started as a blog with pictures shot in and around frankfurt, now more or less a diary of my public life - a good place to outsource part of the chaos that is in my head as self-therapy
I am at the airport waiting for my flight to Vienna. As i died last night, i had to manage working and packing at the same time today. Not so suprisingly didnt manage to finish what i wanted so that i will have to do some work over the coming days. Which is ok as long as i manage to finish before going to the mountains next friday to board the one-and-a-half meters of snow :-) What a december, i dont remember looking forward to atoming (I wanted to say bumming but my mobiles T9 dictionary does not seem to understand me too well and i like atoming somehow ...) at home so much ever. So, enough for today - i dont want to shock you with too much new stuff after such a long break.
After almost 2 months of silence here and some facebook activity I will soon start blogging again. Here is a self-motivating video to help along the way. See you soon!
Just came home after helping Estelle move her stuff to our new place and having a wonderful dinner on Schweizer Strasse. This week has been a very busy one.
I started going through my stuff at home a while ago and this week my little flat reached a state where I was happy to invite people over and show it. After unsuccessfully advertising in the company and the Austrian mailing list (they never sent out my email ...) I entered the details on www.wg-gesucht.de as suggested by Blanca (THANKS!!!) on Tuesday. The stupid thing was that immediately after entering I had to go to the post office to pick up a book I ordered for my parents and I was stupid enough to leave my mobile at home. I had 5 missed calls and 2 messages once I returned and many more called once I arrived at home. In the end I showed the flat to 10 people - most of them wanted it. And as it turns out, they also want my furniture so I will make quite a good deal on it in the end - well, good enough to buy some new stuff for the new flat... We will decide tomorrow who gets it so I hope to close this chapter very soon. I have loved the time spent in my little flat and I will be leaving it happily now that it has been cleaned and my stuff sorted and lot of it thrown away.
I will write about the new flat once I move all my stuff over and will show some pictures soon. Now I have to prepare for the weekend as we go hiking tomorrow and I haven't even packed anything. After that I go to bed as I am tired like hell. I am sooooo tired the most I could achieve at the moment is similar to what is shown on this video. Good night!
Finally a cool movie at the sneak preview!!! And as nobody wanted to go with me, I went alone. The movie is one of the tensest movies I have seen in a long time. Is "tensest" even a word? I am not sure, but what I mean is similar to what happened to me when I watched Match Point and got completely angry. Only this time I stopped breathing for a while, put my fingers in my mouth and started chewing my nails off - which I never do! It kind of starts crazy - you hold your breath for a while then it slows down and then it speeds up. And even as the end of the story is very American / Hollywood style, the last sentence of the movie manages to make you think and summarise the f***ed up situation we are in at the moment.
I absolutely loved the opening credits - I found them on youtube so you can watch them here. Of course I don't know how much of this stuff is true but it is certainly well made.
... to really like it. I just finished watching gladiator and I must admit I enjoyed it a lot. I remember going on the first night it came out in Vienna many years ago to the Haydn cinema and being really disappointed. It starts kind of boring but becomes very passionate and the music is simply amazing. It is interesting to see how soundtracks get re-used as it has the same title melody as pirates of the caribbean - which was shot three years later (Hans Zimmer this time). Plus I guess it influenced also 300 - which just came out last year. Very cool.
What else happened today? I finally checked out facebook and went to the Städel museum. Now I am going to bed to start the week not too tired. It is a strange feeling to have probably spent the last weekend in my current flat.
I am finishing this entry with a video I found on youtube that will only be understood by my Hungarian readers (so basically my parents as my brother never remembers the address of my blog). It's very funny because what happened is that there is a song from Scandinavia that is basically of course not in Hungarian but it can be read in Hungarian in which case it consists of small Hungarian (well, more or less) sentences - of course completely bullshit if read together, but the sentences more or less make sense by themselves. Very funny in a geeky way. Good night!!!
Oops - almost forgot. An orangutan called Sibu prefers tattooed blondes to female orangutans. Read here. No Joke!
The party at Leire's place yesterday was a lots of fun. Excellent food, excellent wine (unfortunately not only excellent but also too much ...) and a lot of old songs. I also managed to push my bike home after the party - which was a real effort with all the wine circulating in my veins. Spent the rest of the day going through my stuff for the move, checking out hotels in Athens and this new tool called twitter.
Now I am going to have a short fiesta before going to 6ixty2 to meet the others. Enjoy the weekend!!!
It's Friday night and I am very much looking forward to the weekend after a busy day. Believe it or not, I did a lot today. Now I am off for a very nice Spanish dinner.
Check out this video - I think it is hilarious - turn up the volume to catch the full impact of the hunt!
No updates in the last month although lot of things have happened - or maybe this is the reason ...
Anyway - I have taken some serious progress toward reaching a borg-like status by purchasing a GPS tracker device so I can start geotagging my life and the pictures I take along.
Also there are some cool new tools on the net that I am playing with - so there might be an update soon...
I am in my hotel room in Basel and have some time to write this update. The weekend was great - the second wedding of Jasmina and Jack was quite a cool experience - I took off Friday as we had to be at the Airport at 12. We used the time waiting at the gate to make some phone calls to some of the flats we have found on immobilienscout24 - and got an appointment for Monday night for our future flat (we didn't know at the time of course). The plane was pretty much delayed half an hour - as expected with Alitalia but other than that no complaints. In Milan we met Alba and flew to Skopje together. There we got passport-checked and could enter the country more or less quickly (Alba and I more, Estelle less) and picked up the luggage of Peter, which Alitalia conveniently lost on their way. We got picked up by a taxi driver, who brought us to the car, let us in, switched on his CD-player with some techno music and we left. It reminded me of a couple of years ago in Hungary when everybody was listening to this kind of music and in the next hours I hinted to the driver that I want that music - but he didn't get it so I didn't get it ... We arrived late around 8 and went for some food, which was very much to my liking. They have a cucumber + tomato + cheese salad that is amazing. I had a kind of cordon bleu in the form of a moon. But first we met Blanca and Maria in their winter outfits, Jack, the sister and Jasmina - all wearing their winter outfits. According to some rumours there was summer only 2 days before than it started to rain and got cold. Yeah, right! After dinner I went to a club with the Spanish group and had a beer called Skopska. The next day we woke up to an absolutely dream scenery - the sun was shining!!! We went on a city tour, met Jack and his dad on the way to the hill and I was back in time to shave, have a giant pizza and get ready for the party. The party was fantastic, starting in Jasminas place in the city and continuing in a monastery 30 km away from Ohrid city - next to the lake and the Albanian border. Great food, great drinks (rakja), great dancing, etc. a perfect wedding party basically. Sunday we went back home - first by car to Skopje, then by plane to Milan, then a quick race through the controls so we would not miss our connection to Frankfurt.
All in all the weekend was totally worth it - even if the travel was quite heavy. Click on the picture below to access all pics - including similar stupid ones inspired by a very nice alcoholic drink called rakja ...
I am back but am very busy as I am going to Basel tomorrow for business. Will only be back on Thursday evening and am going to Brussels on Friday for the weekend. I will upload the pictures from the wedding celebration soon as I find some time. In the meantime another classic moment - I heard this on the radio this morning. Herr Stoiber explains the advantages of the Trans-Rapid for München and the airport. It's in German - don't worry if you don't understand it, it's not your language skills :-)
Just boarded the smallest plane ever (except the one i flew in to stockholm years ago) with 500 denars in my pocket because they only sold shit at the gate. Another country taken off the todo list :-)
We had a nice breakfast today,went to the city for a tonic and some shopping and are now in a big car in direction skopje airport. I wish i could stay here longer in Ohrid - its a beautiful place and it reminds me of hungary.
Going home a bit tired after a great party. I hope the ride is smoother than on the way to the place. There are thousands of stars out there. Good night!
In the car on our way to the church where ze ceremony will take place. The reception at the summer house overlooking the ancient arena was cool. The food good according to the people who had some - i was still busy with the pizza in my belly...
Just came back to the hotel after the city tour. I must say that they really take care of the place. The view at the lake is superb, only a few stray dogs - all in all a cool place, just too bad there is no easy way of coming here (except from amsterdam with some cheap airline as our guide told us). I didnt want to go shopping because I would only buy crap anyway. Except sunglasses - I really need sunglasses! Now i go shave and have lunch after.
The sun is shining! Really! Not only above the sky but everywhere! And the view is beautiful. Beautiful! Estelle says hi. Its a nice contrast to yesterdays weather. Now i go exchange my bedcloth against some proper clothes and go have a huge breakfast! (no lunch planned today - like yesterday actually)
I know i just sent a message and it costs a fortune BUT there is a hole in the clouds and the sun is shining above! I need to figure out how to buy the CD off from the driver later on...
180 kilometer in front of us. Perfect organisation. A taxi just picked us up from the airport in skopje. We are listening to techno music in the car! I forgot that its still in over here. Loving it! Outside its a bit foggy and raining a little. The whole thing reminds me of a scotland weekend, which turned out to be very nice. 110 km/h + 110 bpm = sounds like fun!
Woke up early today. Continued the major cleaning of the flat and felt so great about it that i just jumped on my bike and one and a half hour later i am sitting in an asian beergarden at the gates of hanau. Too bad i did not have breakfast and so i am starving...
I am sitting in the bus to bilbao after a wonderful weekend in san sebastian after being lucky enough to have chosen the best weekend of the summer to come here. The "semana grande" as they call this weekend is pretty cool. No wonder i couldn't find a place to stay! Millions of people, sunshine, a fireworks competition (15 minutes every night) pintxos, waves, free concerts, i don't know where to start and where to finish the list. I was a bit afraid i would find a different city once i came back but i am still in love with life around this place. Friday night we went out with the german mafia of the tandem school, yesterday it was the irish-aussie-bask group. Both nights were great, only yesterdays night got broken off by a bit of rain. Resume: was totally worth coming, meeting old friends and their new friends, boyfriends, etc. To finish with a quote from a great movie: i'll be back!
Perfect flight - perfect landing. Hace frio un poco, pero es no importante... El museo de guggenheim esta a la derecha, san sebastian esta todo recto ... Hasta pronto!
I am at the airport on my way to san sebastian. At least i hope so! Checked in, almost got my ticket when they realised something was wrong. So they printed another ticket and i am on standby. To be continued …
Having the worst headache of my life today. I don't understand why because there was nothing special about yesterday night, except the bottle of Newcastle I had in the Anglo. Maybe I should sleep more. Aaaaanyway - finally had an appointment at the hairdressers. Last time I tested someone new as my regular cutter Xiomy got pregnant and so she is not working there any more. I was not very happy but this time they got it right - so I rode my bike home smiling after running into a Catalan party in the city. The rest of the day was very well spent sleeping most of the time. Ah, yes - plus I booked tickets for a San Sebastian weekend and purchased some stuff from Amazon.
I used my bike for the first time properly. alba invited to "zur sonne" to celebrate her promotion. amazingly she actually managed to be there first - I came second and then Jack. Had a Schnitzel and it was good. But they kicked us out around 11 so we went to Sachsenhausen, where everybody knows your name (for some of us at least ...)
Proper night out, met all who we expected to meet and had fun.
wanted to go to the 2raumwohnung concert in cocoon - but somehow i am working too much again and am very tired. so no concert for lazy me ... (i know - excuses over excuses)
remember the times in high-school when people asked you the time and you looked at your wrist where your watch should have been and answered something along skin hour, hair minutes or It's ... now!? Well now there is a watch you can buy where this is not bullshit any more!
Talking about geeky stuff, here is an interesting article on sex & intelligence. Plus a pretty cool wikipedia explanation of the Tourette Syndrome.
And the best at last - here is a cool geek talking about really cool stuff - with a very geeky laugh. I WANT THIS STUFF!!! Enjoy!
There is a god. Or at least some entity that makes sure I get lucky from time to time. It seems that I found a mountain bike on ebay for 32 Euros and it turned out to be a really nice one. It used to belong to a girl that left for the US and so does not need it any more – she only used it 4 times (according to the seller of the bike of course). Some minor parts of the breaks are a bit rusty but it doesn’t look like that would be a problem. The coolest thing is the gear shifts. They are circular and kind of built into the handle. So shifting is like on a motorbike. Really cool stuff.
Still to do: - Put the seat into a higher position - Get a proper pump for the wheels - Check the rusty parts and eventually replace them - Get some protection against the dirt being thrown up from the weels (optional but very useful if using the bike on wet or dirty streets
I am very much looking forward to using the bike in the city.
I watched the Simpsons movie in the Haydn cinema in Vienna. The movie was very funny, totally worth the ticket - I am a bit frustrated that it did not have some of the classic characters playig bigger parts - Skinner, Marge's sisters, Willie, Mrs. Krabappel, etc. So I can only hope what Maggie said is true ...
Having said that, I am for sure buying the DVD the day it comes out - hoping for a director's cut or similar. And here comes the poetic end of this post:
Spiderpig, spiderpig, does whatever a spiderpig does. Can he swing - from a web? No he can't, he's a pig! Look Out, here comes the Spiderpig!
we have said once, that once all of us finish our studies, we would go to Schloss Obermayerhofen for a wonderful dinner. And so we have finally managed to find a weekend that fit us all and had our fantastic dinner. Plus there was a wedding celebration including huge fireworks! Too bad that the weather was not the best - but the food was pretty amazing - the highlight being a piece of "Rind vom Angus" ...
From left to right: Frau Diplomingenieurin Jankovic, Herr Diplomingenieur Deri, Frau Magister Fabian & Frau Doktor Koch
According to this article we can save a lot of energy by having websites with dark background colours versus white ones. Therefore some company created a new google called:
Also Yahoo Photos is closing down and I have transferred all my albums to Flickr. It was pretty easy - as Yahoo bought Flickr a while ago, they offered an automatic transfer of my 92 albums from the last 3 years. Now I remember where my Flickr Logo comes from ...
I will be spending quite some time in the next weeks going through my albums and checking the access rights and the tags before you will be able to see all the content. Coming back to the story around Blackle I will be wasting a lot of energy doing that as Flickr is still a white-background website :-)
Now it's official. People with fat friends are fatter than others. Apparently you cannot blame this one on your family or your neighbours, not even on "society". No, it is your FRIENDS that make you fat. Fascinating ...
Click on the Meatloaf picture below for the article (no relevance of course - I just like this picture somehow)
I am soooooooooo looking forward to watch my yellow-skinned idol and his family in their newest adventure in an air-conditioned cinema Monday evening in Vienna :-)
I stumbled across this website called TED. It is full of amazong little clips called "Inspired talks by the world's greatest thinkers and doers" - some of which are totally eye-opening. As there are more than a hundred clips, you cannot watch them all at once - today I watched this one on ageing. It is pretty cool - and worth waiting for the Q&A section in the end. Watch and Enjoy!!!
Another spanish cinema night in the Malsehn cinema, which is only 5 minutes away from where I live. Last time I went to this cinema was to watch "walk on water" and before that "Transamerica" - both pretty weird. Good but weird. And so it wasn't a big surprise that azul oscuro casi negro was a bit weird also. A very good movie - funny, with a nice music - almost like a musical. A wonderful movie about family values, friendships, life, love and what's important in life.
Let's see if this motivates me to (a) go learn spanish and (b) go to this cinema more often. Vamos a ver ...
I spent the day reading the new Harry Potter book. As I don't want to spoil it for anybody I am not going to talk about it - just so much, that J.K.Rowling is a genious. I am thankful for her for having written these 7 books - if only I knew who borrowed the first ones from me, I could ask for them back soon - there is some space left on my bookshelf right next to my precious Lord of The Rings books :-)
I am finally connected to the world again. No more boring evenings reading or staring at the wall!!! The World-Wide-Web is now pouring into my humble home with an amazing 6000 things per second! I am currently downloading the last 3 months of podcasts that I have missed and updating all the security software on my PC. Wireless is also working.
If only the weather would be better, I would be smiling even more.
wanted to take the early train but couldn't. had to go home because i thought i left the water running. of course i didn't. in the end i catched the last tain to amsterdam. looking forward to a lazy weekend ...
I managed to run the 5.6 kms through Frankfurt yesterday with some 67270 people and shot some pictures while doing so. Everything hurts today, but it was totally worth it. The retarded picture of me should give you some idea of how glad I was to have made it at the end ...
And by retarded I mean happy, tired, dead, hungry, thirsty, glad to have been there, etc... Click on the picture for more ...
just heard of this new tool from xuuk.com which can check where people look at and how often. it was originally developed for advertising posters to see how many people actually look at them (so to transfer the pay-per-click advertising model into the real world) but I have much better ideas.
the most obvious geeky idea would be to mount one of these on my t-shirts to see who is actually reading the stuff that is written on them. a less obvious thing would be to test the theories about where guys / girls actually look when they first meet each other. oooh - the fun of connecting this thing to some loudspeaker and announcing where people looked ...
ps: I have uploaded some pictures of the last couple of days in Spain (mostly the wedding pictures) to my flickr website. I will write some stuff later when I have more time, in the meantime you can check the pictures by clicking on the image below.
today has been a fantastic day. We were out last night until 2 in the morning - had some wine and a gin-tonic at bideluze - no headache, lots of fun. This morning woke up at 7, practiced a bit and went to school to write a test. It was actually better than expected, still I need to focus focus focus - so from now on I will try to say things in spanish when we are out with friends.
The afternoon surf class was amazingly cool - the best waves we have ever had next to a sunny beach - I did not feel tired a single time, catched waves, even stood up 3 times (twice fell big time, once actually stood for like a second before falling amazingly fast). IT IS SOOOOOO MUCH FUN - I want to do this more often ...
Now I am kind of getting tired as instead of the siesta we went eating and in an hour we meet up to go out (pretty early for locals, but who cares) in Bideluze and then we will head to the city for some pintxos and "vino especial"-s. I didn't manage to upload more pictures but will try on the weekend.
Todays surf lesson teached us to have respect. Respect for the surfers. This has been my fifth lesson and although I managed to stand up and stay there for like 2 seconds it was a complete coincidence. I think for me to successfully surf it would take months of training (swimming would be a very good idea) as after about 10 minutes of paddling in the water my arms feel like when that spell goes bad in Harry Potter and he looses all his bones. But I still love trying it and I will continue to try because it is a very nice way of exercising and the people are fun. I now have two remaining classes, one tomorrow and one on saturday. I don't expect to stand up and stay like that but in case it happens I will be very proud of myself and will tell everybody I meet that I did it :-)
I am now off to Bideluze to meet with the people from the school and party!!!!
ps: I have found another SD-card with some barcelona photos that I totally forgot about - including pics of parque guell, one of the gaudi houses and his unfinished church, the gaudi museum and more barcelona city pictures. And of course the picture of the half-naked faceless girl sunbathing that you can read about on alba's blog for you perverts :-)
I have finally managed to find a really nice internet place in the city where I could burn my pics on DVD and upload some to flickr - so here we go. I will try to fill the past entries also so that the blog looks more colorful again. Also there are some pictures of me with a surfboard (on the beach only unfortunately but it is still more than nothing) but I don't have them yet so they are not there - but they are coming :-)
Also I broke with a tradition and did not upload all the tousands of pictures I have taken here because every minute costs money here so you have to only look at a small selection of the pictures ... I know it's hard, but that's life :-)
otherwise there are no real news to report - today the weather is back to normal (no sun, a bit of a rain here and there) so that we paddled for an hour this afternoon without catching a single wave as the waves were also not really there. Next lesson is on friday and we hope it will be fun - according to the tides it should be a very nice day for surfing. If only the weather gods were on our side :-)
tomorrow we go on a boat tour in the afternoon with the school and on the weekend I will probably stay here and enjoy the beach and the bars in the evening.
Today has been a great day. After yesterdays weather fiasco today it was sunshine all over the place. School has been great, finally I am getting the feeling that we have built some structure and all I am missing are the words (that's why I will keep it short and go home to practice ...)
After school I went home to sleep a bit and headed back to the city for the surf lesson at 5. The surf course is now fully booked - there are two full courses running more or less in parallel. My new instructor is called Josecho and speaks mostly Spanish. He is much stricter also than the other one - Iker - as he did not allow us to take waves before showing him that we can duck a wave in a secure manner. So we mostly spent the class today paddling around so that when I finally managed to take a wave I did not have the energy to stand up - but I was kneeling for some seconds!!!! So I am very sure that one day I will manage to actually stand on the board for more than a nanosecond. Actually if everything goes according to plan, tomorrow could be the day.
I am also progressing with my Spanish. After the surfing lesson I bought a pair of shoes utilizing only my spanish skills (asking if they have half a size bigger, then asking for the other of the pair and the prize, if I can pay by credit card, etc) - so I am very proud of myself and also motivated to go home and practice, practice and practice.
The only thing missing here is a nice way of getting the pictures from my camera to the internet so I don't have to write so much and can show things with pictures.
AAAAAnyway - I am now going home to do my homework (remember - I am still a Streber) so that's it for today. Please keep me updated on the Frankfurt front by either leaving a comment or dropping me an email or an SMS at my espanish mobile...
hola chicos! finally the rain is back to san sebastian and my fingers are frozen from the mega-photo session on the beach. But first things first ...
Barcelona was really great. The Gaudi stuff is simply amazing - church, house, park - he knew what he was doing. Barcelona is - contrary to Frankfurt not a city to look at in one day - in fact, not even a city to look at in two days. So there are more than a couple of things left for my next visit. The only thing I missed during the weekend was the fantastic food of San Sebastian and the even more fantastic prices. In Barcelona you can easily spend 20 and more Euros for one meal - I have not managed to do this in San Sebastian so far. In my eyes pintxos easily win over tapas (contrary to googlefight).
After two days of basically walking at least two marathons in Barcelona (I need to remember to buy a little gadget that actually measures the distances I walk in the future - preferably one that has GPS data that connects to my photos ...) I got on the bus at 23:00 to go back to San Sebastian. We were supposed to be able to sleep on the bus but somehow this did not happen - the seats are numbered normally so people can sleep and are waken up perfectly - as the seats did not have numbers the driver simply told everyone to take any seat - with the consequence of then waking up everybody at every stop. Plus we arrived in San Sebastian in pouring rain ( wearing my flip-flops and bermuda shorts) which made me even happier.
Other than this the day has been pretty cool, spanish lectures are still fun. Surfing did not take place because of the storm outside so we headed for some drinks to a nearby place full of american girls, some local surfers and an immense smell of joints ...
At some point I went for a walk to take some groundbaking shots of the water and the kite-surfers flying around the area - it is now two hours later and my fingers are frozen so I thought I would slowly warm them up by blogging a little. And now as I get tired I will stop and go home to catch up on last night´s sleep ...
a week has gone since I left Frankfurt to come to Spain and learn Spanish and it has been one of the best weeks since a long long time. Learning a new language is a lot of fun - especially being the Streber that I am. The school is very friendly and the people are fun. Every day or so there is some activity organized by the school so that I got to know people very quickly -even if they hate me for not speaking e-Spanish with them at these events ...(they should teach me quicker if they want this to change :-) The city of San Sebastian is simply amazing - it is beautiful, the food is unbelievably good and the whole way of eating pintxos is ingenious so that I have been loosing weight constantly without feeling hungry. The surf classes are another highlight - I actually managed to stand up twice on Thursday (even if only for nanoseconds before plunging into the wave itself) and I can already feel getting addicted to it - I an now booked for the whole next week to have an hour every day so that I hope to satisfy this newly found addiction easily. On Friday I took the bus to Barcelona to meet Alba there and spend the weekend in a non-Spanish speaking part of Spain... It is now Saturday evening, shortly after 12, Serbia won the Song contest and I am going to bed to dream of Gaudi towers. Hasta Luego!!!
I finally managed to buy a SIM-card!!! My new number in Spain is +34 638 90 56 60... I am now going home as the internet place is about to close very soon. Good night!!!
ps: ok, just a quick update - the school is very good, there are only two people with pure innocent beginner skills, the rest of the people already can have a proper conversation that goes beyond the "what's your name", "where do you come from" and "what do you do for a living" subjects. Also I figured counting from 1 to 100 is not the best way of getting to know people in bars. So I have to practice, practice and more practice my e-spanish skills.
The city is still exceptionally nice and the weather is finally amazing - I hope it stays the same. I also booked my first surfing lesson for tomorrow afternoon - in full body armor - eh, suit I mean.
I do not even attempt to describe how the food is over here. Let's just say it is a miracle that I am still loosing weight and I simply do not get it, how this happens.
I also have an update on the flatmate front - the swedish girl is still not back. Oh well, having the place for myself is not bad either! Vamos a ver ...
The learning of today happened in the evening on the Bus from Bilbao to San Sebastian. I boarded the bus next to the Stadium in Bilbao (AC Bilbao) at 6 and was on my way to San Sebastian. I had the Streber-Seat right behind the driver and so got all the action directly. The bus driver was pretty cool, he was listening to the radio all the time, driving above speed limits and between the lanes - very Italian actually (ok, like Italians in Germany actually ...) anyway - about 5 minutes before San Sebastian people started shouting some stuff in Spanish from the back seat. Then silence followed, the driver pushed some buttons and the side door of the luggage compartment seemed to be opened and slowly closing. We have been driving with an open side door for a while!!!
Some cars started overtaking us and pointing in various ways in the form of a luggage - so we guessed some must have fallen out. At this point all I had with me in the bus was the book on photography I got for my birthday from my parents and all my luggage including the camera and everything was in the trunk. So the driver got out, called some people on the mobile and then we continued the trip in a deadly silence to our final destination. Once arrived, he opened the compartment, people actually stormed down the bus and all the trunk was kind of half empty and all the remaining luggage chaotically lying around. thank god my stuff was all there but only because I did spend some extra time putting it exactly in the middle of the bus. So, children - what do we learn out of this event? NEVER PUT YOUR LUGGAGE ON THE SIDE WHEN YOU ARE TAKING A BUS FROM BILBAO TO SAN SEBASTIAN. punto - end of story. I know it was boring but there is a slight learning so stop complaining.
Oh yes - one more thing - the music the bus driver had been listening to sounded like "German Volksmusik" - with the harmonica and the yodelling part :-)
What else happened? I took like 500 pictures of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao that I have uploaded in the meantime so you can check them by clicking on the one below. Ok, it is only a selection, but you get the feeling ...
The building is very impressive, totally worth a visit and it is much better than the stuff being displayed on the inside. Although the Anselm Kiefer exhibition was quite good I must say. Plus that little doggie in the front is just adorable ...
In the end I arrived at San Sebastian totally on time shortly after 7 and walked to my new home for the next three weeks in the Gros area of the city. The Spanish girl I would "share" the flat with is very niiiiice - she works for some bank and looks very spanish and speaks a perfect English - and has very cool friends that were there in the evening. Only problem is, that since 2 weeks she is working in Madrid so she is never there except on the weekends when I am planning to be away. so much for "sharing". Anyway - my other flatmate is a Swedish girl that has a French boyfriend so she was in France for the weekend to see him and is supposedly coming back on Monday. Vamos A ver ...
I also went for a walk to check out the neighbourhood - I live about 5 minutes from the Zurriola beach - the ones with the surfers and about 2 minutes away from the hotel we are going to stay at during the wedding. The city is extremely friendly and beautiful and I am looking forward to spend some quality time here!!!
I am happy to report that I managed to leave Frankfurt in time for Spain and arrived as planned. Needless to say I brought too much stuff with me (20.9 kg plus the backpack at check-in) but that's just the way it is, I might as well accept it ...
Anyway - let's start at the beginning. I kinda slept like 3 hours as I woke up at 5 and was totally awake. Having not prepared anything for the trip, I thought it a good idea to actually get out of bed and start packing. So I spent the next 4 hours more or less packing, washing the dishes, doing the laundry, playing with Arnie-The-Robot, basically a very efficient way of spending my last couple of hours before leaving my place for 3 weeks.
Alba took me to the airport - Thanks a million - I know who is getting some pintxos sponsored by Gaborno in San Sebastian once we are there!
Anyway - the flight to Madrid was pretty lame - nothing special happened - arrived in Madrid on time. Madrid Airport is VERY STYLISH. And the people!!! They are sooooo cool! I tend to forget that people can be quite stylish and fashionable after living in Germany for so long. Which is actually cool because I don't expect this any more and every time my eyes basically fall out when I travel abroad. And the funny thing was not only that I didn't know where to look because of so many cool people around, but I heard Maria all around the place. I don't know why Maria (maybe because most of my other spanish friends don't speak so much spanish when I am around?) but I had the feeling she was everywhere :-)
The flight to Bilbao was crazy. Turbulences all the time. I was dying. People were actually screaming at every drop. This time it paid off that Iberia is one of the bastard airlines not giving out any food for free, so there was no food & drinks flying around on board. After an hour of misery we arrived in Bilbao and it was raining!!!! And cold!!!! I could not believe that I left warm Germany for cold rainy Spain!!!! I felt a bit better after a couple of SMS-s from Frankfurt telling me that the weather turned bad there also (evil me - bru - ha - ha - ha).
There is a pretty good bus connection from Bilbao airport to the city. When you leave the terminal, just go down to the street straight away, turn right and there is a bus-a-stoppe in sight to the right (about 30 meters I would say). The bus leaves every 30 minutes and it costs €1.20. Needless to say I just missed it by 2 minutes so I waited for the next one patiently. It was raining after all, so no hurry...
The rain stopped once we got to the city. If you want to see the Guggenheim Museum from the bus, sit on the right side. The bus is crossing the big bridge next to the Museum. You can get off the bus at "Moyua" and you are in the middle of the city. I took the metro from here to the old town (Casco Viejo) because I was lazy and didn't feel like dragging my luggage all the way and after getting out of the metro I looked for the place I reserved, which was a story on its own...
I found this place in the Lonely Planet and it looked totally central and by far the cheapest. They have also a nice website (by the way, it is so funny how all the spanish places I checked on the internet use the .com ending and not the .es) - anyway I was very surprised when I called them to make a reservation (according to the website this is only possible via phone) and the following happened:
Man: Si? Me: Hola, do you speak English? Man: No Ingles or something similar Me: Hmmm - I would like to reserve a room Man: I just said I don't speak English - or something similar in spanish of course (this is purely hypothetical - did I mention I didn't speak spanish?) Me: OK
This "conversation" took place about once per hour on Thursday as I hoped to get someone else on the phone - I was pretty sure that he would have to go to the toilet, shopping, whatever. No. there was no chance of getting anybody else. In the end I gave up and thought, I would just go there when I am in Bilbao. On Thursday evening at Albas I told her this story and wanted to show her that there was no chance and dialled the number - actually this time he said "Momentino" and called someone who could speak English. So I had my reservation (or so I thought).
So I arrive at the place, which was actually easy to find and ring the bell. Guess what - I am greated by that famous Si?-voice!!! I am about to meet the guy I had so much pleasure talking to! Of course I say in my best Spanish (basically in English) that I have a Reservacion (notice the c in the middle!) under Gabor and he asks me in. As I went for the cheaper option, I had to climb 4 floors to be greated by a nice old lady, who - surprise - did not speak any other language than Spanish. It was so funny - I went in and spent the next 10 minutes looking at a desperate couple from Germany trying to explain to her that they leave so early the next day that they had to leave the key somewhere for her to find. It was actually very funny - they used the back pages of the Lonely planet with the emergency dictionary and were successful in the end.
Then came my turn. Of course they did not find my reservation first and I got a bit scared they would turn me away. But then they did and were very puzzled that I was alone and my reservation was for a double room (they didn't have a single room any more so I went for a double room which was 5 Euros more expensive). This caused quite some confusion and she asked me a million questions - I didn't understand any of them of course. In the end she gave me a room for 3 people and I paid for a room for one. Of course I didn't object :-)
After checking in at the hotel I went around the city for the next couple of hours - bumped into a theatre show for little kids and later the Guggenheim Museum, enjoyed some of the rain and went to a local food chain selling bocadillos. Oh, and almost forgot to mention the two girls I saw vomiting into a small river (?) near the old town and then going back for more alcoholic drinks. What an experience!!!
Oh, almost forgot! I learned my first spanish sentence! Thanks, Mediamarkt!
Thanks, everybody for coming to Schöneberger for my Birthday. It was a bit delayed party but nevertheless it was fun to see all of you there. Thanks again for the great present!!!!! I promise I will teach Arnie some tricks once I am back from Spain.
ps: Jack - I want to have the video you made at the place - can you upload it to youtube or something? Would be great!!!
eafter ea ewhole eday eof ecalling ethe ehostel ein ebilbao ei efinally emanaged eto ebook ethe eroom ei ewanted!!!!!
plus the room in barcelona turned out to be a bit "problematic" given that a million idiots occupy ALL THE ROOMS for the weekend to watch the stupid formula one grand prix de espana. anyway - Alba and I booked the two last beds in the probably shittiest hostel in the city (why else would there be two beds still efree????) - so we hope to meet tons of celebs on the weekend of the 11-12-13th of May.
With everybody coupling up or leaving town it came down to Alba and me - we spent the evening at her place eating delicious pasta, chatting with a completely drunk Jack in South Africa (he drank a whole Smirnoff!!!!!) and watching clips on youtube. Luke told us the day before in Mainz about this comedy duo called Flight of the Conchords
Also check out "Jenny" and "Something for the Ladies" and the rest. Thanks, Luke!!!
I am happy to report to all my humble readers that I have returned to Frankfurt in a happy state after one of the nicest vacations I have had for many years and feel super-duper. Except the fact that the bastards from IESY (my planned new internet provider) did not register my order for internet and so I am cut off from the digital world at home for the next couple of weeks. So I am currently trying to live without - which will not make the posting of the photos, blogging, etc. iesy-er, but rather more diefficult...
On the other hand this might mean more time spent reading a book, listening to the radio, going out or going to the fitness center, etc. (hopefully not more watching TV though) ...
Anyway - I will try to post the pics and some stories soon, but it will probably be not so soon ...
don't want to waste time in a hot internet place so don't expect any more updates until I return. Best vacation ever! Thanks Maike for the address!!! See You!
India is coooooooooooooooooooooooool. Everything is fantastic - especially the fact that I am on vacation. Spent the last two days overcoming the jetlag and tomorrow we will go to Baga Beach and look for a place to stay for the next week or so. If you want to send me birthday wishes (coming up next week) - my phone number is +91 99 703 720 26.
Oh yes, Maike - if you read this, can you please SMS me the name and address of the place in Mumbai we went to eat last year? I forgot to bring their card with me... If possible, a phone number would be also awesome (the word of today :-)
Greetings to everybody - watch this place for updates!!! And drink SNAPPLE - I did and it was, well, anyway ...
I remembered today my old buddy Nevres, who once told me that you should do something that you have never done before every year of your life. I don't know why but i remembered this today.
BTW let me introduce you to a new member of the family: The Exilim S770 - just in time for the trip to India ...
BTW - I am trying to finish blogging the last year of India before I go there again this year - it would be a pity if this year's memories would overwrite the ones from last year. Let's see how far I get - check it out in the Feb 2006 section.
I am 85 kilos heavy and have 14 emails in my Inbox. These are astonishingly low numbers considering the last couple of months. This calls for a celebration. Therefor tonight I spent hours and hours painting my blog completely blueish in the background. It was not an easy tasks - especially with letters like "e" and "a" I had to be very careful not to leave out the holes in the middle. But I am happy to report that I made it and I could not be happier with the result. (Yes, I know I am a geek - but to be honest I don't care at this point what you all think - instead I am just enjoying the ride ... plus I am soooooo excited about the coming days in Goa that I really am just plain happy :-) see?
The kilos can be explained very well by my recent fitness center presence. Since the marker hit the 90 kg mark around 3 weeks ago I have been going to the fitness center almost every day. I started with an hour on the cross trainer and have progressed from being dead at the end to a status where I am smiling at the end even though I had kept a heart rate of around 151 for about an hour (that is what the machine suggested to me at the cardio setting, so don't start questioning, the machine is always right, right?) Anyway - I went from a "drop-dead-worn-out" state after 60 minutes to a "let's-do-a-circuit-and-then-let's-do-60-minutes-and-be-happy-about-it" state of mind. Plus I have been doing sit-ups so my belly hurts like hell. Actually the belly is still there - the only difference is what the scale is telling and how I feel, not how I look - but it's a good start into spring, which starts tomorrow.
The thing is, I have been really enjoying the fitness center lately. I am doing my round on the machines first and then an hour on the cross trainer, listening to my iPod and watching shows like The Simpsons, Hogan knows best or Pimp My Ride. It's sports and culture at the same time - what else could I wish for?
The number 14 is a complete mystery to me as work has been really stressing lately - but I am glad about it as the control-freak side of me will not have too many things to worry about work during the next couple of weeks in India.
A very nice movie about a horrible tragedy that didn't have to happen. Fantastic actors, very slow and melancholic storyline - plus certainly one of the best stories recently shown in a movie. A mixture between Almost Famous, The Ice Storm and [insert favourite Mafia movie title here]. Plus Justin Timberlake dressed more or less in tatoos and a pair of trousers.
UPDATE - I know where I saw two of the guys before - The Girl Next Door :-)
Yesterday we had a stress management session at work. It was very interesting - especially when the lady showed the symptoms of stress. I seemed to be having every one of them, expect the diarrhea part - which came in the evening... It totally reminded me of the Yoga weekend in Vienna a couple of years ago when they talked so much about a certain cleansing process and then we did some exercises and then I went home and spent the rest of the day on the toilet cleansing so to speak. Sorry for being so open about this, but it is amazing, what an effect it seems to be having on me if I become aware of certain things about what my body and mind go through sometimes.
So now I understand what is happening to me. It's stress. And so I am very happy that in only one week from now I will be on some beach in India surrounded by local people who will want to sell me stuff and I will be Mr. Cool and will just not care at all. I have to remember to watch "Office Space" before going there and also to look for a relaxing hypnosis - or at least a massage place. Actually massage sounds better...
I got crazy today. In the morning Yara and I went to the Indian Consulate in Frankfurt to get our Visas. We have checked the website before to make sure we have everything that they need. then it turns out of course they needed more stuff than we had. They asked for a confirmation that we have lived in Germany for the last 3 years. Otherwise no Visa. No discussion, that is the rules (of course it is not written anywhere on the form or the website) - and we all know who wins these discussions. So in the end it took a detour for Yara back home to get her older passports and for me to the Bürgeramt to get a confirmation of the last 3 years spent in Germany and so we finished at 10:30 instead of 9:30 as planned. As an added bonus the S-Bahn was not on time so we took a taxi to the office. Total costs of India until now have so climbed to €591 including the Taxi and the Visa.
In the afternoon I went back again to pick up the Visas and queued for 40 minutes because they served 3-4 people who had tousands of questions or dared to discuss some things and some people even that submitted their Visa applications in the Visa collection time. They had only one counter open for like 70-80 people but whenever someone appeared at the other counter this person got served. I am a sucker and so I didn't go there. I was sooooooo mad. And when it was my turn, they asked me again for the confirmation because they kind of lost it. Thank god I had only given them a copy and kept the original in the morning - otherwise there would be breaking news on CNN right now about an Indian Consulate in Frankfurt burning down to ashes...
Dear consulate employees, I know I don't have my own Kingdom but I am trying to spend some time (and money) in your country and for me you are the face of that country and I don't see why I need to be treated like this. I just don't want to enter that building ever again. Next time I will do the whole thing via mail :-)
So, this being out in the open - I am now focusing on getting the whole GOA thing organized. To be continued ...
spolier ahead - don't read this if you intend to watch the movie "the number 23" with Jim Carrey (or with someone else ...)
They showed "The Number 23" at the sneak preview. This movie tries to be very SIN CITY and very conspiracy and so and in the end it turns out that the main character indeed killed all those people, wrote that stupid book and then forgot the whole thing after he underwent psychiatric therapy. I like Jim Carrey but this is just very lame...
On the other hand when I tell this to people they kind of become interested to watching the movie - maybe I just need that vacation ...
Just heard about this movie called 300 - the poster contains the number 300 written (actually more like splattered) with blood. The trailer is unbelievable - inspired by Frank Miller (Sin City) this movie is again setting a new standard. I guess it will be pretty brutal, but can't wait to see it.
Command & Conquer is coming back! It might not be the biggest news for you, but for me this is like a dream come true and I am actually thinking about getting a new computer just to play this game. I remember playing through nights in my old room in Vienna with the headset on my ears because of my parents, who have never understood the game and always thought it was some kind of shoot&kill game just because there were units that said "Yes, Sir" all the time before they moved where the mouse showed. My brother teased me just as much actually - but this game was the first and best of this kind and I can't wait to try out the new version.
ps: watching TvTotal, just realized that Joss Stone looks just like Yara with her new haircut - only a bit more red ...
Spent the weekend in vienna - shopping, climbing mountains around the city (Grinzing), catching up with friends. Met the complete Mainz Football Team at the airport including trainer Jürgen Klopp jumping the economy queue on Friday and the Canadian indoor hockey team (finished Nr. 9 at the World Cup in Vienna) on their way back from Vienna to Frankfurt this morning so I decided to have a celebrity theme today.
So let's start with Thursday - the Vienna Opera Ball (Opernball). This Ball is the biggest official ball in Austria - with most of the government present, together with all kinds of artists, intellectuals, showoffs, etc. If you are rich and / or famous, you should go. There is full coverage on TV also. Normally it does not get too much coverage outside Austria unless some trashy celebrity comes and visits - there is a guy called Richard Lugner, who owns a huge construction company in Austria and he invites "stars" to the ball to show off his fortune. He is also called "Mörtel", which means something that fills the gap between bricks when building a house. He is like 70 years old and has a wife of 40 or so called "Mausi".
Anyway - so Mörtel and Mausi have invited people of smaller or bigger calibers over the years. I remember Pamela Anderson, Sophia Loren (sometimes they actually manage to get a real celebrity with style totally embarrassing themselves when they figure out who booked them), Sarah (Fergie), Farrah Fawcett, Geri Haliwell (scary spice), Grace Jones (who totally trashed a Hotel room in Vienna that Mörtel had to pay for in the end) and this year it was the one and only Paris Hilton. Part of the invitation is normally an hour-long meet-the-fan session in the Lugner City, which is a big shopping mall in the not-so-elegant part of town. I don't think any of these celebs is aware of what awaits them there. This year Paris got lipsticks thrown at her (click here for the video on youtube). She looked better in the evening at the Ball though.
Also Britney shaved off her hair. It seems that in a moment of craze she went amok and just did it. I am not sure if I feel sorry for her or am starting to like her. There is something about this picture I like.
I took the bus from Darmstadt after work to go to the airport to go to Vienna. Normally the bus needs about half an hour to get there. We go via the highway, everything under control, the usual Friday crowd to the airport - some business-people, some tourist-looking people, some others. We take the A5 normally and we notice that trucks passing by honking at us - strange. Then the bus takes an exit to a gas station, the driver stops and gets out. No message, nothing. He gets back in, takes his mobile phone and gets out again. No message, nothing. The clock is ticking. Then he talks on the phone for some minutes, people start getting nervous, gets back in and tells people that the bus cannot go on because some door is open and he cannot close it. So there will be another bus in 20 minutes.
Needless to say I am not very relaxed at this moment - and so is the guy behind me. So before I can think about it, he is already calling a taxi. So I ask him if I could join. Sure, he says. Another 2 people ask and we are leaving the bus. Some more people make some more calls. Here comes the funny part. The diversity of the people on the bus surfaces. Some people stay on the bus, some get off.
The 4 of us are waiting for the taxi to arrive. A blond girl with an Ipod and a shiny mobile phone gets picked up by a huge Mercedes first (papa-driven I assume). Two backpackers go around the gas station and begin to ask every single driver if they go to the airport. They eventually get lucky and board a small Peugeot. Finally also our taxi arrives and we get in. The ride to the airport is fast and it turns out to be sponsored by accenture as the guy who called the taxi works for accenture and is going to expense it of course.
It's funny how a mix of people gets dissolved in a crisis and people revert back to what they really are.
I just watched The Truman Show - and thought that i actually managed to escape valentine's day - and now there are stupid couples kissing on the stage in TV-Total and Stefan Raab is singing one cheesy song after another - a kind of Knutsch-Song-Megamix.
I am going to bed now. And by the way, the blog color is back to normal.
I found pics of my all time favourite valentine cards from The Simpsons. I think they are great.
... other than posting these two cards and the nice pink background on my blog, I am looking forward to totally ignoring this wonderful event. Happy Valentines Day Everybody!!!
1.) Ghost train: I went to the train station in Darmstadt - there were no delays shown, no trains at the station but all the platforms were full of people. Then my train got canceled only to arrive 10 minutes later without any warning. It was a bit weird boarding a train to nowhere just because it arrived at the same platform the original train was supposed to arrive...
2.) A Disturbed dog: I got off the train in Frankfurt and started walking towards the underground when I saw a woman walking with a dog - the dog stopping and peeing. Problem was, the dog was peeing on a young girl's leg!!! Needless to say, it took the girl quite some time to recover from the first shock but then a heated discussion started. People stopped to watch but they settled it so quickly that there was no mud fight unfortunately. What a disturbed dog ...
3.) Hooligans: Sitting in the underground a weird looking business guy got in at the European Central Bank. He had very strange round glasses. The next stop - Römer - some 5-6 guys got in - first I thought they were hooligans but my second thought was that they were actually going to check our tickets. The weird guy must also have had the same thoughts so he tried to get out of the train acting like he just forgot to get out - but he was pushed back with a loud "can I see you ticket please?". Basically the more disgusting and scary / strange a group of 5-6 people on the underground look like, the more likely it is, that they are actually there working for the train company checking tickets. This other time I was being checked by what I thought to be a group of 6 mentally challenged sweaty fat people. In the end I thought I could have saved the guy as it was after 19:00 and I had a monthly ticket, but not if he tries to jump out of the train right next to the controllers!!!
I have finally found that special something that I have been looking for for such a long time to pimp up my blog. The thing is called plazes and is a social networking service in connection with location tracking. I have signed up, set up my home location and started SMSing whenever I left my place. So from now on you can see where I am whenever you come to my blog - just look to the top right section. It is pretty cool - you simply send your location via SMS and you get a reply from the system so that you know if it knows the place or not. There are a couple of users in Frankfurt already, but not too many. You can discover new plazes and get points for doing so. It also calculates your average speed when going around. Let the race begin!!! (though I guess now I will need an SMS-flatrate, otherwise this will cost me a fortune :-)
I got an invitation to anti-diet paradise (casa Alba) tonight and so am staying a bit longer in the office so I am not there too early. Just enough time to update the blog with the recent highlights of the "Deutschland Sucht Den Superstar (DSDS)" candidates.
Here is a list of my favourite moments: 1. Tanja the gardener (just watch and cry :-) 2. Andreas (Dieter Bohlen is the most straightforward person in the world - but wait until the guy plays the piano - wow) -> they threw him out in the meantime because he has Zero "Ausstrahlung" 3. Mr. Love spielt ein bisschen was für euch :-)
I found this clip on the internet - it is a kind of anti-war rap song from Hungary. It is so funny - I guess you can only enjoy it if you speak a bit of hungarian or if you know how hungarians speak english when they cannot really but are trying anyway. Sorry if it is not funny to you - I enjoyed every second of it ...
Years of peaking at the icelandair website are paying off finally (ok, I am a bit exaggerating here, but who cares?). They have a new promotion running as of tomorrow - you can fly back and forth for a measly 140 Alpendollars!!! both ways!!!
If anybody wants to join, let me know. I will be booking tomorrow first thing in the morning! Looking at my list of things to do from my last visit, this will be another great weekend!!! This time I will try not to forget to check out the mask :-)
UPDATE - this just in - I have kept my promise not to travel to this madman-country of the US of A for a long time now. Recently only have I began to think I was too stupid and felt a kind of an urge to visit NY - and now I am reading that they are going to have every visitor's fingerprints taken and put into the same database that the FBI keeps for the criminals. What a fantastic way of catching criminals. Bastards! (I know that my last word is not really an argument, but I don't think arguments help here any more)
Bottom line - I am back to where I started. There are plenty of other places to visit on mother earth...
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.ENDE
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ES HEISST ABSCHIEDNEHMEN!
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