Wedding in Bielefeld

I don’t know what to write. There was a bit too much smiling for my depressive self at this wedding, plus whenever I escaped the happy people I immediately got surrounded by little babies starting to cry just by looking at me – so let’s say I felt a little weird all in all. On the other hand the wedding was organized perfectly; the church ceremony was very nice, only topped by the kind of beard of the groom.



Lots of singing (Vitaly’s family is a natural – everybody sings and plays music), little dancing. If I asked my friends at my at-the-moment-highly-unlikely-wedding to sing something, it would be a catastrophe - at this wedding it simply worked.

Oh, this just gave me an idea - maybe I should learn how to play a guitar - it seems to work well with the ladies (and as we all know, the singing part is already covered by my various Karaoke experiences …)

Oops – almost forgot – I also want a car like this at my wedding (I mean the at-the-moment-highly-unlikely one, so there should be no problem with such a wish …)

Bielefeld

Off to Berlin for work last night, in the evening travelling to Bielefeld for a wedding of Nadine and Vitaly, friends of Mareile, who invited me to join this joyous event. The trains were full as hell as there was a strike in the morning and so most people took later trains.

I arrived in Bielefeld around 10 in the evening and as I did not know anything about the city, I asked the taxi driver what it was like to live there. He told me it was the 11th biggest city in Germany but there was nothing famous about it. Kind of funny I must say. But OK – who am I to judge?
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Bielefeld

another lost episode

This is starting to cause kind of a problem as I keep missing the sneak preview for this stupid TV show every Monday night. I guess I have to make a decision soon …

BBQ in Rebstock

A spontaneous BBQ in the park with friends is sometimes the best thing you can do on a Sunday afternoon. We spent the time talking, playing Frisbee and bluff.

Shopping for the wedding

As I had already worn my suit to Caroline’s wedding, I needed to buy a new one for the upcoming wedding of Nadine and Vitaly next weekend. Not really - I just wanted to buy another suit as I didn’t really like the one I had. But being a Saturday I first stayed in bed late and watched Episode I and II of Star Wars. So I ended up going to the city only late afternoon. Giulia was a perfect help finding a suit, ties and shirts for the wedding. Unfortunately my favourite Russian tailor was already closed so I had to wait with that part of the plan, but I was sure I still had time to go later during the week.

In the evening another highlight awaited us as we got invited to Alba’s for dinner!!! Having missed the LANGUSTE last time I couldn’t wait to get there - and we got there on time this evening. After dinner we headed down to the obligatory Karaoke session at O’Reillys with Alba, Simone and Paul. Alba got quite some attention from the crowd as she was wearing her Chinese hat. It was funny to see some people ready to go to October fest at O Reillys – with the traditional costume and all. Only after a Tequila sponsored by Simone did I get on stage to sing the classic Hey Baby – this time the original. Everybody went along so it was kind of all right …

MAK & Sachsenhausen

One of those great spontaneous nights out in town. While on my way home with the tram I saw the usual crowd of Vernissage – people at the MAK and so after arriving home I decided to call everybody in my mobile and ask to meet up. Simone was the only one who made it in time for a glass of wine at least. We met Alba and Patricia (colleague from the US) later on and the rest of the gang in Sachsenhausen. A great night out that lasted quite long.

he is swimming in the Egeo sea !!!!

NEWSFLASH - just in time for the weekend rush this genuine photo of our Italian friend reached us. Probably taken by his mermaid girlfriend with the underwater camera.



I can't wait for them to come back and tell us about all their adventures!!!

LOST again

I already said that I was hooked. Watching the replay of the second LOST episode at 1 in the morning when I had to go to work the next day is crazy. But then again I have been doing this a lot in the past as this is the best time for the movies on ARTE and some of the other non-mainstream German TV channels.

Dinner at Leires

I was preparing to watch tonight’s LOST episode when an invitation from Leire reached me to have dinner at her place with Preeti and Maria. This was an easy decision – and the dinner topped all expectations. Also Leire told me she has never been to my place – I gotta organize something soon I guess.

Hu

Petrus sitzt wie immer am Himmelstor und passt gut auf. Plötzlich klopft es.
Petrus macht auf und vor ihm steht ein kleines Männchen.
"Hallo, ich bin der Hu," sagt es und schon ist es wieder verschwunden.
"Komischer Typ," denkt sich Petrus und schließt die Tür.
Kurze Zeit später klopft es erneut und wieder steht das Männchen vor der Tür:
"Hallo, ich bin der Hu." Und schwups ist es wieder weg.
"Blödmann" meint Petrus, als er die Tür erneut schließt.
Nach einer Weile klopft es schon wieder und - wer steht da? Genau!
"Hallo, ich bin der Hu." Und "Pffft" weg ist er.
Petrus knallt stinksauer die Tür zu.
"Verarschen kann ich mich alleine!"
Da kommt Gott herüber und legt Petrus beruhigend die Hand auf die Schulter:
"Petrus, beruhige dich. Das ist der Hubert, der liegt auf der Straße und wird gerade reanimiert"

Goodbye Daniela & Ferruccio

This is the last time I probably meet Ferruccio in Frankfurt. As Daniela and Ferruccio are getting married soon and moving to Rome, Daniela invited all the Italian population of Frankfurt to a goodbye party and also allowed some non-Italians in as there was some food left. Great food I must say. A great party with me being the last non-Italian present - physically, that is, as I spent the last hour more or less sleeping in front of a heated discussion. Don’t ask me about what, as I don’t know – it was in Italian – probably about football, pasta or the world cup, possibly politics.

Friday Night Karaoke

We met the summer interns after work in O’Reillys for Karaoke. Two new things – there was a girl on stage leading through the evening and the Karaoke machine didn’t work. Only about an hour later when half the people (including the interns) left did they start after getting the karaoke machine up and running. We still had lots of fun singing not on stage this time. Rodrigo, Paul and I stayed quite late – we left Paul with two Peruvian ladies at an early hour. I must remember the time warp to sing next time – it was the coolest song this evening.

I am double lost

Second season of LOST – watching the pilot on Pro7. I have tried escaping this series many times but somehow I got hooked. I wonder how many people have tried playing lotto using the numbers in the meantime.

Bastos Brunch and Frankfurt Galleries

Another excellent Sunday Brunch at Bastos near the Uni. This time we learned some nice army stories from Andreas and commenced to check out all 129 Galleries of the city. After about 53 of them we got exhausted and so went for a drink to Metropol, where we learned that you should never say the price when you want to buy stuff from an Indian. (am I right, Andreas?)

Click the pic for all the photos!

Happy Birthday Preeti!

Preetis family flew in a second consecutive year for Preetis Birthday. Even Sameer came to say Tanit Aguri to her. Did I mention also about 300 of her closest friends? The dungeon beneath the Palace of India was the place to be this evening. Perfect food, faboulous indian backgound music and videos, there was even some dancing going on!!!

After giving Preeti her pink fluffy present, some of us made it to Robert Johnsons, which was a complete "Reinfall". I have now been twice to this place, both times totally overpriced with a 10 Euro entry and bad music. Hmm, let's see if there will be a third time ...
Here are more photos courtesy of Jack.

Zzzzzzz...

no comment

From: Carlo
To: various participants of the Italian course
Cc: Alba
Subject: corso di Italiano
Date: 09/07/2006 05:11 PM

Hi Guys
the bad teacher (Alba) is not around today.......
so, we will have a less stressfull lesson at 5:30
this mean in 19 minutes :-D
ci vediamo nell'uovo rosso !!!!
Carlo

-----------------------
From: Alba
To: Carlo
Cc: various participants of the Italian course
Subject: Re: corso di Italiano
Date: 09/07/2006 05:14 PM

così vi rimane l'insegnante scemo....
ciaooo ;-)
Alba

-----------------------
From: Carlo
To: Alba
Cc: various participants of the Italian course
Subject: Re: corso di Italiano
Date: 09/07/2006 05:30 PM

vaffanculoooooooo

Bastos Brunch

It's a fact. Nowhere in town can you get a better brunch than in Bastos. Don't believe me? Call 069-70720004 and reserve a table for next Sunday ...

The famous David Chili con Carne

David said goodbye to us at his place with his world-famous Chili Con Carne as he is going to a better place with more beer. I will miss the Chili Con Carne (and David) and probably my 50 Euros which David borrowed from me this night. I am just writing it here so I don't forget to ask him to give it back to me when he returns in a year from now. And if he doesn't return, it shall haunt him forever. Brua-ha-ha-ha ...
Oh, by the way, this reminds me of http://www.wewantyoursoul.com

TANTI AGURI EUGENIO

this week has been hell at work - I have already missed Firman's Birthday Party on Monday so I had to make it for Eugenios. I did - even if with a more or less 2 hours delay. Happy Birthday my Italian Friend!!!

By the way this reminds me - at the same time last year we were in Vienna and this year I missed the summer in Vienna! Oh, well - it's not like it hasn't been fun around here - still maybe next year - or the one after - hmmm ...

wet dragons

ok - it was a great day, this one. But as I am lazy - I will simply copy the article I wrote for the company (with a headline and all - well, more or less ...)

Ok, here goes:



Rain is only liquid sunshine
“Testsieger” team comes in second place at the Company Dragon Boat Race in Frankfurt!

The Frankfurt Dragon Boat race is traditionally part of the Museumsuferfest, but this year it was shifted to the Osthafen to promote this area of the town. It was the event the national diversity team was looking forward to participate for the last 2 months. And finally this weekend we managed to participate very successfully with two full dragon boats at this wonderful yearly event on the river Main.

Our “Testsieger II” team (the blue group) consisted mainly of the Schwalbach summer interns and friends, the “Testsieger I” team (the red group) a group of other employees. And the T-shirt colours turned out to be shaping the happenings of the day with the intern boat having to fight in the first of many races in pacing rain and the red boat making it into the finals.

With the first race at 10:20 in the morning the meeting point was the Frankfurt Osthafen at 9 o’clock Sunday morning. Surprisingly most of the people actually showed up at this indeed very early hour. Once the T-shirts and badges were distributed, there was not too much time for coffee so the intern boat had to race quicker to earn their morning coffee. And they did! They came in second in their first race – setting a high standard for our other boat and thus motivating to also make a good race. Here is a photo of the intern boat participants shortly before boarding the boat (still dry!!!)



Only half an hour later our other boat had its first race and to another big surprise of us all we won our first race!!! This qualified us into the semi finals straight away!!!
Here is a picture of the second boat – highly motivated as you can see ...



The next race followed at 12:30 for the interns as a last chance to qualify into the semi-finals. This is where it started to rain which only motivated all to paddle even more to get out of the soaking rain quicker. Too bad the other teams also got motivated and so the intern boat finished the race third in this race against a full-man team of the Mainova.



The time between the races was spent eating potato salad, fish & chips and all kinds of other typical food of the region (Bratwurst), a show of race boats and watching the local diving unit dropping a car into the river and diving for it. Unfortunately the weather was a very mixed one with rain and sun rapidly changing – though overall rain was dominating the day.

In the semi-finals our red boat raced against Mainova and another team we raced against in the morning. With the Duracell – Bunny as our drummer we had enough energy to also win in this race to our and the other teams full surprise - a team that has only trained once and even had people on board that never trained winning against an all-men team! With team work more important than muscles our hopes were up for the finals.



When the finals approached it was raining cats and dogs. The boats were ordered back from the river as a thunderstorm was approaching. Five minutes later as the rain started to really come down on us and we were waiting in our drenched clothes to get into the boats, someone said the words “Rain is only liquid Sunshine” and then the magic happened. We got into the boats, paddled to the start and raced our biggest race of the day. At our third and final race of the day we had the most fun of the day as we managed to almost catch the winning team after a bad start and finished in SECOND place.



And only 13 hours after we met in the morning we celebrated our victory with our prize – an original Dragon Boat Drum (in a bit smaller version of course for practical reasons).



PROLOGUE
after the ceremony Alba dropped me at a cash machine near my place to get some money to be able to order some take-away as I had no food at home. Needless to say the cash machine did not work and so I kept walking to the next nearest one in my wet clothes. Oh well - f*** it - after such a day, I don't really care - my laundry has also been waiting for me all day, nothing really matters any more...

oops - almost forgot - here are all the photos including the weird place with the fan performance and the kid who put his arm into the water without his mum noticing

a long day

after the long evening yesterday I had tons to do today. First of all there was the wedding of Caroline and Frank to attend at 14:00 in the AndreasGemeinde in Niederhöchstadt. Being a mixed English - German couple the wedding turned out to be bilingual also. Plus all the singing - let's just say it was an experience.
I met up with Alba who was buying half the kitchen accessories store with her birthday voucher near Hauptwache and we went for Sushi with Rodrigo. The only problem was, I should have gotten home to get some sleep before showing up at Paritosh's for his Birthday Party - which I could not really do any more as I have gotten home when we were supposed to be showing up for the party. So I went to bed for just 10 minutes that turned out to be 2 hours so I missed half the party.
Anyways - we ended up at Unity later on and I got home only in the morning - only to remember to wake up 4 hours later to participate in the dragon boat race.

to be continued ...

What a car!

So Alba called when I was leaving work and commanded me to come to Joe Pena’s for a drink and a drive home afterwards as she got a rental car like no other. I am not going to mention the type (I forgot to be honest), but I want to say only that it was a Mercedes and it had about 39 buttons just for adjusting the left back seat, windows and heating / cooling. It even had a DVD player inside. I think there is something wrong with my job...

Goodbye Christian - Hello Preeti & Sameer

Yara organized a goodbye party for Christian, who left the Schweinshaxe for some smelly bottles a while ago. And guess where this Party took place - Yes, it's right - in the Anglo!!!

Later on The French Girl joined and even later on the Indian couple made this evening one to remember. Got home after 3 in the morning and totally exhausted. This reminds me of what I heard a while ago - you can sleep when you are dead...

Happy Birthday, Paritosh!!!

too much work this week - not too many things happening - except It's Paritosh's Birthday today!!!



I found this very cool birthday cake photo on flickr - check it out!!!

Little Man

What a stupid movie - or is it? I must say this was one of those movies that I didn't want to see. One low pubescent joke after the other and I was just about to leave the cinema after about 10 minutes when the movie started to get really funny. I know this sounds ridiculous, or maybe I was just too tired after another shitty 12 hour working day but I kept laughing out loud in the cinema with all the rest.



I mean I would not recommend spending 8 Euros on it, but if it is raining outside and the only alternative is going to the opera for 80, I would go and watch it. Or just wait for the DVD to come out and invite some friends for a DVD night.

By the way this makes it 3 non-horror movies in a row at the sneak preview. I think I will go next week again. Wanna join? (***WERBUNG***)

Brunnenfest Sachsenhausen

After a Sektfrühstück in Metropol and a round of Bluff - Spiel des Jahres 1993 we all felt like a walk. So we happened to bump into the open doors of the Portikus. We were lucky - today was the last day of an exhibition called on the other hand which constisted of simple graffity made by black paint on the white inner walls of the building. Some funny, some disturbing, some political - a perfect way of keeping some short-attention-span-people occupied for 20 minutes.

Shortly after this visit we happened to bump into the Brunnenbegehung with the Brunnenkönigin in Alt-Sachsenhausen. We also discovered a strange statue in Sachsenhausen of an old lady spitting water on bywalkers. Apparently Frau Rauscher (that's her name) was a "Sachsenhäuser Original" and there is a song commemorating her adventure with the Apfelwein.



Die Fraa Rauscher aus de Klappergass

Am Sonndag warn mer dribb de Bach, was hammer do gelacht,
so warn zwaa Eheleut beschleucht unn hawe Krach gemacht.
Uff aamal duds en dumpfe Schlag, die Fraa lieht uff de Gass
unn alle Kinner singe laut, des mecht en Heidespass.

En Griene hot den Fall geseh' un kimmt im Laafschritt aa.
Der Ehemann ruft ganz erschreckt, ich hab er nix gedaa!
Mei Alt, die kennt kaa Maß un Ziel, die hot zuviel gebaaft,
drumm hot der liewe Herrgott sie mit aaner Beul gestraft.

Jetzt gehts uffs Bolizeirevier, die Buwe hinerdrei.
Des is en intressanter Fall, des leucht doch jedem ei.
De Kommissar is ganz empeert un segt, des is doch doll.
Der Griene, wie sich des geheert, der gibt zu Protokoll.

Jetzt wärs genug, die Rauschern hat sich mit ihrm Mann versöhnt,
des kennt mer schon un is mer aach in solche Fäll gewöhnt,
doch so en beeser Zeitungskerl dut mehr als wie seine Pflicht,
am annern Dag stehts dick un braat im Bolizeibericht:

Refrain:

Die Fraa Rauscher aus de Klappergass, die hoot e Beul am Ei,
ob des vom Rauscher, obs vom Alte kimmt, des klärt die Bolizei.

(Mit dem "Alte" im Refrain ist der "alte Apfelwein" gemeint und der "Griene" ist ein Polizist.)

Here are all the pics.

It's like the story of the hippo.

The hippopotamus is not born going:
"Cool bean, I am a hippo." No way, José.

So he tried to paint a stripe on himself to be like the zebra...
but he fool no one.

Then he tried to put the spot on his skin to be like the leopard.
But everyone know he is a hippo.

So, at certain point... he look himself in the mirror and he just say:
"Hey, I am a hippopotamus... And there is nothing I can do about it."

And as soon as he accepts this, he live life happy.

Happy as a hippo.

You understand?

[Pause]

I'm gonna kill you!

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