MMO Zoom Social Hour (Zurich Edition)

Hi everyone, 

Our Zoom Social Hour gatherings have been so successful, let's try a weekend morning to try to include some folks who have been busy on Monday nights – including our member Tiffany Senkow, who recently moved from Minnesota to Zurich, Switzerland to start her post-doctorate career. Please tune in on Sunday morning, April 25 at 10:00am. (It'll be seven hours ahead, 5:00pm in Zurich: brunch time for us, happy hour for Tiffany.)

Here's the link and dial-in information:

Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83726935842?pwd=OWtKNXZkVjgySFAzbDY1VHZoK2tNdz09
Dial in: +1 312 626 6799
Meeting ID: 837 2693 5842
Passcode: 514230

Here's an email from Tiffany on Monday about her resettlement in Switzerland, which will be interesting to hear more about:

****
I won't be able to go to the Zoom happy hour tonight...it's the middle of the night for me, but I wanted to give you (and the group) an update.  Say hi to the orchestra tonight for me!

I found the Mandolin Orchestra Zurich and went for the first time last week.  There were only four other people (Covid limitations), but I had a  blast!  They speak local Schweizerdeutsch (Swiss German that is completely different from "normal" high German) and found my attempts to speak with them in my beginner German entertaining.

They played a combination of classical and contemporary music (unfortunately, no Beatles ).  There was only one new song for them; the others were from their program from last year.  True to self, I came completely unprepared (I honestly don't even know where to go to print things here!) and enjoyed sightreading the tunes.  The songs were more difficult than MMO, but the orchestra has been playing them longer.  They all play beautiful bowlbacks (including mandola) and were surprised that I didn't have the "American" style instrument.

There is also a Swiss mandolin orchestra with members from all over the country that meets for a concert a few times a year.  I signed up for it but am not sure whether I will participate this spring or wait until the fall when things are more open.

In other news, I finally got a job here!  I will be a Project Coordinator for Wyss Zurich, an accelerator (i.e. startup assistant) that works with the two universities in the city to help translate projects to commercial products and therapies in the fields of robotics and regenerative medicine.  I officially start on Thursday but went in last week to ensure that I am all set to work from home.  My coworkers are fantastic, and I'm really excited to learn about all the projects (about a dozen)!

Switzerland is really slow on vaccine rollout, but I'm registered to get my first dose next week - the perks of being a heart patient, I guess 🤷‍♀️?

And finally, I'm following the news about the trial for and the new human rights violations in Minneapolis and just want to say that I'm thinking about the whole community and would love to learn about any way that I can help.

Best,
Tiffany
****


I hope to see you on Sunday! 

Allison Eklund