Italy

The flight to Venice was packed. It left late and arrived late, and it took a while for the baggage to be delivered, but once it was delivered one needs to get from the airport to the city. The normal way is via a water taxi. These are boats that can seat several passengers, and that navigate the canals and waterways of Venice. My hotel was near San Marco Plaza. I arrived just after noon, and right behind me were Bart van Praag and his wife. Since our rooms were not yet ready, we went to the hotel restaurant, where we had a 30 Euro risotto, mine was risotto with scampi e funghi, and was pretty good.

The Fuqua alumni retreat was at Hotel Danielli, a short walk away. I went over and registered, and ran into Armin Eiche and his wife, and Chad Westhoff and his wife. We were also joined by Florian Kaufman and his wife. Later, Tambra Nichols ad Kayoko Yamanishi joined us, so our class had seven people in attendance.

Our first event was a talk by Phillippa Malmgren about risk in an uncertain world, and we talked a bit about the deteriorating relations between China and the United States. Although she didn't say it, I was thinking to myself that in World War One, the combatants were also the largest trading partners prior to the conflict. She drew the relationship between different events, and their implications for national security and Sino-American relations into a clear light.

We then went to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum for a reception, and to see her collection of modern art. I'll admit that a lot of modern art makes little sense to me, but the guides we had were intelligent, and explained the art to novices like me.

We then went for the dine around, and the class of '06 was sent to a restaurant XXX. I started with a baked scallop, followed it with black pasta and crab meat, and had fried scampi and calamari as my main course. The food was OK, it did not rate highly, but it was adequate. The company was far superior to the food.

We walked back across the Rialto Bridge to our respective hotels, crossing the many canals that make up Venice.

I slept OK, but the room ended up very cold, even by my standards.

June 30

The main purpose of my trip, and the sole justification, was to attend the Fuqua Alumni Annual Retreat. This year, the retreat also had the university president, Dick Brodhead, Provost Peter Lange, outgoing Dean Doug Breeden, incoming Dean Blair Shepherd, and a lot of Fuqua notables. At various times I had conversations with each of them about the future of Fuqua, and the recent events at Duke.

The academic sessions were with Bob Winkler talking about statistical methods. Bob was the GEMBA professor for statistics in term two, he was in good form, and it was enjoyable to hear him lecture again. Doug Breeden took the second section on whether or not people are adequately preparing for their retirement. John Payne, who was supposed to speak, was unable to attend due to emergency surgery. (It was a mixed blessing, while we lost a potentially good speaker, it did open the door for Tambra and Kayoko.)

Bob used a medical example for how people can misinterpret statistics: Consider a medical test that is 99% accurate, ie, it will generate one false positive for every 100 cases. If the odds of the actual condition were 1000-1, if you get a positive result, what are the actual odds you have the condition?

Well, if we tested 100,000 people, there would be 100 with the condition, and 99 positives. But, of the other 99,900, you would have 999 false positives, so more than 90% of the initial positives would be false. One needs to remember the underlying conditions when assessing the validity of any statistics, and to think about what it all means.

Doug's talk was a little drier, but suggests that people are closer to meeting savings goals than previously believed. There was a table of multiples of salary required to sustain a lifestyle over a period of time, assuming one lived to 95 years old. But, opposed to that was the indication that people tend to be forced to retire earlier than planned.

After the sessions, we went to lunch. They served potato gnocchi, and a broiled salmon.

In the afternoon, we had a city tour. We went walking through various squares in Venice, and eventually went to the Rialto Bridge. We learned that Venice was built on many islands, and the islands were connected by the bridges, so the canals represent the separation of the islands.

Piazza San Marco	Basilica San Marco
Basilica San Marco	Palazzo Ducale
Procurate Vecchie	Flying Lion
Piazzetta San Marco	Biblioteca Marciania
Basilica San Gregorio	Basilica San Gregorio
Biblioteca Marciania	Sansovino
Rio Palazzo	San Gregorio
San Gregorio	San Gregorio
San Gregorio	Palazzo Ducale
Cappella San Zulian	Carving
Palazze ali Piero	Unnamed Palace
Unnamed Statue	The Grand Canal
The Grand Canal	Rialto Bridge
A Gondola	Rialto Bridge
Rialto Bridge	Rialto Bridge
Lion Guarding Menin	Lion Guarding Menin
Snail Staircase	Manin
Opera House	Sansovino
Procuratie Vecchie	Basilica San Marco
Basilica San Marco	Basilica San Marco
Basilica San Marco	Basilica San Marco
Basilica San Marco	Basilica San Marco
Palazzo Ducale	Clock
Clock	Clock
Basilica San Marco

Click on any image to see a larger picture

On the way back, we saw the snail staircase and the opera house, before returning to San Marco Plaza. It was an interesting tour. I also saw a lot of masks on sale, these are part of the Venice Carnival at the beginning of Lent, roughly the equivalent of Mardi Gras. These were renaissance masks, and they ranged in price from 20 Euros on up.

I bought a tie with the city emblem.

Dinner was amazing. After changing into suits, we were taken by gondola to a private palace, where we had a garden reception to the music of Vivaldi, and were then escorted into a dining room made of marble with numerous paintings on the walls, depicting various virtues. It was originally bought in the 15th Century by a merchant and remained in that family hands since that time.

Dinner was cold salmon appetizer, scampi linguine, and groshead fish. Not many liked the fish, saying it was "too fishy," but I thought it was a decent meal. The palace was, well, palatial. It was too bad that many guests would be leaving after that night. I went back to my hotel room after midnight (at midnight, we toasted the end of Doug Breeden's tenure as Dean of the business school and welcomed Blair Shepherd's tenure) and slept.

July 1

I woke and packed early.

There was a final session with Blair Shepherd talking about his vision for the future of the school, and how we needed to leverage various assets to try to bring the business school into the top tier. Duke's two biggest strengths are the global focus, and the decision studies group, and these can be leveraged to make Fuqua the premier school for international business. We'll need to see how well we can execute on this plan.

There was a brunch at a nearby restaurant, but I had to leave early to take my water taxi to the Venice train station. I had a 13:22 train from Venice to Rome; I got to the station at about 12:40, and found the train. Rome beckoned!

On the first half of the train trip, I was joined by an American family from Dallas, and for the second half, by Italians. The Americans were fairly boisterous, having just flown in. The Italians were quiet, and let me work on my computer.

A good part of the train trip went through tunnels. There were some very long tunnels after Bologna, and again between Firenze and Roma. Arriving in Rome was somewhat anti-climactic, there were no great buildings or historical ruins next to the tracks, just a bunch of rail lines, busses, and trams. Worse, my car was at the far end of the train, and there were no luggage carts to be seen. I ended up having to haul my luggage (last weighed in at 24 kilos on the flight from Prague to Venice, and certainly heavier with the addition of some purchases and the papers from the conference) the length of the train, 11 cars. I then struggled to find an exit.

Train stations used to have large atria where one could see the schedule boards and the trains. In Rome, this has been replaced with a high end shopping center. The exits were not well marked; fortunately I had looked at satellite images to see where I should go. At the taxi stand, a porter indicated my hotel was nearby, and he carried my bag (on a cart) to the hotel for me. It was a five minute walk. I relaxed for a little bit, then headed out to a local trattoria recommended by the concierge. I had a first course of dried beef, then a pasta amatricana, and finally had a roast lamb. The first two dishes were very good, but the lamb was overcooked, and not so good.

I then returned to the hotel and went to bed.

July 2

I woke refreshed with a big day planned. I had hoped to see the Vatican and Ancient Rome, what I didn't take into account was the likelihood of queues. I was warned to arrive early for the Vatican, so, since the doors opened at 10AM, I planned to get there at 9AM. As it turns out, I got there at 8:30, and I still had to wait for three hours in line. The queue went around the side of the Vatican for about half a mile. I ended up bying two bottles of water while waiting, one frozen. It was very hot standing in line, and the frozen bottle cooled me as it slowly thawed.

The queue was not orderly, as it moved forward, different people moved ahead at different rates. Perhaps the most aggressive were a party of South Koreans, who gradually pushed ahead of us and saved themselves maybe ten minutes in line. I figured that no matter when I entered, it would be crowded.

And so it was.