Forgot to mention the best part
I forgot to mention that I asked one of the speakers, a professor from UT Austin actually, to explain why exactly gas prices along the Gulf coast went up right after Katrina. He kind of dodged my question for some reason, but it was fine because following the discussion session, a Senior Advisor of Lukoil International Trading & Supply Co. named Ludwig Hachfeld introduced himself to me, gave me his card, and answered my question very thoroughly. He introduced himself as "one of those Russian bad guys that everyone has been referring to," and only requested that I refer to him on a first name basis! He said the prices went up since a good number of refineries were out of operation, which I knew about, but then he went on to explain further how a lot of different things go into determining the price of gas at the stations; not just supply & demand (in fact not hardly at all), OPEC doesn't determine it, the Russian "bad guys" don't determine it, but the methods of extraction do (i.e. what you, Papa, were telling me a while back; the world isn't running out of oil, it's just running out of cheap oil--it's getting more expensive to extract). He went on for a good 20 mins and he seemed quite opinionated (not to mention creepy because of his Russian accent!).
One of the Italian guys I met and hung out with, Luco, kept teasing me that it's only a matter of time before I get hired as "Ludwig's secretary" at Lukoil. I called Luco "Lukoil" the rest of the trip in return. Me so funny hah-hah!
So there was a shady night club in St. Gallen called the Trischli, which had table dances in the basement. My host, Valerie (who was quite the insider since she had been organising the convention since May) told me that a bunch of Lukoil advisors were spotted at the Trischli the night I actually ended up there with a few other people (I stayed in the normal bar area of course!!). I saw a few men come up the stairs to the normal bar area who were in suits, looking extremely drunk, and who sounded like they were speaking Russian.
How crazy is it that I found myself at a trashy Swiss night club with a bunch of raving drunken Russian senior advisors for one of the world's largest oil trading and supply companies? This is why I've really got to look up more lofty conventions to go to y'all.
18 days til I come home!! I can't wait!
One of the Italian guys I met and hung out with, Luco, kept teasing me that it's only a matter of time before I get hired as "Ludwig's secretary" at Lukoil. I called Luco "Lukoil" the rest of the trip in return. Me so funny hah-hah!
So there was a shady night club in St. Gallen called the Trischli, which had table dances in the basement. My host, Valerie (who was quite the insider since she had been organising the convention since May) told me that a bunch of Lukoil advisors were spotted at the Trischli the night I actually ended up there with a few other people (I stayed in the normal bar area of course!!). I saw a few men come up the stairs to the normal bar area who were in suits, looking extremely drunk, and who sounded like they were speaking Russian.
How crazy is it that I found myself at a trashy Swiss night club with a bunch of raving drunken Russian senior advisors for one of the world's largest oil trading and supply companies? This is why I've really got to look up more lofty conventions to go to y'all.
18 days til I come home!! I can't wait!