What a week

Or actually....make that two. Work has been crazy busy, as I was a panelist on a CEO conference this week and obviously wanted to come across well. So it was a crash course in insurance regulation and Fintech in the region. In general, I get the feeling the pace here is high (if only the pace on the pavements would mirror that....). It really feels like a very modern 24/7 economy, despite the archaic banking system (more on that later).

So my past two weeks were pretty much spent working, sleeping and eating, weekend (mostly) excluded. Glad Wilko isn't working yet as he has done loads to prepare our move to a permanent apartment. YES! We signed a contract! It's a large three bedroom, two bathroom in West Kowloon, with a decent sized kitchen (an exception here) and storage room (as we don't have a maid, also the main reason for the tiny kitchens). The place has an indoor and outdoor pool and a gym and a couple of facilities we probably won't use. Disappointed looks when we read we actually have to pay about €40 a month each for the outdoor pool and that guests aren't allowed there (I'm sure we can find a way around that....), but happy with it nonetheless. Infinity pool with views of the Hong Kong skyline, guess that's worth a few bucks. Our days of furniture shopping are almost over. We ordered a sofa, armchair and ottoman at a store in Sheung Wan, are picking up a tv-thing and dining table from other expats this weekend and will do another Ikea visit to order a wardrobe, bookshelves and the likes. Thursday our stuff from Holland will be moved into the new place. After living out of suitcases pretty much since mid December, I cannot wait.

Back to work. People generally come in late here. When I get in at 8 in the morning, a French guy is always there already, but that's it. People also stay pretty late I think but I aim to be out by 6pm and just work from home if I need to finish stuff. Ten hours in an office is enough.... Lunch is like in London, people eat at their desks. Just like when I lived in London, I miss the lunches with the team, it's a good way to get to know your colleagues better and it's nice to not talk about work for half an hour mid day. Then again, few Dutch canteens can beat the quality of Hong Kong food. Another difference with modern Dutch offices: every floor has a coffee lady, who washes the mugs every morning and brings the partners coffee as soon as they come in. Ours is a super friendly lady, it's nice to have someone like her in the office. And labour is cheap here, so it's nothing extravagant.

Then banks. What a bloody nightmare. Think I visit Citi twice a week at the moment. Everyone is friendly but everyone seems to have their own processes and rules and systems aren't integrated. First we couldn't open a joint account without W having proof of address, two weeks later it was no problem at all. My credit card application got rejected because 'they couldn't find me'. When I applied for it, we only had one HK number and that was W's. So we gave the bank that. A week later I got my own number and walked into Citi to provide them with it, but the credit card people use a different system and only had W's number. Long story short: I applied again yesterday and hope for a smoother process this time. But we're getting there. We are the proud owners of three cheque books between us, two ATM cards, and five accounts. And it only took about 38 signatures for me to get all of that. Easy peasy....

So let's see what the next weeks bring. A move and a visit to Singapore for sure, looking forward to both!

New job

It's been a hectic month. Shortly after Barcelona I went to Frankfurt for work, wrapped up a project, and organised a client seminar at our offices. And I changed jobs. Pfew. Having had doubts about my old business unit since March or so, I still thought I should give it a go. But three months into it I realised it wasn't going to happen. So I graciously accepted the offer one of our actuarial partners made me earlier this year, and I joined the actuaries. As a non quant, I constantly feel like the least clever person around, but love the focus my work now has, and kinda feel at home in geek town. A week and a half into it, it's a bit early to say for sure, but I think it's been the right move. Everyone's more serious but super friendly. And it's amazing how much work you get done in the office if you're not mucking about half the time!

Back in Blighty

Big Ben, a photo by Gypsy Saskia on Flickr.

It had been two months when I landed at City Airport on Thursday evening. Two months of missing London terribly. And it was good to be back. As soon as I got on the DLR this big grin appeared on my face and it didn't leave it all weekend (well it did briefly but I'll get to that later). Reason for the visit was my friend Heather's farewell drinks as she is moving back to New York. It was lovely to be back in The Hide, have a chilli raspberry martini and catch up with colleagues. For the rest of the weekend, brekkies, lunches and dinners were planned. I saw many friends, ate fantastic food, and managed to do some shopping as well. Heels from LK Bennett, tea and granola from Waitrose, books from Waterstones and bits and bobs from Boots. I visited Nero and Pret at least twice a day, reading the papers on my iPad while people watching.

The only 'minor' glitch was the fact I showed up at City Airport for a flight out of Heathrow. Oops. Expensive 'oops' too.... Hopefully a mistake I will never make again. But even after leaving the UK a few hours later and many a pound lighter because of this, I can look back on a fantastic weekend in the city where I'm at my happiest.

Settling in

I could write blogs and blogs about things I don't like at the moment. Settling back in is tougher than I thought it'd be. Work culture is different (fewer laughs, more hierarchy), the people act differently (Dutch men don't do courteousness), and don't get me started about supermarkets and canteen lunches. But let's not write about that. It would only make me more miserable. I try and focus on the things that are fun in this place.

Like Lindenhoff. Major Dutch supermarket chains don't do organic/local food very well, but there are alternatives. One is Marqt, a local supermarket chain that really really really should open a branch near me. Another one is Lindenhoff, a farm that's a 30 minute drive from the Dam. It's proper countryside. People ooh and aah at the (very cute) piglets, knowing they'll be bacon when they're old enough. Having had a decent life, by then. The farm shed hosts a little shop where the farm's meat is sold, as well as cheeses and veg from all over the country and sometimes abroad. There are about 10 types of cheese you can sample (and guess what....) as well as a few wines (I was driving and decided not to go near those). The one thing that makes me very happy is the sight of heirloom tomatoes. I can't explain. They don't taste *that* different. But I have a thing for the purple, green and yellow beauties. So tomato salad it is tonight. With a lamb merguez and some broad beans. Yum.

Oh, and another thing that makes me happy every morning and every night is the view from my bed room. It can't get much better than this. The pic doesn't do it justice, but he ho.

Next stop: Hong Kong

View from The Peak, a photo by Gypsy Saskia on Flickr.

I barely recovered from my US jetlag (which felt like a three day hangover but without the booze), or I am packing for Honkers. A short work trip, with the added benefit of meeting a friend from Sing for dinner tomorrow, as she will also be at the meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. And if my action list is not too urgent, I may be able to wing a few free hours on Wednesday to take in the smells and sights of this cool city. No shopping allowed under any circumstances...

Sun sun sun

My first easter in London was wet and grey, if I remember well. And though the weather is generally better here than in the Dam, of course that weekend it wasn't. The second year I planned to go away, until a friend anounced he'd celebrate his 30th that weekend and hope we'd stay in town. Bastard then decided to stay in Peru for a bit and Easter weekend turned out wet and grey with no friends in town. So this year I planned to go away once more. Until friend Gorkem suggested a visit, and I decided to stay. And third time lucky: what a glorious weekend. Ridiculously warm for the time of the year.

Poor GG had to spend Saturday by himself as I'd gotten sick on Friday night and couldn't move, but luckily I was alive and kicking on Sunday. Brick Lane, Shoreditch, Spitalfields, via the empty City to London Bridge and the boat back to the Wharf. A perfect Sunday. Monday was spent walking from my place to Tate Modern, with a lunch break at Dim T in front of my office (new office, I may add, in the most amazing location, I can see Tower Bridge from my desk!). And off GG went again. A weekend with a fab friend, in the sun, after a few stressful weeks at work was just perfect. Glad I stayed!

Movember

It's that time of the year when more and more 'taches pop up around me. At work, quite a few men have started to grow a moustache. The reason? Movember. The month when men grow 'taches to support prostate cancer research. A bit like October is breast cancer awareness month for women. With one massive difference: men take the Mickey out of themselves by looking silly. For women, it's all about having fun and doing pink things in the name of breast cancer awareness. Every year, that annoys me more. I prefer the men's style. Hands down. A month of looking stupid, and reminding everyone who sees you of the importance of prostate cancer research. Bring on the mo's!

Busy bee

Working on a proposition for our Insurance clients, supporting two partners in bringing Finance practitioners across the globe together, working on a big proposal for Singapore (gotta love time differences....) and a two day conference in Zurich. That's been pretty much all I've been doing in the past two weeks, bar a few gym visits. So this weekend is all about not working. I nearly killed myself in the latin dance class in the gym tonight, watched Broken Embraces, and had a few glasses of vino. The weekend has officially begun, thank the lord!

Dutschj

My boss is a bit of a muppet. In the nicest possible way. A good guy who likes his cricket and football and once admitted feeling a bit uncomfortable a Dutch, and a female Dutch at that, was so into cricket. I thought that was kinda cute. Recently, he has started copying a colleague, who has schpoken to me like disch sinsch I joined the firm. Assuming that is how the Dutch generally pronounce their english. Boss takes the effort to put it into writing though, especially when the Dutch guard is doing the London-Reading shift on his train home. Below the email he sent me last nite.

"Itsch Friday scho itsch de Dutch guard on de train to Reading. He hasch jusch announsched that I can't usche my perschonal schteeeeerio in the quiet car.

Schoot - I wasch hoping to lischten to schome tunesch

Have a good weekend - can we speak Mon re this survey thing?

Doidoi.......however you spell it!"

It had me in stitches. The doidoi is the result of me once ending a phone call with my Dutch boss with the words 'doeidoei'. English boss has been using it every time he sees me since. Men truly are just big kids!

Skin OD

After my last project, I got the feedback that I was very lifestyly (yes, I know that is not a word) and too much of a fashionista (the latter says everything about the person who said it and very little about me). Fair enough. Had said person told me while I was still on the project, I would have worn a suit a bit more. As it were, I was wearing 3/4 black trousers and red patent heels on a regular basis.

What I wasn't wearing, were short skirts and low cut tops. Each to their own, but I don't think it's particularly suitable in an office environment. Clearly, many of the female staff of a London company I visited this week, think differently. Half of them could have gone clubbing straight from work. F*ck me heels, cleavage, short dresses, the works. Only the sparkles were missing. It does make me wonder....if I get hugely distracted by staring into someone's cleavage during a meeting, how must the men that were present have felt? Surely 3/4 black trousers and red patent heels would have been less distractive?

One of those Mondays

A quiet weekend, and still I woke up feeling not so great. Not ill. Just not so great. I must be coming down with a cold not-so-great. Not ready to go to work not-so-great. And on Mondays with no meetings in my calendar, the solution is easy. So I dropped my bosses a note that I'd be working from home today fighting off a cold.

WFH Mondays are great. I can look like a slob all day in my dressing gown or track suit. Hair is a mess, no make up. Cups of builders tea. Nice lattes. Loads of time for brekkie so I have yogurt with fresh mango, apple and blueberries. I watch the BBC breakfast news, which is not so newsy at all as they have all sorts of actors dropping by promoting their plays and films, while answering emails. I will spend the rest of the day ticking all the things off my to do list and be hugely productive, until it is almost six o'clock, by which I race to the gym for my pilates class assuming I feel all right.

Come Tuesday morning, I will be all relaxed, all prepared, and hopefully cold-free. And ready to face the world, the colleagues, and the office.

Cape Town update

Camps Bay lunch
Originally uploaded by Gypsy Saskia

Time for an update. Between sleeping, working and eating, there is very little time for anything else. Not that we work ridiculous hours, 10 a day on average, but eating out every day is a time consuming activity. Waistline would be at serious risk if it weren't for all the seafood here. I pretty much eat it every night, staying clear of pasta's, chips and steaks and the likes. Southafricans don't seem keen on their veg, but the Kauai (a health food chain) on client's site does good salads to contribute to our five a day. Hopefully it won't be long until we can move into our apartments (key requests: NO sharing, internet and gym or pool) and can start cooking healthy meals ourselves.

European team is still great. We get along really well, which is pretty key when spending so much time together! We share meals, spa visits and frustrations after hours and buy each other lunch and coffees during the day. The floor we have at the client is huge and old but functional. One of the meeting rooms is our control centre. Two walls have been turned into massive grids of months and work flows and post it notes in all colours specify what team is doing what and when. Our morning prayers are held there too, just to make sure we will never lose sight of our deliverables! For relo's who worry I have gone all religous within a week: morning prayers are 30 minute team catch ups where we share issues and tasks of the day to be able to supplement each other as much as possible.

Friday a week I will fly back to old blighty for a week, before heading back to Cape Town. Three weeks later, I will do that again. Two twelve hour flights a month. That's a lot of airmiles!

Cape Town day 4

From the moment we met in the BA lounge, we were a team. Over the past three days we looked after each other, car pooled together, had dinner together and developed in-jokes. Last night a Dutch colleague joined and from today, the team will include her. Regardless of what we work on, we're in it together. It's good. Today we plan to go up Table Mountain and do sundowners on Camps Bay. Good food and good cocktails are the main goal I believe.

It's nice to wake up to blue sky every morning and see the big flat mountain from the brekkie room. It's utterly confusing to read dutchish all the time, and I am starting to mix up my languages big time. I also wonder if I never took the lift last time I was here. It's called a hijser, and I'm sure I didn't know that. Few things to get used to as well: condoms in the ladies at work. Being served by black people wherever you go (just when I'd started to get used to being served by Eastern European girls in London). And a cheerfullness around me I am not used to. This will be a good few weeks.

Cape Town

My job can be a weird one. On Monday morning I interviewed with our Southafrican client (from Mary's place in the Dam, on 5 hours sleep and no coffee) and on Tuesday night I was on a plane to Cape Town. After having effed up the dry run interview, my directors were really worried but the one that counted went well. Maybe I should deprive myself of coffee more often....

So.... BA business class. Nice. My own little pod with loads of privacy and a flat bed. Two of us weren't so lucky: they were bumped down to Economy. Thank god I wasn't as we got in at 8am and were in the office by nine. At least I had rested well.

In the office, I introduced myself to a Southafrican colleague by first name only. A lady standing next to me turns around and says "Saskia? I believe you know my husband". I gave her a puzzled stare. She was right though, I do know her husband, who I met when working in Amsterdam. How on earth she put one and one together that quickly this morning? Beats me. Very funny though.

We had a solid day of work both in the office and on site. Good team, good energy. I ended up being team leader despite being the most junior on the team. Feel flattered, but it will be challenging. Irish sr mngr and I instantly bonded at Heathrow over a mutual love of gin tonic (that wasn't available in the lounge) and quickly polished off a bottle of Syrah over dinner just now. Oh, the Irish...

More updates soon. Time for a decent sleep first!

Work

Work work work work work. Life is boring at the moment...

Beer goggles ;-)

Beer goggles ;-)
Originally uploaded by Gypsy Saskia

An appropriate blurriness. This was beer one though, and the photographer was still fully sober.

With the yank bank team I went to the Great British Beer Festival last night. Never really having looked beyond lager, I had come to the conclusion British beer sucks. How wrong I was.

450 ales, stouts and bitters could be tasted at this festival. Leave it to a bunch of accountants to quickly do the math and come to the conclusion that's 450 1/3 pints at the minimum, so 150 pints in four days. Totalling about £ 400. An achievement. We tried six or so, and I really liked the ales. Light, dark, bitter, fresh, they were mostly nice and properly cold (as opposed to the lukewarm lagers). Great way to spend a Wednesday night!

Summer life

Summer life to the full, although the weather gods don't always realise it's summer. Leave work at a reasonable time, and go to gym or meet friend for dinner. Or both. That's pretty much been the last weeks. Throw in a bit of comedy and Sondheim's A Little Night Music and you're all up to speed with my life. Nothing exciting, just lots of happiness. Almost done at current client, so will have to brave the rush hour tube again soon. No more fanastic canteen. No more hottie sitting accross my desk. No more walking to the gym straight from work. But first....out for turkish food in Angel tonight with American friend and her Chinese friend. Surely to be followed by cocktails. As it would be wrong not to...

CLM*

Last week had been a bit of an ego boost. A workfriend mentioned how she often hears the phrase 'we need a Saskia' when people are staffing projects and I received - out of the blue - an email from the commercial director of my previous employer stating I was "the one and only finance mgr @UD that knew what she was doing". I am not sure what to make of this man, but a compliment is a compliment. So I had a glass of wine. And another. And I got overconfident. And had another glass. With colleagues, at the wine bar down the road. On a brekkie of fruit and a bagel and a soup for lunch, this is asking for trouble. And despite knowing better, I said 'yes' when my director asked if I wanted to go for dinner with him and a Scottish director I worked with on a previous project. Friday morning at 4am I woke up. Wondering a) what I'd had for dinner, b) if I left when the other two did, c) if I owed anyone any money for the dinner and d) if I'd said or done anything embarassing, which is quite likely considering the state I was in. On four or five glasses of wine, would you believe it. My timing was immaculate - Friday morning the final moderation meeting took place... Ah well, I am not up for promotion and salaries have been frozen anyway. The funniest thing? This morning I had a text from a male colleague. Asking if I could tell him if he'd done anything embarassing. He had no recollection of the night, other than ending up 50 miles from where he lives (which is two hours south of London). At least I got home on the tube without any further probs!

*career limiting movement

Still spring

It's still spring. Only I can't enjoy it properly. My new project is at a big investment bank that went bust in September, and working for the administrator means much pressure, long hours, much politics and many deadlines. I managed to get a quick run and a yoga class in but other than that it was a week full of work. But by Friday 4pm I'd met my target for the week. So there was time for me and Zoe to have a cheap and cheerful Italian dinner in South Kensington before heading to the Royal Albert Hall for a classical concert. Really enjoyed it, even got the hang of singing Rule, Brittania and Land of Hope and Glory.

But back to spring. I can see spring out of the window of the 24th floor I work on. I can actually see the whole of London and the next counties on a clear day. Which when the sky is blue looks very springy. Zoe mentioned the thousands of daffodils in St James Park, so I might get my camera and do a London-in-spring arvo tomorrow. Today I just rest. My head was spinning last night and it won't have been the one glass of red. Will go for a run, do a bit of work that needs done by Monday morning and will watch all three ruggers matches, hoping for Ireland to win its well deserved grand slam. And that's all. Balcony doors are opened to give me the smell of spring without leaving my couch. Sun and longer days, the best thing in the world.

Beetje druk

Work, eat sleep. Work, eat sleep. Work, eat, sleep. Two weeks straight. Trying to stay clear from having to work this weekend. Man, I would so resign if my life was always like this. The upside? Working with a lovely actuary and learning absolute loads. But I'd be happy to get my life back. Sooner rather than later.