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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 ;)

Spring in Netherlands

I let the pictures speak!

Busy bee

Looking back at the last 1.5 weeks I really got the impression that they were really packed. First of all, I had to write an exam for my previous course called Marketing, Technology and Innovation. Although I didn't have the impression that it was too difficult and unfair it took my 2.5 hours to finish, which is kind of uncommen as I'm used to have uni exams which last between 1 and 1.5 hrs. You never know how detailed they expect you to answer, but I have a good feeling though. After the exam and partying in the evening I enjoyed doing anything for once. I went to buy some clothes and for a coffee in town and just made it home before it started to rain cats and dogs. In the late afternoon and evening I just stayed home and relaxed.
Friday morning I then left for the weekend to Amsterdam where I met my parents. We visited several places like the Van Gogh Museum, the Rijksmuseum or the Foam Photographymuseum, walked around or just enjoyed the company over a coffee/dinner. Except the weather the whole weekend was amazing. Another reason for that was, that I met friends again, which I got to know in Stuttgart and haven't seen for almost 2 years. On saturday evening we partying like crazy with the result that I arrived back at the hotel at 6 am and only slept for four hours. And it's kind a strange when the hotel staff is yawning and you still feel energized when you come back :) On sunday evening I joined my friends again, but only for a beer. Later on I travelled back home to Rotterdam where I arrived at 2 am.
Monday and tuesday I spent mostly at home relaxing, except dinner and and some beers as we celebrated Nisha's birthday. On wednesday university continued and my new course (Event and Tourism Marketing) started. They decided to do a shock therapy with us - we had to research and write a group paper in 2.5 days and present it already before it was finished (and it contributes 20% to our final grade). As they only set the "framework" and the research object, we came up with our own research question which was "Can the Olympics 2008 be successful in branding China and Beijing?". I think we did a pretty good job in the short time we had and our professor said at the presentation this morning that it seems to be good but still gave us some tips for further improvements. We handed in our final paper 3 hours ago and now we'll see. Aaaand there we go, off to another weekend!

Half time

On a rainy monday morning I stepped onto this pitch called Rotterdam and soon later I got to know my teammates for this game. We're not la squadra azurra or les onzes de france, no we're more like a club team, without any contingent for international players, which makes our team a tight group of the best players each country has to offer. We have the observers in our team which don't talk too much although they're around and they take their job seriously - they're perfect for goalkeeper position. Then we have those you don't see too much, are diving into their work and stick to their position - perfect for the defense. Then a big group of us is mostly around, keeping the pace up but knows how to vary the speed of the game - our midfield. Another group is travelling all the time, eager to see everything, literally running all the time all over Europe - a perfect match for the wing positions. And then of course we have the ones who try to score on every arising opportunity - our strikers.
After a short training camp we headed off together to our first 45 minutes, which contained back-breaking work as well as artistic masterpieces. It was such an intense game, that the first half flew by at the speed of sound and now they're already over. Tomorrow, is already additional time where we have to put all effort in it one last time before the first half is over. Then, afterwards everyone heads for the locker room to refresh, get the act together, get some time to relax. To drink a cup of tea and exchange the dirty shirt with a clean one. Everyone has his own locker room though. Some have it Italy, in Czech Republic and others in France. Me, I'll have it in Amsterdam where I'll be drinkin my tea with my parents.
The nature of the game implicates as well that there are usually some changes the longer the game lasts. We are having our substitutions already at half time. Some people have finished their work, are heading for there locker room but won't come back for the second half. Others who were on the bench for the first 45 minutes are going to substitute those who're leaving. It's gonna be exciting to see if and how we can keep up the pace. And especially who will be able to do that. And last but not least: how are the substitutes going integrate themselves into the remaining team...

The rise, the fall and back to the future

The last couple of days have been strange somehow. Last friday everything was quite normal. Jacob, one of our dutch buddies celebrated his birthday on saturday and threw a party on friday at his place. After trying to be a friend for certain people at the party and help them overcome some issues, I woke up pretty early saturday morning after only a bit more than 5 hours of sleep. Still with some power left I wrote my part for our final report of a group project and went grocery shopping and all even before lunch time. Deciding that I already did enough for the day I started to relax, watch a movie and procrastinated my jogging to sunday. The evening was quite special as well as almost everyone just stayed at home - so did I and watched some more movies.
Unfortunately though on sunday it was raining. But I overcame my inner bastard and went jogging for 40minutes in the rain and it was quite fun. That's when I got soaked for the first time, but I didn't mind as it was intentional. Afterwards a friend wrote me that she's kind of bored and we agreed to go for a late coffee at around 5pm. When I drove to town it was still raining which was a bit more annoying as I got soaked for the second time, but this time with causal clothes. Anyways I still was in a good mood and it even got better when I came out at home in the evening and wanted to head to our regular happy hour at Concordia - and I saw the stars in the sky. But then after Concordia the fall begun. First of all I had some problems to open the lock of my bike. I felt it already the days before that it got worse but still, it always worked. Then today I had classes and when I wanted to leave I really couldn't open that damn lock - I had to try for almost 15minutes until it finally worked. I was late and so pissed that I didn't want to use the lock again - but of course the stores weren't open to buy a new one. So I somehow faked it at uni and put my lock around the wheel without really locking it. And I was glad and lucky that my bike was still there after classes. But then - of course it had to rain again and when I arrived home (after buying a new lock on the way) I was soaked for the third time in 24 hours! Anyways I started to study and now I feel quite good again.

Beside that nice little story I started really to think about my future. I got my last grade from St. Gallen on friday and it's getting more and more obvious that I'll be done with my studies in the end of may when I come back. So, huge question now is where to apply for a job. I'm mainly interested into consumer goods, technological stuff and highly marketing (branding, PM, online marketing) related stuff. And what annoyed me a bit some weeks ago was, that half of the companies represented at recruitment fair in St. Gallen were consultancies and banks. But as part of my process I decided to write an entry in the forum of an online community and stating that I'm looking for an entry position in marketing. Now, today I got a message from a company which is maybe interested. But the irony is: it's a strategy consulting company focusing on the sectors leasing, asset management, real estate and private banking...

Boring life?

In the past two weeks, things have started to settle down a bit - finally. Most of us were getting more and more occupied with projects, assignments or readings for our classes. Others are still travelling Europe like crazy as their time here is limited. And everyone had gotten the urge to relax from time to time and just stay home once or twice a week, watching a movie, chatting with friends from home etc.
Nevertheless we were still having good times together and having fun during different kind of activities. Two weeks ago for example, was the ABN AMRO Tennis Tournament here in Rotterdam. Jacob, one of our buddy organized tickets for us. We were a group of around 30 people going together to see two matches on a tuesday evening. First there was the french Michael Llodra (who won the tournament in the end) playing against the dutch Raemon Sluiter who's orignally from Rotterdam. This made the whole arena crowded and everyone was cheering for him - expcept the Frenchies in our group of course. The athmosphere was even tighter as Sluiter annouced before, that he'll retire after the tournament - so we got to see the final match of his career. In the second game we saw top player Nikolay Davydenko winning against czech Jan Hernych. Although the level of the second game was better, the athmosphere sucked because half of the seats were empty again and no one seemed to care anymore. Although this experience was interesting for me, I have to admit, I'll never love to go to see tennis matches. You just have to be too quiet and not too much is going on...
Apart from that we've visited Utrecht on a sunday trip, been to museum night yesterday, spent regular nights at pubs or went once to dinner to Hotel New York, a famous restaurant at the spot where the Holland America Lijn started to take off in the early years for their cruises across the atlantic. Tonight finally we'll make an international dinner where we'll gather in a flat of fellow exchange students and cook typical stuff from each country. Gonna be an adventure for our stomachs. As you can see, still interesting stuff is going on.

Boring life? - Not at all!!

Travelling

It's been already four weeks since I left Switzerland and came here to Rotterdam for my exchange term. Apart from getting used to the city, studying during the day, partying during the night, sleeping at unsual hours I was also travelling around on the past three weekends.
After two weeks of getting accustomed to Rotterdam, a bunch of exchange students wanted to go to Carnival in another city. First we came up with the plan to travel to Köln, but as it was too expensive for some of us we dropped this plan although few exchangers were already there. Instead we went to Maastricht where we spent the early afternoon watching the parade, then went to lunch in a Pizzeria before enjoying the party on the streets of the city. As we had the impression that we wouldn't be able to party the whole night because we didn't see any clubs, we decided to head back with the last train from Maastricht towards Eindhoven where we switched to another train to Rotterdam, where we finally arrived at around 3am. As I left my bike home I had the pleasure to walk back home for half an hour.
The week after our Maastricht trip, my dutch buddy Iris suggested to go for a dinner with all here international buddies. The plan developped further and further and in the end we decided to head to Den Haag for a day. It was one of few very beautiful and not too cold days here in Netherlands. We therefore decided to head to Scheveningen and go to the beach where we had some fun taking jumping pictures and enjoying just the nice weather. After walking a bit around in the city centre we finally went to dinner which was more a hilarious than a delicious experience. But even this couldn't change our mood and it provided us of course with some new material for jokes. After dinner and a desert we headed back to Rotterdam where very few party animals went out till four o' clock in ther morning. After only a couple of hours of sleep, a group of exchange students met again and had some relaxed sunday lunch before visiting Delfshaven (the only part which wasn't bombed during WWII) and the Euromast. Later on we went together to dinner before stopping at the obligatory happy hour in Concordia, the typical students pub for exchangers.
This weekend finally, some friends and I planned to go to Bruxelles. As usual several people backed out and we ended up being only 5. After visiting the royal palace, the Grand Place, Cathédrale Saint-Michel and the Manneken Pis we went for the first time to Delirium, which is the pub holding the Guiness Book World Record with over 2'000 different beers. After only one of them we went to restaurant Chez Leon for dinner before heading back to Delirium for some other beers, where we celebrated the beginning of the 30th birthday of one of the exchange students. Already at around 2am we headed to a hotel where all five of us squeezed in a single and a double-bed room. On sunday we visited then the Museum of fine Art and the European Quarter where we witnessed the auto-corso due to the independence of Kosovo. Our last stop finally was Parc Leopold where we spent some time relaxing and enjoying the sun before heading back to get our luggage and head home to Rotterdam.

Carnival in Maastricht

Beach in Scheveningen (Den Haag)

Rotterdam and the Maas

The beginning of the famous harbour in R'dam

Grand Place in Bruxelles

Back to the core business

After writing about my first impressions and some stories about the social life here, I'll dedicate this post to the reason why I'm actually here - my studies. Studying here at Erasmus Universiteit doesn't feel totally different compared to my previous experiences in Switzerland, but still it's somehow different.
First of all, the studies here are of course affected by the fact that I'm on exchange. My (and as well those of other exchange students) are not the same like they were back home. It's not only about the studies but as well about visiting place, enjoying oneself, going out, meeting friends. Therefore I don't feel as dedicated to my studies as I was some months ago. Nevertheless, we all try to find the right balance between having fun and studying seriously. Although it's sometimes hard to be motivated I believe that we all manage to get on the right track.
Secondly, the approach of teaching is slightly different here. You concentrate yourself on less courses but those are more intense, time consuming and of course important after all because you'll get 10 credits for a master elective and not 3 to 6 like in Switzerland. The result of this is, that we're having around 12h classes per week, assignments to do in 2 days and projects for several weeks plus exam and all those in around 7 weeks and for only one class. And as we're only about 17 students in my class, participation and interaction is more important.
Another thing you can notice here is, that there's no bell ringing all the times. This means that's it's pretty much up to the professor and the classe when and how often they're taking a break. My lecture starts at 9am and usually lasts until 1130/1200 with only one break of 15min. In Switzerland you would have at least three breaks of 15min in this time. And - important to know - there's no academic quarter here. If it says 0900 on the timetable, it is actually 0900 and not 0915. I'm glad that I thought about that point already before the term started and took that into account on my first day of lectures...
As we get 10 credits for one elective I'm only having two courses during my exchange - the first started in the end of january and will last until mid-march and the second class will be from end of march till mid-may. As the course I intended to take for the second block was cancelled I had to choose a new topic, which means I'm now in a course called "Marketing, Technology and Innovation" and will afterwards participate in "Event and Tourism Marketing". Sofar, the topic of my course is pretty interesting. We're discussing topics like how new technologies and markets evolve, how you can use new technologies for marketing purposes etc. Along with lectures we're having to big projects. The first is Google Online Marketing Challenge where student teams around the globe compete against eachother. We're have to plan an AdWords Strategy on Google for a real-life company we had to find and will run our campaign for three weeks. The second project is a Product Development Concept where we have to come up with a concept for creating new products...

Food, drinks and the payment disaster

It's time again for some educational input in here. In a previous post I already mentioned the excessive use of bicycles here. Now I would like to tell some other stuff in order to bring the country a bit closer.

Food&Drinks
Nederlands is not very famous for it's cuisine I guess. When we went out we rather picked a "foreign" restaurant. We went to maroccon or indian place, some even to sushi. But what is typically dutch in my eyes? First of all, lunch is not important to them. They eat sandwhiches or simply broodje met kaas (bread with cheese). A hot meal for lunch is very rare. But what I perceived is, that they eat a lot of smaller things here and there during the whole day. I read about that in a guide about NL and experienced it especially during integration trip where we had small things during the whole day but only a cold lunch. The only thing sofar which I discovered and like a lot are stroopwafels. These are small waffels filled with syrup out of caramel, very delicious but you have to watch that you don't eat too much of them :)
Drinks are not so different than back home. A lot of beers like Heineken, Amstel, Brand or Dommelsch, then wine or water. According to Dutchs, Sodas like Cola or Fanta are not so common but you can buy them everywhere. Apart from that Dutchs like to drink Coffee and Tea. Just make sure you don't go to a Coffeeshop for a coffee :)
Just to note here, coffeeshops are the places where they sell marijuana products. To straighten a prejudice: Although everyone thinks so, consumption of weed, marijuana etc. is NOT legal here. The dutch policy is, that they tolerate it in coffeeshops and at home in order to keep it out of the street and fight against hard drugs. If you're on the street a possesion of max. 5g is tolerated and not more. According to our dutch friends, this policy has led to a low drug abuse rate in Nederlands.

Paying in NL - A complete mess
Nederland is usually perceived as multicultural, open-minded and thus a good place for internationals to live. But if you see the payment system you could come to another conclusion. First of all, they have tons of different cards - everyone must have like a huge wallet to carry all of them. In the end though, everything leads to a dutch bank account, which, of course you can only open if you will be customer for more than a year. The two major ways of payment here are pin (regular bank card - but only dutch cards work) and chipknip (the chip on your banking card). Chipknip is supposed to be for small payments so you can upload cash on the chip and then pay with that. And of course you can only upload your chipknip directly from your dutch bank account. Or, you buy a pre-paid card. You pay 22.50 and get 20 cash on it - thats how they make money here :) To make the living for internationals even more complicated, they probably agreed to refuse credit card, cause you almost can't pay anywhere with creditcard - only pin and chipknip. And at university we were told that there exist even more cards for the same purpose but in different buildings. To show you how ridiculous this whole thing is, I give you the example of printing at university:
To be able to print you need a card (obviously) with a magnetic strip. Bank card and credit card don't work. To put money on your printing card you have to pay - but you can't pay in cash! Either pin or chipknip. Which leaves you more or less only the possibility to buy a pre-paid chipknip to the price already mentioned. The chipknip, obviously, you can't buy with credit card - only with chipknip, bank card or cash. Sooo, in the end, you usually go to an ATM, get money with your card, pay charges there. Then you buy a chipknip, where you pay charges again. The chipknip you can then use to get money on the printing card and now you're able to print your documents!

Ok, that's it sofar. Stay tuned for the next post, which will be probably about studying at RSM...

Too many things to tell

There are so many things to tell but I kind of feel to split it up and publish infos and stories step by step when I have time and in the mood to do so. The first days here in Rotterdam have been a blast. Tonight is the second time I actually decided not to go out and get some rest at home. On the weekend we were partying all night long and even on sunday we went out for a couple of drinks to Concordia, sort of students bar which had had happy hour. After staying home on monday we kicked-off tuesday night with some beers at the bar in the university building (already at 5pm). Afterwards a Deborah & Nisha (two american girls), Andrew & Dave (two canadian guys), Fran (an argentinian guy who just arrived on monday) and me decided to go to an indian place for dinner where they had all you can eat. After stopping by at Dave's place I went home to finish the assignment we had to do for wednesday. Yesterday has been a huge party night again. First we started at Milena's place (bulgarian who lived for the last ten years in US) with some wine and cheese. After (ab)using happy hour at Concordia once again, we went to the international students party at a club called bikini (some club names remind me of the fancy names in Stuttgart) where I left at around 0430 am...

Classes finally started as well on monday. I just have one course which is called Marketing, Technology and Innovation but I'll get 10 ECTS for it. So it's pretty time consuming with around 12 hours of class a week and then assignments and projects. But over all the topic sounds very interesting and the next project coming up is the Google Online Marketing Challenge. Teams from different universities compete against each other in planning and implementing a search engine marketing strategy (Google AdWords) which we will run for three weeks. Although it appears to be interesting and fun, it might just be a bit too time consuming (for exchange) for my taste.

Apart from partying and university I explored a bit the city as well. Rotterdam is a city with a very modern centre and stylish architecture as the city centre was bombed during WWII. But if you go a bit outside of the centre (but still in the city) you'll see all those typical three story, brick-lined buildings. Striking is as well, that if you enter one of the houses you have to climb very steep stairs in the beginning. This might be due to the fact, that the city is located below sea level and this could be a little bit of protection against flood. I attached some pictures to give you an impression of the city...

The building i live in

A bit outside of the centre

Weena

View from university

Erasmusbridge and river Maas

First news from the Netherlands

Hartelijk welkom uit Rotterdam! It's been now approx. five days since I arrived in Netherlands and I already had some time to adapt and get to know the city and some people. As a lot of things already happened I'll just pick out some things to tell here and now. More will probably (hopefully) come later on...
On monday and tuesday i got to know the city a little bit by walking and cycling - yes I already bought a bicycle (fiets). It's very common here to drive by bike and you realize that on the street everyday. As we were told there are around 20 Mio. bikes for 16 Mio. inhabitants in this country. As you can imagine, bikes are everywhere. On every pole you can find next to the street there is at least on bike locked to it. And there are special cycling lanes everywhere in town, which makes it very convenient and relaxing to drive even in the city as you're sort of secured and have your own space. And everyone - pedestrians, cyclists, motorists - is used to it and looks out for bikes so it's even safer. The only thing about bikes which is annoying is, that bikes are getting stolen. So you really have to lock it at all times and rule number one you learn is, that the lock should appear to be more expensive than the bike. But still, there are junkies who steal and then sell bikes in order to earn their money. One of our dutch buddies already told us, that he once bought his own bike back from a junkie for 5€.
In the evening of tuesday I finally got to know my dutch buddy Iris and some of the exchange students. We met for dinner in a maroccon place, which served very delicious food. After eating we went for some beers or drinks before heading home at around midnight (of course by bike through the almost empty streets of R'dam). As mentioned, everyone of us exchangers got a dutch buddy, which is taking part in the international exchange program as well and should help us to get along and get to know a bit dutch culture. Intersting fact about this is, that 2 out of 6 buddies are AIESECers who were P/VP in LC R'dam :)
After those first two days we went on an integration trip from wednesday till today. We were in a hostel (called "stayokay" :) in the eastern part of netherlands between Arnhem and Enschede close to the german border. We had some get to know, trust and confidence or just fun activities like bowling. In the evening we had first a dutch evening and then an international cabaret followed by some for me (and several for others) drinks. But it was cool and fun to get to know the other exchange students. We are a very multicultural group with eg. people from Indonesia, Taiwan, Spain, France and Norway as well as from US or Argentina.
About the university I can't tell you that much yet as I have been there only shortly. Confusing though are only the names of the uni. The whole university is called Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. This is not because people who are on exchange take part in the erasmus program, but because Erasmus was a famous dutch philosopher. Even some dutch people don't get that, as they think that the Erasmusbrug (bridge over the river Maas) is called like that because Erasmus was the architect of the bridge. In this Erasmus Universiteit are different departments and faculties. I'll be studying in the RSM, the Rotterdam School of Management. My first lecture will start on monday and it's called Marketing, Technology and Innovation. As we found out on our trip another exchange student is taking that too, Pavel from Prague. For the second course I have to look for a new topic as they just informed me that the one I was supposed to take had been cancelled. Well there are not so many options which interest me, but at least I have now the advantage that I know who of the exchange students will take which course and that might slightly influence my decision as well, as it's probably more fun to study together. Anyways, I didn't decide yet and we'll see. I still have time till monday to get to a decision. But now, we'll first go to dinner together and then probably for a drink or to a club. What a nice life it still is after handing in the thesis and before lectures start again...

3...2...1...done!

It’s friday evening and I’m sitting in the train back home to Bern. Busy times are lying behind me and the tough days finally come slowly to an end. Time to relax a bit and enjoy life again is coming up. The new year started with studying for an exam, hopefully my last exam on swiss soil ever, which I had last monday. As you can imagine we went to out afterwards - a bit too much. The effects of this evening combined with not sleeping enough and loosing some tension already, made me feel sick the next day. I barely made it to the drug store to buy some stuff against my headache and then went to bed again. My plans of going back home around lunch time and use the day to work on my thesis were rolled over. Anyways in the evening, I still had to go back to Bern as I had a dentist appointment first thing wednesday. Wednesday continued busy. In the morning I finished my thesis and sent it to my dad who printed it for me. After picking up these paper versions, I tried to find a place to bind it. But regulations at university in St. Gallen are so stupid that no copy shop in Bern could do it. Only bookbinder (that’s the correct name although it sound awfully incorrect) would have been able to do it - but of course not in time I wanted it. So, I decided to call a copy shop in St. Gallen which I knew could do it to make an appointment for friday. After running around for that, I had a small interview for a volunteer job at Euro2008. It was quite nice, they have some interesting jobs to do and I think I could score some points;) Not only that with the teams of Netherlands, Italy and France playing in Bern I would have a slight language advantage but as well because the interviewer was a woman from Stuttgart. As I recognized her swabian dialect, I - of course - carefully mentioned that I have been working there :)) In the evening after that I once again met some friends to have a drink and to say goodbye.
Thursday was a bit more quite. I only took care of some small stuff and started to relax a bit. I even took the time to take a nap in the afternoon - I still like the concept of power napping a lot :) In the evening again I was meeting some friends - this time AIESEC oldies from Bern. Today now, I went for the last time to St. Gallen. Not only did I manage to get my thesis finished and to hand it in, but I met another AIESEC friend for lunch and to give her one of my books I used for my thesis - she happens to write her thesis in a similar area. And in the afternoon my successor in the flat finally arrived - Kamil a good friend from Prague who’s spending his exchange term in St. Gallen. After unpacking I showed him a bit around and he finally knows now where to go for the different things he has to take care of.
Now, as mentioned, here I am, in the train back home. Tomorrow there’s the last thing I need to do - transition for my NST job. I’m glad we found some successors and that I can finish that task as well. And it will probably be as well my last step within AIESEC - being finally a grown man and able to walk in to the future. Tomorrow afternoon and on sunday I will be hopefully able to wash my clothes and pack. Then, in the evening my next adventure finally begins: I’m leaving to Rotterdam for my exchange. Hopefully for my last term at an university - ever! The term starts already next wednesday - with an integration trip for all exchange students :) And then on 28th I’ll have my first lecture at RSM. Well after the last few weeks - studying for exams before christmas, writing the second half of my thesis in five days over christmas and studying for an exam again in the first days of January - I assume that I will feel relaxed even although I don’t really have holidays. Anyways, great times lying ahead and I’m finally starting to get ready to rumble!

Beginning of a new era

The new year 2008 will bring some changes for me as you can see already from my blog. The new design is only a small, symbolic change - I decided to set it up already for my next few months in Rotterdam although I'll be still back home for the next couple of days.
2008 will be the beginning of a new era for me because I (hopefully) will finish my studies, which means that my life in the education system which I started around 18 years ago will come to an end. Therefore I will, once again have to make a important decision and face a challenge: find a job. But I have many other plans and ideas for this year. First I go to Rotterdam, to spend my last months on another university - the third one in my students life. The departure date is now set as well - 20th of January. Afterwards I'd like to enjoy the Euro2008 and for the rest of the summer and beginning of fall I have the idea to go to France to pimp my french before finally start to work by the end of the year.
So, in 366 days (yes this year we have again an additional day) I hope to look back and be able to say that it was a successful 2008, that I lived in 3 countries this year, that I found a job and of course that we had an amazing June and tons of fun throughout the whole year :) Let's see what it brings, but I'm optimistic for the next 12 months!