November pictures: (1) Deb in Sedona; (2) Deb and her sisters, Carol and Candace, in Australia; (3) The girls cooking (or singing?); (4) Deb, Carol, Candace, Anna, and Lou.

Episode 7: November 2005

November was yet another slow month for us (thankfully). It was a month primarily marked by a missing Shorg: me (Deb)! Altogether, I was in Zurich for seven days during month thanks to a hectic business travel schedule.

My first trip was to the U.S. to attend a two-week course at the Thunderbird Management School in Arizona. In a word, Thunderbird was excellent. I attended the International Consortia executive education program. The program included 36 participants from six different companies (including other well-known companies like McDonalds and EDS). The content was great, and the exposure was really valuable. While the program was quite challenging and demanding, I really enjoyed the mental stimulation and the opportunity to learn with people from other companies. The program gave us one day off, and I took the opportunity to travel with a group of people from EDS to the beautiful red-rock region of Sedona to take a look around. It is a very beautiful part of the U.S. and well worth the visit.

Neal spent the better part of the time that I was away working. He claims that he worked some crazy hours in an effort to catch up on some work and press ahead with new duties. When he was not at work, he volunteered his time to the November production of the theater club that I joined when I arrived in Zurich. The theater club is called the Zurich Comedy Club. The name is a little misleading as the club expands beyond comedy and does several dramatic productions as well. Case in point: The November production that Neal helped with was the club’s two-week run of Arthur Miller’s famous play, “Death of a Salesman”. Neal claims that he is not ready to appear on-stage in a production. So, he chose to help with the technical side of the production, specifically the lighting. Needless to say, after running the lighting board for the production over multiple performances, he will likely never choose to see “Death of a Salesman” again!

On one of the nights that I was in town after Thunderbird, I was lucky enough to attend final night of the production. The play was good, and in English, which is always a bonus! The whole event is even more astonishing when one considers that all the actors and backstage help are volunteers who have regular day jobs in addition to an interest in the theater. And every night they hold a show, it’s sold out!

In the middle of November, I was off to the airport again, this time on my way to Singapore. I had a business meeting there, hosted at (get this) The Ritz Carlton, which just so happened to be the same place where I stayed! The hotel was divine, to say the least, and an experience all to itself! I was greeted at check-in with flowers and extremely personalized service, and my room had an amazing view over the bay. After arriving, I spent the afternoon relaxing, shopping, and preparing for the day-long meeting I was hosting on the first day of the meeting.

The meeting went into the middle of the week and went well. More importantly, I felt wonderful being in Singapore. I knew I was only a 7-hour flight from Melbourne, so it felt very comforting and for the first time in a long time I started to feel quite homesick. I really missed Australia! Good news for me, after the meeting finished, I headed flew to Australia for a few days to see my family and friends. It was wonderful to see everyone again, albeit briefly. I stayed in Oz for six days, spending much of my time catching up with friends and family and soaking up the sun. I also managed to do some research for our wedding. My sisters, mum, one of my best friends, and I visited some locations for the ceremony near Melbourne. The road trip was fabulous, and we had so much fun driving from venue to venue and even making a stop to have a fabulous Aussie pie at a small country town bakery. Carol (my older sister) had done a fabulous job to prepare us for the road trip, complete with a binder full of the details of each venue. From now on, she will forever be known as C. Bo, the Wedding Planner. The trip did produce a promising result. With the help of my posse, we chose a winery located two hours (by car) from Melbourne. The winery is small and cozy and promises to be the ideal setting for the casual, quaint wedding we are hoping for. There are still some remaining details to sort through before we can book the venue, but having an idea of what the setting might look like certainly helps.

There were, of course, other highlights of the short trip back home, including having fish and chips on the beach, Mum and Lou’s cooking, sharing stories with my mum and beautiful sisters, and spending time catching up with my wonderful friends. Before I knew it, I was leaving Australia again. This time, though, I was coming back to Switzerland. However, I had one more stopover to make, this time in Paris for two days. I had to stop in Paris to make a presentation at a conference of HR professionals, sponsored by the European HR Forum. The topic of my hour long presentation was “The Role of the HR Business Partner”, and I am pleased to report that the preparation paid off – all went very well!

Finally, at the beginning of December, I came back to Zurich. After a busy travel month, both Neal and I were ready for more time together in December!

October photos: (1) Part of the hiking troop in the rain at Wildspitz; (2) Deb in the snow at the top of Wildspitz; (3) the extended Shorg family in an introspective picture at Neuchatel; (4) Julie and Deb play in the leaves in Neuchatel; (5) At the top of the Rigi; (6) Deb at one of the many picturesque points along the Felsenwegg.

Episode 6: October 2005

Welcome back! We start this entry with an editorial note: We’ve received a few emails from readers expressing their disappointment that we are no longer sending thru the links to our digital photos. Actually, we are. With every blog posting, we include some pictures from the month. When you click on one of these photos, you will be taken to the site where we post our photos (Kodak’s Ofoto site). It’s just a bit of technology brought to you by the Shorg blog! Now, on with October!

For those of you who have had to read our past entries in shifts (because they were so darn long), you will be happy to know that October was a relatively clam month for us, much to our delight. The first day of the month started with a hike in a lovely part of Switzerland known as Wildspitz (about a 30-minute drive south of Zurich). Deb’s friend, Daphne, decided to celebrate her birthday by inviting 12 people to hike to the top of one of the small mountains and stay the night in a full-service hut before hiking down the next morning. On paper, this was a great idea, and everything went very well…except the weather. We started the party by driving to the meeting point – roughly halfway up the mountain -- in sleet and rain, parked our cars, and then hiked up for an hour in the freezing cold. Luckily, there was a warm hut and a tall beer waiting for us at the top!

The whole point of visiting the hut was to take in the beautiful view of the surrounding mountains and valleys. Unfortunately, due to low-lying clouds and rain, we basically had no visibility! Nevertheless, we had a great evening. After defrosting and changing into dry clothes, we chatted, ate dinner, and chatted some more over glasses of wine and dessert. We had a reasonably good sleep that night and the next morning awoke to breakfast and our first sight of snow! By late morning, we all hiked together to our cars and then headed our separate ways.

[One note about Switzerland’s mountain huts. We admittedly do not know much yet about these huts, but we hear that they are quite the experience (as we found out firsthand). Switzerland has loads of mountain huts that accommodate to the day-hiker and serious backpacker. The huts are typically known for their remote locations and spectacular views of the surroundings. Many of the huts are “rustic” and are equipped with the bare essentials. The hut at Wildspitz is much more well-appointed than the typical hut. In the basement are three or four rooms with dorm-style sleeping arrangements. The main floor features a full-service restaurant, and the owners of the hut cook up a variety of meals and coffees throughout the day. We hope to have many more adventures at these huts throughout the country. For any backpackers and hiking enthusiasts who are reading, if you are interested in learning and seeing more, we suggest you visit the Swiss Alpine Club’s website, www.sac.ch (website is only in German or French).]

The following weekend was relatively quiet. We babysat our friends’ kids for a few hours on Saturday so that the parents could have an afternoon to themselves. On Sunday, we joined a group of friends to see Cirque Du Soleil’s new show, Dralion. For those not familiar with the Cirque shows, they are basically human circuses. There are no animals – instead the show is based on people doing what can best be called unusual feats to a fantastic, driving musical soundtrack. It’s an experience we highly recommend seeing. As expected, Dralion did not disappoint!

The following weekend, we had our first visitor from the Sheorey clan. Neal’s dad (Ravi) came to spend five days with us. He was in Hungary on a work trip and managed to stop in Zurich before flying back to the US. On the day he arrived, we spent the afternoon walking through Zurich and showing him our beautiful city. The next day we took a road trip to the quaint town of Neuchatel, located on the French side of the country. There, we met up with my dad and stepmom, Julie. Believe it or not, though Neal and I have been a couple for over three years, this was the first meeting of any of our family members! We labeled the whole event as a “meet the Fockers” experience. We found Neuchatel to be a very nice town, based on French Barroque architecture. It’s definitely one location that we are considering for a second visit in the summer. On this visit, we stayed long enough to have lunch together and walk a bit through the town.

The next day I left for a trip to the US, leaving the “boys” together. Neal’s dad spent the day visiting a nearby mountain called Pilatus. It was quite an adventure for him. He took the train from Zurich to Luzern, boarded a boat to cross Lake Luzern, and then rode a cog train up to the top of Pilatus. At the summit, he took some lovely pictures of the surrounding mountains, and he seemed to thoroughly enjoy the entire outing. The next morning, Neal’s dad left Zurich to return to the US. It was a short trip for him, but we’re glad that he was able to visit us and see how we are living in Switzerland.

Once I returned from my trip to the US, we decided to have our own little adventure. Knowing that the winter months are quickly approaching, we took advantage of a nice day to hike along a mountain range known as the Rigi. The Rigi is known by some as a “family mountain”. It’s a very popular range overlooking Lake Luzern that is not terribly strenuous and is perfect for casual day-hikes. We hiked a track that we had read about some time ago. The adventure began with us taking our packed lunches on a train to Luzern. From the Luzern train station, we caught a boat to the village of Vitznau, where we jumped on a cog train to the top of the mountain. Starting at the summit, we then followed the crowds down a path known as the Felsenwegg. All together, we hiked for three hours (not including our rather long stop for ice cream and to take in the view). The walk was spectacular. In some spots, the path carved into the mountain to provide spectacular views of the lake below and the mountains all around us. There are so many paths to explore that we will probably be back again for another hike.

The hike provided a nice end to the month of October. Overall, it was a calm month and one in which we took some adventures within Switzerland. As we ended the month, we were well aware that the colder months are upon us. I’m sure that we can expect a whole new and different set of adventures with the arrival of the snow!