the most wonderful time of the year.

to get in the spirit for the holidays, i decided to visit one of europe's famous christmas markets. i mapped out all the ones listed on that link, and ultimately chose strasbourg, as it was the closest to zurich - a mere 2 hour train ride away which meant a good day trip for my last weekend in the middle of europe. my train left at 10:02 in the morning, but due to a slight alarm mishap, i woke up at 9:15 and was staying at least 30 minutes from the train station. whoops. i made it though.

one of the funny things i forget about europe sometimes is that you can spend 2 hours on a train, get off, and have to speak another language. i don't know french or german, so it was just as puzzling as zurich. but i managed to figure things out/find a place that spoke english and sat down for a delicious lunch with my book. man, do they love cheese in france.

i headed out to explore the rest of the small-ish city. it was opening day of the festival, so it was quite crowded. there aren't a lot of sites to see in strasbourg, but it does have an amazing cathedral in the middle of the city.

as the day turned into night, all the christmas lights began to turn on, i ate some more cheese on bread (delish but i could feel my heart slowing down as i ate it) and it became christmas in strasbourg. the whole album is linked here. but here's a few shots that i liked the most.

and lastly, to get everyone else in the mood for the holiday season, a favorite christmas song. happy almost holidays!

thanksgiving.

thanksgiving isn't a huge holiday in zurich other than the fact that at the google office there are good chunk of americans who naturally want to celebrate the holiday and have the traditional fixings. i got sick on thanksgiving day - nothing serious, a bad cold - but this ruined my plans to make myself my very own thanksgiving dinner at the corporate 'chalet' i was staying at in zurich. i went to the grocery store on wednesday night and picked up all the fixings or at least what i could - potatoes, green beans, a piece of turkey (a whole one cost 58 CHF - about $60 USD), some cranberry jam - they didn't have canned cranberry sauce, and sadly no stuffing - this is something that doesn't translate evidently. picture of expensive turkey for proof.

anyway, because of the tragic-ly timed cold, the dinner i shopped for didn't happen until friday, although the google office came through with an awesome turkey lunch so i still got my thanksgiving meal on thanksgiving. but when it did happen it was delicious if i do say so myself.

and i did get over the cold eventually, though without the help of medicine. something about trying to communicate with hand gestures at a swiss pharmacy where everything is over the counter that i just couldn't overcome.

the visa adventure.

we got word late last week that my visa was ready for processing. for those who have followed the saga of the visa in detail, originally we were told it would take 6-8 weeks. being that as of november, i was supposed to start work for my new team, my new manager and i agreed it didn't make sense to work from california for almost two months on europe based work. we agreed i would work from zurich during that time, come home for the holidays to finish my visa, and head back after the new year.

sufficed to say we were both surprised when 10 days into my zurich trip, hearing my visa was ready was a bit of shocker. the team who has been working on my visa asked on thursday if i could be in new york the following week to have my 'biometric data' collected - this sounds much more intrusive then it actually is. after discussing with my new boss and realizing that if i could get everything done, i could start in london on november 30th, we agreed it would be best to go to new york and get it done. i booked a flight and flew out saturday. with the current plan, i would stay in new york for a week to complete by bio appointment and submit my documents to the british consulate - all of which had to be completed state side. assuming everything happened as planned, i would fly back to zurich on saturday, stay for another week, and then head to london on november 29th for a november 30th start. with this plan i could still keep my original ticket back to california for december 16th and spend the holidays with the fam before really moving right after the new year.

on the way to new york, i flew through madrid, spain. growing up with a mom/grandma who speak spanish and taking three years of it in high school, i had always wished i spoke/understood spanish better than i do. however, after being in zurich for 10 days, plus two weeks earlier this year, i can't express how excited i was to hear a foreign language that i understood at least 75% of and could communicate back in. this made me very excited to visit spain at some point, because i did realize my spanish is much stronger than even i had thought. also, the madrid airport is pretty cool. check this out:



from there i flew to new york, and stayed with marie for most of the trip. it was great to see and spend time in the big apple. i have to admit the first few days were bittersweet as i was reminded of just how much i love new york and have always wanted to move there, but i'm sure london will be just as cool. marie and i wandered around on sunday seeing some of the christmas sites. we stopped in bryant park at the ice skating rink, which was kind of odd considering it must have been at least 65 degrees out.



spent the rest of the week working from the new york office. i had my biometric data appointment on tuesday. they basically just took my fingerprints and picture. then i turned my life story into the lawyers and was told they would "be in touch" when everything was done. wednesday marie and i saw bye-bye birdie and had dinner. and on thursday i got word that my visa was approved!! i picked it up from the lawyers on friday after work (after a nightmare experience of trying to secure a taxi to take me to my hotel where i was staying my last night there) but i recovered with some shopping since my hotel was literally steps away from herald square and the world's largest macy's. had brunch on saturday and then headed to jfk, only to wait 6 hours for my flight to leave as the plane we were supposed to use was having mechanical issues. one overnight flight and a long nap later, i am back in zurich. it's raining a lot and pretty cold, but i'm just happy my visa is done and i will be in london one week from today! watch out big ben - here i come!

she works hard for the money.

my dad has been asking me to blog more. i think what he may be forgetting is that i am here working - not here studying abroad or just traveling. most of my days are filled with hours in the office, so that's what i'll write about. get excited. transitioning jobs within a company has proven somewhat difficult - not terrible, just time consuming. unlike when you leave a company and walk out the door, when you stay and switch jobs the emails keep coming, the questions keep coming, and people keep asking you for things. for the first 10 days i was in zurich, i was essentially doing two jobs. this has gotten a lot better and having sent out my 'goodbye email' to the marketing team who i support on friday, i can say i'm almost fully back to doing just one job. joy.

in any case, to share a little more about my work day, i thought i would show some pictures too. i usually get in around 8:30am or 9:00am and this is what i see as i come over the hill from the tram:



from there you walk under a tunnel past another building and then you see this:



and then when i leave around 8:30 or 9:00pm at night (i have been staying late to connect with people in california which is 9 hours ahead) this is what i see.




in any case, i have been blessed with an awesome replacement at work, and my double days are coming to an end. i'm definitely looking forward to the new challenges that are ahead. it will definitely be different.

reminder of why i really love my job.

check out this youtube video.

i am in the new york office right now finishing my visa stuff (everything was approved yesterday). i was sitting with one of my co-workers and some of the marketing team that works here in new york (known at the creative lab). i did a few recruiting trips back in april to help find some of the new grads they recently hired and have helped bring a few of them on board. everything was hussling and bussling because they had a big launch yesterday. this video below is one of the videos they were putting the finishing touches on.

maybe it's just because i'm moving abroad or maybe i'm finally having feelings (gross) but this video make my heart warm and fuzzy.

i don't like blogs. but i do like memories.

plane ride was pretty easy. my memories of british airways were all correct in it's wonderfulness. excellent selection of movies, socks, and a toothbrush for the end of the ride. plus their awesome terminal at heathrow makes layovers not suck so much. that and my first reminder of one of many things i am looking forward to having access to again in london: pret.

first lesson learned about traveling alone - when things go wrong you have no one to blame but yourself. learned this in munich last time around when i nearly missed my connection and started running to the gate as they called my name on the intercom. lesson learned - made it in plenty of time this go round. landed in zurich thursday night zurich time - thursday morning california time. went straight to hotel to work on offer packet for work. sweet. sadly hotel does not in fact have wireless as stated on website. have to pay for swisscom card - fail hotel xtra. full day of work on friday followed by dinner out with googlers and passing out til next morning. jet lag stinks.

nice little saturday - squeezed a lot in (pat on back for classic 'old school' reference). picked up 1/2 tax card at the train station. travel tip: if you are ever in zurich for like more than a few weeks and plan to travel a lot the 1/2 tax card is the business. for 150 francs you get 1/2 off all your train travel from zurich for an entire year. and tram tickets too. should pay for itself in about two trips. milan, paris, and perhaps austria for a sound of music style adventure and the famed christmas markets are definitely on the list. awesomeness.

spent the next hour or so walking along the lake. they definitely have seasons here, which is very different from silly california with it's year round spring.

continued walking down by the lake towards the city center. you can see the alps far off in the distance from zurich. pretty neat.

had lunch at my favorite little bratwurst stand. they basically give you a sausage in a napkin and a delicious roll of crispy bread. class all the way. embarked on search for a hat. something about all the heat in your body leaves through your head or something worried me for the rest of time here being that all my hats are safely packed in my storage unit in san francisco doing me a whole lot of good. strolled down one of the main streets wandering in an out of shops and came upon a boat race in the main river. that big building in the background is a church called the frauminster. the stained glass windows were done by chegal. i visited on my last trip here. sadly you can't take pictures of them.

ended up finding a hat at a mall about 10 minutes from the lake that used to be an old sugar mill. it's black and silver with a puff ball on the top. sanjana would be proud because it's one of those floppy style ones whitney would wear on 'the city'. finished the day up with a chai tea latte and my book. (currently about 200 pages through anna karenina.) likely to head to the movies tomorrow. travel tip: everything in europe is closed on sundays, so get your kicks in on saturdays.