week 04

Another week is gone. First, I would like to say thank to all swiss cows. Why? Because they make the best milk I ever had in my life!
Second, thank to internet because it allows me to stay in touch to you all!!!
Since I started walking around town, I wondered what these little bags left on the street were.
There are plenty of them!
Well, they are for dog sh.t
I'm really impressed: the ultra-clean Switzerland permits this! Dog owners are just leaving these bags around without throwing them in the bins! I can't believe... The only logical explanation is that swiss dogs do it already packaged!!!






Another news of the week is that, after years, I started again playing my guitar.
I started at college and I never put it down. I'm not a good player but I like playing a lot.
Ok, the true is that my Chinese neighbour is quite noisy so I decided to punish him.
Since I started playing, he become very quite. In reality, it is a couple of days that I don't hear him. Maybe he committed suicide after my latest version of "wish you were here"...









I have another funny story. Last week I had a couple of meeting with a interesting girl. Friday she invited me for lunch and I was very happy. When I received the email with the invitation, I was disappointed. She tagged the lunch as "business lunch".
So, I extended the invitation to some other colleagues involved in the matter. As soon as she knew it, she sent the following email: "I can't believe you turned a fake business meeting to a real one".
I have still to find out what is the difference between a fake and a real business meeting :-)
Women,...

week 03

Basel is not that far from my hometown. I thought that the best way to visit my family was by car so I started looking around to buy it. But I was wrong because I did not take in consideration the Swiss public transport system. It's excellent and, after you understand how it works, quite cheap. For example, a ticket to Milano, Italy, is 48 euro...return!!!!!

There is a so big network of trains, bus, tram that you can easily reach any corner of Switzerland. And, I forgot to mention, puntuality is ... swiss-like!
So for the moment the dream of buying a gorgeous middle-age-crisis Lotus Elise is put apart. Sick!

Wait a moment I have to tell you another example of the perfect organisation that pervades this country. I went to a tango school to enroll for a course. Everything was fine apart from the fact that I needed a partner!!! I explained to the tango teacher that if I had a partner, I would not need a tango course because you normally go to a course to find a partner. "Italians,...", the teacher sighed.
Fortunately, I found the web site http://www.tangobasel.ch/Meta/Partnerboerse.html that includes the tangopartnerboerse. You just put your a message there with your email address and you wait for some girl to contact you.

I put my message at 11pm and in the morning I received 3 messages!
That tells you how important marketing is. My message was "I'm looking for a tango partner. I'm 175cm and I look like Brad Pitt..."

A tram in Basel. Speechless

week 2

whow! An entire week is already gone! I can't say that a lot happend but for sure I can give you my first impressions on Basel.
First, I have to talk about the people. They look happy and relaxed. It's easy to walk down the street, smile to somebody and have a nice smile back.
They also have the abitude of shacking hands and everybody welcomes you even when you enter a lift! Something I missed in Dublin.
So, I started learning some german: Gruezi, Ciao, Merci. Well, this is not actualy German but Sweitz, the german dialect spoken here.

The second thing I noticed is the sense of security. You walk down the street and you feel safe. Nothing bad can happen to you.
I received a book from my company intitled "Living and working in Switzerland". The best phrase I found in it is: "In Switzerland, everything that isn't illegal is forbidden; everything else is compulsory". I totally agree with the author. The only problem is that there are many foreigners here. So you can't really walk on a pedestrian cross without looking around sure that all cars will stop.
There will be always around some freanch border-commuter happy to struck you!

Another funny things is that there a lot of unusual cars around the city. Look at these pictures!

I started building my universe: I found a gym, some people to go
around, a couple of book shop, a tango course (I will enroll next week)... Fortunately, I just
need very few things to feel at home. I can easily pack all my stuff
in a suitcase and go around the world.
But the feeling I have is that this is a place to live. At least, for
the next months... :-)