International job opportunity. #2
Monday, October 9th, 2017
Welcome to our Swiss blog. A little history of what has happened prior to this move. Mark was offered a 18 month project opportunity in Europe, obviously we took the opportunity as we are here. This occurred in May. Mark spent most of the summer in France and Switzerland working. Meanwhile the moving process was off to a very slow start. He was waiting for official job approval, a work permit and then our Visa’s. Finally in October we are here. We left Minneapolis on October 7th (Saturday) and arrived the 8th (Sunday). Our flight was from Minneapolis to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Zurich. From Zurich a train to Bern. At the Bern train station we took a cab to the hotel. We spent our first night in the city of Bern. I got a walking tour from Mark. For dinner we had some awesome pizza and pasta.
On Monday, the 9th, we were met by a lady from Packimpex, 3M’s relocation service here in Switzerland. She took us to check into the Department of Migration. All of our paper work was in line so we are in process of getting our Visa finalized.
Next was checking into our apartment. This apartment is located just outside of the city of Bern. We chose this apartment from just a couple of pictures on line from home. Of course we had to be within the 3M budget and needed a fully furnished apartment. The choice was extremely limited. We were actually given only 2 apartments to choose from. During the next 2 months we can choose to stay here or attempt to find another furnished apartment. A furnished apartment here is very limited and very expensive.
From the apartment we headed to a train station. Majority of the people here commute by Tram or by Train. I got a Tram pass good for one year. This was the cheapest version. Mark will need both a Tram and a Train pass in order to get to and from work. This will take him about one hour each way. Mark’s Switzerland office is in Langenthal. This is a very small town and Mark didn’t think we would like living there. Once Mark gets his car from 3M he will drive to work each day. No driver provided like we had in China.
The Tram is pretty easy to figure out even for this non German speaking American. The Tram comes by every 9 minutes. They are pretty timely...Swiss time you know. After being here one year we would need to get a Swiss drivers license but under one year we can continue to use our MN drivers license. I’m not sure I’ll be brave enough to drive here and probably will stick to the Tram service.
Then the Packimpex lady drove us by a grocery store to show us where we should shop. After that she dropped us off back to the hotel so we could pick up our extremely heavy luggage, we called a cab and moved in to the apartment. We also packed a box of our things prior to leaving MN. About a size of a pallet. Hopefully we should have this delivered to us in about one month. We filled it with mostly clothes, jackets, shoes and one bike. Our second bike did not fit in the box so we will try to buy a used bike while we are here, and sell it before we return home.
Later that afternoon we had an appointment at a Swiss bank. We opened up our first Swiss bank account. Mark was disappointed to find out this isn’t as secret as it was years ago or like in the movies, where rich Americans can hide their money. Everything is reported back to the USA.
Welcome to our Swiss blog. A little history of what has happened prior to this move. Mark was offered a 18 month project opportunity in Europe, obviously we took the opportunity as we are here. This occurred in May. Mark spent most of the summer in France and Switzerland working. Meanwhile the moving process was off to a very slow start. He was waiting for official job approval, a work permit and then our Visa’s. Finally in October we are here. We left Minneapolis on October 7th (Saturday) and arrived the 8th (Sunday). Our flight was from Minneapolis to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Zurich. From Zurich a train to Bern. At the Bern train station we took a cab to the hotel. We spent our first night in the city of Bern. I got a walking tour from Mark. For dinner we had some awesome pizza and pasta.
On Monday, the 9th, we were met by a lady from Packimpex, 3M’s relocation service here in Switzerland. She took us to check into the Department of Migration. All of our paper work was in line so we are in process of getting our Visa finalized.
Next was checking into our apartment. This apartment is located just outside of the city of Bern. We chose this apartment from just a couple of pictures on line from home. Of course we had to be within the 3M budget and needed a fully furnished apartment. The choice was extremely limited. We were actually given only 2 apartments to choose from. During the next 2 months we can choose to stay here or attempt to find another furnished apartment. A furnished apartment here is very limited and very expensive.
From the apartment we headed to a train station. Majority of the people here commute by Tram or by Train. I got a Tram pass good for one year. This was the cheapest version. Mark will need both a Tram and a Train pass in order to get to and from work. This will take him about one hour each way. Mark’s Switzerland office is in Langenthal. This is a very small town and Mark didn’t think we would like living there. Once Mark gets his car from 3M he will drive to work each day. No driver provided like we had in China.
The Tram is pretty easy to figure out even for this non German speaking American. The Tram comes by every 9 minutes. They are pretty timely...Swiss time you know. After being here one year we would need to get a Swiss drivers license but under one year we can continue to use our MN drivers license. I’m not sure I’ll be brave enough to drive here and probably will stick to the Tram service.
Then the Packimpex lady drove us by a grocery store to show us where we should shop. After that she dropped us off back to the hotel so we could pick up our extremely heavy luggage, we called a cab and moved in to the apartment. We also packed a box of our things prior to leaving MN. About a size of a pallet. Hopefully we should have this delivered to us in about one month. We filled it with mostly clothes, jackets, shoes and one bike. Our second bike did not fit in the box so we will try to buy a used bike while we are here, and sell it before we return home.
Later that afternoon we had an appointment at a Swiss bank. We opened up our first Swiss bank account. Mark was disappointed to find out this isn’t as secret as it was years ago or like in the movies, where rich Americans can hide their money. Everything is reported back to the USA.
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