The football madness has started...

HOW cool is it, to first be surrounded by 80.000 Portuguese, watching them win the game against Turkey on a huge screen, and to be in a crazy party like they already won the European cup.

And then, two days later, to be in front of this huge screen again with 50.000 others, of whom at least 99% is Italian, and to hear – after the referee ends the game – nothing but …………… silence ……………… And 100 crazy Dutch jumping around!

It’s amazing to be in Geneva during Euro2008!

But let’s start at the beginning of last weekend… After a 1.5 hour delay (Stockholm flashback…), Celso arrived last Friday in Geneva. And he wasn’t the only Portuguese… while I was waiting at the airport, I saw an enormous amount of Portuguese flags, shirts and scarves passing by, and this was also noticeable the next day in Geneva itself. It seemed like we were together for a weekend in Portugal in stead of in Switzerland! I knew that the Portuguese community was big in Geneva, but I wasn’t expecting this …

Anyway, the next day we went at 3 ‘o clock to Plainpalais, the place to be in Geneva during this Eurocup. There are two huge screens, 130.000 persons can enter this zone, the Swiss national television is having reporters all around and during the breaks in between the first and second half, they always present and evaluate the game out of a press tower standing on this huge square.

We watched the opening of the European, we enjoyed our own national beers, saw the Swiss loosing and then, at 20:45, the Portuguese chaos started… Was pretty impressive to be in the middle of a huge Portuguese crowd singing the anthem, and going completely crazy after scoring a goal!

After being at this ‘Fanzone’ for eight hours (!), we went back home and until 2 am we still heard cars beeping and Portuguese shouting…

The next day was a touristy day in Geneva. We went around on our rented bikes again (although during most parts we were also walking because Celso managed to get a flat tire…), and just relaxed and enjoyed Switzerland.

Unfortunately Celso had to leave the next morning at a non-human friendly hour (4 am…), so during the rest of my Monday I was pretty tired. But… not tired enough to call back Brussels! So the story in short:

It was the Human Resources/External Relations department who got in contact with me. They were looking for a trainee who wanted to work on a project concerning sickness insurances, and they had called me to see whether I would be interested or not. Well, I did my best to convince them in all possible ways that I would be the perfect person for this traineeship, but it is still depending on some factors whether I will get the position or not. First of all, they contacted 4 others besides me, plus it is still the question if this spot will really become a true traineeship. Because Mid July the department heads will decide if the proposed positions will indeed get the possibility to hire trainees yes or no.

So… Brussels has called and at least one department is so far interested in my profile. But again, all I can do now is nothing but waiting, waiting and waiting.

Pretty frustrating...

xY