Sweikhuizen. It has been two and a half years of travelling around the world, plus a year all together of several visits to Holland inbetween. It's good to be back home again, for christmas and for ever.
Eindhoven. Back in my house: cleaning all the gear, decorating my house with souvenirs, stacking all the books I've read.
New years eve. Back with my friends, celebrating the new year at the houseparty Qrime Time.
Newspaper article . The local newspaper dedicated a whole page to my trip (de Limburger, editie sittard-Geleen, Jan 3th 2008, page 13).
Another newspaper article . And another newspaper article in the national newspaper (de Telegraaf, Jan 12th 2008, page TA5).
Decoration 'pro ecclesia et pontifice' for mum from the pope. My mum is even more famous than me, even the pope knows her, just check these 3 newspaper articles. She was decorated by priests with the 'pro ecclesia et pontifice' medal from the pope for all the work she has done for the church of Sweikhuizen. Amongst many activities for the local community and church during many years, the most remarkable is definitely chasing and catching a thief who was stealing money out of the church, haha! Fortune is with the bold. Hurray for mum!
(newspaper article 1: de Limburger, Jan 14th, page 13; article 2: Maas-en Geleenbode, Jan 16th, front page; article 3: Goed Nieuws, Jan 16th, page ).
(articles and pictures will come soon)
The farm I was born. The afterparty for my decorated mum was held on 'de Biesenhof', in local dialect 'de Beese'. The history of the farm goes back 800 years and for a time it was used as a 'commanderij', used by the knights for the crusades, together with the 'Alden Biesen' in Belgium and Germany.
I was born on this farm, and everybody back home used to call me 'Sjeeke van de Beese', and now I'm a big boy they still call me 'Roger van de Beese'. I lived on the farm until the age of 8, when we moved to our brand new house close to the farm because the farm buildings were getting worse and worse. My father continued farming on the Biesenhof until he retired in 2002. The last years, while I was travelling around the world, the farm was completely restaurated. At the decoration party for my mum I saw the new Biesenhof for the first time, what a shock! The former cow stable has been converted into a restaurant, the former pig and horse stables are now a brasserie, my grandma's house is now a hostellerie (B&B), the bulls stable a gift shop, and the giant barn has become a candle factory and antique shop. Wow. It is even possible to get wedded in our former sleeping room, haha, it was called the 'French hall' because of the impressive decorations.
(newspaper article from the Limburger, Aug 23rd 2007, page 9)
Another medal for mum! When my mum was shaking hands at her reception at the Biesenhof for the 'pro ecclesia' medal, the local carnaval society 'de Sjwenskes' and the brass band 'Beesehofkapel' paid mum a surprise visit. They gave her a serenade and another medal, "de grootorde van de Sjwenskes'!
Radio rodge. Believe it or not, but the national Dutch radiochannel BNN invited me for a live interview on Radio1 on the 4th of February to tell some catchy travelling stories. If I ever find time, I wil put some soundbits here for you to check out.
Carnaval.
Finding a job 2008
Finding a job. Put on that suite and start talking. But first a bit of my job history...
My 1st job: at the Beese in Sweikhuizen. Helping dad on the farm. As soon as I was able to walk, I had to bring the cows home for milking, haha.
A few years later, while my friends were playing with toy tractors, I was driving the real thing. All in all a very poorly paid job, actually nothing at all, but a lot of learning opportunities and lots of discussions with the CEO.
My 2nd job: at the Plaza in Eindhoven. For 15 years I have been a volunteer at the film- and theater centre Plaza Futura in Eindhoven, projecting movies and selling tickets.
Another poorly paid job except for the free drinks and movies.
My 3rd job: the Centre for Concepts in Mechatronics near Eindhoven. Part of my postgraduate study of Mechatronic Design, I worked at CCM on the development of an flywheel to store energy for an electrically driven city bus.
CCM is an interesting medium sized company which expertise is building prototype machines, amongst others for Océ and ASML.
My 4th job: Océ in Venlo. My first real job was at Océ and this is were I have spent 8 years designing photocopiers.
Océ is a large company (20k employees worldwide) and has a long history of 130 years.
It has a very strong company culture, and has three main businesses: 1st the super fast printers (e.g. for your bank account balance). 2nd the wide format printers (drawings, posters).
Océ is market leader in these two `niche` markets and is still going strong. However, in the 3rd business of A4 copier/printers, Océ is a small company and is not doing so good, and this was unfortunately where I was working.
On top of being small, Océ also made a number of serious mistakes in this business:
- underestimate the ability of the Japanese competitors to improve the productivity and reliability of their cheap products.
- no serious long term planning of the product portfolio (to match technology development and market introductions).
- investing too long in their own special colour printing technology (which didn`t work out).
- too many different product families (where even larger competitors used only one).
- R&D managers with insufficient insight in technology and markets.
For 8 years I worked for the same head of department who was an exception to the above mentioned rules, I learnt a lot from him and we agreed on practically everything, a.o. the prediction of the decline and the eventual stop of Océ`s own (colour) printing technology.
Unfortunately for Océ we proved to be right again.
When it was decided to put this technology in the project I was working for, I knew the project would slow down and not be successful, and I lost confidence in the whole company alltogether, because this was its most important project.
As this was my first real job and company, it was a tough decision to leave it, but it is the same as with your first love: it is better to part while you still love eachother, haha.
So I quited a dream job: I was main designer of a new generation of copiers, I was leader of a team of designers who had already built part of this copier, and I spent the rest of my time on market research, competitor evaluations, making prototypes for the long term, and developing tools (click on the 5th picture to see a demo).
But I am glad I did it because it would have been a waist of my time, since the rest of the project planned market introduction this year, and they are still half way, developing...
My 5th job: ASML near Eindhoven. Halfway during my trip around the world, I worked a short while for ASMl. In some ways similar with Océ (large hi-tech Dutch company), but in other ways very different (proper planning, clear product family, and management with a focus on technology and markets in stead of bla-bla).
The biggest differences however with Océ is that ASML has more or less one product so internal projects don`t compete, and that ASML has become market leader and has little competion left.
Sounds like a very good company and it is, so after my trip around the world, I was planning to go right back to ASML because I liked the company and they liked my work.
They wanted me back on my old job but I rahter wanted something else, and it took hem a while to arrange the other job since big company sollicitation procedures can be pretty slow,
but my bank account was pretty low so in the mean time I put my CV on the net, and got an avalanche of other offers.
My 6th job: Neopost in Drachten. While I was still in Afrika I was contacted by Neopost in Friesland way in the north of the Netherlands.
Allthough Friesland was too far and too flat for me to live there on the long run, I took the offer to work temorarily so I could earn a living while looking for a job closer to home.
So I worked for just a month and a half at their R&D to develop machines that put letters into envelopes, pretty similar to my old job at Océ, and I even met some ex-colleagues.
In the mean time I had a few nice job offers in several places in the Netherlands, in the development of machines as a project leader or even as head of development.
Even to my own surprise, I took a job abroad, see next chapter.
Bye Bye Eindhoven. So goodbye to the city of Eindhoven, where I have spent most of my adult life so far.
Since I went to University, I have always lived in Eindhoven, at several places but always around the same supermarket.
This also means goodbye to my comfy home. But what I will certainly miss the most in Eindhoven, are my good friends...
During my trip around the world, I started appreciating the Netherlands more and more, and found it harder and harder to imagine living in another country for a long while.
For instance, I wouldn`t like to live...
- in a country which is (a lot) poorer than the Netherlands. This excludes most of the world, since the Netherlands are among the top 10 richest countries in the world.
- in a country which I despise for a lot of reasons. This excludes the USA.
- in a country where I need an airco all year or in a very populated city without fresh air. This excludes places like Singapore and Hong Kong.
- in a country where I don`t have a lot of common with the culture. This excludes the nice country of Japan.
- in a country without a lot of history and too far from home, which excludes nice countries like New Zealand, Australia and Canada.
This leaves my beloved Europe, the old continent, with more history and culture and cultures than the rest of the world together.
Allthough I have visited most of Eastern Europe, they don`t seem very attractive to live in. This leaves Western Europe.
Preferably I would like to live in a country from which I can easily visit my friends and family and they can visit me, so at only one day`s driving distance from the Netherlands.
This excludes from Western Europe the very north (Norway, Sweden, Finland) and the south (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece).
Allthough I speak German and I find their culture easy to understand, I am not realy attracted to the German speaking countries, aber ich mache eine Ausnahme für Luxemburg.
As for Denmark, it is probably the country which looks most like Holland, both the landscape and the egalitarian culture, and the language is part of the same family so probably not too difficult to learn.
But no thanks anyway. This leaves, in order of attractiveness: the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, France, and England:
Wait a minute, I am forgetting a very small but attractive country... Switzerland, especially the French speaking part of it, la Suisse-Romande:
Life is full of surprises: I am going to live and work in Switzerland.
17 dec 2007 - 31 March 2008: Netherlands.
Switzerland 2008
My Swiss history. I visited Switzerland on a number of occasions before (photos 1-3 will come later):
1. My first encounter with Switzerland was in 1990 on my first motor holiday with Jan and Marcel. I had just rejuvenated my engine with new pistons, and along the Swiss highway we had to adjust my cam shaft chain spanner, so we all feared for my bike`s reliability, but in the end the other bikes were the only ones giving trouble.
2. My second holiday in Switzerland was in 1995 with Mirjam, with whom I had won a free holiday on a TV show appropriatley called `Blind date`.
We stayed in a chique hotel in the poshy place of Vevais at the lake of Geneve, we drove around in a cabrio and ate lobster, all at the expense of the TV channel.
In those days reality TV didn`t exist yet and we behaved very civilized, the more because we were always accompanied by a `camera` women (who forget to put on the sound during most of the holiday).
When we came home, we saw the yes and no answers to our comeback interview completely reedited and swapped.
Even more surprising however was the fanmail of girls around the country wanting to date. Those were the days...
3. In the years after I discovered skiing, and in Switzerland I learnt how to telemark (free heel skiing) and I went tourskiing (going from mountain hut to hut with a backpack and skies with fur underneath so you can walk uphill).
4. The last time in Switzerland was on the return of my goodbye holiday with my parents before I went on my trip around the world, see last picture taken at Vierwaldstaedtensee near Luzern. Even after having seen a lot of dramatic views around the world, I still find this one the best.
My new job: Etel in Switzerland. One evening in February, I got a call from Switzerland from a company whose name I had never heard of before, Etel, two days later I was on the plane to Switzerland, and a few days later the deal was done.
Etel designs and produces direct drive electro motors, both lineair and torque motor.
`Direct drive` means that the electro motor directly drives the load, without any transmission in between such as gear wheels or belts.
Transmissions not only reduce the speed and increase the torque (rotational force), but also introduce positioning errors.
Therefore the direct drives generally are faster and more accurate, but also more expensive.
Most applications can be found in the semiconductor and machine tooling industries.
Besides the motors, Etel also develops the electronics and the motion controllers, and also develops complete positioning systems in Motiers, which will be my future job:
I will be a team leader (coordinateur de projects) in the development of multi-axis positioning systems.
But for the moment I still have to learn a lot and, I will be first working on another project, which concerns motors for my former employer ASML, it`s a small word after all.
On my very first working day I actually had to visit ASML and flew back to Eindhoven, of all places...
Switzerland, Neuchâtel, Motiers. Zooming in from Switzerland (1st picture), to the central position of Neuchâtel (between Geneve / Lausanne / Bern / Basel / Zurich), to the all the way down to the Neuchâtel city center (4th picture), where I will live.
My work at Etel is half an hour by train through the Jura mountains in the village of Motiers (3rd picture).
Motiers. The company Etel is based in the tiny village of Motiers in the valley of Travers.
The 1st and 2nd picture show the company headquaters, the 3rd picture is the company appartment in which I`m living temporarily.
Couvet. My current project is based in another Etel building in the neigbouring village of Couvet, see the tallest building in the 1st picture.
Neuchâtel. in French `Neuchâtel`, in German `Neuenburg`, and in English it would be something like `Newcastle`.
Allthough the valley of Travers is very nice and I like nature a lot, at this stage of my life I prefer to live in a bit more lively environment, which will be the city of Neuchâtel.
I had never visited the city before and knew nothing about it when I made the decision to move here, but at my arrival I was pleasantly surprised by its beauty.
The city is spreads out on a hillside all along the shore of the lake of Neuchâtel, with a magnificent view over the lake and in the other side in the distance the snowcapped Alpine mountains.
The city is relatively small (about 30k inhabitants) but it is the capital of the rather `empty` Canton (Swiss province) of Neuchâtel and thus has lots of big city voorzieningen such as shopping malls, theaters, museums and a football stadium.
The city centre is very old and is a tourist attraction by itself.
Finding an appartment. Not easy and not cheap in Switzerland. Generally the prices of life in Switzerland are not that different from Western Europe, except for housing and food.
Concerning architecture, the old swiss houses are very nice with all the wood and venetian blinds etc, but on the other hand the modern Swiss architecture can be awfull (see 3rd picture).
I was very lucky to find an appartment on the top floor of an old Swiss house (see last picture) in a beautiful neigbourhood in the centre of Neuchâtel.
Learning French. We Dutchies use a lot of foreign words in our own language: the 1st picture shows the sign of the Dutch royal house with a French subtitle, all of my family members have French names, our national Anthem speaks about our `German blood`, and nowadays we hear more English on TV and radio than Dutch.
But the Swiss are even worse (2nd picture), for a country of only 7 million people, they officially have four languages:
German (about 2/3), French (about 20%), Italian (about 10%) and a little bit of Romansch.
The 3rd picture shows my French teacher Marie-Noëlle in front of the Hotel du Peyru, where I had my intensive course of French.
During my trip around the world I decided 'no more new languages again', it`s a waist of time, English and Spanish should be enough to go around the world, since I have learnt too many languages in my life:
- My mother language is Limburgs, the language of the province I was born. It is a mix of Dutch and German and a bit of French, and just as in Schwyzertütsch (Swiss-German), it is not written and it strongly varies from village to village, which makes hard to learn for outsiders. Moreover, in contrast to most European languages, it is also a tonal language where the meaning of a word may very upon the tone going up or down or up and down, a bit like Chinese.
- In kindergarten and primary school I learnt Dutch, which I consider my other mother language.
- In high school I learnt English (6 years), French (4 years) and German (3 years), most of them just 2 hours per week.
- Unfortunately, in high school I also had the learn the ancient languages of Latin (5 years) and Greek (2 years). Very handy, especially if you plan to study mechanical engineering.
Anyone who tells you these dead languages are not a waist of time is either an idiot, a coward for not admitting his own waist of time, a priest or a teacher of ancient Latin and Greek.
- At the technical university I studied a year of Italian, because it sounds so nice (and I fancied Italian girls, haha).
- In Mexico I taught myself Spanish with the help of a complete course of books and CD`s, and my patient and dedicated girlfriend Andrea.
Afterwards I read a whole stack of Spanish books.
- In Brazil I studied a little bit of Portuguese and read two books, pretty easy when you already know Spanish.
It sounds a lot, almost ten languages, but it is all part of one big European family of languages, and lots of it I forgot, but I still speak Limburgs and Dutch and German (the Saksian languages), and Spanish and French (the Roman languages), and of course English which is a combination of both (Anglo-Saksian).
However, I am not really fluent anymore in....French, so my company Etel put me on an intensive 10-day course with a one-on-one teacher to get my French up and running again.
By now, I had already learned languages the natural way as a kid (Limburgs an Dutch), and in a class (English, French, German), and as an adult course the combination of selfstudy and class (Italian), and finally complete self study (Spanish and Portuguese).
But I had never had a private teacher before, which turned out to be pretty intensive, especially with Marie-Noëlle, haha, but we had a great time.
Especially the first days my head exploded of speaking the whole day in a foreign language I didn`t master. And with lots of French words I sought, a Spanish one would pop instead.
After ten days of French course, I started working at the office, which was even a lot harder because everyone speaks unarticulated French at full speed with lots of technical words and adding some street language which is not in any dictionary. Je maintiendrai.
Fribourg. My teacher Marie-Noëlle lives on the other side of the lake near Fribourg (Freiburg), not to be confused with the other ones in Germany or France.
This city has a more German feel, allthough it is officialy bilingual. The variety between the Swiss cities at such as short distance is striking.
Swiss culture. of course everyone knows the cliches about the Swiss: mountains, watches, cheese and chocolat, bank accounts and richness, and its independance.
I would like to add the fact that it has the best democracy in the world with lots of referenda (see pictures), which brings politics and power to the people.
Compare this to indirect democracy of the US system of middlemen, which make them look once again like fools if they talk about democracy.
In fact Switzerland is not that different from most other Western-European countries.
I think the most important feature of Switzerland is that it is very stable and conservative in the good sense of the words, nothing ever happens here that makes world news, and I think that is a very good thing: no news is good news.
The biggest disadvantages of the conservatism are probably that it doesn`t look as `hip` as Holland, and the position of women is also more traditional (Switzerland was one of the last countries to acknowledge women`s right to vote in 1973).
The little things that struck me most here in the beginning were:
- Everybody is a lot more polite, just like in France.
- Every morning all colleagues shake hands.
- While Dutchies are drinking coffee or tea all day long at work, the Swiss hardly drink anything at work.
- Just like in Southern-Europe, loads of people use the lunch break to eat in a restaurant, while in the evening they will have another hot meal.
The advantage of this is that there are loads of restaurants and at reasonable rates, the disadvantage is that snack bars and decent (whole wheat) bread are rare. Not good for me since my main staple is junk food.
- The `Y`and `Z` of the computer keyboard are swapped, and all special signs are completely different. Not funny. During my trip around the world, all 50 countries use the same (US) keyboard ,only some special signs may be different, even Japan or Egypt, but apparently the Swiss use something else. But the French of course have something even more different...
- I have only visited two developed countries in the world where soldiers (in training) carry around there rifles in public: Israel and Switzerland.
The big difference is probably that the Israeli`s carry it around loaded with an extra charge taped to it, while the Swiss have never ever had a war in their six hudrends years of existance.
- They have supermarkets with escalators.
- and a lot more to come...
L`ascension. Christi Himmelfahrt, Hemelvaart, Ascension Day. For my current job I have to visit my homeland and hometown regularly, which can be combined with: teaching my niece Lian how to skie (1st picture), have a quiet bachelor day with my old high school friends (2nd picture), meet my bar mates Dennis, Sander and Paul (3rd picture), and meet my family and other friends (no picture).
New address. After spending the last years wandering around in hotels, I finally settle down in my new appartment in Neuchâtel.
Here are the new coordinates, if you want my phone numbers just send me an email.
Allthough I am permanently living in Switzerland now, you can still phone my Dutch mobile, or post to my Dutch address in Eindhoven which I visit every couple of weeks.
My new neigbourhood. Most of Neuchatel lies on a slope along the coast of the lake.
In the middle of this slope is an extra steep little hill which is my neighbourhood: narrow winding steep roads with large old beautiful houses, about a century old (la Belle Epoque).
Just like in Eindhoven, it`s only a ten minutes walk to the central station, very handy if you don`t fancy cars like me.
My new appartment. My appartment is on the top floor of beautiful characteristic old house from 1911. It is a 3-piece appartment with a large hall, a separate kitchen and a bathroom.
The funny thing with the Swiss appartments (and mine) is that all the 3 rooms are the same size (actually the bedrooms is even slightly larger than the living!).
Since I have always had the habit of sleeping in my living, this means I have two spare large empty rooms, haha, just like in Eindhoven.
The owners of the house also live in the building and organised a welcome gathering (last picture) to introduce me to the other renters.
The vue. Quite different from Eindhoven: my vue. Because I am on the top floor and the next house is 3 storeys down-hill, I have a unobstructed superbe view from all three rooms and even from the kitchen.
On a sunny day I can look out over the city, the lake, and in the distance the whole snow capped mountain range of the Alps, about 100 kms away!
An empty house. I came to Switzerland with nothing but a suitcase of clothes, but in the mean time I have brought another suitcase with...inflatable furniture.
I also brought a tube with my foldable batiked paintings from Indonesia. Both very handy when your new appartment is empty, but not yet comfy enough, so I paid a visit to the only chainy I like:
Some serious speed-shopping ans speed-screwing. The first picture looks as if a whole bunch of Ikea customers have left their loaded carts unattended and have asked me to stand guard, but in fact all the carts have a common owner, since I spent my first salary in three hours at Ikea.
My colleague (and godmother!) Audrey helped me stuff the rented Ikea van with furniture, pots-pans-pets-plants, and all other imaginable stuff needed to start a household from scratch.
The rest I bought at the mega supermarket. Even after a long weekend of buying and assembling the house is still rather empty, but at least I could finally rest down on my own coach with my own home-brewn meal. Hehe, feels good, ain`t no place like home.
Sightseeing Neuchatel, Bern, Zurich.
Euro2008.
3.0 MB MOVIE: switzerland euro2008.avi
Stuffing my house again.
Via ferrata Moleson. It would be an understatement to say there are quite some climbing opportunities in Switzerland, so my first lucky shot was at Moleson, near Gruyeres.
Not a very lucky shot however, because a few days after the climbing my right middle finger suddenly started to swell as red balloon.
So I went to the hospital for some medication but they decided to cut my finger open, it appeared to be infected by a little piece of rock that had gone inside.
I wasn't exactly prepared for the operation, and afterwards in the pharmacie I suddenly passed out completely.
When I woke up on the floor with a bunch of pharmacists bending over me and speaking to me in French, I first thougth I was on a holiday in France, haha.
Don't click on the last picture unless you want to see under the bandage how my finger looked like after(!) the swellings were gone.
Montreux Jazz Festival.
Neuchâtel snap shots from the mountain hill behind my house.
More snapshots. The first picture shows the view from my office window (including cow bell soundtrack in the morning),
the second picture shows a sunny day at the Neuchâtel lake side near my house.
Gorges de L`Areuse near Neuchâtel.
Sensation black, Amsterdam Arena.
Via Ferrata Rochers de Naye, near Montreux.
Zurich Street Parade. Huge and very relaxed street parade, lots of sound trucks and people enjoying themselves around the Zurich waterfront.
At night I went to a house party, also very relaxed, until a bunch of Italians asked me to help them with Klaus the strange stranger, who had a problem:
he was passing out on an overdose of ghb, and no friends around to help him.
My biggest problem however with Klaus was how to get his overweight on my shoulder and carry him across the Hallenstadion to the first aid, without having him puke all over my back.
Fortunately for both of us, We managed, and Klaus was taken straight off to the hospital, and the party could go on...
Family visit. Mum, dad, little sister Cecile and brother-out-law Robert came to check me out in Neuchâtel.
Creux du Van and Gorge de l'Areuse.
Bern.
Vevais and Montreux. Picturesque hillside vineyards on the lakeside.
Gruyeres. How can a one-street hill-top cheese village become one of Switzerland's top tourist attraction?
Just visit Gruyeres to find out yourself.
Mysteryland.
Lakedance. The very last outdoor party of the season.
Netherlands. Due to my work I spent a lot of time in Dutchyland lately, here's some snapshots.
Biking home from work with my Italian colleague Sergio. Check out the towel.
Fete de vendages Neuchatel's annual highlight.
Family visit My sister Marie-Jeanne with her kids Meyke and Ties and her friend Marina spent a week at Rodge's chalet.
Neuchatel and Holland
Weekend skiing. Advantage of living in Switzerland that you can easily going skiing for just a weekend, as I did for the first time in Saas Fee.
Becoming 40. To celebrate my 40th birthday, I had the most unusual Dance party ever in the Gelredome, a night I'll never forget.
So I made it to 40: no wife, no kids, no car, no television, no fixed telephone, not even a regular bed. But very soon this was all going to change...
Cold and snowy winter.
Jacqueline. My new girlfriend to help me through the long and cold winter. She was born in France but has a background from Laos and Vietnam.
Christmas. Hiking in Sweikhuizen, Shopping in Maastricht, and family christmas diners at my parents.
New year's eve with my mates from Holland: Paul, Sander and Dennis.
14.6 MB MOVIE: 200812 gruesse aus der Schweiz.avi
top of page
homepage
My Swiss history. I visited Switzerland on a number of occasions before (photos 1-3 will come later):
1. My first encounter with Switzerland was in 1990 on my first motor holiday with Jan and Marcel. I had just rejuvenated my engine with new pistons, and along the Swiss highway we had to adjust my cam shaft chain spanner, so we all feared for my bike`s reliability, but in the end the other bikes were the only ones giving trouble.
2. My second holiday in Switzerland was in 1995 with Mirjam, with whom I had won a free holiday on a TV show appropriatley called `Blind date`. We stayed in a chique hotel in the poshy place of Vevais at the lake of Geneve, we drove around in a cabrio and ate lobster, all at the expense of the TV channel. In those days reality TV didn`t exist yet and we behaved very civilized, the more because we were always accompanied by a `camera` women (who forget to put on the sound during most of the holiday). When we came home, we saw the yes and no answers to our comeback interview completely reedited and swapped. Even more surprising however was the fanmail of girls around the country wanting to date. Those were the days...
3. In the years after I discovered skiing, and in Switzerland I learnt how to telemark (free heel skiing) and I went tourskiing (going from mountain hut to hut with a backpack and skies with fur underneath so you can walk uphill).
4. The last time in Switzerland was on the return of my goodbye holiday with my parents before I went on my trip around the world, see last picture taken at Vierwaldstaedtensee near Luzern. Even after having seen a lot of dramatic views around the world, I still find this one the best.
My new job: Etel in Switzerland. One evening in February, I got a call from Switzerland from a company whose name I had never heard of before, Etel, two days later I was on the plane to Switzerland, and a few days later the deal was done.
Etel designs and produces direct drive electro motors, both lineair and torque motor. `Direct drive` means that the electro motor directly drives the load, without any transmission in between such as gear wheels or belts. Transmissions not only reduce the speed and increase the torque (rotational force), but also introduce positioning errors. Therefore the direct drives generally are faster and more accurate, but also more expensive. Most applications can be found in the semiconductor and machine tooling industries. Besides the motors, Etel also develops the electronics and the motion controllers, and also develops complete positioning systems in Motiers, which will be my future job: I will be a team leader (coordinateur de projects) in the development of multi-axis positioning systems. But for the moment I still have to learn a lot and, I will be first working on another project, which concerns motors for my former employer ASML, it`s a small word after all. On my very first working day I actually had to visit ASML and flew back to Eindhoven, of all places...
Switzerland, Neuchâtel, Motiers. Zooming in from Switzerland (1st picture), to the central position of Neuchâtel (between Geneve / Lausanne / Bern / Basel / Zurich), to the all the way down to the Neuchâtel city center (4th picture), where I will live. My work at Etel is half an hour by train through the Jura mountains in the village of Motiers (3rd picture).
Motiers. The company Etel is based in the tiny village of Motiers in the valley of Travers. The 1st and 2nd picture show the company headquaters, the 3rd picture is the company appartment in which I`m living temporarily.
Couvet. My current project is based in another Etel building in the neigbouring village of Couvet, see the tallest building in the 1st picture.
Neuchâtel. in French `Neuchâtel`, in German `Neuenburg`, and in English it would be something like `Newcastle`. Allthough the valley of Travers is very nice and I like nature a lot, at this stage of my life I prefer to live in a bit more lively environment, which will be the city of Neuchâtel. I had never visited the city before and knew nothing about it when I made the decision to move here, but at my arrival I was pleasantly surprised by its beauty. The city is spreads out on a hillside all along the shore of the lake of Neuchâtel, with a magnificent view over the lake and in the other side in the distance the snowcapped Alpine mountains. The city is relatively small (about 30k inhabitants) but it is the capital of the rather `empty` Canton (Swiss province) of Neuchâtel and thus has lots of big city voorzieningen such as shopping malls, theaters, museums and a football stadium.
The city centre is very old and is a tourist attraction by itself.
Finding an appartment. Not easy and not cheap in Switzerland. Generally the prices of life in Switzerland are not that different from Western Europe, except for housing and food. Concerning architecture, the old swiss houses are very nice with all the wood and venetian blinds etc, but on the other hand the modern Swiss architecture can be awfull (see 3rd picture). I was very lucky to find an appartment on the top floor of an old Swiss house (see last picture) in a beautiful neigbourhood in the centre of Neuchâtel.
Learning French. We Dutchies use a lot of foreign words in our own language: the 1st picture shows the sign of the Dutch royal house with a French subtitle, all of my family members have French names, our national Anthem speaks about our `German blood`, and nowadays we hear more English on TV and radio than Dutch. But the Swiss are even worse (2nd picture), for a country of only 7 million people, they officially have four languages: German (about 2/3), French (about 20%), Italian (about 10%) and a little bit of Romansch.
The 3rd picture shows my French teacher Marie-Noëlle in front of the Hotel du Peyru, where I had my intensive course of French.
During my trip around the world I decided 'no more new languages again', it`s a waist of time, English and Spanish should be enough to go around the world, since I have learnt too many languages in my life:
- My mother language is Limburgs, the language of the province I was born. It is a mix of Dutch and German and a bit of French, and just as in Schwyzertütsch (Swiss-German), it is not written and it strongly varies from village to village, which makes hard to learn for outsiders. Moreover, in contrast to most European languages, it is also a tonal language where the meaning of a word may very upon the tone going up or down or up and down, a bit like Chinese.
- In kindergarten and primary school I learnt Dutch, which I consider my other mother language.
- In high school I learnt English (6 years), French (4 years) and German (3 years), most of them just 2 hours per week.
- Unfortunately, in high school I also had the learn the ancient languages of Latin (5 years) and Greek (2 years). Very handy, especially if you plan to study mechanical engineering. Anyone who tells you these dead languages are not a waist of time is either an idiot, a coward for not admitting his own waist of time, a priest or a teacher of ancient Latin and Greek.
- At the technical university I studied a year of Italian, because it sounds so nice (and I fancied Italian girls, haha).
- In Mexico I taught myself Spanish with the help of a complete course of books and CD`s, and my patient and dedicated girlfriend Andrea. Afterwards I read a whole stack of Spanish books.
- In Brazil I studied a little bit of Portuguese and read two books, pretty easy when you already know Spanish.
It sounds a lot, almost ten languages, but it is all part of one big European family of languages, and lots of it I forgot, but I still speak Limburgs and Dutch and German (the Saksian languages), and Spanish and French (the Roman languages), and of course English which is a combination of both (Anglo-Saksian). However, I am not really fluent anymore in....French, so my company Etel put me on an intensive 10-day course with a one-on-one teacher to get my French up and running again.
By now, I had already learned languages the natural way as a kid (Limburgs an Dutch), and in a class (English, French, German), and as an adult course the combination of selfstudy and class (Italian), and finally complete self study (Spanish and Portuguese). But I had never had a private teacher before, which turned out to be pretty intensive, especially with Marie-Noëlle, haha, but we had a great time. Especially the first days my head exploded of speaking the whole day in a foreign language I didn`t master. And with lots of French words I sought, a Spanish one would pop instead.
After ten days of French course, I started working at the office, which was even a lot harder because everyone speaks unarticulated French at full speed with lots of technical words and adding some street language which is not in any dictionary. Je maintiendrai.
Fribourg. My teacher Marie-Noëlle lives on the other side of the lake near Fribourg (Freiburg), not to be confused with the other ones in Germany or France. This city has a more German feel, allthough it is officialy bilingual. The variety between the Swiss cities at such as short distance is striking.
Swiss culture. of course everyone knows the cliches about the Swiss: mountains, watches, cheese and chocolat, bank accounts and richness, and its independance. I would like to add the fact that it has the best democracy in the world with lots of referenda (see pictures), which brings politics and power to the people. Compare this to indirect democracy of the US system of middlemen, which make them look once again like fools if they talk about democracy.
In fact Switzerland is not that different from most other Western-European countries. I think the most important feature of Switzerland is that it is very stable and conservative in the good sense of the words, nothing ever happens here that makes world news, and I think that is a very good thing: no news is good news. The biggest disadvantages of the conservatism are probably that it doesn`t look as `hip` as Holland, and the position of women is also more traditional (Switzerland was one of the last countries to acknowledge women`s right to vote in 1973).
The little things that struck me most here in the beginning were:
- Everybody is a lot more polite, just like in France.
- Every morning all colleagues shake hands.
- While Dutchies are drinking coffee or tea all day long at work, the Swiss hardly drink anything at work.
- Just like in Southern-Europe, loads of people use the lunch break to eat in a restaurant, while in the evening they will have another hot meal. The advantage of this is that there are loads of restaurants and at reasonable rates, the disadvantage is that snack bars and decent (whole wheat) bread are rare. Not good for me since my main staple is junk food.
- The `Y`and `Z` of the computer keyboard are swapped, and all special signs are completely different. Not funny. During my trip around the world, all 50 countries use the same (US) keyboard ,only some special signs may be different, even Japan or Egypt, but apparently the Swiss use something else. But the French of course have something even more different...
- I have only visited two developed countries in the world where soldiers (in training) carry around there rifles in public: Israel and Switzerland. The big difference is probably that the Israeli`s carry it around loaded with an extra charge taped to it, while the Swiss have never ever had a war in their six hudrends years of existance.
- They have supermarkets with escalators.
- and a lot more to come...
L`ascension. Christi Himmelfahrt, Hemelvaart, Ascension Day. For my current job I have to visit my homeland and hometown regularly, which can be combined with: teaching my niece Lian how to skie (1st picture), have a quiet bachelor day with my old high school friends (2nd picture), meet my bar mates Dennis, Sander and Paul (3rd picture), and meet my family and other friends (no picture).
New address. After spending the last years wandering around in hotels, I finally settle down in my new appartment in Neuchâtel. Here are the new coordinates, if you want my phone numbers just send me an email. Allthough I am permanently living in Switzerland now, you can still phone my Dutch mobile, or post to my Dutch address in Eindhoven which I visit every couple of weeks.
My new neigbourhood. Most of Neuchatel lies on a slope along the coast of the lake. In the middle of this slope is an extra steep little hill which is my neighbourhood: narrow winding steep roads with large old beautiful houses, about a century old (la Belle Epoque). Just like in Eindhoven, it`s only a ten minutes walk to the central station, very handy if you don`t fancy cars like me.
My new appartment. My appartment is on the top floor of beautiful characteristic old house from 1911. It is a 3-piece appartment with a large hall, a separate kitchen and a bathroom. The funny thing with the Swiss appartments (and mine) is that all the 3 rooms are the same size (actually the bedrooms is even slightly larger than the living!). Since I have always had the habit of sleeping in my living, this means I have two spare large empty rooms, haha, just like in Eindhoven.
The owners of the house also live in the building and organised a welcome gathering (last picture) to introduce me to the other renters.
The vue. Quite different from Eindhoven: my vue. Because I am on the top floor and the next house is 3 storeys down-hill, I have a unobstructed superbe view from all three rooms and even from the kitchen. On a sunny day I can look out over the city, the lake, and in the distance the whole snow capped mountain range of the Alps, about 100 kms away!
An empty house. I came to Switzerland with nothing but a suitcase of clothes, but in the mean time I have brought another suitcase with...inflatable furniture. I also brought a tube with my foldable batiked paintings from Indonesia. Both very handy when your new appartment is empty, but not yet comfy enough, so I paid a visit to the only chainy I like:
Some serious speed-shopping ans speed-screwing. The first picture looks as if a whole bunch of Ikea customers have left their loaded carts unattended and have asked me to stand guard, but in fact all the carts have a common owner, since I spent my first salary in three hours at Ikea. My colleague (and godmother!) Audrey helped me stuff the rented Ikea van with furniture, pots-pans-pets-plants, and all other imaginable stuff needed to start a household from scratch. The rest I bought at the mega supermarket. Even after a long weekend of buying and assembling the house is still rather empty, but at least I could finally rest down on my own coach with my own home-brewn meal. Hehe, feels good, ain`t no place like home.
Sightseeing Neuchatel, Bern, Zurich.
Euro2008.
3.0 MB MOVIE: switzerland euro2008.avi
Stuffing my house again.
Via ferrata Moleson. It would be an understatement to say there are quite some climbing opportunities in Switzerland, so my first lucky shot was at Moleson, near Gruyeres. Not a very lucky shot however, because a few days after the climbing my right middle finger suddenly started to swell as red balloon. So I went to the hospital for some medication but they decided to cut my finger open, it appeared to be infected by a little piece of rock that had gone inside. I wasn't exactly prepared for the operation, and afterwards in the pharmacie I suddenly passed out completely. When I woke up on the floor with a bunch of pharmacists bending over me and speaking to me in French, I first thougth I was on a holiday in France, haha. Don't click on the last picture unless you want to see under the bandage how my finger looked like after(!) the swellings were gone.
Montreux Jazz Festival.
Neuchâtel snap shots from the mountain hill behind my house.
More snapshots. The first picture shows the view from my office window (including cow bell soundtrack in the morning),
the second picture shows a sunny day at the Neuchâtel lake side near my house.
Gorges de L`Areuse near Neuchâtel.
Sensation black, Amsterdam Arena.
Via Ferrata Rochers de Naye, near Montreux.
Zurich Street Parade. Huge and very relaxed street parade, lots of sound trucks and people enjoying themselves around the Zurich waterfront. At night I went to a house party, also very relaxed, until a bunch of Italians asked me to help them with Klaus the strange stranger, who had a problem: he was passing out on an overdose of ghb, and no friends around to help him. My biggest problem however with Klaus was how to get his overweight on my shoulder and carry him across the Hallenstadion to the first aid, without having him puke all over my back. Fortunately for both of us, We managed, and Klaus was taken straight off to the hospital, and the party could go on...
Family visit. Mum, dad, little sister Cecile and brother-out-law Robert came to check me out in Neuchâtel.
Creux du Van and Gorge de l'Areuse.
Bern.
Vevais and Montreux. Picturesque hillside vineyards on the lakeside.
Gruyeres. How can a one-street hill-top cheese village become one of Switzerland's top tourist attraction? Just visit Gruyeres to find out yourself.
Mysteryland.
Lakedance. The very last outdoor party of the season.
Netherlands. Due to my work I spent a lot of time in Dutchyland lately, here's some snapshots.
Biking home from work with my Italian colleague Sergio. Check out the towel.
Fete de vendages Neuchatel's annual highlight.
Family visit My sister Marie-Jeanne with her kids Meyke and Ties and her friend Marina spent a week at Rodge's chalet.
Neuchatel and Holland
Weekend skiing. Advantage of living in Switzerland that you can easily going skiing for just a weekend, as I did for the first time in Saas Fee.
Becoming 40. To celebrate my 40th birthday, I had the most unusual Dance party ever in the Gelredome, a night I'll never forget.
So I made it to 40: no wife, no kids, no car, no television, no fixed telephone, not even a regular bed. But very soon this was all going to change...
Cold and snowy winter.
Jacqueline. My new girlfriend to help me through the long and cold winter. She was born in France but has a background from Laos and Vietnam.
Christmas. Hiking in Sweikhuizen, Shopping in Maastricht, and family christmas diners at my parents.
New year's eve with my mates from Holland: Paul, Sander and Dennis.
14.6 MB MOVIE: 200812 gruesse aus der Schweiz.avi
top of page
homepage