Well hello there!

I have now been in Basel for 3 days and I'm absolutely loving it! I am working for a company called Roche in the Molecular Medicines Labs. I am just shadowing the researchers there for the moment and hopefully i will move onto something on my own as the weeks progress.

After a very early start, 6am on a saterday never looked so bleak i was on my way to london to catch my flight to Basel, there was a slight delay on the runway but we made it up in the air and actually arrived early. I was met at the airport by Patricia Mclouglin who is head of the department and will be looking after me for the next couple of weeks. She took me to my flat which is nice enough, it has a double bed, a kitchen, bathroom a laundry and of course a nuclear bunker in the basement, so nothing out of the ordinary! She then offered to show me where i will be working and it is only a 5 minute walk away so i don't have to get up too early. We then went into town which is also a 5 minute walk from where I am staying and she took me around the sights and the bars which allowed me to get my baring a bit and gave me a feel for the city. She then invited me out for drinks in the evening with some of her friends which was really nice and i got to know some of the people i will be working with in the coming weeks, i also met the people who are working on the swine flu jabs, well i think i did but they may have been joking :s.

I just wandered around the town on the Sunday and walked down the river, the surrounding landscape is beautiful and i cant wait until i can explore it. I just had a coffee by the Rhine and got an early night for the first day of work the next day.

My first day went really well i was introduced to everybody in the department which took the best part of an hour and i was shown around the building i will be working in, it is huge and the whole site looks more like a factory on the outside with all the pipes, and the machinery driving about! I was then introduced to the lab where i will be working for the next two weeks, there are 4 labs in the department so i will be with each one for 2 weeks. I was given a wee introduction to what they do there and what i will be doing. It seems really interesting and i cant wait to get started! I will be working with Michelle a French man who is really nice we just had a wee chat and went for lunch, and in the afternoon we done some work just preparing different samples for tests which we will be doing on Wednesday. Everybody is very friendly and is very willing to help if you ever have a problem which is really reassuring, and they all try to speak English even if they are not confident in speaking it which is really nice and makes me feel at home!

Today was quite fun, Michelle has taken the day off because it is Bastille day and he still lives in France so i was given some reading to do on what I will be doing for the next week, there was a lot to lear but i managed to get my head around it. Also the Leader of the American arm of the Molecular Medicines Labs which are based in a number of locations in America is over for some meetings with Patricia so i was quite honored to meet him, also the labs are going out for a meal tonight with him so it should be a good opportunity to meet everybody and get to know them a bit better.

You may be wandering about the title of the blog and why i feel like a millionaire, well it is because i opened my swizz bank account today so i am feeling slightly James Bond, well except I am not a secret agent (or am i???) and I am not rich, still its pretty cool. so i better get ready for the dinner but i shall report back soon, and don't worry i am still looking out for Roger Federer but no sightings yet, i did meet someone who walked past him once.