Moved to Zelgstrasse in Adliswil

Posted on March 29, 2012 by jonas

I have not been writing in the blog for two months and one reason is the moving process we have been busy with. Last week and weekend we packed our stuff and moved from Seeblickstrasse in Wollishofen to Zelgstrasse in Adliswil.

The new apartment is obviously bigger, 3 rooms, and it also has a balcony, winter garden, garage and an additional parking place, two cellars, laundry and a garden. While our old apartment was close to the city limit but on the Zurich side, the new one is even closer to the city limit but on the other side. Still in Canton Zurich but now outside Stadt Zurich, in Adliswil. It is still close to the office and there are easily accessible buses and trains that takes you to the city.

Another change that is about to happen is that next week I will move from being an “external” to being an “internal” at Credit Suisse. In other words, I am switching from contracting to a permanent position. The change is not very drastic, I will continue working in the same project as I have working in the last 21 months.

March has been quite busy with moving, a lot of work and a trip to Moscow in between. April looks slightly more relaxing with some traveling to Paris and Gothenburg planned. There might also be some Russians coming and staying here for parts of April. Meanwhile we will try to assemble wardrobes and beds which are planned to arrive in two weeks with a delivery from IKEA. It looks like April can be a busy period as well.

Tanya is continuing her German course and there is good progress. I would say that she in general pronounces words better than I do but that I still have an advantage when it comes to vocabulary. I guess it will be hard to compete with her soon though if I don’t study German more actively myself.

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New home office

Posted on February 12, 2012 by jonas

Our Zurich apartment has been awarded a home office. Since Tanya has been spending some time at home studying German, the need for a work place has emerged and yesterday we went to IKEA to find a desk, office chair, and shelves. The idea is that one should be able to have a place where one can sit comfortably and work independently of meals (i.e. not at the dinner table).

Tanya had the bright idea that we should be able to fit a desk in front of our window facing North. We used to have a Vallvik shelf there but the new office does not only add a workplace, it also makes the room feel bigger, closer to 30 than 28 square meters 🙂

Home office – now Tanya needs a white computer…

The view from the office

Ater a lot of traveling in the beginning of January, we have been spending time in Zurich the last weekends. That has been very comfortable and nice but it is soon time for some traveling for Tanya. She is going to St Petersburg and Moscow for a week. One month later, in March, we are both going to Moscow for a weekend to catch up with our Moscow friends.

Speaking of traveling, our Easter trip this year will be to Paris together with two Moscow friends. We trust that our Saab will take us back and forth (approx. 6 hours each way) and the hotel is already booked. The weekend after we are going to Gothenburg over Sechseläuten. Later in June we go to Kiev for Euro 2012, and then in August it is time to pay Siberia a visit again.

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Photos from Christmas and New Year

Posted on January 25, 2012 by jonas

We have uploaded some photos from our Christmas and New Year vacation. Please have a look if you want!

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Rebooting the aircraft

Posted on January 13, 2012 by jonas

When everybody was seated and it was time to go to Gothenburg we were asked to leave and get back to the gate since they were about to reboot the plane due to a technical issue with the software. We are currently waiting at the airport and they are delaying the flight gradually in the typical airline fashion.

Hopefully they will get it working tonight so we don’t need to wait until tomorrow.

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Back in Moscow

Posted on January 8, 2012 by jonas

Tanya, Natasha and I are half-way between Novokuznetsk and Moscow in an Airbus A320 (thanks Ural Airlines for once again providing Airbus instead of Tupolev!). We have been served our Ural Airlines food and the salmon dish, which we all ordered, was okay.

It has been a great time in Siberia and we have done a lot: Dentist, hair dresser (Tanya only), shopping, downhill and cross country skiing, city walks, scanning of some of babushka’s old photos, many meetings with friends and relatives, ice hockey (live and TV), cinema (Tanya only), dacha visit with winter edition of banja and snow cleaning, and not to forget celebrations of new year and Christmas. The weather was nice to us and approximately ten degrees warmer than last year. This meant for example that it was -18 when we went skiing in Mezhdorechensk instead of -28 like last year, much better.

The flights from Novokuznetsk depart early in the morning to the one and only destination, Moscow. This is not too bad, even though you need to wake up very early, since you get a full day in Moscow when continuing to Zurich tomorrow morning.

The plan is to meet with Moscow friends at lunch time at our favorite restaurant at Tverskaya, Yolki Palki. Later in the afternoon we will visit Sasha and Ira like we used to do for many Sunday mornings during autumn 2011 and winter/spring 2012.

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Hockey and relatives in Novokuznetsk

Posted on January 6, 2012 by jonas

It is Friday morning and Sweden has recently won the junior world championship in hockey. Congratulations Sweden!

Yesterday, Thursday, was a day full of meetings with relatives. We met, among others, with Tanya’s grandmother (“babushka”) and it was good to see that she is “still going strong”.

The day before yesterday, Wednesday, was a “hockey day” with three good matches and three good results. First, Sweden did beat Finland and thus made it to the final, then Russia followed by beating Canada. Later in the evening we went to the hockey stadium here in Novokuznetsk and watched Metallurg beating Dynamo Minsk with 4-2 in an entertaining and equally thrilling KHL game.

Today, Friday, we are planning to go to the dacha in order to celebrate Christmas. We will be back in Novokuznetsk tomorrow again in order to prepare fo the trip back to Moscow on Sunday morning.

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Skiing in Mezhdurechensk

Posted on January 4, 2012 by jonas

It is early morning in Novokuznetsk and time to sum up our skiing trip to Mezhdurechensk. We went to Mezhdurechensk by car on Monday with Tanya’s parents and it took about an hour to get there. Alexander, Tanya and I went downhill skiing in the afternoon and then Tanya’s parents went back to Novokuznetsk. Tanya and I stayed at an hotel in order to go skiing on Tuesday too.

The slopes can be described as beginner friendly but due to good conditions still enjoyable for someone who is above beginner level, in other words, perfect for Tanya and I. It was pretty cold but manageable, -23 degrees Celsius in the morning and then peaking at -13 during lunch time. It was slightly colder last year in Sheregesh so there is a nice trend 🙂

Mezhdurechensk is a young (founded 1955) industrial city (approx. 100 000 inhabitants) dominated by coal production. Meanwhile skiing at the centrally located mountain you sometimes hear the coal train coming with approx. 70 wagons which according to my calculations gives a weight of 7700 tons which sounds like a lot to me.

They do have decent facilities for crosscountry skiing, ski jumping, and downhill skiing. Since they have around 160 snow days per year it is a rather safe place to book if you want to be sure to enjoy the presence of snow during winter time 🙂

There is a new road to Sheregesh from Novokuznetsk which has reduced the travel time to two hours but Mezhdurechensk, only one hour away, is a good option. I hope there will be more trips in coming years.

Today there is a day largely devoted to ice hockey. I hope to get back with a report later on.

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In Novokuznetsk

Posted on December 29, 2011 by jonas

On Friday last week we left Zürich in order to celebrate Christmas in Västerås. It was a traditional setup with a lot of Christmas food, Christmas presents, service in church, dinner with friends from ABB Industrigymnasium, and meetings with relatives. All very much enjoyable.

Yesterday we went to Moscow and then continued to Novokuznetsk with the night flight. We arrived early morning in Novokuznetsk and have already picked up Tanya’s new passport, got Tanya a new haircut, and now we are at the dentist’s.

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Pictures from the Moscow trip

Posted on December 11, 2011 by jonas

One month after the trip we have finally compiled some pictures from Tanya’s camera and published them in the web album. Enjoy.

This weekend we have done shopping, household duties and a visit at Klinger’s place in Uster. One thing that was a bit unusual this weekend was that I did morning running both yesterday and today. But still, not too much to report here.

Time flies and we are now only two weeks from the Christmas break. I am looking forward to the same setup as last year, Västerås over Christmas and then Novokuznetsk over New Year.

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In-and-out operation in Moscow

Posted on November 19, 2011 by jonas

Last weekend Fredrik, Tanya and I went to Moscow for a 40-hour-Moscow-adventure. Tanya went there on Thursday and Fredrik and I followed on Friday evening.

When Tanya was going on Thursday morning she tried her best to surprise us both by checking the boarding time on her second boarding pass (from Vienna to Moscow) and not for the first leg, Zurich-Vienna, when setting the alarm clock the day before. When we woke up in the morning it was too late to catch the plane and we had to organize new tickets for a flight in the afternoon. We could at least book a return ticket for her next Moscow visit in two weeks (we only had Zurich-Moscow booked earlier) when booking a new roundtrip ticket.

Fredrik and I took the planned flight and arrived early Saturday morning to Sheremetyevo. Unfortunately our taxi driver was an hour late so the start of our Moscow was far from perfect.

Since we had access to our hotel room from 2 pm we went to Pavel, a friend to Fredrik, to get some rest. We went via Katya’s place, and picked up Tanya, before proceeding to Pavel and there we slept until noon. In the afternoon we checked in at our apartment hotel at 20 First Tverskaya-Yamskaya, and walked down Tverskaya towards Red Square. We had a massive lunch/dinner at Elki Palki at 5/6 Tverskaya. Tanya and I were there in May with our parents and it was great this time too.

After our over-eating-session we continued by foot to Red Square for some sightseeing and to restaurant Stolovoya 57 in GUM for some snacks and drinks. A sightseeing session in Moscow would not be complete without a visit to Arbat, so we did that before heading to Peter’s and Yana’s party. They live close to Paveletskaya so we could get there without problems. It was a great party with a nice mixture of Americans, Russians, and Swedes.

On Sunday Tanya and I met with Alexander, Irina, and Artiom at a Shokoladnitsa café close to our apartment hotel. It was nice to catch up with them but I noticed that my Russian has degraded this autumn since I have not spent as much time in Moscow as during spring time.

In the afternoon we took the train back to Zurich and it was nice to catch some sleep before going to office next day.

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