Now that I'm back home, I started to think of all the places I considered home in the last few years and realized that I have nice pictures for some of them, while I was missing some for my actual home in Switzerland...so as I was taking pictures out of my window and balcony, I thought that I may write one more blog-entry and make a photo album with all the nice pictures...
Obfelden (Zurich, Switzerland) is certainly still my main home as this is the place where my parents are, where I grew up and where I'm still living...for now... ;-) ...and I mean the view from that house where with nice weather you can see all the way to some mountains near Luzern is just nice...
San Fele (Basilicata, Italy) also has a special meaning as "home" for me, since this is where my parents came from, where lots of my relatives are and where we were supposed to move when I was a kid (after some time we realized that the opportunities for career and education were better in Switzerland and so we stayed there)...
Delft (Zuid-Holland, Netherlands) was my home for five months during my exchange semester at the TU Delft...certainly a nice place with all the canals and we certainly had a nice time in the UNITECH house there... ;-)
Hillsborough (New Jersey, USA) was certainly the least impressing home in terms of house and view...but well...I guess I don't have to write a lot about all my nice experiences in my six months in the States since the whole blog was about this anyway... ;-)
So...that's all for now...I don't think I'll write anything to this blog in the near future since I'm planning to stay in Switzerland for some time now...and studying at the ETH is not really something you can write a lot of interesting things about anyway... ;-) ...so, I'm closing the blog for now and thank everyone that was actually reading it from time to time...and greetings to everyone still in the States and also to all the ones that have left NJ to go back home by now...
Cu all sometime, somewhere...
Monday, September 17, 2007
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Back in Switzerland
I'm back home! After some relaxing hours in New Jersey (after I came back from Puerto Rico), a struggle to find the British Airways check-in (my advise: don't try to find it yourself...just ask your way to it...it's the only reasonable way) and a short connecting stop in London, I arrived in Zurich this morning and I'm now back at home...for now...on Tuesday, I'll continue my August full of trips to go for a few days to Milan (end of year meeting for my exchange program)...and the "best" part is that BA managed to loose my bags somewhere on the way! They probably got lost in London as we were six people from that flight missing some bags...I'm still waiting to know more details about it and I'm really hoping/praying to get them before tomorrow evening, as I'd have some trouble in Milan without all my nice clothes...
But well...let's get back to the nice part: Puerto Rico is gorgeous! The first days I was just enjoying the sunny weather at some of the beautiful beaches in the Cabezas area of Fajardo (my hotel was there) and doing a Kajak-trip to the bioluminescent lagoon there (Dinoflagellates in the water react on movement and glow...quite cool...there's only a few places in the world where such a thing is visible all year long). Then, I was planning to go to one of the small islands but since I would have had to rent a whole boat to get there (expensive), I was advised to go hiking through the rain forest of El Yunque instead. I think that was a great choice...it's quite an impressive jungle there and if you go all the way to the peak, you also get an impressive view. And then the last day, I did some sightseeing in Old San Juan with all its old forts. What more can I see...check out the pictures and I hope you will understand, why I think that everyone in the States should go visit Puerto Rico... ;-)
But well...let's get back to the nice part: Puerto Rico is gorgeous! The first days I was just enjoying the sunny weather at some of the beautiful beaches in the Cabezas area of Fajardo (my hotel was there) and doing a Kajak-trip to the bioluminescent lagoon there (Dinoflagellates in the water react on movement and glow...quite cool...there's only a few places in the world where such a thing is visible all year long). Then, I was planning to go to one of the small islands but since I would have had to rent a whole boat to get there (expensive), I was advised to go hiking through the rain forest of El Yunque instead. I think that was a great choice...it's quite an impressive jungle there and if you go all the way to the peak, you also get an impressive view. And then the last day, I did some sightseeing in Old San Juan with all its old forts. What more can I see...check out the pictures and I hope you will understand, why I think that everyone in the States should go visit Puerto Rico... ;-)
Monday, August 20, 2007
Internship in the USA - Final chapters
This is it...I had my last day of work at SCR in Princeton last Friday and today I packed my stuff and got ready to leave...I had quite a busy last week at Siemens introducing Roman (one more ETH computer scientist trapped in Colleen's AD-team... ;-)) to his new job (i.e. my old one) and having a lot of free time activities (i.e. BBQ or going out almost every evening) to have a reasonable farewell to my stay here...and then there was also Stefan's farewell (teammate at SCR) and the birthdays of Andreas (see Florida pics) and Michael (check the mindBlog link) which made it an even busier week...well, it was certainly hard enough to say goodbye to everyone here as I had a very nice time...although I'm certainly looking forward to going back home...same mixed emotions as after my stay in Delft I guess...anyway: a big TAKE CARE to everyone in the Princeton area...hope to see you again sometime...
...
Oh there's one more thing...I'm actually not leaving the States yet...I'm flying to Puerto Rico (yes...that's part of the States) where I will stay a few days on the East Coast in Fajardo (seems to be a gorgeous area there). Fortunately, no hurricanes seem to be disturbing the peace on the island and so I'm pretty much looking forward to a great trip there...I'll try to keep you updated on Saturday when I'm back in New Jersey to catch my flight to Zurich...
(to be continued...hopefully...)
...
Oh there's one more thing...I'm actually not leaving the States yet...I'm flying to Puerto Rico (yes...that's part of the States) where I will stay a few days on the East Coast in Fajardo (seems to be a gorgeous area there). Fortunately, no hurricanes seem to be disturbing the peace on the island and so I'm pretty much looking forward to a great trip there...I'll try to keep you updated on Saturday when I'm back in New Jersey to catch my flight to Zurich...
(to be continued...hopefully...)
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Florida
Yes I've been to Florida and it was great. Miami Beach is an amazing place and we had fantastic weather and one hell of a car (a Ford Mustang Convertible) to be there...and going to Disney World and SeaWorld was also definitely worth it...I had a great time there... ;-) ...so make sure to check out all the pictures and videos I took in Florida, Disney World and SeaWorld. The pictures already tell most of the story to give you a little overview, this is what we did during the trip:
We (that is Andreas, Maik and myself) arrived Friday evening in Orlando, where we went to get our rental car...since Andreas didn't feel like driving all the way to Miami (and back) alone, we asked how expensive it would be to get an additional driver and how much it would cost for the driver to be less than 25 years old...well the additional driver was just 9$ a day, where the young one would have been additional 25$ per day...so we decided to get the additional driver (i.e. Maik) and no driving for me (I'll be 25 in the end of the year)...yet, as soon as the car rental guy heard that we were going to Miami Beach, he made us an offer to get a convertible for additional 12$ a day and the additional driver for free...et voilà...we got a Ford Mustang Convertible to cruise through Miami...nice... ;-)
So we went straight from Orlando to Miami Beach where we stayed until Sunday...as mentioned before...South Beach (i.e. the southern part of Miami Beach) is great... ;-) ...we were just walking around, hanging on the beach and relaxing in the warm ocean water....just nice...and there were plenty of things to do on Saturday night as well, where on our way back to the hotel (sometime after 3am) by pure chance we saw something going on in one of the bars, walked in there and saw one more hour of a nice live performance of Erykah Badu...I mean how cool is it to see a girl with such an amazing voice...and best of all...for free... ;-)
On Sunday (after relaxing once again at South Beach) we cruised (did I already mention that we had a Mustang Convertible?) through Miami Beach and Miami, where we saw the amazing Venetian Pool and the honestly not so amazing Little Havana...then we continued our cruising to Fort Lauderdale to see all the canals and yachts and drove a bit on the nice A1A street right next to the ocean (the street goes all the way from Miami Beach to Palm Beach, but it just takes way too long to drive there all the way)...there we also found a nice spot in Boca Raton to relax one more time at the ocean...nice... ;-)
After a short stop in Palm Beach which was completely empty by the time we got there (guess all the rich guys were already sleeping... ;-)), we were back in Orlando (or to be more precise in Kissimmee) where we stayed until Tuesday to see Disney World and SeaWorld...
Both parks are amazing...not that much for the exciting roller coasters (the ones in Disney World were rather slow (although Splash Mountain was still fun) and there were just two (nice ones though) in SeaWorld), but for the other attractions...seeing all the Disney characters (especially Mickey Mouse... ;-)) in Disney's Magic Kingdom and the shows with these amazing animals in SeaWorld (like huge killer wales (Orca) jumping around and throwing trainers all over the place and dolphins making somersaults and sea lions performing like actors) was just nice...it's hard to catch the atmosphere inside the parks with pictures or even videos but just believe me that they're worth a visit...
We (that is Andreas, Maik and myself) arrived Friday evening in Orlando, where we went to get our rental car...since Andreas didn't feel like driving all the way to Miami (and back) alone, we asked how expensive it would be to get an additional driver and how much it would cost for the driver to be less than 25 years old...well the additional driver was just 9$ a day, where the young one would have been additional 25$ per day...so we decided to get the additional driver (i.e. Maik) and no driving for me (I'll be 25 in the end of the year)...yet, as soon as the car rental guy heard that we were going to Miami Beach, he made us an offer to get a convertible for additional 12$ a day and the additional driver for free...et voilà...we got a Ford Mustang Convertible to cruise through Miami...nice... ;-)
So we went straight from Orlando to Miami Beach where we stayed until Sunday...as mentioned before...South Beach (i.e. the southern part of Miami Beach) is great... ;-) ...we were just walking around, hanging on the beach and relaxing in the warm ocean water....just nice...and there were plenty of things to do on Saturday night as well, where on our way back to the hotel (sometime after 3am) by pure chance we saw something going on in one of the bars, walked in there and saw one more hour of a nice live performance of Erykah Badu...I mean how cool is it to see a girl with such an amazing voice...and best of all...for free... ;-)
On Sunday (after relaxing once again at South Beach) we cruised (did I already mention that we had a Mustang Convertible?) through Miami Beach and Miami, where we saw the amazing Venetian Pool and the honestly not so amazing Little Havana...then we continued our cruising to Fort Lauderdale to see all the canals and yachts and drove a bit on the nice A1A street right next to the ocean (the street goes all the way from Miami Beach to Palm Beach, but it just takes way too long to drive there all the way)...there we also found a nice spot in Boca Raton to relax one more time at the ocean...nice... ;-)
After a short stop in Palm Beach which was completely empty by the time we got there (guess all the rich guys were already sleeping... ;-)), we were back in Orlando (or to be more precise in Kissimmee) where we stayed until Tuesday to see Disney World and SeaWorld...
Both parks are amazing...not that much for the exciting roller coasters (the ones in Disney World were rather slow (although Splash Mountain was still fun) and there were just two (nice ones though) in SeaWorld), but for the other attractions...seeing all the Disney characters (especially Mickey Mouse... ;-)) in Disney's Magic Kingdom and the shows with these amazing animals in SeaWorld (like huge killer wales (Orca) jumping around and throwing trainers all over the place and dolphins making somersaults and sea lions performing like actors) was just nice...it's hard to catch the atmosphere inside the parks with pictures or even videos but just believe me that they're worth a visit...
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Short Jazz Update
Just a short update on Jazz clubs I visited while staying here... ;-) ...on June 21 I went to Warmdaddy's in Philadelphia, Stefan took some pictures of that event and Fred put them on his Web Albums...and here's the link to it...
Monday, July 23, 2007
Status update
As some people in Switzerland are quite fast in declaring me dead, when I don't write from time to time, here's an update on my stay in the States...as some of you may know, my internship is almost over here (I'll finish work on August 17) and so I'm just trying to get a few things done before I leave (like planning a trip to Florida in the beginning of August) and to enjoy the nice weather...that is, enjoying the days where it actually is nice weather...unfortunately, we had a lot of clouds and rain lately...but well, it's still good enough to spend some time at the beach or to go out in NYC, where I went to the Blue Note Jazz Club once again to see Cachao the inventor of Mambo himself and where I just went out last Saturday to celebrate the birthdays of some fellow interns...can't really complain too much... ;-)
So long...more updates after I've seen the Simpsons movie or after my Florida trip...
So long...more updates after I've seen the Simpsons movie or after my Florida trip...
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Niagara Falls
So, here's the promised update on my trip to the Niagara Falls. We started on Saturday in the early morning and went all the way up North to one of the most spectacular natural sights in this country (ok the most impressive part is in another country but that's a detail... ;-)). As it was only a bit more than 400 miles away we decided to make a day trip out of it...I mean something like 13 or 14 hours of driving in one day is not that tough, right? Well yes it was a bit tiring, but it was definitely worth it. These falls are impressive and we chose a wonderful day (sunny with 30°C) to visit them. The high temperatures were especially handy when we went very close to the falls during the boat tour (btw: if you ever go there, take the tour from the US side around noon...same tour as from Canada, but with less people). If you have a look at my pictures, you may see the cute plastic coats we got there, but you don't see how wet we were when we got out of the boat (and how may pics I had to delete because of water drops on the cam's lens). And before we started to get too dry we also took a short walk next to the American Falls...well we had enough time to dry afterwards anyway... ;-)
Monday, July 9, 2007
Independence Day
As some of you may know the Fourth of July is quite an important date in the States. And this year they even announced to start showing Transformers at that date... ;-) ...btw: don't miss that movie if you like action, hot girls and special effects (that was actually the description I got from an American teammate at Siemens...he went to see it on the 4th of July)...and talking about movies: Die Hard is a great movie as well...
To be honest, I was a bit disappointed by the amount of celebrations that were going on here. I mean, it's probably their most important holiday, but I would say that the Zürifäscht around the lake of Zurich which happened to be last weekend (they do it every third year) is a bigger celebration than that...probably even the fireworks can compete with the Fourth of July fireworks in NYC...I mean, I'm comparing Zurich with New York City here! Considering that the fireworks in Zurich were done at two consecutive evenings with the fireworks coordinated following the rhythm of the played music (on one of the occasions they even did it with a live band), I really think that they can compete in NYC in that category...anyway: I still went to see the fireworks in NYC after a nice party in Belmar (New Jersey shore) the evening before and a relaxing BBQ with the usual mix of Siemens-interns and Brazilian au-pairs in the afternoon. In NYC they had closed a part of the FDR Drive (a freeway through the east side of Manhattan) right next to the East River where they did the fireworks. As the freeway is elevated, we had quite a nice view from there...yet, I was quite surprised by the lack of music there...as I was told, there was music at some other places like the Liberty State Park, but well ok...we had one of the closest spots to the fireworks, so I can't complain too much... ;-) ...needless to say that I also took several pictures and some videos...I had to throw away a large part of the pics but the rest can be found on my Web Album as usual...also make sure to check out Michael's pictures of the BBQ and the fireworks on his blog...and while your at it you can also have a look at the picture he took (when he started to work at 6am...as usual...on a Monday...nuts ;-)) of my workplace. There on the right you can see the two machines I'm working with and on the left the workplace of my supervisor with two monitors...and as you can see, I'm one of the few interns at Siemens with a spot next to a window... ;-)
Getting back to Independence Day, it really seems that I did the classic kind of celebration for that holiday...BBQ with friends and fireworks...as I was told, that's what most Americans do as well...I still would have expected bigger public celebrations...especially in a big city like NYC...
And one more thing...I just want to try how nicely it works to embed videos to this blog and how could I do it better than with the trailer for the next major blockbuster...check it out and make sure to click on the video and check the other trailers here as well... ;-)
Update: As nicely as it worked to embed the video, I'm getting annoyed by the trailer playing each time I open the blog...so, if you didn't see the Simpsons Movie yet, go see it now! It's worth it... ;-)
PS: I went to the Niagara Falls this weekend...pictures and more details will follow so stay tuned... ;-)
To be honest, I was a bit disappointed by the amount of celebrations that were going on here. I mean, it's probably their most important holiday, but I would say that the Zürifäscht around the lake of Zurich which happened to be last weekend (they do it every third year) is a bigger celebration than that...probably even the fireworks can compete with the Fourth of July fireworks in NYC...I mean, I'm comparing Zurich with New York City here! Considering that the fireworks in Zurich were done at two consecutive evenings with the fireworks coordinated following the rhythm of the played music (on one of the occasions they even did it with a live band), I really think that they can compete in NYC in that category...anyway: I still went to see the fireworks in NYC after a nice party in Belmar (New Jersey shore) the evening before and a relaxing BBQ with the usual mix of Siemens-interns and Brazilian au-pairs in the afternoon. In NYC they had closed a part of the FDR Drive (a freeway through the east side of Manhattan) right next to the East River where they did the fireworks. As the freeway is elevated, we had quite a nice view from there...yet, I was quite surprised by the lack of music there...as I was told, there was music at some other places like the Liberty State Park, but well ok...we had one of the closest spots to the fireworks, so I can't complain too much... ;-) ...needless to say that I also took several pictures and some videos...I had to throw away a large part of the pics but the rest can be found on my Web Album as usual...also make sure to check out Michael's pictures of the BBQ and the fireworks on his blog...and while your at it you can also have a look at the picture he took (when he started to work at 6am...as usual...on a Monday...nuts ;-)) of my workplace. There on the right you can see the two machines I'm working with and on the left the workplace of my supervisor with two monitors...and as you can see, I'm one of the few interns at Siemens with a spot next to a window... ;-)
Getting back to Independence Day, it really seems that I did the classic kind of celebration for that holiday...BBQ with friends and fireworks...as I was told, that's what most Americans do as well...I still would have expected bigger public celebrations...especially in a big city like NYC...
And one more thing...I just want to try how nicely it works to embed videos to this blog and how could I do it better than with the trailer for the next major blockbuster...check it out and make sure to click on the video and check the other trailers here as well... ;-)
Update: As nicely as it worked to embed the video, I'm getting annoyed by the trailer playing each time I open the blog...so, if you didn't see the Simpsons Movie yet, go see it now! It's worth it... ;-)
PS: I went to the Niagara Falls this weekend...pictures and more details will follow so stay tuned... ;-)
Monday, July 2, 2007
Pictures and Maps
Just saw that they have a new feature on the Picasa Web Albums which now link the pictures to maps and the best thing is that it's extremely easy to use. For my albums I didn't even have to do a lot about it, since I had used the location tag on my albums anyway and now on my public gallery you can see a map on the lower right, showing all the album's locations. Then you can also go into one of the albums and link the pictures to a precise location. I tried that one for the Others Album and for some of the latest ones like the Toronto Album where you should set the Map to Hybrid/Satellite mode to understand the locations of the pictures taken on the CN Tower... ;-) ...as I said a cool and easy to use feature...
I was also trying to embed google maps in the blog, but that doesn't seem to be that easy...but well...as a workaround, you can just have a look at this link with some landmarks related to my stay here...and if someone knows an easy way to embed such a map on this blog, just let me know... ;-)
And one more thing: I went to a baseball game in Philadelphia last Thursday where the Phillies beat the Cincinnati Reds 8:7 in 10 innings...well seriously I can't imagine people watching this sport very often... ;-) ...but ok the stadium was well filled and the atmosphere was good...interestingly enough the atmosphere got even better when it started to rain...at that point people were not watching the game anymore anyway... ;-) ...and in the end there was also a firework with a nice countdown...on the big screen...which stopped at 10 and didn't continue... ;-) ...personally, I forgot my cam but Sascha took some pictures here...
I was also trying to embed google maps in the blog, but that doesn't seem to be that easy...but well...as a workaround, you can just have a look at this link with some landmarks related to my stay here...and if someone knows an easy way to embed such a map on this blog, just let me know... ;-)
And one more thing: I went to a baseball game in Philadelphia last Thursday where the Phillies beat the Cincinnati Reds 8:7 in 10 innings...well seriously I can't imagine people watching this sport very often... ;-) ...but ok the stadium was well filled and the atmosphere was good...interestingly enough the atmosphere got even better when it started to rain...at that point people were not watching the game anymore anyway... ;-) ...and in the end there was also a firework with a nice countdown...on the big screen...which stopped at 10 and didn't continue... ;-) ...personally, I forgot my cam but Sascha took some pictures here...
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
State of Emergency
Yesterday (although by now it is the day before yesterday...time goes by too fast ;-)) was an interesting day at work...shortly after I arrived there (i.e. around 10:15) I got an e-mail stating that the the first floor's men room was closed due to flooding...first impression: ok, who cares, I'm in the second floor anyway...but then it got better...20min later another e-mail arrived: all restrooms are closed! Ooook that's not so nice then...but then it got even better as another 20min later we were advised that they had to turn off all potable water to the building. In practice this means that there's no drinking water, no water to clean your hands and even worse: no water for the coffee machines!!! How are computer scientists supposed to work without coffee (or tea if you prefer that)?!? Well the result was that most people started their lunch break (going out for eating as usual) a bit earlier and came back a bit later...and some also had the nice idea to have a coffee break at the closest coffee shop...or simply to go home a bit earlier... ;-) ...personally I still stayed at Siemens long enough as I went straight from work to a bar at the shore (btw: nice! ;-)), but the general lack of productivity in Siemens was clearly visible... ;-)
By the time I got to work on the following day the problem was solved by the way...took only something like 24h... ;-)
Oh and btw: Some pictures of my weekend at the shore and Atlantic City will follow soon...and I also finally found some time to take some pics of my Impala...not that it is a really beautiful car, but well...would be strange to have 4 pics of my old car and none of my new one... ;-)
By the time I got to work on the following day the problem was solved by the way...took only something like 24h... ;-)
Oh and btw: Some pictures of my weekend at the shore and Atlantic City will follow soon...and I also finally found some time to take some pics of my Impala...not that it is a really beautiful car, but well...would be strange to have 4 pics of my old car and none of my new one... ;-)
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Internship in the USA - Part II
I tried once again to write while waiting for a flight and this time it even worked... ;-) ...waiting for my connecting flight to Newark in Toronto where I had nine hours between the two flights, I managed to write most of the chapters, you'll read below. Just imagine how long it would have been, if I would have written all I wanted to write... ;-)
But before I continue the chapters just a few words on my trip to Switzerland and back: I went back for a long weekend (took 4 days off) because of the marriage of my cousin and since she was the first one of my generation getting married and more or less everyone from my family (several traveling all the way from South Italy) went to the wedding, I just couldn't miss... ;-) ...and on my way back I had to wait a long time in Toronto anyway and so I chose a flight with a long gap between the flights and went to see the city which features some nice places and the world's highest observation deck (Sky Pod of the CN Tower)...needless to say that I went on top of it...nice... ;-) ...pictures will obviously follow...
Chapter III - So much to do and so little time
This chapter covers some of the things, I did in my free time in and around Princeton. Although the "around" part can cover quite a large area in the States... ;-)
Princeton itself can be very shortly defined as a nice but very quiet little city. There are several restaurants, two bars and a brewery and a very nice University (you may have heard of it...) and Campus. Certainly a nice place to hang around, but not really the best place to go out. Yet, there's one thing I have to point out for people that like burgers: If you ever come to Princeton, make sure to get one at Hoagie's.... ;-)
For the going out part there is one simple solution and that is to do private parties. Fortunately some interns and other Siemens coworkers live in their own apartments/houses and so there are quite some opportunities to mix Siemens interns (mostly engineers...mostly male) and all local au pair girls (mostly female) into one of these places to have a nice evening...works just fine... ;-) ...and if there are no private parties going on you can still drive to NYC, Philadelphia, New Brumswick, New Hope (although that one may be dangerous in some cases ;-)) or to the shores and have fun there...
New York City is just 1.5h from Princeton and is often labeled as the greatest city in the world (at least that's what they say in the local radio all the time ;-)) or the city that never sleeps. Now, the latter is certainly true for US-standards, as almost every bar/pub/club in the States closes at two o'clock while you can easily have fun in NYC till dawn. For the first part, I have to admit that the city is indeed very impressive. Especially the first times I got there, I was just amazed by the size (especially in the sky-direction ;-)) of the city. So, I can just recommend to everyone to either visit the city or at least have a look at all the pictures I took there... ;-)
And if the weather is not nice you can still walk around the Central Park and go into one of the many museums there. Several of them are among the best world-wide. I didn't find time yet to go into many of them though, but that's mostly because I'm not really interested in art. So, I went to see the American Museum of Natural History with its nice exhibitions on meteoroids (they have some quite big rocks from space there), gems (unfortunately not to be kept as souvenirs) and models of dinosaurs (largely made of real bones) as well as other animals. And the only other museum which I would really like to see would be the Guggenheim Museum...for its architecture... ;-)
As some of you may know, NYC consists of more than Manhattan. There are four more boroughs (Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island), but most tourists stick to Manhattan and don't see anything of the other boroughs (may be related to the higher crime rate there ;-)). For my luck there was an organized bike tour going through all five boroughs (in a moment of extreme genius someone came up with the name "Five Boro Bike Tour" for the tour ;-)) and I joined it...together with around 32000 others. It was quite a huge event going for 42 miles on the closed roads of New York City (we even went on the highways...with cars going in the other direction... ;-)) and so I had the chance to see more of New York City than just Manhattan...there's also a video of the tour on YouTube...
Some of you may also know that there are two rather important small islands south of Manhattan. Liberty Island with Lady Liberty greeting all the new arrivals and Ellis Island where all the new arrivals used to be "greeted" by the U.S. immigration...nowadays they're both just tourist attractions and looking at the huge queues in front of the ferries starting from Battery Park in downtown Manhattan, it seems that they're quite popular ones... ;-) ...what most tourists do not know is that there's a state park in honor of the statue of liberty (guess the name...yes it's the "Liberty State Park") on the New Jersey side of the Hudson river. As we were on our way to a NBA Playoffs game at the Continental Airlines Arena (in New Jersey...a bit north-west of NYC) we shortly stopped at the park and went on the ferry to the islands...same as all the tourists do in Manhattan...just without the waiting... ;-) ...in the end we didn't even leave the boat to go on Liberty Island (didn't look interesting and you get better views of the statue on the boat anyway), but we went to the Immigration Museum on Ellis Island...quite interesting in my opinion, but I may be a bit biased being the son of immigrants...
Getting back to the going out part, there is also a great Jazz Club in NYC called the Blue Note Jazz Club. We went there to see the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band...these guys are just great...it was obviously not allowed to record them while they were performing and so it's hard to tell you, how good they were, but well...just believe it... ;-) ...and you can find some pics done by Fred here (I forgot to bring my cam for that event)...
Getting to see other cities also turned out to be rather easy in my case as Ivan was already getting ready to leave (he left in the beginning of April) and so he wanted to see a few cities before going back to Switzerland...said done...I already mentioned the snowy trip we did to Montreal on the St. Patrick's Day weekend and after that we also went to see Boston...very nice town...not much sightseeing to be done there (unless you're fascinated by "old" buildings (i.e. 17th century) and really interested in the history of US independence), but the city itself just made a very nice impression to me...especially the region in Cambridge around the Harvard University (you may have heard of that one as well... ;-)) looks very nice...looks just like a great place to live and study... ;-)
Also after Ivan had left we were still in the mood of traveling and so we also went to Washington D.C. to see this country's capital. Main attractions there are some of the longest escalators in the western hemisphere...ok that was actually just a case that we even noticed but as Wikipedia told me, I actually made a picture of the third longest continuous escalator in the western hemisphere at the Rosslyn station and the longest one would have been in Washington as well (Wheaton station). But seriously: The main attraction is the "Mall": a park with lots of museums (with free entrance!) and the main monuments like Capitol, White House, Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial...so we had a look at that as well...including seeing a guy strangely patrolling on the roof of the White House...and we also visited the National Air and Space Museum...that one is just great for anyone interested in flight, rockets and space exploration as their exhibitions include an original piece of the moon (to be touched), the Wright Flyer, the Apollo Lunar Module (you know "A small step for me, a big step"...etc etc) a V2 rocket and much more...just like with anything else: check the pictures in my Web Album... ;-) ...unfortunately, we had little luck with the weather...although actually we were lucky to be able to get back home at all as there was not just a little bit of rain...there was a lot of it...enough to flood several rivers in New Jersey and to have the governor declaring a "State of Emergency" on the following Monday...for us this meant that we didn't have to go to work as there was the risk that we wouldn't be able to return home afterwards... ;-)
And in case you need motivation for traveling around you can just invite your parents and you have some more reasons to travel... ;-) ...and so I finally went to see Philadelphia by day (I knew that it has a nice night-life already ;-)) as well. Also a pretty city...similarly to Boston not a lot of sightseeing be done there (again unless you're interested in "old" buildings and US independence), but just a nice city to walk around when the weather is nice...
One bad thing about working in the States is that you don't get a lot of days off. Or to be more precise, I don't have a single day which I can take off without having to work in the weekends to make up for the time. Additionally to that, they don't have all the nice religious holidays, I'm used to have in Switzerland (well ok besides Christmas). Yet, there are a few U.S. holidays like Independence Day, Thanksgiving and Memorial Day. The latter was on the last Monday of May and allowed me to have a longer weekend, which I spent in Chicago. Stefan (I went to high school with him in Switzerland) had just finished his Master in Montreal and wanted to visit Chicago once again (he spent a semester at the Northwestern University right next to Chicago) and so he asked, if I wanted to join him. I think that was a good choice. From the cities I saw by now, Chicago would be my first choice to study in (closely followed by the Cambridge area in Boston...and I haven't seen the West Coast...yet). Chicago can probably keep up with NYC when it comes to impressiveness (3 of 4 tallest US-skyscrapers in Chicago) and nightlife opportunities (they have several universities in and around the city), but additionally to that it has a sandy beach... ;-) ...besides that, the city is just amazing from an architectural point of view as several of the buildings could easily be considered a piece of art...there you can see that some of the best US architects (like the one that designed the Guggenheim Museum) lived and taught in Chicago...for Chicago I can also suggest that you check out the pictures that Stefan took as he had clearly the better cam and could make far better pictures of the night view from the Hancock Center...
So, What else can you do in your free time? Well, how about sports? The area offers some nice opportunities to do some jogging, biking and hiking or to play tennis or golf (classy sports seem to be quite popular in the Princeton area). Personally, I still prefer playing basketball though and there are quite a few courts to do that as well...or if the weather is bad you can just watch the games...on TV for instance...or you just take your car (or train) and go to the stadium to watch a game...I already tried not to mention the Knicks vs Mavericks (featuring the "German Wunderkind" and this season's MVP Dirk Nowitzki) game, I went to see at the Madison Square Garden in New York...so, I'll also try not to mention the three games I went to see at the Continental Airlines Arena in New Jersey, where the Nets played against the Wizards (I wanted to see Gilbert Arenas, but he was injured...well...the game featured a huge performance by Vince Carter, the first two-man trible double since Pippen/Jordan and a Buzzer-Beater leading the game to overtime where the Nets won...can't really complain ;-)) and in the first round of the Playoffs against the Raptors (featuring our Italian prodigy and last year's first draft pick Andrea "Il Mago" Bargnani) and in the second round against the Cavaliers (featuring Lebron James (a.k.a. "King James")...btw: the Cavaliers are currently in the NBA Finals...losing 0:3)...the Nets won all the games and Jason Kidd had a Triple-Double in each of them...but as I said...I don't want to mention that too much...I'm risking to have too many people not talking to me anymore afterwards... ;-)
You can obviously also do other standard stuff in your free time like going to the movies...well ok the cinemas are usually bigger in the States as well...I can really recommend 300 ("SPARTANS! Tonight! We dine! In hell!") and Grindhouse (just cool)...or you can go shopping...just like in Switzerland...well ok...the Malls are bigger...and they're open late during the week and even on Sundays...and if you go to an Outlet like the huge Woodbury Premium Outlets (make sure to check the aerial photos as well) you even get the stuff for ridiculous prices...nice... ;-)
Another funny thing to do is to visit some people that are also in the States. So, I spent a weekend in NYC with Enno, who was one of my German roommates in Delft and is currently doing his internship in Boston. Then, I had lunch in NYC with Tobias who is a fellow ETH student and currently doing his internship with Siemens in Manhattan. And last but not least I had dinner with my amazing, fabulous and gorgeous (no, she didn't pay me to write that...really ;-)) cousin Graziella from Rome...this is especially interesting as I never managed to visit her in Rome which in the end isn't thaaaat far from Zurich... ;-)
Chapter IV - The struggle for housing
Finding housing was a bit messy in my case, but that was just bad luck for me. I had already looked for housing from Switzerland and had some contacts which had some interesting offers. Unfortunately, the one offer that looked the best (a nice room in walking distance from the Princeton University for just a bit over 500$ a month), made me wait for almost 2 weeks as there were some problems with the girl that should have moved out from that room. Then, she offered me another room in her house which would have been available a bit later (Siemens pays for 13 nights in the hotel and I would have had to find a temporary accommodation for a few days...not really a problem with all the interns). And in the end, she just told me "Sorry, something happened with the house. I don't live there anymore, the rooms are not available anymore"...my internal reaction: "wtf?!?!?"...my actual answer: "wow, what happened?"...her answer: "don't want to talk about it"...great...fortunately, they are always sending new housing offers to all the interns in Siemens and so I could find another room the same day and so I was still able to move out of the hotel in time...
In the end, I moved into a room offered by a nice American landlady in Hillsborough (15 miles (i.e. 20-40min) from Siemens) for 425$ a month. I'm certainly fine with that as I can use everything in the house (only have to share the bathroom with my German flatmate (permanent employee at Siemens, who will buy a house and bring his family to the States later)) and there are no flooded cellars and no dangerous stairs to go to the bathroom... ;-) ...in short: the room is nice (even fully equipped with stuff left by former interns like a sleeping bag and several city guides) and there are a swimming pool and a basketball court in walking distance...and several supermarkets (obviously not in walking distance) on my way home from Siemens, which are open until Midnight during the week and a bit less on Sundays...can't really complain that much...and with the gas prices in the States (still less than 3$ per gallon, although it used to be like 2.20 when I arrived) the long drive to work isn't really a problem either...
But before I continue the chapters just a few words on my trip to Switzerland and back: I went back for a long weekend (took 4 days off) because of the marriage of my cousin and since she was the first one of my generation getting married and more or less everyone from my family (several traveling all the way from South Italy) went to the wedding, I just couldn't miss... ;-) ...and on my way back I had to wait a long time in Toronto anyway and so I chose a flight with a long gap between the flights and went to see the city which features some nice places and the world's highest observation deck (Sky Pod of the CN Tower)...needless to say that I went on top of it...nice... ;-) ...pictures will obviously follow...
Chapter III - So much to do and so little time
This chapter covers some of the things, I did in my free time in and around Princeton. Although the "around" part can cover quite a large area in the States... ;-)
Princeton itself can be very shortly defined as a nice but very quiet little city. There are several restaurants, two bars and a brewery and a very nice University (you may have heard of it...) and Campus. Certainly a nice place to hang around, but not really the best place to go out. Yet, there's one thing I have to point out for people that like burgers: If you ever come to Princeton, make sure to get one at Hoagie's.... ;-)
For the going out part there is one simple solution and that is to do private parties. Fortunately some interns and other Siemens coworkers live in their own apartments/houses and so there are quite some opportunities to mix Siemens interns (mostly engineers...mostly male) and all local au pair girls (mostly female) into one of these places to have a nice evening...works just fine... ;-) ...and if there are no private parties going on you can still drive to NYC, Philadelphia, New Brumswick, New Hope (although that one may be dangerous in some cases ;-)) or to the shores and have fun there...
New York City is just 1.5h from Princeton and is often labeled as the greatest city in the world (at least that's what they say in the local radio all the time ;-)) or the city that never sleeps. Now, the latter is certainly true for US-standards, as almost every bar/pub/club in the States closes at two o'clock while you can easily have fun in NYC till dawn. For the first part, I have to admit that the city is indeed very impressive. Especially the first times I got there, I was just amazed by the size (especially in the sky-direction ;-)) of the city. So, I can just recommend to everyone to either visit the city or at least have a look at all the pictures I took there... ;-)
And if the weather is not nice you can still walk around the Central Park and go into one of the many museums there. Several of them are among the best world-wide. I didn't find time yet to go into many of them though, but that's mostly because I'm not really interested in art. So, I went to see the American Museum of Natural History with its nice exhibitions on meteoroids (they have some quite big rocks from space there), gems (unfortunately not to be kept as souvenirs) and models of dinosaurs (largely made of real bones) as well as other animals. And the only other museum which I would really like to see would be the Guggenheim Museum...for its architecture... ;-)
As some of you may know, NYC consists of more than Manhattan. There are four more boroughs (Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island), but most tourists stick to Manhattan and don't see anything of the other boroughs (may be related to the higher crime rate there ;-)). For my luck there was an organized bike tour going through all five boroughs (in a moment of extreme genius someone came up with the name "Five Boro Bike Tour" for the tour ;-)) and I joined it...together with around 32000 others. It was quite a huge event going for 42 miles on the closed roads of New York City (we even went on the highways...with cars going in the other direction... ;-)) and so I had the chance to see more of New York City than just Manhattan...there's also a video of the tour on YouTube...
Some of you may also know that there are two rather important small islands south of Manhattan. Liberty Island with Lady Liberty greeting all the new arrivals and Ellis Island where all the new arrivals used to be "greeted" by the U.S. immigration...nowadays they're both just tourist attractions and looking at the huge queues in front of the ferries starting from Battery Park in downtown Manhattan, it seems that they're quite popular ones... ;-) ...what most tourists do not know is that there's a state park in honor of the statue of liberty (guess the name...yes it's the "Liberty State Park") on the New Jersey side of the Hudson river. As we were on our way to a NBA Playoffs game at the Continental Airlines Arena (in New Jersey...a bit north-west of NYC) we shortly stopped at the park and went on the ferry to the islands...same as all the tourists do in Manhattan...just without the waiting... ;-) ...in the end we didn't even leave the boat to go on Liberty Island (didn't look interesting and you get better views of the statue on the boat anyway), but we went to the Immigration Museum on Ellis Island...quite interesting in my opinion, but I may be a bit biased being the son of immigrants...
Getting back to the going out part, there is also a great Jazz Club in NYC called the Blue Note Jazz Club. We went there to see the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band...these guys are just great...it was obviously not allowed to record them while they were performing and so it's hard to tell you, how good they were, but well...just believe it... ;-) ...and you can find some pics done by Fred here (I forgot to bring my cam for that event)...
Getting to see other cities also turned out to be rather easy in my case as Ivan was already getting ready to leave (he left in the beginning of April) and so he wanted to see a few cities before going back to Switzerland...said done...I already mentioned the snowy trip we did to Montreal on the St. Patrick's Day weekend and after that we also went to see Boston...very nice town...not much sightseeing to be done there (unless you're fascinated by "old" buildings (i.e. 17th century) and really interested in the history of US independence), but the city itself just made a very nice impression to me...especially the region in Cambridge around the Harvard University (you may have heard of that one as well... ;-)) looks very nice...looks just like a great place to live and study... ;-)
Also after Ivan had left we were still in the mood of traveling and so we also went to Washington D.C. to see this country's capital. Main attractions there are some of the longest escalators in the western hemisphere...ok that was actually just a case that we even noticed but as Wikipedia told me, I actually made a picture of the third longest continuous escalator in the western hemisphere at the Rosslyn station and the longest one would have been in Washington as well (Wheaton station). But seriously: The main attraction is the "Mall": a park with lots of museums (with free entrance!) and the main monuments like Capitol, White House, Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial...so we had a look at that as well...including seeing a guy strangely patrolling on the roof of the White House...and we also visited the National Air and Space Museum...that one is just great for anyone interested in flight, rockets and space exploration as their exhibitions include an original piece of the moon (to be touched), the Wright Flyer, the Apollo Lunar Module (you know "A small step for me, a big step"...etc etc) a V2 rocket and much more...just like with anything else: check the pictures in my Web Album... ;-) ...unfortunately, we had little luck with the weather...although actually we were lucky to be able to get back home at all as there was not just a little bit of rain...there was a lot of it...enough to flood several rivers in New Jersey and to have the governor declaring a "State of Emergency" on the following Monday...for us this meant that we didn't have to go to work as there was the risk that we wouldn't be able to return home afterwards... ;-)
And in case you need motivation for traveling around you can just invite your parents and you have some more reasons to travel... ;-) ...and so I finally went to see Philadelphia by day (I knew that it has a nice night-life already ;-)) as well. Also a pretty city...similarly to Boston not a lot of sightseeing be done there (again unless you're interested in "old" buildings and US independence), but just a nice city to walk around when the weather is nice...
One bad thing about working in the States is that you don't get a lot of days off. Or to be more precise, I don't have a single day which I can take off without having to work in the weekends to make up for the time. Additionally to that, they don't have all the nice religious holidays, I'm used to have in Switzerland (well ok besides Christmas). Yet, there are a few U.S. holidays like Independence Day, Thanksgiving and Memorial Day. The latter was on the last Monday of May and allowed me to have a longer weekend, which I spent in Chicago. Stefan (I went to high school with him in Switzerland) had just finished his Master in Montreal and wanted to visit Chicago once again (he spent a semester at the Northwestern University right next to Chicago) and so he asked, if I wanted to join him. I think that was a good choice. From the cities I saw by now, Chicago would be my first choice to study in (closely followed by the Cambridge area in Boston...and I haven't seen the West Coast...yet). Chicago can probably keep up with NYC when it comes to impressiveness (3 of 4 tallest US-skyscrapers in Chicago) and nightlife opportunities (they have several universities in and around the city), but additionally to that it has a sandy beach... ;-) ...besides that, the city is just amazing from an architectural point of view as several of the buildings could easily be considered a piece of art...there you can see that some of the best US architects (like the one that designed the Guggenheim Museum) lived and taught in Chicago...for Chicago I can also suggest that you check out the pictures that Stefan took as he had clearly the better cam and could make far better pictures of the night view from the Hancock Center...
So, What else can you do in your free time? Well, how about sports? The area offers some nice opportunities to do some jogging, biking and hiking or to play tennis or golf (classy sports seem to be quite popular in the Princeton area). Personally, I still prefer playing basketball though and there are quite a few courts to do that as well...or if the weather is bad you can just watch the games...on TV for instance...or you just take your car (or train) and go to the stadium to watch a game...I already tried not to mention the Knicks vs Mavericks (featuring the "German Wunderkind" and this season's MVP Dirk Nowitzki) game, I went to see at the Madison Square Garden in New York...so, I'll also try not to mention the three games I went to see at the Continental Airlines Arena in New Jersey, where the Nets played against the Wizards (I wanted to see Gilbert Arenas, but he was injured...well...the game featured a huge performance by Vince Carter, the first two-man trible double since Pippen/Jordan and a Buzzer-Beater leading the game to overtime where the Nets won...can't really complain ;-)) and in the first round of the Playoffs against the Raptors (featuring our Italian prodigy and last year's first draft pick Andrea "Il Mago" Bargnani) and in the second round against the Cavaliers (featuring Lebron James (a.k.a. "King James")...btw: the Cavaliers are currently in the NBA Finals...losing 0:3)...the Nets won all the games and Jason Kidd had a Triple-Double in each of them...but as I said...I don't want to mention that too much...I'm risking to have too many people not talking to me anymore afterwards... ;-)
You can obviously also do other standard stuff in your free time like going to the movies...well ok the cinemas are usually bigger in the States as well...I can really recommend 300 ("SPARTANS! Tonight! We dine! In hell!") and Grindhouse (just cool)...or you can go shopping...just like in Switzerland...well ok...the Malls are bigger...and they're open late during the week and even on Sundays...and if you go to an Outlet like the huge Woodbury Premium Outlets (make sure to check the aerial photos as well) you even get the stuff for ridiculous prices...nice... ;-)
Another funny thing to do is to visit some people that are also in the States. So, I spent a weekend in NYC with Enno, who was one of my German roommates in Delft and is currently doing his internship in Boston. Then, I had lunch in NYC with Tobias who is a fellow ETH student and currently doing his internship with Siemens in Manhattan. And last but not least I had dinner with my amazing, fabulous and gorgeous (no, she didn't pay me to write that...really ;-)) cousin Graziella from Rome...this is especially interesting as I never managed to visit her in Rome which in the end isn't thaaaat far from Zurich... ;-)
Chapter IV - The struggle for housing
Finding housing was a bit messy in my case, but that was just bad luck for me. I had already looked for housing from Switzerland and had some contacts which had some interesting offers. Unfortunately, the one offer that looked the best (a nice room in walking distance from the Princeton University for just a bit over 500$ a month), made me wait for almost 2 weeks as there were some problems with the girl that should have moved out from that room. Then, she offered me another room in her house which would have been available a bit later (Siemens pays for 13 nights in the hotel and I would have had to find a temporary accommodation for a few days...not really a problem with all the interns). And in the end, she just told me "Sorry, something happened with the house. I don't live there anymore, the rooms are not available anymore"...my internal reaction: "wtf?!?!?"...my actual answer: "wow, what happened?"...her answer: "don't want to talk about it"...great...fortunately, they are always sending new housing offers to all the interns in Siemens and so I could find another room the same day and so I was still able to move out of the hotel in time...
In the end, I moved into a room offered by a nice American landlady in Hillsborough (15 miles (i.e. 20-40min) from Siemens) for 425$ a month. I'm certainly fine with that as I can use everything in the house (only have to share the bathroom with my German flatmate (permanent employee at Siemens, who will buy a house and bring his family to the States later)) and there are no flooded cellars and no dangerous stairs to go to the bathroom... ;-) ...in short: the room is nice (even fully equipped with stuff left by former interns like a sleeping bag and several city guides) and there are a swimming pool and a basketball court in walking distance...and several supermarkets (obviously not in walking distance) on my way home from Siemens, which are open until Midnight during the week and a bit less on Sundays...can't really complain that much...and with the gas prices in the States (still less than 3$ per gallon, although it used to be like 2.20 when I arrived) the long drive to work isn't really a problem either...
Friday, June 8, 2007
New pictures (it's about time)
I think, I'll never finish my book, but well. My plan is to write summary of all I've done (will be a long summary anyway) and then I'll try to write less but more often. Actually, I had written most of this summary when I was waiting in Montreal for my connecting flight to Switzerland (I'm back for the weekend for the wedding of my cousin), but I lost most of my work due to a crash... :(
In the meantime, you can have a look at the new pictures in my Web Albums. Here's what happened there, since my last post in the end of March:
In the meantime, you can have a look at the new pictures in my Web Albums. Here's what happened there, since my last post in the end of March:
- I have created new albums for my visits to Boston, Washington (with a separate album for the Air and Space Museum), Philadelphia and Chicago, for a few NBA Games I went to see (Nets vs Wizards (Regular Season), Nets vs Raptors (Playoffs Round 1), Nets vs Cavaliers (Playoffs Round 2)) and for some visits/events in NYC (Museum of Natural History, Five Boro Bike Tour, Ellis Island and Liberty State Park (incl. Pics of the Statue of Liberty))
- I have merged room and car albums into a new album. There's also some new pics there including some with me in my car (made especially for Daniele and Jan... ;-))...although I had to change my car in the meantime and I'm now driving a white Chevrolet Impala LT (model 1LT)
- I have added some new pictures in my Princeton and New York City Albums
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Yet another update
Actually, I planned to write a few chapters to my book - ehm I mean blog - but well...got a bit late once again. Was shopping in the afternoon in one of the outlet centers here (nice to buy Tommy Hilfiger Jeans for 29.99$...on a Sunday) and didn't find time to write. Besides that, I'll have to wake up very early tomorrow as I'll have a meeting with some guys in India (time shift s**ks) on 7am...
So, I just wanted to mention my latest addition to my web album (Knicks vs Mavericks). And talking about basketball: I hope Kobe doesn't play well today. Otherwise, the TV may keep me from sleeping... ;-)
(background-info: Kobe scored 50+ points in his four last games...the only(!) other player that managed to do this was Wilt Chamberlain (the guy that scored 100 points in one game and had an average of more than 50 points per game in 1961/62), who scored 50+ in seven consecutive games)
So, I just wanted to mention my latest addition to my web album (Knicks vs Mavericks). And talking about basketball: I hope Kobe doesn't play well today. Otherwise, the TV may keep me from sleeping... ;-)
(background-info: Kobe scored 50+ points in his four last games...the only(!) other player that managed to do this was Wilt Chamberlain (the guy that scored 100 points in one game and had an average of more than 50 points per game in 1961/62), who scored 50+ in seven consecutive games)
Update
Check out my Web Albums with my latest pictures from New York City (UN, Views from the GE Building...) and Montreal. And there's also a new section on the sidebar, which will contain some interesting links...
Versione italiana
Ho messo online diverse foto nuove da New York City (ONU, Vista dal GE Building...) e Montreal. E c'è pure una nuova sezione al lato dove mettero diversi links interessanti...
Versione italiana
Ho messo online diverse foto nuove da New York City (ONU, Vista dal GE Building...) e Montreal. E c'è pure una nuova sezione al lato dove mettero diversi links interessanti...
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Short interlude
Before I continue with chapters III and IV, I just wanted to mention a few interesting things that happened lately...
Weather
That's quite an interesting topic here. I honestly thought that the Swiss weather was unpredictable with major temperature changes in a short period of time. Now, here's an example of the weather in Princeton: Last week on March 14 it was a fantastic warm spring weather with temperatures going up to 20°C. And then on Friday (March 16) NY looked like this: there was snow...a lot of snow! They had to cancel hundreds of flights because of the snow. So what did we do? We went North to Montreal... ;-) ...ok, it was a bit of a crazy idea with this weather, but we had planned to be in Montreal for St. Patricks Day a few weeks ago and didn't feel like changing the plans. Took us 14 hours to get there...and 7 to get back on Sunday...
And how does the weather look like after all the snow on the weekend: well, we're almost back at the 20°C spring weather again...honestly: everyone claiming that the world's climate is not going crazy, is completely nuts!
Driving
I had already mentioned that you're not allowed to drive fast in the US...at least officially, but more about this later. Let me first mention the truck drivers...they drive faster than what they're allowed to. And if you think they would drive slower if you don't see the street because there's so much snow on it, you're wrong. It was amazing to see how crazy this truck drivers are here (especially during our snowy trip to Canada) and finally realizing why it absolutely makes sense that they're not allowed to drive this fast in Switzerland (or Europe in general). I mean, how often does it happen in Europe to be overtaken by a truck? Or seeing trucks or buses going into an impressive tilt in a curve? I mean it happens quite regularly to be stuck in traffic that is still driving at the allowed speed (that's probably the advantage of a slow limit) and then being overtaken by a faster truck...either on the right or left side...
But let's talk about how fast you're really allowed to drive: This morning, I was driving to work as usual and after overtaking a few cars (on the right side...everyone does it here anyway), I happened to be just behind a police car when the road became single-lane again. So, I was already worried that my trip to work may take longer than expected...but well, the police car was driving 5mph too fast at a distance of about half a meter to the car in front of him (let's call that one carX), that had about the same distance to the car in front of him (carY...btw: sticking to other cars is also common practice here). I relaxed, increased the volume of the radio and followed them at a reasonable distance. As the road became double-lane again (unfortunately most of my trip to work is single-lane) and the officially allowed speed was 50mph with carY driving slightly slower than 50mph, carX accelerated on the left lane...so did the police car...so did I...and so we all continued at more than 60mph and the police car didn't care at all! Long story short: You're unofficially allowed to drive at least 10mph more than what is allowed officially. I mean, I was told about that shortly after I arrived, but that was quite a nice demonstration of it... ;-)
Basketball
Just wanted to mention this homepage containing some pictures to a basketball event organized by CDS (the company that helped me (and all the other Siemens interns and many more) to get my visa here). My own pictures will follow soon...as there were some people that threatened to never talk to me again, if I don't stop talking about basketball games, and there were some people that wanted to see pictures of it, I won't talk about the game between the Knicks and the Mavericks at the Madison Square Garden. I'll just show the pictures and mention the cool Allan Houston jersey we got and how nice the stadium is... ;-)
(more pictures from NY and Montreal and more chapters for my "book" will follow...)
Weather
That's quite an interesting topic here. I honestly thought that the Swiss weather was unpredictable with major temperature changes in a short period of time. Now, here's an example of the weather in Princeton: Last week on March 14 it was a fantastic warm spring weather with temperatures going up to 20°C. And then on Friday (March 16) NY looked like this: there was snow...a lot of snow! They had to cancel hundreds of flights because of the snow. So what did we do? We went North to Montreal... ;-) ...ok, it was a bit of a crazy idea with this weather, but we had planned to be in Montreal for St. Patricks Day a few weeks ago and didn't feel like changing the plans. Took us 14 hours to get there...and 7 to get back on Sunday...
And how does the weather look like after all the snow on the weekend: well, we're almost back at the 20°C spring weather again...honestly: everyone claiming that the world's climate is not going crazy, is completely nuts!
Driving
I had already mentioned that you're not allowed to drive fast in the US...at least officially, but more about this later. Let me first mention the truck drivers...they drive faster than what they're allowed to. And if you think they would drive slower if you don't see the street because there's so much snow on it, you're wrong. It was amazing to see how crazy this truck drivers are here (especially during our snowy trip to Canada) and finally realizing why it absolutely makes sense that they're not allowed to drive this fast in Switzerland (or Europe in general). I mean, how often does it happen in Europe to be overtaken by a truck? Or seeing trucks or buses going into an impressive tilt in a curve? I mean it happens quite regularly to be stuck in traffic that is still driving at the allowed speed (that's probably the advantage of a slow limit) and then being overtaken by a faster truck...either on the right or left side...
But let's talk about how fast you're really allowed to drive: This morning, I was driving to work as usual and after overtaking a few cars (on the right side...everyone does it here anyway), I happened to be just behind a police car when the road became single-lane again. So, I was already worried that my trip to work may take longer than expected...but well, the police car was driving 5mph too fast at a distance of about half a meter to the car in front of him (let's call that one carX), that had about the same distance to the car in front of him (carY...btw: sticking to other cars is also common practice here). I relaxed, increased the volume of the radio and followed them at a reasonable distance. As the road became double-lane again (unfortunately most of my trip to work is single-lane) and the officially allowed speed was 50mph with carY driving slightly slower than 50mph, carX accelerated on the left lane...so did the police car...so did I...and so we all continued at more than 60mph and the police car didn't care at all! Long story short: You're unofficially allowed to drive at least 10mph more than what is allowed officially. I mean, I was told about that shortly after I arrived, but that was quite a nice demonstration of it... ;-)
Basketball
Just wanted to mention this homepage containing some pictures to a basketball event organized by CDS (the company that helped me (and all the other Siemens interns and many more) to get my visa here). My own pictures will follow soon...as there were some people that threatened to never talk to me again, if I don't stop talking about basketball games, and there were some people that wanted to see pictures of it, I won't talk about the game between the Knicks and the Mavericks at the Madison Square Garden. I'll just show the pictures and mention the cool Allan Houston jersey we got and how nice the stadium is... ;-)
(more pictures from NY and Montreal and more chapters for my "book" will follow...)
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Internship in the USA - Part I
Prelude
On Wednesday 14th February, I got ready for my six month trip to the States, which would start on the next day. I had already had a look at several housing options and got in contact with 4 of them to make arrangements for a meeting once I would arrive in Princeton. The problem though was related to the organization within Siemens, since they had promised me to arrange an intern picking me up at the airport, a reservation for a hotel (for the first 13 nights) and for my rental car, but on Wednesday, I still had not got any further informations about that. Fortunately, I could contact another intern working at Siemens (thank you once again Urs) and he could reassure me that everything was being taken care of. The problem was only that the guy coordinating the intern-pickups had been sick until Tuesday and my HR contact person as well as my supervisor stayed at home on Wednesday because of the heavy snowfalls. In the end, I had all the informations on Wednesday evening (late evening!) and could finally look forward to my arrival in the States without too many worries...
Chapter I - The Arrival
So on Thursday, I took off from Zurich Kloten with British Airways to London, where we had a few problems with the landing. I mean, we managed to land safely finally, but due to air-traffic and strong winds we made several round-trips over London (looks like a nice city from above... ;-)) and had a rather shaky landing. A small lunch and a few hours later, I took the next flight...the long one all over the Atlantic Ocean to Newark (New Jersey) just next to New York City. In some of the pictures you can see how a Boeing 777 (was the airplane I took from London) with its huge engines (the largest of its kind) looks like. After some eating, TV-watching (Flushed Away...funny) and reading (USA travel guide), I was already in Newark, where we again encountered strong winds and a shaky landing. A few passport checks later, I was finally out of the airport, where I met Robert, another intern working for Siemens (something like 1/3 of the 300 people working for Siemens Corporate Research (SCR) in princeton are interns!), and was brought to the Holiday Inn. But before we arrived at the nice hotel, where I planned to spend just a few days before moving into my permanent accommodation (see chapter IV), we stopped at a real American steak house (Outback) to have dinner. It was also quite interesting to get a first impression of what I may expect on the US highways...well in the end, it was as expected: big cars, large lanes and low speed limits (in New Jersey: 55 mph (88.5 km/h) on the "highways" (usually big and multiple lanes, but with some traffic lights) like the US Route 1 and 65 mph (104.6 km/h) on the interstates like the I-95...although people usually drive 80mph and more there).
Chapter II - First Impressions
On Friday, another intern from Switzerland (electrical engineering student at ETH) brought me from the Hotel to the car rental offices (it's half way from Princeton to NYC and he had to go to NYC anyway), where I got my nice rental car...a modern, big and nice Saturn Aura XR 3.6. You can find some pictures of my car in the web albums and some more informations here. And yes, you absolutely need a car to live in the USA (unless you live in one of the really big cities like New York City, Los Angeles and so on), since the public transportation is not really good (although the East-Coast is reasonably good for US-standards and it's possible to easily get to NYC by train from Princeton). Although I had the mobility now, I preferred staying at the hotel to watch some NBA basketball (All-Star Weekend!).
On Saturday, I finally had a look at two of the housing options and in the evening I got to my first Siemens intern party...or at least a party where they were all invited (it was actually the birthday of a Brazilian au-pair girl). So, I could meet quite a lot of co-workers even before I actually started to work at all. It was also quite a funny situation to meet Ivan (he's studying computer science with me in Zurich) at that party...I mean, although we know each other from school, none of us knew that the other was doing/going to do an internship with Siemens in the States, so we were both like "what are YOU doing here??"... ;-)
On Sunday, I went to have a walk through Princeton and take some pictures of the well-known (claimed to be one of the best in the world) university...well at least it looks nice...in the evening then, I relaxed and watched the NBA All-Star Game...just wanted to mention this for all NBA fans in Europe, who (like me) hadn't had the possibility to watch the game for several years, because it was only shown on Pay-TV... :p
Then on Monday, I started to work...or at least something like this. I arrived at Siemens to take care of some paperwork and was then introduced to the small team, I'll be working with. So, I'll be working on a Siemens application used to aid the design and development of automated factories. The team consists of around 6 persons (btw: Ivan is one of them) and the office is organized in classic US-style cubicles...but at least it isn't one of these huge office buildings where you're next window is a mile away...I mean, I'm actually right next to a window...and right next to my supervisor...still have to decide, if that's good or bad...
(to be continued...and no, I won't continue day-by-day...don't worry... ;-))
On Wednesday 14th February, I got ready for my six month trip to the States, which would start on the next day. I had already had a look at several housing options and got in contact with 4 of them to make arrangements for a meeting once I would arrive in Princeton. The problem though was related to the organization within Siemens, since they had promised me to arrange an intern picking me up at the airport, a reservation for a hotel (for the first 13 nights) and for my rental car, but on Wednesday, I still had not got any further informations about that. Fortunately, I could contact another intern working at Siemens (thank you once again Urs) and he could reassure me that everything was being taken care of. The problem was only that the guy coordinating the intern-pickups had been sick until Tuesday and my HR contact person as well as my supervisor stayed at home on Wednesday because of the heavy snowfalls. In the end, I had all the informations on Wednesday evening (late evening!) and could finally look forward to my arrival in the States without too many worries...
Chapter I - The Arrival
So on Thursday, I took off from Zurich Kloten with British Airways to London, where we had a few problems with the landing. I mean, we managed to land safely finally, but due to air-traffic and strong winds we made several round-trips over London (looks like a nice city from above... ;-)) and had a rather shaky landing. A small lunch and a few hours later, I took the next flight...the long one all over the Atlantic Ocean to Newark (New Jersey) just next to New York City. In some of the pictures you can see how a Boeing 777 (was the airplane I took from London) with its huge engines (the largest of its kind) looks like. After some eating, TV-watching (Flushed Away...funny) and reading (USA travel guide), I was already in Newark, where we again encountered strong winds and a shaky landing. A few passport checks later, I was finally out of the airport, where I met Robert, another intern working for Siemens (something like 1/3 of the 300 people working for Siemens Corporate Research (SCR) in princeton are interns!), and was brought to the Holiday Inn. But before we arrived at the nice hotel, where I planned to spend just a few days before moving into my permanent accommodation (see chapter IV), we stopped at a real American steak house (Outback) to have dinner. It was also quite interesting to get a first impression of what I may expect on the US highways...well in the end, it was as expected: big cars, large lanes and low speed limits (in New Jersey: 55 mph (88.5 km/h) on the "highways" (usually big and multiple lanes, but with some traffic lights) like the US Route 1 and 65 mph (104.6 km/h) on the interstates like the I-95...although people usually drive 80mph and more there).
Chapter II - First Impressions
On Friday, another intern from Switzerland (electrical engineering student at ETH) brought me from the Hotel to the car rental offices (it's half way from Princeton to NYC and he had to go to NYC anyway), where I got my nice rental car...a modern, big and nice Saturn Aura XR 3.6. You can find some pictures of my car in the web albums and some more informations here. And yes, you absolutely need a car to live in the USA (unless you live in one of the really big cities like New York City, Los Angeles and so on), since the public transportation is not really good (although the East-Coast is reasonably good for US-standards and it's possible to easily get to NYC by train from Princeton). Although I had the mobility now, I preferred staying at the hotel to watch some NBA basketball (All-Star Weekend!).
On Saturday, I finally had a look at two of the housing options and in the evening I got to my first Siemens intern party...or at least a party where they were all invited (it was actually the birthday of a Brazilian au-pair girl). So, I could meet quite a lot of co-workers even before I actually started to work at all. It was also quite a funny situation to meet Ivan (he's studying computer science with me in Zurich) at that party...I mean, although we know each other from school, none of us knew that the other was doing/going to do an internship with Siemens in the States, so we were both like "what are YOU doing here??"... ;-)
On Sunday, I went to have a walk through Princeton and take some pictures of the well-known (claimed to be one of the best in the world) university...well at least it looks nice...in the evening then, I relaxed and watched the NBA All-Star Game...just wanted to mention this for all NBA fans in Europe, who (like me) hadn't had the possibility to watch the game for several years, because it was only shown on Pay-TV... :p
Then on Monday, I started to work...or at least something like this. I arrived at Siemens to take care of some paperwork and was then introduced to the small team, I'll be working with. So, I'll be working on a Siemens application used to aid the design and development of automated factories. The team consists of around 6 persons (btw: Ivan is one of them) and the office is organized in classic US-style cubicles...but at least it isn't one of these huge office buildings where you're next window is a mile away...I mean, I'm actually right next to a window...and right next to my supervisor...still have to decide, if that's good or bad...
(to be continued...and no, I won't continue day-by-day...don't worry... ;-))
Let's start with this blog then...
...with some pictures...
I just created some Picasa Web Albums and updated a few pictures there (funnily enough, they just made a huge increase of storage space there today). You can find some of them on the right side of this blog. The stories to the pictures will follow soon...
In general, I will certainly update the albums more often than the blog itself, so stay tuned...
Versione corta italiana
Ho cominciato a mettere diverse foto online usando Picasa Web Albums. Maggior parte dei album (che aggiornerò più spesso che il blog) si possono trovare qui a destra...
I just created some Picasa Web Albums and updated a few pictures there (funnily enough, they just made a huge increase of storage space there today). You can find some of them on the right side of this blog. The stories to the pictures will follow soon...
In general, I will certainly update the albums more often than the blog itself, so stay tuned...
Versione corta italiana
Ho cominciato a mettere diverse foto online usando Picasa Web Albums. Maggior parte dei album (che aggiornerò più spesso che il blog) si possono trovare qui a destra...
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Finalmente! Endlich! Finalement!
Dopo quasi 20 giorni nei Stati Uniti ho finalmente cominciato il mio blog. Spero, di riempirlo il più presto possibile con foto e storie. Come già spiegato nella versione inglese, le storie le scriverò in Inglese ma forse aggiungerò pure una versione in Italiano...se trovo il tempo...
In ogni caso: Benvenuti sul mio blog!
Also, wenn irgendwer erwartet, dass ich das Ganze auch noch auf Deutsch schreibe, kennt mich diese Person offenbar nicht gut genug...ihr seit ja eh alle auch der englischen Sprache mächtig... ;-)
Si il y a vraiment des personnes qui pensaient que j'allais écrire ce blog aussi en français, cette personne évidemment ne me connait pas très bien...vous savez l'anglais en tous cas... ;-)
In ogni caso: Benvenuti sul mio blog!
Also, wenn irgendwer erwartet, dass ich das Ganze auch noch auf Deutsch schreibe, kennt mich diese Person offenbar nicht gut genug...ihr seit ja eh alle auch der englischen Sprache mächtig... ;-)
Si il y a vraiment des personnes qui pensaient que j'allais écrire ce blog aussi en français, cette personne évidemment ne me connait pas très bien...vous savez l'anglais en tous cas... ;-)
Here we go
I've been in the US for almost 20 days now and finally I managed to setup my blog for my stay here. I hope, I'll be able to fill it with pictures and some reasonable content as soon as possible.
All the posts and picture-descriptions will be in English. I may consider translating some parts in Italian, but that strongly depends on my laziness...and as some of you may know, I tend to be rather lazy, so don't expect too much.
Anyway: Welcome to my blog! Fasten your seatbelt and enjoy the ride...
All the posts and picture-descriptions will be in English. I may consider translating some parts in Italian, but that strongly depends on my laziness...and as some of you may know, I tend to be rather lazy, so don't expect too much.
Anyway: Welcome to my blog! Fasten your seatbelt and enjoy the ride...
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