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next stop: Aix-en-Provence

Hello again on my blog. Since I’m now on language course in France I’ll try to write my posts in French and in English. But first of course the french version. English follows below:

Bienvenu sur mon blog. J’ai fait l’expérience des tas de choses. Comme tu aurais vu dans le post précédent l’entier mois du Juin était consacré à la coupe d’ Europe en foot. Ce championat était organisé par l’Autriche et la Suissse. J’ai travaillé pendant les trois jours qu’on avait un match à Berne. C’était une expérience merveilleuse car l’équipe des pays-pas a joué chez nous. En même temps je continuais la recherche d’un emploi mais ce n’était pas un succès jusqu’ici.

Au moment je suis à l’étranger de nouveau. Maintenant au sud de la France, à Aix-en-Provence qui est près de Marseille. J’ai décidé de reste ici pendant l’ete pour m’améliorer en français. Je suis arrivé le dimanche passé et déjà jouis la ville et le beau temps avec le soleil, 25° et un peu du mistral. Aujourd’hui ma classe a commencé. Je suis dans une groupe qui existait déjà avec 8 professeurs qui sont originaire de l’Autirche, le Danemark, la Suède, la Suisse et les Etats-Unis. J’ai eu la possibilité de parler en français avec ma mère d’ hospitalité et pendant ma classe. On est même arriver à ne pas parler l’Allemand ou l’ Anglais avec les autres étudiants.

En question de culture et nourriture j’ai réalisé qu’ on a beaucoups de fruits et légumes ici. Ils utilisent beaucoups d’ hile olive pour cuir et le valeur de l’argent se mesure avec les baguettes ;) C’est ça pour le moment, je continuerai bientôt...

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Welcome again on my blog. A lot has happened since my last. As you could see in my previous post the whole month of June was dedicated to the European Football/Soccer Championship which has been organized by Switzerland and Austria together. I’ve worked on the three match days in Bern which was an amazing experience as we had the Dutch team playing here. Apart from that I’ve written some job applications but none was successful sofar.

Right now, I’m again abroad. This time in southern France, in Aix-en-Provence which is close to Marseille. I’ve decided to spend my summer here and try to improve my French skills in a language course. I arrived last Sunday and already enjoyed a bit the town and the marvellous weather with sunshine, 25° and a bit wind which makes it very comfortable. Today my class finally started as well. I’ve been put into a more or less existing group of 8 teachers from Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland and United States. And I had already a lot of opportunities to speak French cause I’m living with a landlady, during my 4 hours of class and afterwards at lunch. Some of us, including me, even managed not to switch to either German or English although that’s our mother tongue or the languages we know better than French.

Concerning culture and food I only had a few encounters so far. I realized that they have a lot of vegetables and fruits here, they use a lot of olive oil for cooking and of course they’re counting the value of the currency in relation to baguettes ;) That’s it so far, more to come later on…

Euro 2008

Memories from the last month!

I'm freeeeeeee!

I'm just sitting here at schiphol airport in amsterdam in the lounge waiting for my flight back to beloved Switzerland. Out of curiosity and boredom I opened my laptop and tried to connect to wlan which worked. And then I check university systems and find out that the last grades have been published. Couldn't be any happier because I have not only passed but with a good grade, actually the best grade of the entire course, followed by one of my exchange friends! An those grades obtained here together with my thesis grade I got, allow me to maintain more or less my average. Which means, I'm done with everything and just have to wait until I'm officially done - but that's just a matter of time. So finally, I'm free from studies but still looking for a job. This means basically no studies, no job, no clue!

Time to say goodbye!

These days we have a lot of goodbye parties, dinners etc. to attend. One after another is leaving Rotterdam and going back home. And as everyone has again some time for oneself the strange feeling of internal emptiness is rising again. I'm glad I leave soon because this place is not the same without my great friends. And I'm glad some are still here until I leave - so we can do some activities in the evenings... And then from next week on I'll mentally and physically prepare myself for Euro! ;)

Switzerland and Euro here I come (again)!

Het laatste nieuws

A lot has happened in the last few weeks and I wasn't very active with postings. Too much was going on to remember and to tell everything. I try to summarize the most important events.
Concerning studies everything went more or less according to plan for myself. We had to write a huge group paper (almost a second master thesis), present it and finally an exam this week all for the same course. Troubles we had for the paper were more or less that at one point the rest of my group was unavailable (due to planned as well as very sad and unplanned reasons). This lead to the fact that a big part of the paper was written by myself in only couple of days. Afterwards I was quite annoyed (about the paper not the group) and was not very motivated anymore. Nevertheless I think we finished ok and most important thing is that I have finished my last course of my studies now. Today I finally got my grade for my master thesis as well and now I'm practically done with my studies and have to wait...
On the other hand apart from studies the weather has improved a lot lately. Two weeks ago we had one whole week of complete sunshine with around 23°C - we thus spent a lot of time outside in the park with organizing picnic or studying or sat outside drinking few beers (once even until 0430 in the morning). Due to my increased work-load I wasn't able anymore to travel a lot. The highlight was definitely queensday on 30. April where a group of us went to Amsterdam to celebrate the national holiday. It was amazing how everyone was on the streets, dressed in orange clothing and having fun - and so did we.
In the last weeks I started to set up my near future as well. I applied for some jobs but don't have any feedback yet (neither positive nor negative). But luckily I still have a bit of time as I wish to start on 1.10. Until then I will have enough plans to fill my time. First, I'll stay in Rotterdam for another week and have some fun with my friends here. After moving back to Switzerland on 29.5. I'll be Volunteer for Uefa Euro08 championship on the three match days in Bern. At the same time in June I'll try to apply for further jobs and hope that I'll be lucky soon. From beginning of July till mid of Septemeber I finally plan to go to southern France, Aix-en-Provence to be exact, to attend language courses in order to improve my french skills and visit some beautiful parts of France as well as visiting maybe some friends "close" to Aix. That's it sofar. It's nice to feel to have some time again - for the first time probably since I was in Croatia last summer. Je me sens libéré!

3 weeks left ;)