Ann - Day 3 in Budapest

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We had our last meeting with Hungarian Investment and Trade Development Agency (ITD) in Budapest today (June 12th). ITD was founded by the Hungarian government to achieve foreign economic growth in Hungary. Mr. Kilian Csaba, the Executive Investment Director, spoke to us regarding the economic performance and foreign investment in Hungary. After the meeting, Carol, Ryan A., Veronika and I stopped by Costa Coffee for our team meeting and headed back to the hotel for the course wrap up meeting at the hotel. In our course debriefing, the four teams each facilitated discussions on different topics including comparison of the EU vs. the US, recommendations on doing business in Europe, best practices identified, and a comparison of old vs. new Europe and EU's future moving forward. Moreover, Professor Brunel asked us about things that had struck us in our Field Seminar in Europe. I thought Meg brought up a great point regarding the level of humility in Europe and how people did not mention their educational backgrounds or salary as a form of self promotion. It's interesting that in the past few years when I worked in Taiwan, I also observed how local Taiwanese firms seem to encourage humility, yet international firms in Taiwan do encourage self promotion. I think partly it's in the culture of where you are located, but it also depends on the firm you work for. Anyhow, at the end of the meeting, Professor Brunel and Meg gave us a gift, a lovely photo album with our group picture taken at Angers. It's such a thoughtful gift and a great memory for all of us! Thank you both so much!!

Since it's the last night of our European Seminar, we had our farewell dinner at Tigris Restaurant. Tigris is a Michelin rated restaurant, and we could select our courses paired with wine. For my main course, I chose pan seared goose liver with caramelized apples and chalotts. It was phenomenal with the Tokaj Kiralyudvar Sec 2006. After dinner, we went to Club Rio to celebrate the end of our program. This is our baby Alice's first clubbing experience abroad and I'm pretty sure she was amazed at the performance on stage!!

I'm now in Vienna with Cathy and Alice and I will continue my journey in Europe for five more days here. When I reflected back on the past two weeks, I feel that our level of experience and learning have been intensive and rewarding. I look forward to exploring more in Vienna and hope to see everyone soon back in Boston!

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