I’m pretty tired tonight and don’t particularly feel like blogging. But I will give an overview of our successful but relaxing day. We slept in. It was glorious. Maybe that sounds bad because I am in a foreign country and I should be out experiencing, and maybe that is true, but we have been really busy and starting early and I am just tired. It was nice.
We started at 11 today (which I will point out is 7 Iowa time). I think I have somewhat adjusted but it is still a lot easier for me to stay up late than wake up early. We talked about the structure of the case study and how he plans on teaching it. This allows us to insure that key points are present in the case.
Tonight we went to Pablo’s for dinner. Pablo and Maria have been so giving. They are truly wonderful. We spent a few hours going over final details with Pablo and Mateo (I know, final details took a few hours – crazy). This gave us more details and helped us clarify some of the thought process and timing of events. Pablo is very good at the big picture of things and Mateo is very good at the details and timing of the business. They work well together and have allowed us to get a good feel for the business and country. When we got done we had a great dinner. Pablo has a giant grill with a chimney on his terrace. It was a really great experience and something that seems very unique to Montevideo. Great food, great atmosphere, great company. Tough to beat.
Well I’m tired and just don’t have the energy to carry on. Good night.
What a day. We accomplished so much and had such a great time doing it. Today we visited the farm and packaging operation. The complexity of this undertaking is truly overwhelming. The past few days we have been focusing on the business and trading side of this venture. Today we got a first hand look at the production side of the equation. We visited with Jorge, the first blueberry grower in Uruguay and the person who came to Pablo with the idea of commercial blueberry farm. He showed us two of the main farms, the plant growing and cultivation processes, some major problems they have encountered, the irrigation system, and the packaging house. At the farms we discussed the differences in breeds of blueberries and the different advantages to certain plants. We also talked about the harvesting and pruning techniques to insure a good product. It quickly became apparent that this was not a job for a novice and that a lot of expertise was involved.
We then went to the packaging house. This is the key to the future of Uruguayan Blueberries. It is one of only a few such facilities in Uruguay and gives them a true advantage over competitors. It was amazing to see how the blueberries were stored, sorted, packaged, and prepared for transport. It gave us an idea of how the process works. An added bonus was that when we were done here we were given free reign on freshly picked blueberries. They were amazing, the best blueberries I have ever had.
After the packaging plant we visited with Andriana, the farms agricultural engineer. She talked to us about some key pests that they need to control and provided us with the insight that every farm is a little bit different and cannot be treated in a uniform way. This again showed the difficulty in farming and helped explain why it is important to keep it to a more manageable size.
After our hard day of work we had lunch at a small vineyard. But if I explained this I would just be bragging, so I will stop here.
I am starting to really appreciate what an extraordinary opportunity this is. The chance gain real world knowledge from Pablo is invaluable. He has such an entrepreneurial mind and has a great grasp of finance, politics, history, cultural and the interplay between the four. President and Mrs. Garner have had such exciting and interesting lives. They provide insights I could not find other places and have experiences few can top. It has been great to get to know them better on this trip. It isn’t very often that students can have such direct and prolonged contact with the president of their college.
As you can see, the project is starting to come together. We are meeting with President Garner tomorrow to go over our objectives for the case study and our tasks for the rest of the block. You can also see the high esteem in which I hold this project. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I’m just glad that it was made possible while I was still at Cornell and that I was able to take advantage of the unique Cornell system and this extraordinary opportunity.
I am starting by apologizing for my last blog. I just was not feeling it and I did not produce my best work. Not that today’s work will be much better, but at least I am willing to put forth effort.
Today started well. Audrey and I took about an hour and a half long walk along the beach. It’s pretty hard to complain about my life right now. It’s sunny and warm and just perfect.
Around noon President and Mrs. Garner, Audrey, and I went to the old city to find some food and prepare to meet Pablo for the first time of the trip. We had lunch outside and ordered chavitos, a dish recommended by Prof. Farooqi. It was an especially interesting lunch because we talked about the great opportunities Cornell has given us, both to explore our interests and build our skills for the future. We discussed the advantages of Cornell’s One Course at a Time format and how it is applicable upon entering the work force. Later, we discussed the ways programs like the Berry Center have added a whole new dimension to Cornell. They draw students in, provide once in a lifetime opportunities, and prepare students for life after Cornell.
After lunch I had the pleasure of meeting Pablo for the first time. He is a truly engaging individual. He has such a firm grasp of his blueberry venture, the Uruguayan economy, and the world economy for that matter. My favorite part was getting a feel for how everything interacts. Political interests and history, economic policy and markets, foreign affairs all played major roles in the blueberry business. The inputs of a blueberry venture are astronomical, and they seem to get bigger and more complex all the time. His visions of his business for the future are also interesting. You can really see his entrepreneurial mindset.
On the car ride back to our hotel we discussed how we are going to go forward in writing this case study. As we have started to gather more information I have begun to realize that I don’t know the first thing about writing a case study. It seems like everytime we start to get some part of this project in hand I start to worry about the next step.
Contrary to what some may believe, we are actually doing work down here too. I know most of our blogs have been about our trip and our incidents, but once we finally got here we have worked a little.
We started last night by going out to dinner with President and Mrs. Garner, Maria (Pablo’s girlfriend), and Mateo. We discussed the current affairs of Uruguay, its political and economic history, and the blueberry venture. It gave us a great overview the country and blueberry industry.
Today we spent about 8 hours interviewing Mateo again. This was more formal and Audrey and I both about 15 pages of notes a piece. I’m not sure how many President Garner took, but it was a bunch too. We had lunch at a really cool market today. The steak was some of the best I have ever had and it had a really cool atmosphere. After lunch we continued questioning Mateo. It may not seem like much, but 8 hours is a long day to work in Uruguay. At least President Garner was impressed that we lasted that long.
After dinner, Audrey and I went to watch Mateo and Juan (another young worker at Renmax) go play soccer. The game was intense. One guy hurt his ankle and I almost had to play. But I was too scared because I haven’t played soccer since I was 9 and they kicked that thing really hard.
After the game we went out to dinner. It was a nice time to get to know some of the younger people outside of work and really see what life in Montevideo is like. We made plans to go out later in the week. Hopefully that works out. I have a feeling it will be like nothing in the US and something I should definitely experience while I am here.
I really like it here. It is a great sized city. Not too big as to overwhelm me, but big enough to keep me interested and always have something to do. Not to mention, the weather is perfect. They said today wasn’t very nice because it rained for about 15 minutes and yesterday wasn’t nice because it was windy. I would pity them in the -50 degree wind chill we had this January. I would take Montevideo anyday.
We made it. It feels like so long ago since I was sitting in a hotel bed in Dallas. I guess that kind of makes sense since I am about 5000 miles away from there now.
We spent Monday at the Dallas Airport. It was a surprisingly fun and relaxing day. After our taxi cab extravaganza we were not in the mood to adventure out much before our flight on Monday and opted instead to just check out at noon and just head to the airport in plenty of time. While I was not really excited about spending 7 hours at the airport, I wasn’t about to test my luck with a cab again and miss the flight. It ended up being quite a fun day.
One of the first things of any consequence that we did was prank call Monica. When we got to the airport we were asked if we had visas because we were now going through Brazil. Of course we did not, and we quickly determined that it was not actually necessary. This gave us a great idea of a fun prank to play on Monica though. Over the 7 hours we got very bored and decided that because of our fiasco and panic from the day before we had earned the right to have a little fun ourselves. We called Monica in a panic about needing visas for our new flight plan and not being sure if we would be able to take our new flight. She tried to be calm but we could tell she was frantic. She hung up before we could tell he we were joking. We called back and we all had a good laugh about it. Sorry Monica.
The next great thing of the day happened around 4. It is difficult to fully describe the gloriousness of this individual and I’m sure my words will not do him justice, but I will make my futile attempt. The first thing we realized was a man wearing red suede shoes (interesting in itself). Then we notice he was also wearing distressed jeans, a khaki color linen safari jacket and a white Panama hat. This is when we realized that this was an interesting guy. We started conjecturing about what his story was and how he decied that all of those things looked good together. Then a magnificent thing happened; he took off his jacket. Under was hipster striped shirt with an eagle embossed on the front and some sort of crazy design on back. This guy just got even more mismatched and even more intriguing than we initially thought. He was also sporting a number of very cool bracklets and an orange watch to top off the ensemble. He was such an interesting individual. We talked about him for at least an hour. While I have attempted to describe what he was wearing, it is difficult to describe the actual man. The manner in which he carried himself and the pure showmanship he must have to even attempt the hodgepodge of clothes and accessories he managed to put together cannot be described with words or even the pictures we managed to get of him. He was a truly intiguing individual and occupied a great deal of our time in Dallas.
Just before we boarded we saw an unlikely person in the Airport. We ran into President Garner. After the trustees meeting he was flying through Dallas to Montevideo, with a stop in Chile. It was an unlikely, but extremely welcome meeting. I think Audrey and I were both relieved to see someone that we knew. It made us feel like we were finally on the right path again.
The trip to Brazil was long but uneventful. I drifted in and out of sleep, watched a few TV shows that the airline offered, listened to my ipod a bit, and tried to block out the person snoring in front of us. It was weird to get on a plane on Monday and get off the plane on Tuesday 5000 miles away. Our plane was about 45 minutes late in taking off from Dallas so we were a little frightened that we might miss our flight to Montevideo, but we made it just in time and had no issues with visas or anything like that. It was a relatively short flight to Montevideo, but most flights seem short after a 10 hour overnight flight. When we got to Montevideo our day continued smoothly. Our bags made it and there were practically no customs.
So here we are…sitting in our hotel room, waiting for President and Mrs. Garner, about to go to dinner with Pablo and his wife, in Uruguay… finally.
I woke up this morning knowing that we should be in Uruguay. Unfortunately, I was in Dallas. What a day we had yesterday. It was planned that we would be in 4 airports, 3 states, 2 countries, with 15 hours in the air, and a total trip of about 20 hours. Instead, we had the worst travel day ever. Instead of getting a blog on our project, this will be a blog about our day dealing with the bureacracy of airlines, the uncertainty of a new city, and a taxi ride – all with a little bit of bad luck to spice things up.
We arrived at Cedar Rapids Airport in plenty of time for our flight at 2. Everything began well and went smoothly. We each checked a bag, got through security without a problem and boarded our plane for Dallas. When we got to Dallas it all started. We got all our plane and found a flight monitor to see where our next gate was. Our flight to Miami had been cancelled. Apparently they cancel one flight to Miami everyday and it is just a lottery as to which one. With our bad luck, it was ours. We hurried to a desk to get help. We could not get to Miami in time to make our connecting flight to Uruguay. This is where it gets ugly. We were able to book a flight the next day to Uruguay via Brazil without much problem, but getting our bags back was a fiasco. We entered the bureaucracy of American Airlines. We were sent to six different desks in three different terminals. We walked up stairs and down escalators and even had to catch a bus. Eventually after four hours, two of which were just waiting, we got our checked bags and made our way to the airport. We were booked for a flight the next day to Brazil and the to Uruguay. Hopefully the fact that they speak Portuguese in Brazil won’t cause problems, but I guess that is for another blog. This one is about our adventures in Dallas.
After getting our bags we were exhausted and wanted to go to the hotel, find some food, and go to bed. We took a shuttle to the hotel and got a taxi to the restaurant. The food was good and it was a little before 9 when we finally got to the restaurant. We ate quickly and called our cab at about 9:45. Apparently the cab that was coming to get us blew a tire and there were no other cabs in the Greater Dallas/Fort Worth area because we didn’t pick up until 11:30. It was a nightcap fitting of our day.
At breakfast this morning Audrey mentioned that it was 9:30 and we would be in Montevideo by now had everything gone to plan. We both laughed about it, knowing that at this time tomorrow we will be somewhere over Brazil and almost to San Paulo. All we could do was laugh about our misfortunes the day before and the long flight ahead of us. On the up side: we get to go to Brazil now.
Our first week has consisted of preliminary research and preparing ourselves for the trip. We spent the first day reading about the political and economic history of Uruguay. Much of this information was more in-depth than we needed or outdated, but it provided us with a good setting of where the country has been and allowed us to get more of a feeling for the economic and political climate. After we gained a basic feel for Uruguay we focused more on the specific issues with blueberries and the company venture. We looked up information on the world market for blueberries and the entrepreneurial situation of Uruguay.
We are at the point now of mainly trying to prepare ourselves for this trip – making lists, filling out paper work, meeting with professors, etc. I have a feeling the next few days are going to go very quickly for us and we will be on our 10 hour flight before we even know it.