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Case Switzerland

After first month

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Today is exactly one month since I arrived to Switzerland. Quite a lot have happened since, both around the world and here in Switzerland. I guess I don't have to tell anyone what happend with the Katrina and New Orleans. As the city embraced to a direct hit from a severe category hurricane, it diverted it's course before the worst storm hit the city, saving it's rage to other coastal areas. However, as good deal of the New Orleans is below the sea level, protected from the water with levees and water pumps, the massive water surge caused by the hurricane did cause few of the levees to give in and 80% of the city was filled with water. Also electricity was cut out at some point, rendering the pumps useless. As this wouldn't been enough, after the worst storm had passed some number of people started acting just savage, looting and ravaging the area, performing crimes I wish not to mention here.

Finally after surprisingly long time, the state was able to dispatch enough troops to hold the order, and the city was ordered to be evacuated totally until further notice, including those who had seeked refuge from the superdome and those who chose to stay home for some reason. At the moment, the engineers estimate that it will take about one month to drain the water out of the city. I guess there's still discussion what will be done for the damaged structures and buildings. On worst predictions, all damaged buildings would be torn apart and new ones built. Knowing at least something about the rich cultural heritage of New Orleans (Gabriel Knight, anyone?), it would be pity if such option should be used. If the buildings are beyond any salvage, I guess there's not really any choise in this matter, but still...

Also strange news around the world, several airline accidents have happened all around during last month. One Airbus did manage to land in Canada in terrible weather, however the plane went somewhat stray from the runaway causing the plane catch fire. Luckily only some wounds were inflicted, with no casualties. Then there was 2 accident in Latin-America, where the passengers weren't that lucky, also one in Indonesia, and one really strange one in Greece, as the plane lost radio contact soon after take-off, and flew with autopilot until it run out of gas and crashed. The fighters which oversaw the plane, reported that one of the pilots was seen collapsed in the cockpit over the instrument panel. Some of the planes were Boeing 737s, and some nasty rumors in the internet said that the best-before date had expired on that airplane model. Others responded that it's the most used airplane, so statistically it's the most propabale to have accident's also.

During the last month, there were also several helicopter accidents, one of them for a Copterline helicopter flying from Tallin Estonia to Helsinki Finland. For still somewhat unclear reason, the helicopter dropped to sea, and all 14 people aboard didn't make it. As hearing all these news, one begins to wonder how safe it is to travel by air. However I still thinks it's quite safe, at least if you compare to other transportation means. Airplane accidents just get more notice from the media, as there are usually more casualties that in other transportation accidents. In Finland, some 300-500 people die at traffic accident every year, but only few of the worst cases are mentioned by the media. I think the number is more that in Finland has died in airline accidents ever. So I prefer plane over cars.

So, that's the world news, now to locals. As I continued my search for a apartment, I went to visit 2 apartments in Jona. Both of them were quite neat and they located reasonably close to the train station, so I agreed with the renting company that I'd sleep over and tell them my decicion next morning. I decided the same evening, that I'd go with other one of those apartments, and at the morning at work, I filled out the papers and sent them with fax to their office. If you remember from the first chapter of this journal, I have currently contract for six month. The people from the renting company did call me back, and told that they rent it to minimum duration of one year. They seemed to stand their ground, stating that if I wanted to leave earlier, it would be my responsibility to get a new renter to that apartment, or otherwise I would have to pay the rent up to the one year.

The same terms were also applied to the other apartment which I had seen the earlier day. Just great. Also the guy who had this interesting business idea, told that he wanted longer term renter, so also his apartment was out of the question. Then I went to see one apartment quite close to Zürich, in Effretikon. The apartment was nice, and I called to the renting company that I'd accept the apartment, and they send me the papers for filling. After filling them and faxing them, I called them back to ask if everything was ok. She told me that it was too risky was her to rent the apartment just for six months, and when I tried to ask what was the risk, she just repeated what she had said and practically hung up on me.

Another problem was that these apartment were about the only ones which were available that time, as there are 3 official moving dates in Switzerland, and the next one would be 1.10. Outside there official dates, only few apartments are available. So practically, I had only few apartments to choose from, and they didn't accept me without one year contact. The funny thing, I got a tip last summer about this one year requirement. I asked the company what would the company do if I couldn't get an apartment without making contract for at least one year. I got answer that I should worry about this, because such case is not going to happen. Well, it did, so now I asked the local managing director for further advice, as it was starting to look as I wouldn't be getting any apartment, and I was getting slightly frustrated with the small apartment in Rüti, just hanging in the apartment without proper internet access and nothing much to do.

The managing director answered me that he'd investigate what could be done, but it would take some time, and in the mean time I should continue to search for an apartment. This didn't make me too happy, as I had already seen all reasonable apartment which were available that time. Next time some apartments would be available was in one month, and living still for a month in the small room didn't seem too fashionable. And as it would, a month later I would be making only five month contract, which definately wouldn't help my chances to get an apartment. This was definitely not looking good, as having a decent apartment plays quite big role in ones well being, and even the idea about living for next 6 months in this small room didn't give me good feeling.

However, one of the HR persons knew a family who had a 2-room apartment available in their house. It was really not for rent, but she did persuade them to rent it for me. I went to see the apartment, and it was nice and decent, but a little small for my taste. In addition, it was already furnished. If I would move to that apartment, I would have to do something to my brother's furniture which was at the moment in one of my colleague's garage. As it was, they were accpecting to make a contract with one months notice time, in opposition to having one years contract, I did agree to move in to this apartment.

Moral of the story? You should make the apartment issue clear beforehand. Luckily it turned quite nice for me afterall, but without the colleague knowing this family, I don't really know what would have happened, as I believe that I wouldn't have gotten an apartment from the normal renting companies. I totally understand the renters opinion. What would you choose if you were renting an apartment, someone local or someone foreign? And if you don't have locals to choose from, would you select foreign with 6 month contract, or foreign with longer contract?

My brother contacted some moving companies he knew, and one of them had a truck in Zürich, so they came to pick up the furniture to be hauled to Finland. After few days, I packed in Rüti and moved to Bubikon. The apartment was roughly 1 km from the company, and in the morning it would be nice and easy just roll down the hill to work, as it's downhill almost all the way. The downside is that it's uphill back to the apartment. There is a bus stop nearby, so I guess I will be using it quite a lot. Also the Bubikon is so small village, that there is only one small grocery store, and everyone sensible would go to some bigger town fro shopping. But then again, at least I have some sort of apartment. The family who lives here seem quite friendly, so I guess I will get along with

The internet connection which I had ordered to the Rüti apartment, didn't arrive in time. As I was told it would arrive in 10 days, I called them after 2 weeks from the application to ask what was the problem. They said me it would arrive next week, as it did. Just in time before I was moving out to Bubikon. I managed to surf the internet and play some on-line games for a couple of days. When I applied for the internet, I asked how long it would take them to transfer the connection to other address, as I knew already then that I would be moving to more permanent apartment. The guy told me that it would take 24 hours. I called them last week for my moving, and then they told me it would take maybe 2 to 3 weeks. With my calculus, 2 to 3 weeks is not anywhere near the 24 hours. I talked with a colleague of mine who had the same operator. For him, it had taken 2 and a half month to transfer the internet to his new apartment. This was not raising my hopes up.

In the first hand, I chose this operator as I was told they would deliver the internet quite fast, but they didn't. Now it's taking even more time for them to transfer it to my current address. I hope they are not trying to charge me for this time, as they have not have delivered their service as they had promised. I also upgraded the speed, as the slowest "hispeed" class was too slow for Skype to work. In Finland, I had 10M/10M VDSL connection, and compared to that, this "hispeed" 600k/100k is slightly amusing. Now after upgrade, it's 2000k/400k, which I guess is suitable for heavy internet user as I am. The 100k upload was enough for TeamSpeak2 software, which is quite similar to Skype regarding to the talking part, but without the fancy cover and nice colors, as it is mainly aimed for internet games' communications.

Another funny thing with the internet (those who don't recognice terms WLAN, IP and NAT, please skip next two chapters, as you'd be bored to death with the gizmo-mumbo-jumbo), I purchaced a WLAN router from Asus, model WL-500g. In Finland, quite recently I bought similar router from Linksys, and after using WLAN for some time, I'm surpriced that I didn't figure out earlier how convenient WLAN systems are. So I wanted here also same system as my laptop had A/B/G WLAN-card. The router did NAT to the local network, and it did also have port forwarding firewall so that I could have my own LAN inside without stupid firewall in each computers. I know, I have at the moment only 1 PC here, but in Finland, I had 5 so I have to be prepared that also here I might have more PCs. Also the new fancy gaming console Sony PSP has internet access and multiplayer capabilities over WLAN, so if I happened to purchace this console, it would be crusial to have the WLAN access up and running at that point.

When I plugged the router to the cable modem, the quick setup software asked me some questions, such as what type of connection I have etc. After setting up everything, I tried to access internet with no success. After reading the logs, it seemed that the router was not getting IP, gateway nor DNS from the modem. After trying different setups for a while, I switched the router to access point -mode, where it would simply function as a switch, so that also the WLAN was seen as one of the ethernet ports. Through this switch, the PC did get an IP and other settings from the modem, and the internet worked ok. However, this was only with the ethernet port, over the WLAN the PC didn't reveice any settings from the modem, although the modem shouldn't be able to see what type of connection I used between the PC and the router. Jusy my luck, I have wireless router which I must connect wired to be able to connect to the modem. One might wonder where I need the router at all. On those couple of days when I had internet, I wasn't able to solve this problem, so I fear that when I get the internet here in the new apartment, I'm facing the same problem again. I have some ideas which might work, but it's difficult to test without the internet access.

Last weekend, my girlfriend from Finland visited here. Mostly we just hung around, but we also visited Zürich and took this rental car "Mobility" and drove around the scenery just to have look at some of the mountains. The one which has quite nice view, Säntis, was our target, but the day was too cloudy to get a view from up there, so we just cruised around with the car.

As for my music taste, I usually listen to almost anything, if it's just good. I don't care about the genres or categories if just the song is a good one. I never heard good enough latino song to admit it was good, although they don't play too many latino songs in Finland so you quite rarely heard any latino. Here the radio and tv play one certain latino song, which really caught my attention. It has nice rythm and happy feeling in it. It's called La Camisa Negra by Juanes. As I asked my colleague about this song, he told that Juanes is a big star in Latin-Amerina, and just recently has been also getting some attention in Europe. Actually, reading the translation from the internet, the story in lyrics is not so happy, but I don't understand spanish so no broblem. Grooovy Baby!

I guess some form of Lotto is played all around the world. The lotto in Finland is quite popular amongst all people. Normal weekly jackpot is about 1 to 4 million euros, so I was quite surpriced to notice that the Euro Millions -lotto here had jackpot of about 65 million euros. Certainly I had to bet few lines for that, and surprice, I didn't win. None other won too, so the next jackpot is almost 80 million euros. I like maths and odds, so I had to calculate the odds for winning. The finnish lotto has odds about 1 to 15 million. This Euro Millions -lotto has odds of 1 against 76 million. But so what, you don't win if you don't try.