Leaving Switzerland

The past weeks were the most eventful so far.

I had my company farewell party with many of my colleagues that went down really well with a great speech of my previous manager and myself. We had a lot of fun.

This week marked the end of my 3 years with my company. Although I am really looking forward to moving to Cuenca, it was also sad to leave a great team behind. I had a good time there, was always treated in a nice way and had a steady income. Especially the last point will not be the case looking forward. It will completely depend on myself and my partners to make a living.

The final event in Switzerland was a Thanksgiving dinner this Thursday. As I was sharing a flat with an American work colleague for my last 2 months in Switzerland, he had the idea to invite friends and colleagues and have an American style Thanksgiving dinner. I liked the idea and offered to do most of the cooking as it should be on my first day in unemployment. It was a great success and a lot of fun. I even managed to convince my mother to come to Switzerland from Munich.

Since Friday I am now in Munich and feeling quite relaxed and at ease with how things are progressing. There is not much left for me to do before my flight leaves in 2.5 weeks apart from reducing my luggage load by about one third. Not easy, when you receive small gifts from friends to take with you to your new home. But I will manage that somehow

Certifications. Tick off!

Originally, I wanted to apply for an investor's visa straight away. This would have required to have the company set-up before I actually went to Ecuador. A bit difficult, if you are supposed to be present to form the company... So, the only option was to apply for an extended tourist visa and sort out the investor's visa once we have formed the company. The investor's visa is valid for life and gives you all freedom in terms of work, and residency, etc.

In order to apply for a 6 month tourist visa, you need to supply the following items:

• 3 passport pictures - not that difficult :)
• Valid passport - have
• Flight confirmation - sure
• Police clearance certificate (dt: Polizeiliches Führungszeugnis)
• Health certificate stating that you have no communicable deseases
• Finance statement that shows that you have enough funds to support yourself during your stay. This can also be a simple bank statement.

As of today, I have all of the above (apart from the bank statement that I can print myself at the end of this month). So, actually, not much can go wrong from here :)

Since I had time at my hand, this was all very easy to get hold of. Of course, being a German citizen living in Switzerland, I had to drive across the border to get my Police Certificate Request Form (lol) authenticate by the major's office. No big deal really. If you are in a hurry though, this could be a bit of a test of patience.

It is Official

So many last things

It is becoming apparent that my leave from my current employer is less than 3 weeks to go.

There are more and more things that I do for the last time now. The last trip to Sweden this week, the last meeting in a series next week, last pizza Thursday in 2 weeks time, and generally seeing people for the (probably) last time who are not working at our Swiss office and will not be around during the next few weeks.

All this is obvious if you leave a company (and I have done that a couple of times) but the feeling attached to those events is much stronger if you are leaving the continent and are likely not to come back for at least a year. In the past 11 years of my business career all those good-byes were feeling temporary although most people I actually have never seen since then.

I am looking forward to my farewell party next week though. It should be fun to celebrate my three years with the company and say good-bye with a nice event. In the end, I am leaving to build something up and not because the competition recruited me… :)

Last Trip to Italy

Having so much stuff sorted out over the past few days, I thought it's time for a little treat.

Carl and I will drive down to Lazise (on Lago di Garda) on Friday and have a relaxed weekend visiting Verona and – more importantly – the Tommasi wineyards to get some nice wine for himself and my good-bye tour. If you want to check out the offerings, go here: http://www.tommasiwine.it

We also considered to give Siena a visit on Sunday. We will see how well we test the newly acquired stock on Saturday night and check if we rather should have a sleep in and not make the long drive down South...

Car Sold

I seem to be a lucky guy lately.

Last evening, I sold the car to a very friendly father of 5 kids. I told him that no-one can sit in the back unless he/she is under 1.50m tall. He seems to be okay with that as I guess that he has a few of those ;)
The more important objective for the purchase may also be that he now has a reason to leave the kids behind and spend a nice weekend with the misses :)

Negociations only took about a minute and I almost didn't have to reduce my asking price. Due to the fact that mine was one of only two on sale in Switzerland, I had put the price up already. The buyer told me that he was waiting since 9 months for my model to come on the market for a decent price. He probably would have taken it also for the original asking price.

But I am happy with the result anyway.
So, end of the week he will probably pick it up already.

No I have one happy and one sad eye...

Car For Sale

In my lunch break, I put my car out for sale.
If you know anyone who may be interested in an Audi TT TDI (in Switzerland), send them to Autoscout24.

Time to say goodbye to the best ride ever...