I have just come home from the McKinsey EuroAcademy 2005. It started on Wednesday evening with a team-building dinner for the Nordic participants (four from Denmark, the rest from Norway, Sweden, and Finland), where we in teams prepared a three course, super delicious dinner for each other. It took place in Meyer’s Madhus, which I can recommend highly.

On Thursday, we flew to Athens to meet with the 120 students from all over Europe. Thursday was mostly relaxation, getting to know each other, and a presentation of McKinsey.

Friday was Academy Day, which started with a speech from Patrick Cox, former President of the EU Parliament, followed by a panel discussion. We then split into groups to debate different issues in Europe ranging from Banking in Europe over European Governance to Eastern Europe. I was in the latter with about 15 other students, which proved to be very informative and exciting, especially as we had several students from Easter Europe in our break-out session (e.g. the Czech Republic and Turkey). Our moderator was the Governor of the National Bank of Serbia, Radovan Jelašic. These break-out sessions were followed by an inspiring leadership panel. At dinner, Jean-Claude Trichet, the President of the European Central Bank, held a wonderful speech on, especially, the Euro, its consequences and success.

On Saturday, we went out sailing on 47-yachts. Although sailing is one of my keen interests, I have never sailed such big sailing boats. We were about 21 boats, so we had a semi-race, which was extremely fun.

Sunday, a hectic goodbye day, where we had too little time to say goodbye to each other — hopefully, we have the chance to get together again at some point. I have already some plans, and I am sure the rest has too.

Thank you all for a wonderful trip.

I like the Italian-godfather-silence-before-storm kind of feel over this one.

I first mentioned Arena di Verona in this post. Arena di Verona is an open air, colosseum-like amphitheatre, where they perform opera. I watched a sublime performance of Verdi’s Aida. Here is my most recently processed photograph.

Another shot from the Italy trip three weeks ago.

As I think I already mentioned, I took close to 600 photographs during the Italy trip, so there is more to come. Here is a view from the big bridge connecting San Marco and Academia in Venice.

These are, like the Campari shot, some of the very first photos from the trip. On the left hand, Morten is getting ready to shoot from the boat, which we took from the airport to San Marco (still Venice), and on the right, I am shooting some architecture across the canal (Morten took this picture).

The first picture I had through PS from my Italy trip.

The building in the picture is not actually in Venice, but on the neighbouring island Lido, which we passed on our trip with the vaporetto (some kind of water bus) from the airport to San Marco.

I have just returned from Italy (on Monday), where I toured Nothern Italy with a friend of mine, Morten, which you might already know.

First we flew to Venice (Saturday) and had a look at this fascinating, but also in so many ways strange city. On Sunday we drove to Verona to have a look at the Romeo and Juliette city, but — more importantly — to see Verdi’s opera Aida at Arena di Verona, an ancient, Roman colosseum-like amphitheatre. If you at some time are in the area, do not miss out on this great opportunity. Below is a picture from inside the arena about half an hour before the opera starts.

We returned to Venice in the middle of Sunday night, and stayed in Venice for another two days. At this time it is very turisty. You should go outside of this season, and pick a place to live that is not that close to the San Marco square.

On Wednesday we took the train to Florence, where we were to visit one of my very good friends from New York — Paolo. There are pictures of him in some of my earlier posts from New York. We stayed at his parents summer residence outside of Florence–a beautiful olive yard.

On Saturday, we took the train to Milan, where we finished off the tour with some power shopping. More photos to come, hopefully, once I have gone through the more than 1.5k pics we took down there.

Finally, I have had the time to look at my Los Angeles (FEB 2005) photographs. Clicking on the link below, will take you to a dozen photos from the below mentioned visit to LA. We were placed among the finalists in the competition ahead of Berkeley, Wharton, and Thammasat.

Photos from LA / click here

SAS’s wireless internet on their long-haul flights works perfect. Right now I am flying over Baffin Island in Nothern Canada on my way to Seattle.

In Seattle I will transfer to my flight to L.A., where I will participate in the Marshall International Case Competition at the University of Southern California.