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)
Sunday, March 25, 2007
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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