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Living in Leiden, The Netherlands
July 28th, 2008 (Last Updated August 3rd,2008)
The big news of late is that Marloes and I moved to Leiden, The Netherlands after eight years in San Francisco, California. We are sorry to say farewell to the Bay Area, but the winds of change were sounding. We put some stuff in storage and sent essentials to Holland. At this point we are moved-in to our new apartment. We are living in a well-known historic neighborhood on a picturesque canal, Rapenburg (see above view from our door). Click here for a lovely panoramic view of the canal up the street from our place.
One, perhaps overly-romantic and self-indulgent but none-the-less real, connection I feel with my new neighborhood is that the original Pilgrims, they that founded what was regarded as the first colony in America, Plymouth circa 1620, lived prior to this epic transmigration right around the corner from my current apartment. After decamping from British religious persecution (the Pilgrims, not me), the Pilgrim Puritans lived in Leiden for a number of years, a brief history of which can be perused here. In any case, my great-grandfather, Byron Bussy, did all the genealogy work to trace our family bloodline to one of the Pilgrims. Thus, I feel oddly returned to my Pilgrim ancestor, back in Holland!
Lastly, it was impressed upon me that Rapenburg is well-known in Holland for being the former address of the Prince, and future King, of Holland, Willem-Alexander, when he was a student at Leiden University. In any case, it is a lovely neighborhood and the folks are very friendly.
| There are a number of lovely storybook elements to the city: windmills, historic churches, etc. Cafe Barrera, pictured at right, is a well-known classic cafe / bar. Aside from being very friendly to Lucky, the cafe was once featured in Paul Verhoeven's Dutch classic 'Soldaat van Oranje' (Soldier of Orange) starring Rutger Hauer and Jeroen Krabbe (my favorite Dutch actor). Incidentally, while 'Soldaat' can be viewed in its historical context as post-war reconstruction propaganda (i.e.: heroic image building of resistance to wartime German occupation), Verhoeven's recent 'Black Book' is a much more nuanced examination of wartime Holland, exploring the gray moral swamp of war, where heroes and villains do not come with neat nametags and may exchange one uniform for another with ease. In any case, I digress sloppily... |
Leiden's famous Cafe Barrera
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The timing for leaving San Francisco and my employer ended up being quite fortuitous, as said employer, Genentech Inc., has just been 'invited' to be fully bought-out by its distant majority stakeholder, Swiss pharmaceutical giant, Roche. Needless to say, this will bring about many changes to Genentech. During my time there, from 2000 -2008, the company grew from 2500 to over 10,000 employees (20,000 including contractors and contingent workforce). It is worth to comment that the company became more and more 'corporate' in culture and attitude over this growth period, so the Roche 'bear hug' will actually not see immense cultural changes compared to the changes Genentech already inflicted on itself.
In any case, following focusing of my career path I set in motion several years ago, I will be studying towards a Masters of Finance at the Erasmus Rotterdam School of Management. The RSM MFM programme is quite international in focus, with a great proportion of the students coming from outside the North American and European zones. I'm looking forward to networking with a broad international community. It is my stance that US nationals need to look outwards, towards partnering internationally. During my one year study, I will be focusing on industrial biotechnology finance, with an emphasis on entrepreneurial financial concerns.
Van Der Werf Park
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