Lugano

Another small town we went into was lugano. It is the Italian-speaking part of switzerland and thus all the signs were in italian but with swiss flag.

The station is on the hill, so in order to go down and around we need to walk down through the city center. But it was a pleasant walk because the city center has a typical medieval pavement.

At the end of the walk there was the lugano lake. The lake brought about the feeling of calmness and freshness as it is surrounded by mountains.

Luzern

The next part of the trip was luzern, a small town easily reachable from zurich. The town as pretty with a river flowing across it. I like the river because it is green in color and not brown like in the big cities. Also the place is surrounded by mountains, so it feels closer to nature.

As with swiss cities, the houses are painted in a light colors giving extra feeling of brightness. And since we visited during summer, the flowers were blooming adding the richness in color.

One thing that is supposed to be famous was the dying lion carving on the wall, I couldn't remember why. I find it more enjoyable to going around the city and the rivers.

Desert Chapter: Rivers in the Desert

And here's the favor of God, that I was given a new, better job, even in the middle of a recession. And here is the story.

In the middle of November, I applied to a company in London. I hesitated at first, because they said the starting date was in April, which I thought was a bit too long, but I applied anyway. I was invited for a technical test. Unfortunately, I did not score well in the test and the company said they won't be proceeding with my application. Another rejection email, I thought.

Around mid December, the same company contacted me again with the prospect of doing another test, and so I did. They did not give me any immediate feedback. And so the Christmas and new year week passed without any news from the company.

Curious I asked the company, early second week of January. I got a reply only after one week. That was ten days before my scheduled departure for Singapore. They asked me for a convenient time for a phone interview. I told them about my flight schedule and asked them to arrange interviews withing one week if possible.

I did the phone interview on the same day, with an hour notice. Without much preparation, I think I didn't do very well on some of the technical questions. Still, they invited me for a second interview in their offices, in a week's time.

At this point, I had no other pending application and was preparing to give up my job search here. But I thought, I will also prepare well for this interview so that I can fly back without any regrets. The interview went well and I was offered a job the next day in financial software development. That was two days before my scheduled flight. Also, somehow they changed the start date, so instead of April, I started in February, just a week after accepting their offer.

I believe it's God's way of saying that he could still do a miracle in the last hour. Also that in times when my abilities failed and my confidence plummeted, God could still give his grace to save the day.

Desert Chapter: Letting Go

As I went through the dry land. It became more and more challenging. The winter nights grew colder and longer. The media brought about daily news about more job cuts and bankruptcy. Rejection notice came one after another. And so the confidence that I had initially of getting work in the UK faded along.

I came to a point when I thought that maybe I should go back to Singapore, where it is relatively easier to look for work. Not that the economy is unaffected, but because I still had permanent residence status there. I looked at my remaining pending application and booked a one-way ticket back to Singapore.

I started to think perhaps God had wanted me to go back and that's why I did not get anything in the UK. I was letting go of my dream to work here. A week into my flight date, I had no pending interviews, 1 passed test and 8 failed interviews. I was at peace then with the thought of going back to Singapore for good, when God shown me his favor.

Zurich

The next segment of the summer trip was to Switzerland. We went to Zurich on the east side. Geographically, the city is not far from Trento, but due to the mountains, the trip involved a detour south to Milan before going north again to Zurich.

For the trip, we booked a cisalpino train which reduces the impact when turning. This is helpful when we had to go through the mountain trail track.

Things are really expensive here, much more than in Trento, although the Swiss Franc is not as strong as Euro. I guess people here really earn a lot. One plus side was that we did not need to spend on city transport since we can hire a bike free of charge as a facility provided by the town council.

The city consists of two parts, the old town area which contains historic buildings and the modern part which has all the shops and financial center. I very much like the old town, which is beautifully crossed by a blue-green river.

Another thing that I like is the buildings. In particular, the variety of light colored building which brings about a sense of peace. This is the opposite of the dark colored building more dominant in UK. I wonder why.

Vienna (2)

After coming back from Budapest, we spent another night in Vienna. The main highlight of this segment is Schonbrunn Palace.

The palace is located a bit on the side of the city. However, it is easily distinguishable by its massive size. In particular, it has a huge garden which may be comparable to the one at Versailles.

We took a guided tour of the palace, and it was good, but we weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the palace. I think the interior is not much different than other palaces in Europe, filled with furnitures for luxurious living.

Around the garden there are mazes with walls of plants It took us a few minutes to find our way out, but it was fun. There's the kids section as well, splashing water, etc.

At the end of the garden there is a hill, which allows wide panoramic view of the palace. Thankfully, the weather was excellent then and we could get the most out of it, well, despite the summer heat.

Desert Chapter: Overcoming Complacency

There were two things which made me think about being complacent in my life. The first one was when a company asked me to do a Java test as a response to my application. I was quite confident with my skills in Java since I had a near-perfect score for Sun certification two years back. However, it did not turned out the way I expected. The test covered a wider range than Sun certification. Worse still, I messed up some fundamental questions which I would have answered well last time. So, I failed the test.

The second thing was an interview. As an opening question the interviewer was asking on what I was doing at the moment. To which I blurted out that I was looking for work. After the interview, I realised that I was effectively saying that I was doing nothing while looking for work. I did not get a second interview with that company.

All these made me realise that I was being complacent. I have replaced the desire to learn new things with past achievement I could put in my resume. And that is not a good thing for long term because of the dynamic nature of technology and also the technical atrophy that results from not using some technologies.

At this I decided to make use of the time to refresh my knowledge and learn new things so that at least my CV does not get outdated due to my rustiness. This realisation is another thing I find valuable from this desert experience.