Switzerland Tout Le Monde

A little over two months ago, I received a surprising email via the contact form of my Learning jQuery web site. In the email Gwendal Tanguy, an employee at Switzerland's only online trading and financial services company, asked:

…apart from reading your book, which is already a good thing, do you know about a company or consultant in Europe that could teach JQuery basis to between 5 and 20 java developers. Maybe do you deliver such a training program?

It sounded like an opportunity too good to pass on to someone else, so I told him that I would be glad to do it myself. Also, knowing that it would be more fun and much more manageable to conduct the training with someone else, I asked Jörn Zaefferer, a brilliant jQuery developer from Cologne, Germany, if he'd like to join me. He agreed, and Swissquote agreed, and the two of us arrived last Wednesday.

It was a good thing Jörn came along. Not only was he able to answer a few of the more difficult questions that eluded me, but the two of us were able to split up the group, which had grown to roughly 35 developers.

The training went very well, with the "students" showing enthusiasm throughout, asking insightful questions and working through the exercises we gave them with great skill.

Since I went with the sole purpose of conducting the training, I didn't really plan on sightseeing or going out at night. I fully expected that Jörn and I would take a taxi or train back to our hotel at the end of each day, maybe grab a quick bite to eat, and go to bed at an early hour. However, I soon realized that things would be quite different when Gwendal took us straight from the airport to an outdoor cafe by Lake Geneva for a beer and then to a restaurant where we met five or six other employees. The next night we went to Lausanne for a traditional Swiss meal of fondue. Bread and cheese for dinner. My kind of meal. At 11:30 when we left the restaurant, five of the guys asked me and Jörn if we wanted to go out to a bar for drinks. Apparently for them the night was still young. We declined

After the training on Friday, Jörn and I walked through the town of Morges, where our hotel was located, and ended up eating at a little restaurant with televisions blasting a soccer game. Switzerland is preparing to host "Euro 2008," the European soccer tournament next week, and the whole country has gone mad with Euro Fever. Despite the noise of the game, we had a nice chat while eating steak cheval. (rough translation: horse meat).

Saturday was a blast. Gwendal and his girlfriend's 15-year-old son, Loïc, picked us up early in the morning, and we headed to the Castle at Chillon, which was built in the 11th Century. We took a fascinating iPod tour of the place which lasted three hours.

Jörn's plane was scheduled to leave Saturday afternoon, so we dropped him off at a train station before heading to a "cafeteria" for lunch and then a cave expedition. The mouth of the cave was halfway up a mountain, but the trek was worth it. After wending our way through the cave's circuitous conduit, we arrived at a waterfall — inside the cave! Loic tried to climb into every crevice he could find.

On Sunday I woke up early to take the train to the Geneva airport and finally arrived home at 8:00 Sunday night. Even the most interesting and fun and rewarding trip could not keep me from missing my family while I was gone. My heart leapt at the sight of them coming towards me in the airport.