Day 18: Have Some Chocolate, You'll Feel Better

People were pretty sick today, and our lecturer attempted to jam pack our day with examples to illustrate concepts. This was ironically quite taxing, and most of us were exhausted by the time lunch came around. Leslie was kind enough to bring us chocolate, but in general, it was a tough day of class.

After class we had very little time before we had to head off to the main branch of Erste Bank, located in Schwedenplatz. I ran back to the hotel to put on some business casual, and then it was off to the metro to for a short ride. Hedading into the bank, we saw the interesting mall area (think the Village in Rochester Hills except bigger).

The sculptures were interesting and the Church as incrdible as the others we have seen. Upon entering the bank we went through the maze of the building to a large board room in the center of the building. This was a historical wing of the bank, and while portraits of Mangagers of the past 150+ years hung on the walls we listend to the chief strategiest present on expansion of the bank in his career of 20 years.

The impressive and successful strategy of moving into Eastern European markets was a great illustration of success in the developing markets we learned about in Germany and Slovakia. Exhausted, we returned to the hotel and took the afternoon off.

After some rest and relaxation, we went out to dinner at a place in Schwedenplatz which had Italian food. I tried the white wine and was pleasantly surprised, as it went well with my pasta. We collected the others at the hotel before heading out to Vienna's most famous club, Flex. After some searching and traveling through graffetti covered back alleys, we found the place...only to find the cover was 22€! Most of us decided to try another option, and got back on the last train before the metro closed. I was feeling a little under the weather, and so I left the group at the transfer station and returned to the hotel to get some rest.