I don't really know where to start as a lot's of things have happened and are still happening so I will just try to do my best:
so last Thursday I went to Düsseldorf for business which was not really necessary in the end but turned out to be pretty cool BECAUSE this way I went to Brussels one day before it was planned. And met Gabor again, who I haven't really talked to for many years (except the occasional happy birthday Zsugabubus stuff - no comment, if you don't get it, too bad)
So it was pretty cool to catching up and having an honest discussion about how things were going in life.
Two more funny things happened this day. I had a bit more than an hour in Cologne to switch trains coming from Düsseldorf and so I deposited my luggage at the train station to head to the city for a quick walk. They have these super-ultra-modern machines that take your luggage underground like an elevator so basically you have one door where everybody puts in their stuff and then it is transferred to some huge hole underground and thrown on a big pile. When it is time to get it back, the little dwarfs then need to search through the pile and find the exact piece of luggage you deposited. They work pretty fast so normally it is not an issue. Except when there is a big Schwarzenegger-kind-of-guy in front of you who just deposited his luggage and he won't let you put in your card into the slot to collect your luggage because "this locker is occupied". Meaning basically that he wasn't familiar to the whole "one-locker-big-pile-underneath" principle. I tried explaining it to him but failed miserably so in the end a friendly deutsche-bahn-person had to come and help out. I got my luggage back and the dwarfs could continue working.
The other thing happening was not really funny but cool as I had an immense amount of mussels in white wine sauce in one of the touristic restaurants in the Brussels city center.
So then on Friday I worked in the Brussels office bumping into a lot of old colleagues. Was pretty cool. And then in the early afternoon I boarded a train to the city of Gent to attend the wedding of Nancy and Tom. 
It was a real cool wedding - we were so lucky with the weather it was extremely cool. Plus There was Andrea and Rahul and many many more people I haven't met for a long time. ´Plus a wonderful boat ride. The food was fantastic (especially the Fritten on the first night - sorry Alba) but the wedding dinner was the highlight. First I was disappointed that we didn't have big amounts of food but then I thought it was much better this way. We had 7 or 8 different courses and were not dead afterwards. The food was simply fantastic. When I grow up and will be rich, I want this kind of food all the time.
The hotel was nice and I can totally recommend this region for people who are in love - maybe it was the fact that there were so many couples around, maybe the food, the good weather, maybe something else - just take my word for it.
The way back was a bit flat - by flat I mean my ass basically as I sat through the ride in the middle back seat of Jack's car - but it was a lot of fun - thanks again for everybody involved :)
We made some plans for Monday to go to some beach near Frankfurt (basically we never learn ...) but it became pretty clear on Monday that this would not happen. So I took my camera and my bike and went biking next to the river. It was a pretty good track and I ended up at the airport taking some pictures of planes flying by. Needless to say there were other freaks with bigger better cameras than me so it was a little frustrating. Well at least I didn't need a ladder to take my pictures...
the rest of the week can be summed up by this dilbert comic:
well, at least the first two cells - the last part is not really what was important, but I took it as a sign and started to go through my to-do-list with a bit more energy after having slept only 3 hours before my Friday presentation to my team.
OK now I need to speed up because I am going to New York tomorrow and I am not really packed (as usual, which basically means that the last paragraph was bullshit. Hmmm - makes me think...)
So on Saturday Rodrigo & Rosella announced that they were going to get married. Congrats and at the same time this reminds me of course of the clock ticking - tick-tack-tick-tack. Another bike trip this Sunday and as of Monday morning I am below 80Kg for 3 consecutive days! Whoo - hoo!!!
Then yesterday I went to the sneak preview to check it out after a very long time. The movie was surprisingly good - one of those movies I would not have seen if not shown in the sneak so that I am really glad I went. It is called "Leatherheads" and it is the new George Clooney movie - pretty authentic and funny.
The other thing that happened yesterday was, that Köpeck died. My beloved dog (technically he wasn't mine, but I guess a lot of people called him "our dog"). I spent so much time with him when I was still living in Vienna - I remember being left there with him during Claudias visit to Peru only shortly after he started getting used to me when he wouldn't eat anything as he was missing Claudia and I had to play with him for hours to make him eat. And those other times when I was studying and went for long walks almost every day just to be back at home for the "Mittags-Journal" for lunch and he would act like he hadn't watched me eating so that he would get the rests of the food when I was finished. We took him everywhere - to Hungary where people usually don't take their dogs with them; we took him to all kinds of places in Austria and once he even saw the Stephansdom from the inside (yes, we got thrown out).
I am really glad he was part of my life and although I am sad I will never play with him again, at the same time I am happy because I know he had a fantastic life.
Now I will stop writing because (as mentioned before) I am still not packed and it is now almost midnight so I will have to start NOW.
I almost forgot the celebrity gossip news of the week:
- Eugenio and Maike got married last Friday
- Tina and Peter are engaged
- Elisabeth and Peter are engaged (another Peter ;)
- Scarlett and Ryan are also engaged.
Here is a photo of one of the happy couples - guess which one :-)
the winner gets some food or a piece of Sacher-Torte the next time I bring one from Vienna.
I just came home from a last minute shopping before leaving tomorrow towards Gent for Nancy & Tom's wedding. The plan is to go to Düsseldorf tomorrow for business then to Brussels in the evening, work from Brussels on Friday and then take the train to Gent in the afternoon so that I can join everybody for the dinner. I am excited and happy about traveling again, as usual ...
Anyway, what I really wanted to write is that I feel great. The city is full of happy people, the sun is shining and I even had one of those -hagen-dazs-2-minutes-of-pleasure-eternity-in-hell extremely delicious and hopelessly overpriced ice creams.
I am now going to pack and try to go to bed in time as my train leaves at 7AM tomorrow morning.
I always wanted to go to a horserace. It was pretty exciting for the first 90 minutes or so. You go watch the horses, go bet on them, go sit down and watch the race, curse and throw away the betting papers and then you go watch the horses for the next round. The most fun involved is watching the people around or practise your photography skills. Till next time ...
just finished watching Germany's next Topmodel. Sarah is out - finally. They kicked her out because she believed less in herself than the jury did in her. Not because she was ugly. I actually don't think she is ugly. She has issues walking but on the pictures she looks pretty amazing. Also I can't believe they actually dug out Erika Eleniak. The one and only from baywatch and red alert. Whatever way you want to remember her. I don't know how old she is now but somehow her face looks like it has gone through some unnatural upgrades during the last couple of years. She was there to run along the girls on the beach. Hmmm - Interesting. I wonder what she is up to these days. If I remember right from her Playboy video, she has a couple of dogs she likes... I couldn't help but looked her up on imdb and she seemed to have played in E.T! I bet you didn't know that!!! Funny.
On other news we have been hiking today somewhere in the south - it was supposed to be a Weinwanderung where people walk and drink some wine but I didn't drink any. I am currently uploading the pictures to flickr. In the meantime here is a picture. Can you spot my four companions? (Click on the picture to get a bigger version. Here is the answer)
You can find all the pictures here.
UPDATE: of course the batman trailer is no longer on youtube. I will put up a link as soon as I see it becoming available
