Prettige Kerstdagen en een Gelukkig NieuwJaar!

Christmas is right around the corner and Andreas and I are excited to head back to the US for a while. We will be staying in San Diego and enjoying every minute of sunshine we can get. Lately it's been raining quite a bit and we've been having a hard time with the weather and the daylight settings. However, the skies have been amazing with incredible clouds moving quickly and a clear blue sky with fluffy clouds behind the dark clouds. It's an incredible sight.

The sun comes up around 8:45 am and sets around 4 pm. It takes a little getting used to. Now that SinterKlaas time is over- as of December 5th, all the new Christmas decorations have come up here and all the Zwarte Pete posters and visits are now gone. The two of them have returned to the Spain. :) Wish I could be there too!

The country side of the Netherlands is quite beautiful and it always makes me laugh how quickly it is to get from one side of the country to the next. I can go from the border of the Netherlands with Germany (where I live) to the harbor city of Amsterdam in 2 hours! Along the way I see animals everywhere. Yesterday on my way to Zwolle, I saw sheep, black and white, all types of goats, ponies( lots of them!), beautiful horses, dogs, and Osteriches!! Haha- I saw all of this within a minute of each other. It made look twice! I thought I'd post a beautiful picture of the country side that I found on the internet. It is a very typical sight here.

I wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Prettige Kerstdagen en een Gelukkig NieuwJaar!

Christmas Time in The Netherlands

When the month of November started to roll around, I started noticing lights going up in the towns and some interesting posters and advertisements going up involving this strange looking white person with black paint on their faces and really red lips. At first, I was a little confused, why are these white people dressing up like black people and why aren't the black people here aren't claiming discrimination, I learned it was because it was based on cultural history, so therefore, it was accepted.

Then after asking a Dutch friend of mine, Niels, he explained to me that this was Zwartz Pieten (Black Pete) and Sinter Klaas (Klaus of the cinders) arrives around the 2nd week of November on a boat.

When he arrives, he is greeted by millions of kids holding out out bags for candies and small little cookies that his assistants, a number of men dressed up in colorful clothes, painted black faces and red lips, his assistants, Zwartze Pieten.

As the story goes, in the days leading up to December 5, young children put their shoes in front of the chimneys and sing special 'Sinterklaas-songs'. Often the shoe is filled with a carrot or some hay for the horse of St. Nicholas (called Amerigo). On the next morning they will find a small present in their shoe, ranging from a bag of chocolate coins to a bag of marbles or some other small toy. On the evening of December 5th, Sinterklaas brings presents to every child that has been good in the past year (in practice to all children). Sinterklaas wears a red bishop's dress including a red mitre, rides a white horse over the rooftops and is assisted by many mischievous helpers with black faces and colourful Moorish dresses, dating back two centuries. These helpers are called 'Zwarte Pieten'(black Petes). (Wikipedia)

So, Andreas and I got to experience everything first hand today when we walked through town. As we walked around the corner, we saw a number of little children running around with these little red and blue hats with feathers in their hats and some with black paint on their faces. Here is Andreas with some of our Black Petes.

Happy December 5th! Andreas and I will be here waiting for SinterKlaas and his assistants to come and put some nice candies and gifts in our shoes.

And one more thing that we did see...was "Tony's Place" in the Netherlands. Looks like our friend, Mr. Tony Rosati will just have to come out here and visit us. His place is already here and waiting.

Eaton Headquarters in Morges, near Geneva

In September of this year, I began working for Eaton as part of their Marketing Development Program. I am the first person in Europe to work in this position. It is considered to be equivilent to a Marketing Manager position.

I currently have the opportunity to work with a home automation product called Xanura. Part of this product line included the newly released product in the U.S. called Eaton Home HeartBeat.

I wanted to share some pictures of the Morges area, which is located between Geneva and Lausanne, on Lake Geneva. It's a great location to have a European HQ stationed.This picture is looking out of the window facing the Alps. In the distance you can see Mont Blanc, at 4808 metres (15774 ft), on the Italian-French border. While Switzerland can be incredibly beautiful with vineyards everywhere and mountains to climb, it is one of the most expensive countries in Western Europe.

Andreas and I are thinking about our next move, which will be most probably Lausanne, a small city on the other side of the lake from Geneva where there are a number of companies and hopefully opportunities for Andreas. This is also the location of the presitious IMD Business School. My next rotation is more than likely to be in Morges with either the Hydrolics or Truck divisions of Eaton.

Here is a morning picture of Lausanne from one of the nights I spent there. The architecture there is quite different from that in the Netherlands. The people are also quite French, though I feel the people seem a bit more polite.

Morges and Lausanne are located in the French speaking region of Switzerland. If I get a chance to learn French, this will be my 5th try at another language. Learning Dutch is pretty hard right now, though a little easier after learning German. Andreas will just need to brush up on his French, hopefully though, he won't lose his Spanish because of it. We're looking forward to seeing what Switzerland can offer us.

Soccer Tournament in Dortmund

In November, GISMA sent off 14 MBAs to play against some of the toughest opponents in Germany. Among them, Ion, Andreas, Ingo, Caius, Patrick, Hector, Viveik, The doctor- Saurabh, Amit, Josh, Sebastian, and others. After GISMA had to play each other twice and play another 4 teams twice as well, the boys were tired and the women had lost their voices, if not from screaming then from the people smoking in the upstairs sports bar.

Unfortunately, the two teams, GISMA Green and GISMA Black, lost but everyone proved to be great sports. Though along the way there were a few incidences, Andreas in his second game twisted his ankle and unfortunately was out for the rest of the tournament.

His ankle soon became the size of a melon but Patrick came to the rescue with crutches provided by his lovely girlfriend. Even though there were a few injuries in the team and a few losses, this didn't stop everyone from enjoying themselves that night.

A few of us, stayed up and had a few drinks and told jokes. Here are the three Musketeers. Ion acted as our drink Meister all night and kept us all in high hopes.

Meanwhile, we couldn't keep these two love birds from making out on the field, the infamously in love, Sarah and Ingo. Ahhh...young love...

Travel for work or is it work for travel? Ghent

I am currently working for Eaton Corporation in their European Marketing Development Program. As part of this I am developing value propositions for their home automation product in the Netherlands, UK and Belgium.

Recently I had the chance to travel to Belgium and experience the cities of Gent (Ghent) and Brussels. I instantly fell in love with Gent and had a chance to see the city at night, as well as taste the local Jenever liquor (Original and Lychee) and amazing Belgium Trappist beer (Marc would be jealous!).

Gent, also known as Ghent, is the third largest port city of Belgium and is the capital of the Flemish province. Belgium is divided into three areas, French section, Bilingual (Flemish and French) section and the Flemish section. It creates an interesting dynamic that is reflected in every day life.

This city reminds me of Venice, as it is a city full of canals and houses bordered by water. There is even a Viking Castle that dates back to 800 A.D.

If you ever get a chance, this medieval town is worth a visit.

Andreas' New Classmates

Andreas has now been at GISMA Business School since August and has already had a lot of interesting experiences.

Including some GISMA outings... This one is the Mojito party at PodBi, the first of many to come....

Team Building Activities...What happens when you put a bunch of potential MBAs together and make them work as a "team?" Chaos!! But a lot of fun!

And we can't forget...Octoberfest in Munich!! This is what I call a lot of fun. We all boarded the ICE (fast train) from Hannover to Munich and were there in 4 hours! A car ride would take 8 hours! So after some German "bier" and pretzels we had even more "bier" and pretzels and white wurst... it got interesting. Needless to say, you need more than one day in Munich to appreciate the city.

Last but not least, I wouldn't have made it over here and stayed, if it hadn't been for the friendship of Jenn- my fellow Californian, whom I love dearly. Here is Jenn and Hubi- a fellow Gismian from our graduating class of 2007.

April and Andreas' Journey of a Lifetime

Initially Andreas and I wanted to do the Camino de Santiago but after much discussion with friends and family, we decided that we weren't going to do it by bike but by foot and not this summer. Perhaps another time...

So we decided to travel through Spain, Portugal, France and Italy instead. We flew out on July 5th from Berlin to Madrid. This was Andreas and I's 2nd flight together ever! Haha- we've always been flying to see each other but rarely flying together.

We arrived in Madrid and quickly headed to the bus station to grab a bus to take us to the beautiful city of Logrono- where I once lived and now missed terribly. We took the next bus out but before we did this, we headed out to explore the city around the remote bus station in Madrid. We entered a corner Tapas restaurant where everyone was standing and crowding around the bar to get a canaita ( small beer), a glass of Spanish wine and ahhh... tapas!

We later arrived into Logrono to be picked up by Ruth and Sergio, my wonderful old roommates.

The next few days we spent lounging by the pool, eating tapas on Laurel and going to...the Fiestas de San Fermin!! A.k.a. the running of the bulls in Pamplona! Andreas and I were there for the opening ceremony, clad in red waist bands and white shirts! We got nailed by wine while walking down the crowded streets of Pamplona and joining in the festivities of wine and beer. Ahhh, we couldn't have asked for a better time!

This is us afterwards. It was a great experience!

We then went to Coruna and Vigo then into Portugal to Lisboa- where Andreas got bitten by bed bugs...poor guy.

Then to Sevilla and to Granada, where we got to go see the beautiful Alambra.

Then to Madrid where we met up with Rene, Andreas' cousin and his beautiful wife.

From there...off to Valencia and finally to Barcelona.

Ahhh, Barcelona... we met up with Marc and Carmit, an old time friend from the Dominican Republic. We had such an incredible time eating tapas, dancing the night away and looking at amazing Gaudi monuments. Did I mention tapas? Because we ate a lot of tapas and drank...a lot...of wine! It was a great trip!

Seeing family was great! I can't wait until my next trip with Marc and Andreas...and of course, Carmit. Off to Israel we go.....

There is still more to come...the French Rivera and Italy!!

Guten Tag! First experiences in Europe...

After much discussion about our futures, Andreas and I decided that we were going to travel the world together, starting with Germany. First we had to get married...so we did, on December 23rd, 2006 on the beaches of sunny Southern California.

In March 2007, I moved to the small city of Hannover, Germany. I completed my MBA there and soon after in April, Andreas arrived as well. Soon after we moved to Berlin and took off for a week trip to Switzerland with Andreas' family. This was my first exposure to Andreas' family outside the US and I loved it. They were such warm, generous, and patient people.

Once we arrived we realized that our way of life was about to change. We weren't in the US anymore and we definitely weren't in San Diego anymore. I began taking lessons to learn German, which I practiced with already fluent and native Andreas. And this is how I started to learn German. Soon after I was practicing with his ever patient mother, Kristina in Berlin.

Living in Germany made me appreciate the incredible infrastructure they have here for public transportation. We left our cars in the US and came here with what we could carry. It's been an adventure ever since then.