Bye Bye ALF, welcome VUK

As we allready wrote, at Easter we had to say bye bye to ALF, our Laguna:




But we welcome VUK, our new Megane (2.0 16V Priviledge):

Weekend getaway to the French Riviera

This last trip was a great surprise from my wife. On my birthday all the information I had, is to pack my luggage since we are travelling to warmer places. I only found out where we are going on the airport, at the check in counter where it was already inevitable.

Thursday evening we landed in Nice, a very beautiful resort on the French Riviera.We have spent here the entire Friday and Sunday till noon. The weather was very warm, but unfortunately the water was still quite cold to swim.


















On Saturday we visited the glamorous Principality of Monaco. We arrived there in the middle of their preparations for the F1 Grand Prix. It is amazing that they manage to build the entire infrastructure of a racing circuit within a few weeks. We visited in turn the Marina region, the Monaco Ville with the Prince's Palace, and the Museum of Oceanography. After that we walked along most of the GP circuit with a detour at the Japanese Gardens, all the way to Monte-Carlo with its famous Casino and Cafe& Hotel Paris.


















On Sunday we spent a few more hours on the beach, after an unsuccessful attempt to go to Eze (a marathon in Nice proved to stop all buses in and around Nice, whose public transportation we found to be a total disaster thus we almost missed our flight).
In early afternoon we returned to Switzerland where we were glad to see that at least here all public transportation is reliable.




More pics:
Nice
Monaco

Easter 2007

After the long trip we've wrote about in the prev blog entry, we finally arrived home where our parents waited for us warmly.
We have had some pretty busy 4 days at home but we had a very good time at home with our family and partying with our friends. (one exception to having a good time was my (Zoli) visit to the dentist)
http://picasaweb.google.com/emese.gyenge/2007Husvet

Neuschwanstein Castle

So Easter is here and we head back home to spend some quality time with our family and friends, but not without making a small detour to the famous Neuschwanstein Castle in southern Germany. I have to admit: the postcards and photos on the web didn't lie, it is really place like no other. The castle of Neuschwanstein is situated in the perfect surroundings: on one side you have the high mountain peaks covered by snow on the other side the Bavarian plateau braking spring and in between a few waterfalls and a lake nearby.

















During the day we had a great time we visited both castles (the less famous but also quite nice Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein) and took a horse-driven carriage ride too, down from the castle to Alf, our car whom we had to say goodbye since this was our last trip with him (see last pictures).

The rest of the trip home was filled by traffic jams, accidents (not ours thanks G) and long long drives.

More pics : //picasaweb.google.com/zoli.gyenge/EUROPEGERMANYNeuschwanstein

Flumserberg

Now that the winter came back (or just arrived...?) to Switzerland, we enjoyed yesterday the fresh snow on the top of Flumserberg, our favorite ski resort.
It's been the best skiing day in this season!!!

Grindelwald

Last Saturday we've been skiing together with the AIESEC guys from Bern in the beautiful area of interlaken just below the Jungfrau. After getting really tired of all the skiing we had a nice traditional swiss fondue down in Grindelwald.

More pics

Geneva Motor Show 2007

This Sunday we visited the famous Geneva Motor Show. The overall impression was WOW this plae is huge. It really is we walked around for like 7 hours and we still did not see it all. But we did see quite a lot of nice cars though, like the new M3 Concept from BMW, the Audi S5 or the Jaguar concept you see below.

On some pictures you might notice some nice ladies too (oops my wife is hitting my back).
Well that's all I could say about the show, the rest you're invited to see for yourself.
Pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/emese.gyenge/2007GenevaMotorShow

Rheinfall-Schaffhausen-Konstanz

After two weekends spent by skiing at Flumserberg (the ski resort with the nicest view we have ever seen), on Saturday we took a trip – together with our friends from Prague - to the Waterfalls on the river Rhein, Schaffhausen and Konstanz ... it’s been really nice enjoying the view and the sunny weather together and ending the day with a typical Swiss fondue.

Some more pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/gulliver.gyenge/RheinfallSchaffhausen

Carnival in Liechtenstein

We made a trip yesterday to Liechtenstein, one of the smallest countries in the world, which is only 1,5 hours away from Zurich. First we climbed up to the Castle of the Prince in Vaduz (on the first photo),

then we spent a few hours in Schaan (photos 2 and 3), the main sight of the Liechtenstein Carnival.

Weekend in Barcelona

We had a beautiful, but very exhausting weekend … Saturday morning at 9 our flight landed at the airport in Barcelona and soon we started to explore the city.
Following the guidance of our travel guide, we headed down La Rambla from Placa Catalunya - one of the central squares of the city where airport busses arrive - in the direction of Barcelona Harbor. After dropping the bags at our hostel (located, by the way, in the red-light district of the city) and a quick visit at the Theatre, we turned into the Old Town and admired the beautiful Cathedral and its cloister with the 13 swans (kept in the memoir of Eulalia, the patron saint of the Cathedral who died at the age of 13)…then we had a nice walk in the Ciutadella Parc, heading towards the Arc de Triumph, built for the 1888 World's Fair.
Our next stop was at the Sagrada Familia, the worldwide famous Basilica of Barcelona, which is being built for 125 years and we are quite sure now, that it will still take a lot of time and hard work to finalize Gaudi’s masterpiece. Since there are no words to describe it, you better take a look at our photos:

EUROPE - SPAIN - Barcelona

We ended our first day’s city tour in Parc Guell, a garden complex with architectural elements, also designed by Gaudi and part of the UNESCO World Heritage (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Güell).
Our second day in Barcelona we spent by taking a trip on Montjuic, "the hill of World’s Fair and Olimpic Games”.
First we walked along the coast, all the way down from the statue of Columbus to Barceloneta, where we took a chair-lift up to the Montjuic (having a wonderful view on Barcelona Harbor) ... after a short visit at the Montjuic Castle, we headed towards the Olimpic Ring and had a great lunch inside the Olimpic Stadium ;-)
Next we visited the so called Poble Espanyol (or “Spanish Village”), which is basically a “one hour” way to get to know Spain. It’s been built for the 1929 International Exposition and consists of 116 fake buildings and artisan workshops, presenting in miniature all the different regions and typical architectural styles of the country. Our trip on the Montjuic came to an end at the main site of the 1929 World’s Fair, the main avenue leading from the grand Palau National to the Placa Espana (known for its Venetian Towers, which served as the main entrance to the Exposition).
Last but not least we visited the famous Passeig de Gracia, known for some remarkable pieces of the Catalan modernist architecture, designed by Gaudi (Casa Mila and Casa Batllo) and Montaner (Casa Lleo Morera) – all of them being World Heritage Sites.
On Monday we said good-bye to Barcelona with a final visit – at the Palau de la Musica Catalana – and flew back to Switzerland with lots of unforgettable experiences and hundreds of photos.

Working in Switzerland...

After nearly 4 months of work in Switzerland I'd like to share my work and company-related experiences. First of all, I consider myself very lucky to be working in the Solutions department with a nice and vveeery international team.

Although universities usually don’t offer many courses in logistics, I realized here that it’s quite an important and interesting field of economics. Working as a Solutions Analyst, I learned how to use different IT tools to map and optimize our warehouse allocation all over Europe. I feel like I’ve developed my knowledge in logistics quite well, moreover I’ve learned how to use as simple tools as Excel or Access for cost-optimization or strategic decision-making.

But besides my professional development I have also learned how to adapt and interact with people in a fully international environment, how to organize my life in a new country and to face all the up-coming issues.

Of course it’s not easy traveling 3 hours daily to Biel and back to Zurich and getting home at 8 in the evening, but I really don’t mind, since I like my job and my colleagues very much… besides I have also learned how to use best my travel time (e.g. to develop my German by reading the daily newspaper, to organize photos or make travel plans - - - you can not imagine how many things can be arranged while sitting in the train!)

And finally I’ve got my B PERMIT today! That means, I DO NOT need a visa to visit my own home country any more and I WILL BE ABLE finally to get my train passes, health insurance and credit card!!!
Krisztina

Zurich Zoo

2007: New Year, New Challenges

We've been looking forward very much to our first skiing in Davos, one of the most attractive ski resorts in Switzerland, everything being planned well in advance (thanks to Zoli's colleague, our room had been reserved for a while...)

Just the winter dropped in very late this year...we could hardly wait for the first snow to fall and checked daily on the snow-reports. Finally we felt very happy about the 90 kms of ski slopes (out of 300!), which were opened in the resorts around Davos just before New Year's Eve.

Now we had to come across another challange, namely to get back from Cluj to Zurich (another day spent just by travelling!) and then from Zurich to Davos. This time everything ran smoothly, no waitings at the border and no car-accidents on the highway. ...and so we managed to reach Davos on time and even had the chance to spend the last day of 2006 by skiing !!!

The weather was really nice and we had a great time all day long with Zoltan's brother and his girlfriend, ending the day by a nice fondue dinner and celebrating New Year's Eve with a bottle of champagne while admiring the fireworks set in the mountains all around Davos.

Starting with the next day, it began snowing and finally felt like real winter. Many ski lifts got closed due to the heavy snowing and wind, yet we didn't give up... and that's when the accident happened (by taking a wrong turn, Krisztina's knee twisted). Luckily, rescuers came quickly and doctors in Davos Hospital set back my knee to the right position.

After 2 days of rest, I am all right and hope to go skiing in a few weeks again ;-)
See all pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/gulliver.gyenge/Davos

Christmas

Christmas came earlier this year in Zürich ... since we were planning to spend our holidays at home, in Cluj (or Klausenburg) together with our families and friends, we decorated our little Christmas-tree and had a nice dinner the previous weekend in Zürich:


One week later, after a 23-hour-drive (including long hours of waiting at the borders) we finally arrived home ... and dropped in just in time to celebrate Christmas Eve together with our families. We have decorated a huge Christmas tree and the entire family came home to our parents house where we had the traditional Christmas dinner. It was so nice to be home again...

http://picasaweb.google.com/zsengezsolt/KarCsony2006

The next days we spent by family-visits and meeting friends, everybody being home now for the holidays. It was a rush week with lots of fun, food and drink, ending with a gathering at a pizza-place:

Exploring the Alps: from St Moritz to Zermatt

Finally we got the chance to see how real winter feels like in Switzerland! Since Zurich still lacks the first snow, we decided to spend our weekend up in the Swiss Alps. The 7-hour trip with the Glacier Express was just the right choice to admire the fabulous winter landscape from St Moritz to Zermatt... and now we're looking forward very much to our first skiing in Davos!


More pics at: http://picasaweb.google.com/gulliver.gyenge/GlacierExpress

DO-IT!

It was a great experience participating at the biggest national conference of AIESEC in Switzerland, with about 300 delegates from all over the world. The Conference took place in Fiesch, a very small town in the Alps. It’s a pity that the beautiful mountains around Fiesch were still not covered by snow --- however, it’s been a great opportunity to meeting all the other trainees working in Switzerland and enjoyed very much the time spent together.

I really hope we will have many other occasions (trips, parties, events) to spend some time together in the following months.

Thank you, LC Bern, for organizing it and for inviting me to DO-IT!

Walking through Zug and Luzern

It's been a sunny, warm autumn day. First we visited the old town of Zug, full of nicely painted few hundred - year - old houses and a wonderful view on the Zuger Lake and the Pilatus behind.



Then we visited Luzern, walked through the famous Kapellbrucke and enjoyed the sunshine at the bank of the river. At the end of the trip we climbed up to the Gutch Castle to admire the view of the city from the top:

Zurich by Christmas-time

We've been living in Zurich for more then 2 months now, but yesterday was the first day we've spent by exploring the city. Since my dad and my brother came to visit us, we took a beautiful boat trip on the Zurich Lake and walked around in the old town, climbing up also to the top of the Cathedral.

In the evening, we returned to the center to admire the modern Christmas-lights of the Bahnhof-strasse and to strall around the Christmas-markt at the main station, ending our tour with a glass of hot wine and a nice fondue dinner at home.

More photos coming soon ...

Weekend in Locarno

So, last weekend my parents visited us here in Zurich. After a busy Saturday with several invitations here and there, we had a long trip to Locarno. The train trip itself was also very special since the train passes by some magnificent mountains through nice valleys and the high peaks of the Alps. A different world is revealed when the train goes out on the southern end of the Gotthard tunnel, the scenery is different, the weather, the people and the architecture. Locarno turned out to be a very nice town, with a typical Mediterranean style. We spent some very nice hours here until about sunset when we headed back to Zurich.



More pics

Autumn Fair in Basel

Built at the point where France, Germany and Switzerland meet, Basel offered a lot of surprizes at our today's visit in the city. Due to the currently running autumn fair, the whole city seemed to be a huge theme park, full of different attractions (like Giant Wheel, Roller Coaster, etc), located all over the historical center, in the neighborhood of different points of interests.

Interested in more pictures? Take a look at
http://picasaweb.google.com/gulliver.gyenge/Basel