. In the morning I took some time off and looked around the place. We had white water rafting in the afternoon. I was so excited, I had to tell many people that it is my first time so that they don’t get scared by my behaviour. It was so much fun. I fell into the water once and rafting boat went over me, but I was ok. After rafting we opened Champaign bottle and everyone were scared and asked me if I am fine as I fell in water. I was little disappointed and I expected more action in rafting.

Day 8: I had breakfast with my favourite professor and he showed his snaps taken in India. I came back with my prof in his car to fonti. The journey was great. My prof told me about all the places we passing through.

If I get chance, I will definitely go back to this place.