Lucerne and Happy People

 Lucerne

Snow mountain, is always the most inspiring place I visit across our travels, from Mont-Tremblant to the Canadian Rockies and then to the Swiss mountains. Booking a vacation for me was always a last minute to do, I started with Germany Berlin, to Iceland with A to and then to Swizerland, and still didn't make up my mind. N suddenly wrote to me, she was coming to Basel conferences, asking me if I want to go there as well. "YAY, I thought, 5 days before the vacation day, I will crash into her staying in Switzerland too, what a perfect timing to see her in Europe instead of New York this time!" After asking the place she stayed in Lucerne, I booked the same hotel for D and me, and extended the vacation to Interlaken after that weekend. "Yopi Yopi" goes my husband in his mind, but yet, who told me he didn't like travelling around. 

Friday, I sent last email for the first UAT H assigned to me, and at that time, I still doubted if I did well, for Corporate.  I closed the laptop with all checks green for 350K rows, and turned around to walk out of the room, there I saw pink and green matrixes shown beside my analyst's screens, and another far on the left corner close to Z. T and M started to loudly broadcast the need for reconciliations in their processes, just echo with the teams to signal, "it's ok, you did well, no stress". Happy people day, another magic wand dashed on me, and made me thinking, of course I will come back to you, what a nice gesture for me to remember that you like what I did, just before I head to the beautiful Swiss mountains. 

I flew out of the office packed with summer cloths, and after half day of travelling in plane and bus in Lucerne we reached the hotel Mirage in complete darkness. Riding the bus was necessary to get to the street where our hotel was located, and D was not too pleasant either. "Finally in Lucerne" I thought, and  arriving at the hotel, the room was polished white, the bed was set very low at first sight, and with orange and yellow accent on the surface and wall decors. Settling down in the new space, S asked me, "so what's the plan tomorrow" I replied: "I will have a breakfast with  N, would you want to come as well?" D: "Nah, I will join later maybe, you guys need girls time, must have lots to catch up, and I want to sleep in tomorrow". The next time I opened my eyes, I thought I just woke up in heaven. Window was a brush colored painting sitting here, with jake lake, the green mountain Pilatus peaking through slices of clouds and a small docking tier for boats right underneath my window.  , The Hotel Hermitage was designed by Herzog and Meuron, with lake view and designed balcony for us to dwell in the paradise as long as we wished. It’s breathtakingly beautiful, I had a longest "wow" I can remember, standing beside the window, contemplating "why should I leave this hotel room at all, I can stay here for the whole day"  N came out of the stairs with beige and pinkish long suit and wavy hair, and I went there with a white sweater from the Barcelona trip. She was always stylish, nice to see her during her working day as well. We took some yogourt and cereal and sat at the terrace facing the emerald scenery. "How did you find the hotel, what a breathtaking view this morning!", she replied, "oh well, it's a boutique hotel, do you like it?". "All central banks employees are here today, I also talked with the one from European Central Bank yesterday". Hum, in a glimpse of time, it's the first time I felt we grew up, and still sitting here sharing interesting tales at a dreamy land. She added on, "so nice to hear you don’t have any stress at your current job, you really did all the scope tables by yourself?", "it's true my office in NYC is also more uptight, would you know what Swiss people also spend so much time in perfecting everything including hotels, homes and landscape that they get stressed for that?" I continued "ah good to know, the nice part is that they made the best of it. Most of them are minimalism, thank god they didn’t change this place that much. It’s so beautiful." and "yes, I did all the work by myself alone, the productivity was crazy, and there were 5 people leads managed about 80 analyts, I felt I was free to be in charge of my own scope entirely. They rarely intervene." N: "I must leave soon, the day is getting started, why don't you pass by the Chocolatier Laderac, we get about $100 worth each time when we come to Switzerland! And I will see you at dinner time"