Bubbles the Kitten

Please always double check your laundry before putting it into the machine: Things can go wrong. By the way: There lives a cat named "Billy Idol" (it's a she-cat) in the same household here. She'll be introduced here later. Didn't see much of her yet as she's strolling around the streets at the moment.

16°degrees Celsius / Partly cloudy

The flight was calm, the cheese sandwich cold and chippy. After an hour and 25 minutes, we touched down one minute ahead schedule at the little London City Airport on the east end of London. A cab brought me and my 30kg suitcase (7 kg overweight!) to my flat for a 20 quid.

Shortly after arriving at home, I went off for my first shopping trip at the local Tesco market, where I covered myself with spaghetti and stir-in sauce in all various flavours for the next couple of days.

Stir-in sauces are a very clever invention. As you certainly have guessed, you simply stir-in the sauce in your freshly cooked noodles and you kill three birds with one stone: there's no need to warm up the sauce, there's no need to wait for the noodles to cool down and best of all, there's no need to give a wash to an additional pan. Perfect! Find soon the results of this amazing invention on this weblog.

In the evening, I got invented for dinner at a friend's house. We studied together in Bern six years ago and he just moved to London three days earlier than me - for good.

Guess what we had for dinner: Spaghetti and Basilico-Stir-In-Sauce!

PS: No need to worry, Mum, I left the British "minced beef sauce" out.

Mooh-vies...!

Well, just got my blog video-ready! There's a nice site, that helps you getting your videos embedded on a website. I just tried it out, and have a look, it seems to work!

These are cows from a place called "Appenzell" by the way.

Getting out

Getting out of Switzerland is quite a thing to do. Here's a small "how2 get out of Switzerland", a cookbook for all the folks out there, that need this. BTW, it only applies to emmigrations, that take longer than six months.


Needs:
- 1x an address in Switzerland that could take over correspondence for you while you are abroad
- "Krankenkasse Contracts"
- "Lohnausweise"
- anything you need to confirm the substractions from the "Steuererklärung"
- money to pay your taxes

1.) Throw away all the stuff you don't need anymore.

2.) Go to the authorities, take the "Steuererklärung" and all the stuff associated with that with you. You will have to pay your taxes, otherwise they won't give you the emigration confirmation, which you need to cancel contracts. (Krankenkasse, telephone, Internet, flat) Bring the money in cash.

3.) Check if you passport and ID is valid as long as you stay abroad.

4.) Check if you can keep some of the "Zusatzversicherungen" at the "Krankenkasse". Some Krankenkassen like CSS for example even offer international insurance. (www.ihp.ch) Depending on where you're going it might be worth contracting this.

5.) If you've been in the army: Get rid of your Swiss Army stuff. You will have to bring it to the "Zeughaus", where they will check, if it's complete. If you got stuff missing, you would have to pay for it.

6.) Depending on which country you're going, check if you are able to keep paying for the "AHV". It's worth it, since you would get less money once pensioned, if you have missing AHV contributions.

Well, I just returned my Swiss Army stuff this morning, so I guess, I am ready to take off. You will soon read here, how to get settled in the UK.

Good Bye Stationsstrasse

Stationsstrasse
Originally uploaded by christoph b..

This weekend, I've been cleaning up my room, throwing away all the garbage, painting the walls. Katia, my Mom and Theus helped me on that, which I am very greatful for. After 6 years at the Stationsstrasse, time has come to sally forth to new borders, face new challenges and broaden the horizon.


Living at the Stationsstrasse was quite an experience. Keeping household quite a challenge. But in the end, we all got along. We kept our mess within our rooms. The neighbourhood has always been an interesting folks. From Ferrari driving pimps, wannabe-red-indians, insomnious students, wat-po-massage-thais over to portuguese barbers, african fish-cookers and an evil bicycle shop.


The Stationsstrasse will remain in my memories as a loud, dusty, place with a smelly backyard, a 24/7 gas station (that closed during the millenium change for 15 minutes), cozy dvd-evenings, burning hot summers, student's life and much partying!

My new office

My new office
Originally uploaded by christoph b..

This is going to be the office I will be working the next two years. We are about 10 people working in this office in the business district of London.

On the right hand side, you see my suitcase that got lost last Sunday, when I arrived. Fortunately they found it again and they send it to my hotel. Luckily, I had all important accessories in my handcarry.

To my love

This blog is dedicated to my beloved girlfriend Katia. I am greatful for every moment we share and I truly love you from the bottom of my heart. It is going to be a tough time, being that far apart, but we will not miss any chance to see each other. Fortunately, flights to London and Zurich have become cheap (e.g. on www.swiss.com). Big hug!

Taxes

Taxes
Originally uploaded by cburgdorfer.

Today, I started filling out my tax form. Well, actually we were supposed to submit it by the end of March, but since I never felt like filling out the form, I postponed that task. Fortunately I extended the deadline for September, so there's still plenty of time. But I have to get that done before I leave Switzerland.

The picture shows the tax authorities' building here in Z�rich.

Directions

My new address will be:

Christoph Burgdorfer
Basement Flat
76 Bonner Road
London E2 9JU

Travelling in London can be a pain. Especially during rush hours. I was lucky enough to get a residence less than 2 miles from my office away. Check it out. The purple mark will be my way to the office.

Great Britain reloaded

P6070194
Originally uploaded by cburgdorfer.

This is not the first time for me to be in Britain. In 2003, I've spent 6 months in Birmingham, UK, working for a design consultancy named "clusta" (www.clusta.com).

Being in Britain is always a very exciting experience. Not only for me, but also for all readers of this weblog. You will see.

Hyde Park

P6070143
Originally uploaded by cburgdorfer.

How idyllic London can be.

Welcome to the LondonLog

As you may know, I am about to leave to London. I decided to extend my studies for another two years, hopefully resulting in achieving a Master degree in Master of Art.

I am about to attend my studies at the Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication (www.rave.ac.uk) - the Postgraduate course "Networked Media Environments" to be more precise.

Hello World!

A new blog has been born.