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.