Catch my nose - if you can

August in Berlin

2007-08-23T21:31:00.000+02:00

Charming summer, really charming! Had lots of lovely thunder storms - truly amazing - and lots of rain. There even might have been some sunny days :-) And of those I really took advantage! Last weekend, Maria, Magda and I went to Köpenick, a district close to a lake and somewhat not citied. I've also been enjoying long walks in the city and celebrating my one year old habitation in Berlin.

And look who's made it to Europe: Damian has got to go to Cambridge for a training - all the way from South Africa to Europe! :-)
Damian was one of the crazy foreigners in Siberia in winter 2004/05. Lots of fun memories. But it is really cool to see you here in Berlin, Damian!

Update

2007-08-03T21:25:00.000+02:00

Loads of stuff's happened; life in Berlin is just so busy. I also got into www.facebook.com and quite distracted from blogger ;-)
Just love it! Found so many people who hadn't been in touch with for a long time. Like I had to realize that my "kids" are grown-ups now... ;-) Right, 10 years have passed since I was an aupair.

Major events:

Kirstie and Brenda in Berlin
So, the two girls living in Barcelona made it to Berlin and brought the summer along :-) We had a great time getting sunburnt (especially me...), doing sightseeing and going out. Hope to see you soon again, ladies!

Anna's turned 30
No gray hairs yet, only might have lost some brain cells from partying too much. Now that I'm 30 I decided it's time to party again. Work's super busy, distraction is needed.
Thanks to my dear AIESEC friends I've seen quite a lot of bars and even a club recently.

My birthday week I spent in Göttingen where Chen-Yu is growing a lot ;-), in Braunschweig with my mom and last but not least - in Berlin.

Chenita looking at her new home - a really nice suitcase :-)

Brunch with Arne, Magda, Srini, Maria and Pohan at Tesoro

Hope you are having a brilliant time! ;-)
Read Harry Potter yet?

Summer - Party Time

2007-06-17T12:04:00.000+02:00

This is what my days at ThinPrint look like: Sitting on the top floor of the builing with doors wide open to the terrace

Just one recent highlight of summer in Berlin: my colleague Dani's house warming party. Quite a number of ThinPrinter went to the party and we had a great time - as you might be able to tell by the vast amount of beer...

However, sometime in the morning we decided to go home - and got stuck in the elevator. Certainly a "compulsory" experience! Time went by fast and the fire department rescued us after 1,5 hours...

Hotel Anna

2007-05-10T22:13:00.000+02:00

Hotel Anna is busy! And I'm happy about all the visitors/friends stopping by :-)

Greetings to India, to Srini who was living in my apartment for a week, because his landlady had decided to move out and left only his bed in the department...
Srini, hope you are doing great!

Last weekend Stefan and Burghardt from Bremen stopped by and we did all the touristy stuff like taking bus 100 and 200 :-) We also went into a bunker - very interesting! I didn't know that all the hills/mountains in the city are actually debris from World War II!

Also my dad was in town and we met for a lovely coffee break :-)

Yesterday Igor stopped by on his way to Helsinki. Remember my dear friend Igor from St. Petersburg and the trip to Siberia?
Well, I'm not a very romantic type ;-) but I WAS really flattered when I got home today and found a really nice bunch of flowers on the kitchen table. Many thanks, Igor! Have a fun time in Helsinki and see you Wednesday!

Baumbluetenfest

2007-04-29T13:16:00.000+02:00

Hundreds of thousands of visitors come to Werder (Havel) each and every year to celebrate the "Blossom Festival". It's a 30 min ride on the train, just a little further than Potsdam from Berlin.

What you can do there? Well, it's basically about drinking wine :-) There is an amazing variety of fruit wines. I tried "strawberry + rhubarb" and "plum" and it was really good! The festival is the second largest after Oktoberfest in Munich... Can you imagine? :-)

There are also fun fairs and since the weather was really good - to the point of being too hot - my dear friends convinced me to go on the water slide / water roller coaster. Of course we got all wet :-(

Right, gotta take care of my sunburn now...

Spain 2007

2007-04-23T12:31:00.000+02:00

My favorite place in the world

I've worked it out, this is my favorite place in the world: La plaza del Pilar. This square is magic! I remember bumping into this place on my very first Erasmus day 8 years ago. I had had no idea that Zaragoza had such a basilica and this huge square!

I had arrived the night before and had gone exploring the city quite aimless. All of a sudden I stood on this square and thought, "Yep, here I'm right. It was a good idea to come here". So I had an awesome and very intensive year.

Now, 7 years later it was time to go back :-)
Read more!
Barcelona
I left a very sunny Berlin and arrived in rainy Barcelona - great! :-( But I had a good time walking around and taking in Spanish air and the touristy atmosphere...

However, the best of Barcelona was Kirstie - a very good friend from my Erasmus year. Kirstie hasn't changed a bit and although 6 years have passed since I saw her last, it was just normal to hang out - as if we hadn't met for only a week or so :-)

Of course, we went out! Both of us announced that we are not capable of going out all night long anymore... Yeah right! Don't know where the time went, but we got home at 6 in the morning. Good job! I can't wait for Kirstie's visit in July - para irnos de juerga :-)

Zaragoza
It was really strange to be back in Zaragoza. It felt like I used a time machine and went back in time. I felt trapped in memories and emotions... It was a really intensive year there!

Much has changed, but actually nothing :-) La plaza del Pilar is still the same.

My favorite bar, Maremagnum, is not there anymore... Instead there is a shoe shop now - the only shoe shop in town where I found shoes that I like AND in the right size :-)

It was great to meet old friends again. I was staying with Roberto and Tsveti. They are, in fact, one of the cutest couples I have ever met. They really seem to be made for each other and it felt really good to be around them!
Thank you very much for making me feel home! :-) I hope to see you soon in Berlin!!!

Going out with Roberto and Abel.

Tsveti and me playing with Easter eggs - a tradictional Bulgarian game. Needless to say that expert Tsveti won ;-)

Here another incident to prove that the world is a village: There is a cosmetic called "Chenyu" - like my dear friend Chen-Yu. It only exists in Spain and whenever I go to Spain I try to get her something. So, I walk into "El Corte Inglés" in Zaragoza (it is a really huge shopping center, like Karstadt in Germany, only a bit more expensive) searching for "Chenyu". A shop assistent asks me if she can help me. I explain her that I have a friend with the name Chen-Yu etc. She looks at me and says, "some time ago there was a young men who also had a friend with that name. We prepared a nice package..." blabla... It must have been Sergio at least 5 years ago - since he hasn't been to Germany ever since (or at least don't know about it). I remember how he came back to Germany with a nice package of Chenyu cosmetics :-)

Leaving Zaragoza... I hope it won't take another 6 years to go back ;-)
Thanks again to Kirstie, Roberto, Tsveti and Abel for everything! You guys made my vacation rock! :-(

Easter 2007 - A trip back to the roots

2007-04-10T21:47:00.001+02:00

Hope you had a happy Easter time!

Since I completely missed Easter last year because of different calendars, this year it was a real family event. Well, within the range of "family" that is possible ;-)

You might have heard of the famous Harz region - famous cause I might have told you that I from that tiny part of Germany :-) My mom and I met there on Good Friday and spent the weekend hiking and discover familiar and unfamiliar places.

We were staying in Wernigerode, a stunning town in the north of the Harz.

The typical timbered houses in my home region. This is a particular small one :-) Don't worry, people aren't super small in the Harz - though I might have caused that impression...

Read more!

On Saturday we hiked up to the Brocken - the highest mountain in the north of Germany. It's only 1142 m high, but it surely is hard work to get up there. I still have sore muscles (I'm ignoring the fact that my 65-year-old mother has no sore muscles at all...)

On Sunday we went to Quedlinburg, also a nice town on the north of the Eastern part of the Harz. I was born there, went there a million of times - every time we had visitors we would go there - and I learned driving there.

Since this is my very home region, I expected to run into familiar people. But I only ran into a friend from school who actually lives in Sweden now :-) Argh, those tourists!

And then we went to Neudorf - the small village where I grew up. We visited waterfalls - I really climb over it once (must have had less water!!!) and we tiptoed around our old house and admired the changes. So, now you know why I'm so difficult :-) I had an entire floor to myself and absolute silence and darkness at night. That's why I have trouble sleeping now :-(

And of course, we visited our ex-cat Nicki. She stayed with neighbors when my parents moved away. She was really angry at us the weeks after we had left and would turn her back to us. But now she's a happy cat and recognized us :-) Well, she is a really spoiled and bitchy cat! Still love her!!!

Hope you are having a good time!
What's next? Going to Spain on Thursday :-)

Weekend

2007-04-01T21:39:00.000+02:00

Hope you had a nice weekend! It's been so warm and sunny :-)

Went to the Staatsoper to see "The Bajadere" on Friday - had never heard of it before. It was stunning! Perfect stage setting and awesome dancing. And finally a happy end :-)
However, it was Friday night and I didn't feel like going home... So, I went to join "Stammtisch" - with the intention of going home at midnight. Yep, such plans are tricky... We ended up dancing salsa till 3 am.

Summer is coming and of course we girls want to be in "bikini-shape"... so we went swimming which was great fun and felt really good.

Today we went to Lehnitz to enjoy nature. And for some part we did... But my dear friends were far more interested in German houses, cars and newly asphalted streets :-)

CeBIT

2007-03-27T21:24:00.000+02:00

Spent fours days at the CeBIT last week - including Sunday - and lost every feeling of time. Though it didn't get me to the point that I went to the supermarket on Sunday night trying to go shopping like some of coworkers :-) (You must know that shops are closed on Sundays in Germany - believe it or not)

It was a stressful time, but I enjoyed it. I learned a lot from the "Beutelratten" (people with the major goal in life to collect as many unnecassary giveaways as possible). ThinPrint offered a "magic ball" this year - throw it in the air and it changes the color. Brilliant thing, not only for kids! Believe me, I turned into an absolute expert with the ball during the weeks before CeBIT - we had several samples of it in the office. However, people simply stormed our booth from time to time and we had to be very resistent... :-(
On the other hand, the ball also turned out to be a very exchange object at other booths.... :-)

I spent a few days with my mom after the CeBIT - and of course - got sick right when I started to relax. My boss sort of yelled at me by e-mail, because I couldn't resist reading my work e-mails and also reply. So he literally commanded me to log of and relax so I'd be fresh and fit by Monday morning. And then I got sick... :-(

I hope you are all doing great! Are you? Would love to hear from you! :-)

Spring is coming

2007-03-11T21:29:00.000+01:00

Went to ITB on Saturday: "ITB Berlin is a prime meeting place, a marketplace, and a driving force behind the tourismus industry." This it says on the website. Well, let me tell you this: It is really difficult to visit all the countries of the world in one day! I was being a real "Beutelratte" (someone who is going to fairs only for the giveaways) and had super swollen hands and feet by the end of the days. At least I have enough maps and information about all the countries I want to go to - or already went to :-) It was an amazing trip around (almost the entire) world! Crucial insight of the day: I don't have time to work, I want to travel!

Read more about eating a lot and blonde hair!

After having recovered from our trip around world, we met for brunch in famous Prenzl' Berg and spent a nice time eating and playing "Presidents and assholes" - it was only about eating Sauerkraut!
And since it was the first real spring day, we went for a good long walk through a park and the city center.

Check point Charlie

Gendarmenmarkt was magical at sunset and with the violine players...

The perfect end of this first spring day was coffee next to Brandenburg Gate and the beautiful walk down "Unten den Linden" to Alexanderplatz :-)

You might have noticed that my hair is a little blonder than it was before... well, as blonde as a few year ago. It was an accident!!! I didn't want to turn into Barbie again (it least from the hair style).
My mom was visiting last weekend and I was a little tired of my dark hair line... but too lazy to do a proper dyeing job. The result was me looking brindled... So, we tried again and it got even worse. The hairdresser could only make it ALL a bit blonder to achieve SOME uniformity. Oh well... :-(

I'm really looking forward to working at the CeBIT now... Grrrr

Hope you are doing great! :-)

Spain, Spain, I'm going to Spain

2007-02-28T22:31:00.000+01:00

Since I was sick all last week long - and not only me, but also most of my co-workers - we were really motivated yesterday and happy to see each other again... and talked a lot about our vacation plans. Turned out that I was the only one WITHOUT concrete plans and so I changed that!

MSN and ICQ are great things and so I found - well, she found me - one of my close friends from my year in Spain. Kirstie lives in Barcelona now and I've been wanting to return to beloved Zaragoza for 6 years and meet friends!!!

I just bought my ticket to Barcelona! Will leave on April 12th and be back on the 19th - that is an entire week of fun in Spain.

Can't wait to check out all the places I know, go shopping and sniff my favorite perfume ;-)

Sangria here I com!

Back online

2007-02-24T20:14:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone,

hope you are all doing great! Finally - I have internet at home!!! After a 3-months tragedy with O2 (real imbeciles) I switched to another company and I'm a happy "potential" home office person now.

I don't want to bore you with my past months' life. So, let's just say I'm still having a good time in Berlin. Work is stressful and challenging my energy, but it's great and really entertaining. I get to do loads of different things and learn a lot. CeBIT is coming up...

From last Sunday on I had a really hot date... and spent most of my time in bed ;-) with a nasty virus :-( The flu is going round here, but I hope to back in the office on Tuesday!
The good thing about the flu is that I fit into my old jeans again :-) A week ago that would have been impossible!

So, I'm into the e-mail business again! Keep in touch!

And here a few impressions of what I've been up to lately:

Potsdam
With Maria (Ukraine) and Srini (India) I went to Potsdam last weekend. Potsdam is very close to Berlin and we really enjoyed the bright and sunny day. Only that the virus also enjoy his time and won over my body in the end :-(

Going out with AIESEC trainees
There is hardly any difference between my trainee life and life in Berlin. I spend most of my free time with international friends from AIESEC :-)

Cooking with Jenja
Jenja from St. Petersburg spent a semester in Berlin and we used the chance to do some Russian cooking. Well, the "syirniki" with German ingredients didn't turn out as they should have, but we ate them all anyway.

Only in Russia

2006-10-06T15:55:00.000+02:00

... well maybe not only, but certainly there! You all know that I love Russia, but I also have quite contrary feelings sometimes... especially when I read such stuff:

This is a true invitation from an English Club somewhere in Russia:

The topic of our next discussion is "Police Brutality"
The questions we will discuss:
• Have you ever suffered from Police Brutality?
• How to behave in a dangerous situation with Police?
• What are the laws that can help you?

Hope you are all doing great! I have so many things to report that I don't write anything at all :-( I'll get internet at home very soon and I'll be in touch more often!

Hotel Anna

2006-09-12T18:14:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone,

there is still no way I can upload pictures, nor do I have internet at home... needless to say that I have no time during work to do anything personal. It's all very sad, but I love my job at the same time :-)

However, my apartment seems to have turned into a hotel again - something I really enjoy! Although it can be overwhelming at times ;-)

Two weeks ago, Sergey - an AIESECer I met in Riga - stopped by to visit Berlin... and brought a long four Polish friends. They invaded my flat just a bit past midnight - I had almost been asleep already - with loads of beer wine and I had no choice but to enjoy myself at a really nice chatting/drinking party in the kitchen! Thanks a lot guys! Hope to see you again some time!!!

Meeting the "Sovjet-Block" at an AIESEC-Party

One week ago, four "Göttingers" invaded my flat and we had an awesome 48h-party-event. I'm still impressed by how much I'm still capable to do - no sleep, alcohol non-stop and sightseeing all day long. It was great!!!
By the way, it was Chen-Yu's hen night(s)... 500 pictures taken during those 48 hours tell a lot...
We were playing "Presidents and Assholes"... for those who know the game...
We came up with rules I had never imagined before ;-)

I love Berlin! Only wish I had more time to travel around the world and visit you all! I'm looking forward to the next visitors! Please stop by!

ThinPrint

2006-08-18T15:56:00.000+02:00

I love my company, it's been a fun job so far! Really! Although in this - very German - company I have no ICQ or any other chat programms. GoogleTalk works :-) but I have so much work that I'm actually happy about NOT having to be multifunctional. I can't even connect a flash card to my Thin Client :-(
However, email and blogs still work ;-) BUT I really do work a lot!

This weekend's project is to find nice shopping places! :-)

Working life

2006-08-08T13:11:00.000+02:00

Survived my first day at work :-) It was fairly easy! I'm used to NOT understand most of the jokes around me... ;-) I like my new job and the people here are great!!!
BUT: Of course, I do miss you guys in XIAG and Telphin! Hope you are all doing great!
By the way, they have a CMS here... My best friend is back :-)))

My new address:
Groninger Str. 48
13347 Berlin
Tel. +49 30 26327862
My mobile number has not changed :-)

Berlin, Berlin

2006-07-27T12:49:00.000+02:00

I got the contract for my flat yesterday, signed it and sent it right back. I hope to move on Monday or Tuesday. I'm so excited about my own place! A completely new episode in life begins. I will start working seriously ;-) and have my own place. I still have troubles deciding which couch I want etc. I love these kind of problems.
I'll start working on August 7th... brrrr. As the date is coming closer I start freaking out about it ;-)
Most important: Please, if you happen to be in Europe, Germany or Berlin, stop by and visit! I have lots of space and would love to see you!

Okay, this was the last post for today :-)

My birthday again

2006-07-27T12:30:00.000+02:00

I thought I should celebrate my last birthday with a "2" in front of it... - as some smart person pointed out to me. And Sonya and I went to Göttingen and started a 3-day-party event. It seems to have become a tradition that I can't move on my actual birthday, because I have been partying beforehand like crazy. This year was no exception :-) We had a nice barbeque at the Kiessee and continued drinking in the city at some party. Thanks again to everyone who joined (@Sonya: I do have friends!) and special thanks to Anja, who came all the way from Zorge to join for a while! Best wishes to you; good luck in Switzerland.
Read more!

For all those who have never been in Göttingen before: it is a very small city! I drove back to the center while Chen-Yu and other went by bike. I was looking for a parking spot in the center when my phone started ringing. I got a new bag the other day, a big one... so it wasn't exactly easy to find my phone... it was Chen-Yu calling. Driving and talking on the phone is not allowed, so I stopped in the middle of the street between party people. And who turns out to be standing right in front of my car annoyed that my car is in her way? Right, Chen-Yu :-)

That was TWO DAYS before my birthday. The day day BEFORE my birthday I spent quietly doing sightseeing with Sonya. I have lived for about 6 or 7 years in Göttingen, but this Californian girl has to show up so I get to see the most important sights of Göttingen ;-) We climbed up Jakobikirche... a VERY steep climb on ladders. Chen-Yu was playing Marilyn Monroe :-))) and we had great views from the tower ;-)

After so much work we needed to relax and went to the Baggersee - a very nice lake where we went "row, row, row your boat..."

Klausi, Anna and Chen-Yu after swimming

Sonya in a cornfield

Another barbeque party in the evening and drinking again

So my actual birthday was special, because I hadn't been this exhausted for a long time. You know how much I love to sleep!

Sonya and I went back to Braunschweig to have tea and cake with my mom, who set up a stunning coffee table with flowers and presents for me. This birthday was special, because I got really thoughtful gifts and people I really care about called me and sent me messages! Thanks a lot!!! I'm really flattered!!!

Sonya in Braunschweig

2006-07-27T12:24:00.000+02:00

Sonya and I said bye to Mel and Robbie and went to Braunschweig on Thursday evening. First time I took people with me who actually paid for the ride :-)
Read more!

Sonya and I did some sightseeing,

went swimming,

went out and ate "IT" - a yummy Döner Kebab, and most important: we caught up on everything ;-)

I'm glad she didn't mind the chaos in my mom's and parents' flats... boxes everywhere, nothing in order. I can't wait to MOVE and get my own place!!!

Mel, Robbie and Sonya in Berlin

2006-07-27T12:04:00.000+02:00

Have had really busy weeks! Enjoyable weeks :-)
After getting this fabulous job in Berlin - I will be an Operational Marketing Assistent in a software company doing advertisement and other things. Will have to speak Spanish a lot, Russian welcome. Yep, that's a job for me ;-)

The apartment hunt started... Berlin turns out to way less expensive than I thought! And there are loads of apartments on the market. With a little bit of luck I got a great, huge and rather cheap flat not too far away from my future office.

Read more!
So, I have been going back and forth between Berlin and Braunschweig. But the most enjoyable reason to go to Berlin was the gathering of my "Russian" friends! You might remember stories I told everyone about "the big noisy American" Mel (Robbies words) and "Robster" Robbie from Ireland with who I spent a lot of time during that cold winter in Siberia.

Anna, Mel and Robbie in front of the Russian Embassy

Robbie happened to be on vacation in Berlin, and Mel in Dublin and stopped by for 2 days. (I just love Ryanair!!!) It was so good to see them. Although we all were a little confused in the beginning: We are used to see each other dressed in huge fur coats, hats and boots. But now we were walking around in skirts/shorts melting in Berlin's 40°C.

Habits are habits and so we sticked to our usual drinking tradition - with the result that Mel and I were DRUNK by 7 pm and had to go to bed at 11 pm.

The next morning Sonya, my dear friend from my St. Petersburg times, arrived by bus from Brussels. She is on her way home to California and decided to stop by for my birthday!!! :-)

A boat trip on the Spree - Sonya

Mel and Anna

It was so great to have the three of them around, my Russian worlds getting mixed up :-) It was absolutely normal, only sometimes I wondered about the

German sounds around me ;-)

I hope to see you guys soon again!!!

Ich bin ein Berliner

2006-07-07T20:34:00.000+02:00

I got a job!!! Yay!
Will move to Berlin this month, to my favorite city in Germany :-)
Hope to find a big apartment and I expect loads of visitors!!! Please stop by in Berlin :-)

Daniel and Dong Jin visiting

2006-07-03T10:03:00.000+02:00

Soccer still keeps me busy and I started wondering what I'll be doing once the World Cup is over... :-)

However, I had the great pleasure of hosting Daniel and Dong Jin for a few days! Thanks again to the two of them for stopping by and watching soccer and enjoying summer at lakes with me!!!

Before the match Korea - Switzerland. I bought a Spain-shirt and it was a funny experience to be a foreigner in my own country. Everyone seems to like Spain! I got a lot of positive attention because of the shirt :-)
Daniel got even more attention and was THE attraction! And because of the colors on his body we had no problems moving through crowds... everyone backed up :-)
Read more!

Hanover again: Dong Jin, me and Daniel before Germany - Sweden

Bought my first - almost real - German flag

At home in Braunschweig: Dinner

Enjoying summer...

Update II - World Cup 2006

2006-06-18T11:58:00.000+02:00

Germany celebrated after the match against Poland as if it was already the champions :-)
"Football's coming home, is coming home..."
Read more!
I have watched most of the games so far. And most of the time we are sneaking in where the fans are. I watched Portugal - Iran yesterday in an Iranian cafe... and was for Portugal! Figo! Yay!

Mexico - Angola

On our way to Hanover... we met the Mexican Team which lives in Göttingen (!!!) during the World Cup.

Angola vs Mexico

Celebrating with a bunch of Mexicans

Mexico is going to sleep: at the train station :-)

And the best: I spent a lot of time on the market square in Göttingen yesterday and the U-17 Mexcian National Team which won the World Cup in their category passed :-) Couldn't resist getting a pictures with some of them.

Update

2006-06-15T17:10:00.000+02:00

Summer has finally arrived in Germany! And with it the World Cup 2006 :-) It is AMAZING! I have never seen - if ever - Germany this united and "bubbling". Last night's game was awesome... My heart, my poor little heart almost had an attack, but a last-minute-salvation goal saved it. Germany went mad!!! The streets were super crowded, German flags and the colors were EVERYWHERE, people singing "Berlin, Berlin, we are going to Berlin". Great atmosphere and Germany dares to show some pride! It is incredible!!! It is great!
I'd love to be in Berlin on July 9th!!!

Life in Germany is okay :-) I'm super busy, but somehow I haven't considered any of that stuff worth mentioning. My dear mother decided to move out of my parents' apartment (finally!!!) and we were busy organizing the transfer of her (and partly my) stuff. I haven't found a job yet - but there is progress - and so I don't really have a place at all :-( However, I'm enjoying my unsteady and interesting life! I had an interview in Berlin last Friday and went on to the East of Germany to attend an AIESEC conference:-)

AIESEC? Conference? The ones who know me might think that I have gone nuts, but it was actually only a reason to meet up with Igor and Chun-Xiao - friends from St. Petersburg!!!

Read more!
The conference took place in Schneeberg, in the "Erzgebirge", a beautiful mountain region. I have never been there before, in fact, I haven't been in the East for a very long time and had loads of prejudices to work on ;-)

My workshop was a "reintegration" seminar, for AIESEC trainees who have been abroad... A very good idea in general; I would have appreciated it after my year in the US :-) Culture shock hello!

"Getting to know each other": Twister

We were five people plus trainer in the seminar: Falk, Chun, Igor, Arne and I were drawing experience graphs and talked about our experiences and compared countries. From what we discussed: turns out that Germany is a very organized country, everyone being punctual all the time :-) .

Arne, Anna, Igor and Falk

Chun and our minds maps

AIESEC Global Village

Anna, Chun-Xiao and Igor (re)presenting Russia with a fair amount of (horrible) vodka

Conclusion: I'm not reintegrated yet :-( I'm doing much, much better than after the US, but I miss Russia a lot. 106 people were at the conference... I socialized with the two Russians there :-)

At Igor's in Cospeda (close to Jena)
After the AIESEC conference Chun and I went to Igor's to spend a few more days with him.

Outside Igor's apartment, enjoying the evening sun

Relaxing after a long and hard weekend

Erfurt
Igor took Chun and me on a sightseeing tour to a city close by. I went to Erfurt about 20 years ago, and my memories are a bit blurry... but from what I remember, I must admit that the city has changed a lot. There is no "soviet" air left, everything is new and very German :-) Actually all I saw of the East was great! I'm impressed!!!

School enrolment coming up

Weimar

Anna cleaning Goethe's feet

On Pushkin's tracks

We met Russians in Weimar who realized that we understand Russian :-) Two boys wanted to play soccer with us, but Igor refused :-) Well right, I also didn't fancy playing soccer too much on high heels! But it was cool!

Jena

Market square in Jena

"Länderabend" - Country evening: Russia
AIESEC Jena had asked Igor to talk about Russia and smartie Igor got Chun and me to join. I was impressed how much effort the AIESECers put into it. We had home-made pelmeni and some other Russian products.

Igor presenting Russia

Anna eating beloved pelmeni! Yummy!

Soccer!!! Yay! Brazil - Croatia 1:0

All together, the East is not too bad :-) and I met lots of "Wessis" there. Double suprise! Will go back there soon and add the five new federal states to my job search list.

Unemployment

2006-05-16T20:11:00.000+02:00

This is definitely not how I look today!!! I had three wisdom teeth taken out this morning and I have spent the day cooling my swollen face :-( The surgery itself was painless and fast, the pain arrives when the anesthesia leaves...

Last week a professional photographer took some photos for me... I hope that will raise my chances to find a job. :-)))

Back in Germany

2006-05-01T13:16:00.000+02:00

Long time no see :-) I'm back in Germany, struggling to find my way here. Although I have to say: Germany is not too bad :-))) I expected it to be worse!
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Telphin
I left Russia on Wednesday, April 19th after a great party weekend.
I got a great cat for snuggles from my co-workers (the white thing above, won't tell the name) and we had an excellent last party in the office and on the street. Thank you for a great year in the office with you guys! :-)

Friends
I also enjoyed the trainees' company and partying very much! So, correctly written on the T-Shirt (excellent idea, Laura) "Piter - beer party". Thanks for all the wonderful and thoughtful presents!!! The best memories... until we meet again!

The train station was a hard bit, but thanks to Daniel bearable. Thanks to all who made it to the train station to say bye :-( Special thanks to Tyoma for the Formel 1 ride through the city!!!

Riga
Daniel and I went on a 2-day-trip to Riga, Latvia and had a great time. Riga is beautiful, although Tallinn might be a tiny bit nicer ;-) Travelling made leaving Russia much easier; distraction always helps ;-) We did a great deal of sightseeing and partying and met loads of interesting people. I even met a German girl who is my age, was born in the East of Germany like me and now lives in the city where my parents live, in a street not far away:-) Yay!

Berlin
Of course, I had to pay a lot for my heavy luggage... "No I don't have any Lats left, can I pay in Euro? No? Hm, where is the bank? Well, bank is closed, wait until it opens..." However, Easyjet took me back home safely and my dear mom was waiting for me in Berlin. Did I mention that traveling is a good distraction? Well, Berlin was awesome!!! Such a beautiful city! And I realized that Germany is not too bad;-)

French Cathedral and a "Trabi"

Dunkin Donuts

At the Holocaust Memorial

Humboldt-University... memories...

The Berlin Cathedral

Aufm Alex (Alexanderplatz)

First week in Germany is over: Had a job interview that went well, but I don't want the job. I drove about 1000km last week. Visited my grandma, aunt and uncle in Köthen. Haven't seen my dad yet, although he lives only a few streets away. Now I'm in Göttingen trying to fight the feeling "Was a nice vacation, I'm ready to go back to normal now, I wanna go back to St. Petersburg!"
Remember Pawel from Poland who I met in Piter last summer? The crazy Polish guy who would never drink beer although he had to hang out with three heavy drinkers every day? Pawel and a very good friend of his stopped by on Saturday and left this morning:-) They did Hamburg, Braunschweig, Göttingen and Berlin in three days. Can you believe it?
I will miss the craziness :-(((
It is very sunny and green here.
I haven't found jeans yet. Sonya, enjoy my old ones :-)))
And the shoes fashion is simply horrible! Now I regret not having done more shoe shopping in good old Russia.
Göttingen is great! And Mama, I love you!

Hope you are all well! Take care! :-)

An end - and a new beginning awaits

2006-04-13T08:48:00.000+02:00

My time in mama Rossiya is coming to an end; next Thursday I will already be in Lativa. I'm busy cleaning - mostly my computer in the office, planning my last days and yet trying to ignore the fact that I'm leaving.
Tomorrow we will have a big drinking-party event in the office, leaving Telphin will be hard. My co-workers are crazy, but the best co-workers in the world! :-)
Saturday - after having recovered from Friday night - my official farewell party will take place in my flat and in the center. I wanna go to Datcha once more...

I have had a GREAT year in St. Petersburg! I do believe that I was meant to be here, but I'm also ready to move on. I'm as sad about leaving as I'm happy to go back home. But I will be back in Russia for lots of visits for sure!!!

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Thanks to everyone for making this year so special... Things and people kept changing throughout the year!
@Simona: You were here when I arrived and you showed me the city and made me feel home! I'm really glad we became good friends! AND: it's your turn to visit me in Germany! ;-)
@Yuan, Pawel and John: I had a lot of fun hanging out on Nevski and Datcha all summer long! I got a pretty good idea of what it's like to be a guy :-) and sorry for abusing you as female friends sometimes ;-) You guys made my summer!
@Sonya: You know how desperate I was for real female company when you arrived ;-) but it wasn't only that which made us become friends. It just made me "sticky" in the beginning ;-) Although we disagree about things from time to time, I believe to have found a soul mate in you and I hope we will keep in touch!
@Igor: Thanks for entertaining me in ICQ and being a great travel partner to Siberia! :-))) And please drive carefully and stay in love with real people!!! Although I'm not moving to Jena, I will stop by sometime soon!
@Trainees: Armen, Chinxao, Cristina, Daniel, Jenny, Judit, Karl, Laura, Louise, Mari Sophie, Masha, Rosa, Samson, Shekar. Thanks for being my family!!! Take care, keep in touch and see you! ;-)
@AIESEC: thanks for making this year possible! As individuals you guys are great people!
@Telphin: :-((( Will just miss you so much! Keep in touch! But forget all the German words and phrases you have learned...

and to everyone else I met and haven't mentioned: thanks!!! The most important and impressive experience this year was YOU, all the people I met with their different opinions and culture!

Good bye, Russia! It's a love/hate relationship ;-) but I will mostly remember the good things!

@Germany: I'm looking forward to see everyone there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stories that life writes

2006-04-04T10:40:00.000+02:00

It's been a while since I wrote last... We have a new managing director in the company and he kept me extremely busy. All last week long I spent editing our new product's international per minute rates (TelMe)... I have done it at least 5 times during the past 4 months... every time it was meant to be the last time and our final prices. Now THIS time I got an Excel file with ALL the world's destinations and ALL area codes, which added up to a 15000 lines file :-) Do you know where St. Pierre and Miquelon is? Or Diego Garcia? Not that I know, but I know all the destinations in Russian and English :-)))

So I was ready for a party weekend by Friday!!! And I had a party weekend! Won't bother you with details. The most brilliant thing happened to me around 4am on Sunday morning:-) I had had several drinks at that point and we all were quite tipsy. We changed locations and went to a bar called Fish Fabrica - a creepy place, but fun! I was the last one walking in and the security guy stopped me and didn't wanna let me in. I was sort of incapable of speaking any Russian, so the guy dragged me to a sign that clearly stated that people under 18 are not allowed in :-))) The guy realized his mistake soon enough and let me in! That definitely made my day!

But the best story is without any doubt Laura's weekend confusion! I think I mentioned before that my dear friend Laura is a party animal :-)))
So, after a 24h drinking event Laura arrives at home at 9 on Sunday morning, but is SURE that it is 9 in the evening! Her room mate is (still) sleeping, which Laura takes as an "early-going-to-bed" occasion. She prepares her classes for the next morning, sets her alarm clock and goes to bed at 11am. It is still bright outside and she wonders, but then it's Russia, anything can happen ;-) (And it will be daylight at 11pm in a few months). Laura wakes up at 2pm, thinking it is Monday morning and that she overslept and calls her school. Of course, nobody picks up the phone. Eventually Laura's room mate wakes up and informs Laura that it is SUNDAY. It took some time until Laura believed it, in fact, she checked it on the Internet and then went out to meet me for cake, tea and beer :-)

And last but not least, my time in Russia is almost up :-( I'm extremely sad about leaving, but looking forward to Germany at the same time. I'm going to Riga for two days on April 19th with Daniel, a trainee from the USA. Poor Daniel will have to stand my crying about leaving, but he promised to bring some tissues. April 22nd is the day when a plane takes me back to Germany... :-( and :-)))))))) Lots of fun is coming up!!! Chenita and Sveenie are getting married in September and I get to be bridesmaid!!! I'm so excited! Have to buy a dress - and find a job to be able to pay for it! See ya soon

It's Russia

2006-03-24T11:37:00.000+01:00

I truly love Russia! I wouldn't have been here for 1,5 years otherwise!
But besides all the good things in Russia like the tremendous hospitality, beautiful nature, relaxed pace of life and the innate ability to enjoy the simple things, there are outrageous conditions of living and surviving in this country!
There are loads of stories worth to write down, because they reflect Russia so well. Unfortunately I developed a great laziness (although my dear parents would agrue that it has always been around) and seldom write them down.

However, while riding home by metro last night, Laura told me the story of her wallet and phone stolen the other day, a story which I HAVE to share!!! Laura, being a party animal, frequently takes the first metro home in the morning around 6.30, and naturally falls asleep once in a while. Last Sunday she realized that her wallet and her phone were gone after the security guards woke her up (Laura and I live at the same metro station, which is the final stop of the line). But wouldn't other people say something if they saw someone opening the bag of another person and stealing something???
Yesterday, Laura met a guy who has worked for the metro some time ago. She tells him her story and he says, "I know who it was". Shocking news!!! How could he know?
It turns out - it is common knowledge among metro employees - that it is the security guards that search a sleeping person's things and take what they want before they wake the person up!!! Their salary is so low that they try to make money in other "businesses" :-(

Losses - and recoveries

2006-03-20T16:39:00.000+01:00

March 20th and it is snowing like crazy. The sun managed to find a way through the clouds, but it is still definitely not spring!!! :-(
The past week was full of surprising and unusual events and I'd like to share some of the them.

As I might have mentioned before, Katya, the managing director of my company quit her job and is moving to Moscow. This very sad loss at least had to be celebrated adequately. So, all Telphin employees gathered in a German!!! bar on Friday around 7pm and we started drinking very efficiently. The metro closes at midnight, so we had to make sure everyone was hammered by then and ready to go home. And guess what, we managed that :-)))

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We gave Katya a photo album with pictures, most of the pictures we had hidden from her so far... most pics were taken by me, the paparazzo, but fortunately I was just as often on the those very compromising pictures (some of them I uploaded some time ago).

Katya looking at the pics

I got home safe and sound, but realized that one of my beloved earrings was gone :-( It was a rather expensive Christmas present from my dear mom and I can still hear her saying, 'take good care of them, Anna'. I was really upset! On Saturday I had a look at the 149 pictures taken the night before and noticed that at 21.51 o'clock I still had my earring, but a pic taken at 21.53 clearly shows that the earring was gone! Motivated by the knowledge of WHERE exactly I lost it I went to the bar and asked. They weren't being helpful and the people sitting at that very table just looked at me like, 'just leave us alone, we are having a beer...!' I left my phone number in the bar and was determined to go back the next day. BUT the manager of the bar called me yesterday morning... they had found it!!! Yay!!! I met him in the center and got it back! :-)

On Saturday all the AIESEC trainees gathered for the last party with Jenny, who is going back home to Germany on Wednesday morning :-( All the Germans are leaving... I'm last one and I will follow soon!

I recommend this article: Nine Years, Nine Whores, Nine Hours. It is disturbing, but brilliant, really well written. Especially men might find it interesting!

It is still cold, and the general situation is not very good in Russia... I saw a dead man on the street on my way home the other day! Scary!

Weekend adventures

2006-03-14T14:10:00.000+01:00

It's the middle of March and we still have minus degrees :-( At least it is a one-digit number by now! I had fine weekend though, with A LOT of walking through beautiful and sunny St. Petersburg.

Well, that's a night shot - no sun there, but it is still beautiful :-)
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On Saturday Sonya and I crossed the Neva not by using a bridge, nor did we use any other medium... we simply walked over the river!!! It was a little scary in the beginning, but there were loads of people and an obviously frequently used trail which we simply followed.

Sonya in the middle of the Neva

Once again safe and sound on solid ground we visited the Peter and Paul Cathedral, and it is hard to believe, but Katherine II, Peter II, the members of Nicolas II family and other famous people are resting there in huge caskets.

Sonya works for the monthly newspaper Pulse, which is published in Russian and English, and we were invited to a press conference as Pulse journalists in the afternoon. It was the first press conference I have ever attended in life - after a lot of studying PR at university - but it wasn't just an ordinary press conference (which they should never be anyway): "Werewolf", a bikers' club just opened! A BIKERS' CLUB! OMG!
Free food and free drinks, it took very little time to get tipsy ;-) We had press cards and were soooo proud of them... as you can see below!

The bikers were also a lot of fun. Pulse editor Matthew had made it his mission to infiltrate the bikers and Sonya and I had to play roles as supporting actresses. We ended up having a photo shooting with some of the bikers, me being the official photographer. One of my pics might actually be published in the newspaper's next edition! I'm really thrilled!

After Werewolf we went on to Datcha... Yeah, Datcha again!

On Sunday I went for an extraordinary long walk - I'm working on my "to do - list" :-) For those who know the city: I got off the metro at Sennaya Pl. and walked all the way to Primorskaya where I met the girls for sauna! I witnessed one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen!!! In fact, I ran for it :-))) I crossed Vasilevsky Island running... and got the last bits of the pink sky!

International Women's Day

2006-03-09T14:17:00.000+01:00

Best wishes to all women!

Women's day is a holiday in Russia and moreover, a really important one! Everywhere you can see men and women walking around with flowers, and I got a chocolate bar in shop yesterday as a present for women's day. I'm glad that they appreciated me as a woman :-))) Altough it might have been a pure business action!

We had a party in the office on Tuesday evening. It was soooo cute!

The male Telphin employees ready to hand over flowers

The female Telphin employees + CEO with flowers :-)

Siberia

2006-02-26T13:37:00.000+01:00

It's Sunday and I'm more or less - rather less - enjoying working today... Dear Mr Putin did a little experiment with the holidays and in consequence, Russia is working today. On Thursday we had "Men's day"... a national holiday and in order to have a long weekend they switched Friday and Sunday. Got it? No? Never mind! It's Russia :-)

However, I'm back from my trip to Siberia. I enjoyed the week immensely... Be warned: this is a quite long and big article with many pics ;-)

Going for a walk to "Obskoe More" (The Ob Sea)
I just love the peace of the Siberian forest... It is so quiet there! It is so good for the "dusha" (soul)!

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Obskoe More

The ice seems to be so clean and nice... I just HAD to try it!

Novosibirsk

The bridges at "Rechnoi Vokzal"

The ice city at "Rechnoi Vokzal"

Ms Paparazzo taking pictures of the Ob and the ice city

I simply felt like playing mom for a second :-)

Igor taking a nap after lunch in "Kuzina"

"Glavniy Vokzal" - The main train station

Ploshad' Lenina (Lenin Square) and the Opera

Anna on Ploshad' Lenina

Igor in the Opera with gloriole.
Thanks to Yulya we saw "Bohemia" in the Opera in Novosibirsk! Yulya and I had no clue what it was about and the fact that it was in Italian wasn't really helpful. But we sneaked a program during the 15 min break and figured it out :-)
Igor took a nice nap and woke up just in time to clap!

Friends (in alphabetical order)

Once Masha was my AIESEC-buddy; I didn't speak much Russian, she didn't speak much English. But somehow we managed to communicate with each other, keep in touch and we became good friends. I speak better Russian and her English is amazing by now. We had great conversations and were laughing a lot...
@Masha: Thanks a lot for hosting, entertaining and feeding me!!! I hope to see you soon again! Good luck, but I'm sure you will be successful with anything you do! :-)

Olya is the sweet Russian girl that once took me home to her parents' house over the weekend. It was a 6 h trip on the train to Novokuznetsk and I got to see Russian family life. I loved it! Russians are the best hosts I have ever met in the world!
The picture was taken in Chegevara (a club) where we had fun times dancing... ;-)
I'm glad to know Olya; she is a very caring and sweet person!
@Olya: I had good times laughing with you! Special thanks to you for coming to the airport to see me off after work and a very short night!!! I hope to see you soon again! Hugs!

Yulya is also an AIESECer and we became good friends after some disagreement... At least that what it did for me. I was mad at AIESEC (happens quite often though btw) and Yulya happened to be in ICQ and talking to me... So I had a little "explosion" and sort of yelled at her in ICQ... and found out that we actually have a lot in common. Ever since she has been one of my close friends!
@Yulya: I hope to see you soon in Moscow or Piter... or in Germany for the Championship! Take care and stay happy!!!

On Monday Igor and I were being bold and lazy bugs :-) We stayed at Masha's almost all day long and exploited the Internet connection and the vast number of movies on the server!

Well, we left for a short walk before watching some more movies :-)

XIAG

I went to my old office. When I left it on Feb. 26th last year it was simply chaos... they did a nice job remodelling the place and it looks "prosto" super now!

It was great to see my ex-co-workers again! I still don't smoke ;-) (Zonov - the guy on the right - asked me EVERY day for the first 3 months if I smoke)

Akademgorodok

Torgoviy Center in Akademgorodok: Dad Moroz and his wife

Went to see my old apartment. Unfortunately there was "remont" and we couldn't live there :-( But I couldn't resist ringing the bell and asking for a short tour around the flat. The workers were really nice - relieved to see that I wasn't the "milizia" - and let me in.

Russian kids are sooooo cute! They are so neatly bundled up :-)

The street to the city... Nostalgia

Olya and I went skiing :-) She is very good in skiing and took me on an "interesting" route... I think I'm allowed to say that I fell in every possible way! The best was the "snow-diving" one... My knees look really colorful! But - surprisingly - I didn't care at all! It didn't hurt and was simply fun!

Chilling out in New York Pizza: Igor and I sat there for at least 3 hourse and didn't do anything. I had pizza, a chocolate shake and lots of tea. Simply great!

English Club

I also had the opportunity to join the Tuesday meetings at Nina's! It is true: Akadem is a very special place. In this academic town there are almost exclusively living "brains" who are very intelligent and educated and interested in all sorts of stuff. It is a pleasure to sit with them, drink tea, have a piece of cake (or two) and talk or listen to a violine concert...!!!

Parties

Of course we did some partying! Igor loves vodka and Russian girls (Igor is going back to Germany today, so he can't hit me for saying this :-)))

Before I went to Piter in May last year, I was given a bottle of wine by Stegi. I took it to Russia with me and wanted to drink it at a special occasion. But the special occasion never came or I never realized... So, I carried the bottle to Siberia and emptied it with the three great girls who I'm proud to call my friends: with Masha, Olya and Yulya.
(Poor Igor wasn't allowed to join the girls' event... he had to drink vodka with some Russians...)

Goodbye
Goodbye Akademgorodok, goodbye Siberia! This time it will take more than a year until I return! :-( It sounds crazy: I went on vacation to Siberia in February! But I had a great time!!!

Goodbye Igor! Have a safe flight home and thanks for joining me on my trip to Siberia ;-) I hope you also had some fun... and weren't too annoyed by my nostalgia! Good luck with girls! Stay away from those with "K"! :-)))

News

2006-02-16T09:55:00.000+01:00

Hope you are all doing well!

I'm a little bit sick again... Got cold several times last weekend and the hairdresser didn't really dry off my hair well... and it is still cold in Piter. I'm doing fine though :-)

And finally tomorrow: I'm going to beloved Akademgorodok!!! I have a flight in the late evening to Novosibirsk and will arrive early in the morning on Saturday. I still can't believe I'm going back there!

Igor, the Serbian guy who lives in Germany will accompany me. We both need some distraction from life in Petersburg!
I'm looking forward to all my friends and the forest!!!

My time in Russia is slowly coming to an end... I just booked my flight home :-) I'm flying from Riga to Berlin on April 22nd! Home sweet home...

City Bar

2006-02-08T10:36:00.000+01:00

Went to City Bar on Monday. It was one of those amazing events in Russia:
Imagine an American bar... if you have ever been to an American bar. Imagine an American woman living in (corrupt) Russia and running her own bar... What would that look like?
1. I had to get behind the bar and search for a tea bag (a fairly easy task), a cup (very difficult, but the owner of the bar eventually found some) and hot water (extremely difficult).
2. I met the cutest cat I have ever seen! The lady jumped on the table, sat down and enjoyed our conversation. Nice to meet a cat that apparently understands English ;-)
3. I walked out without paying. What for?

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Btw, going to work in the morning:

"Durak", Pushkin and other adventures

2006-02-06T13:39:00.000+01:00

Happy Monday! Headache is gone, work is back!
I had a fine week and a nice weekend... if we ignore the cold that freezes my b... off! I went to a jazz concert on Thursday and especially enjoyed the singer... a very energetic/slutty/wild Russian lady in her late 30ies/40ies I'd say. In the end we were all swinging on our chairs, clapping madly!

On Friday, part of the German community hang out in "Zoom" drinking beer and vodka and playing "Durak"... a very nice Russian card game, which we continued on Saturday! The cultural part of the weekend was a trip to Tsarskoe selo, also called Pushkin, home of the Romanov family. It was freezing cold and the walk in the park was rather short, but beautiful... See the pics :-)

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Anna being a statue

Igor and Katya

After the palace adventure we (Jenny, Igor, Karl, Katya and me) were cold and hungry and started drinking vodka at Jenny's place in Pushkin and playing cards again. Around 10pm we went on to "Datcha", the famous expats bar in the center. Unfortunately I had a little too much vodka which caused the loss of my memory... but not too worry... my dear friends took loads of pictures which give evidence of every single move I made in Datcha. Apparently I had great fun dancing ;-)

Jenny, Karl and Anna

Laura and Rosa

Prague - Praha - Прага - Prag

2006-01-30T12:36:00.000+01:00

I'm back in Russia after an awesome weekend in Prague! My co-worker Masha and I enjoyed the beautiful capital of the Czech Republic in cold but sunny weather. We ate loads, we had lots of beer, we walked a lot and slept well :-) What else you need!?

Thanks to the 2 hours time difference, we woke up early on Friday morning after a refreshing 9,5h sleep and set off to discover Jewish Prague. Our hotel, Certovka, was/is located right next to the Charles Bridge and from our room we could see the Prague castle.

The Charles Bridge

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View to the Prague Castle

We saw ALL the synagogues and exhibitions in Prague. I won't recite my feelings and impressions of the Jewish Prague tour, but it was very impressive!!! One thing that got me was the old suitcase of displaced "Otto Schwarzkopf", and the children's drawings... the drawings are the only items left in memory of these children!

Poser Anna in Prague

I fell in love with the hat, but I didn't buy it... Wouldn't be fashionable in Piter ;-)

Sightseeing

On top of the Tower Hall

On top of the Tower hall: View to the Prague castle and the "Eifeltower" (both at the horizon, and we climbed on both the next day)

Masha on top of the Tower Hall

Delicious dinner with beer and Becherovka
By the way, people thought I'm Russian! Some started guessing where I'm from, and the last thing that would say was Germany.
People also must have been very confused meeting Masha and me... A Russian and a German girl in Prague, speaking English with each other. WHAT???!!!

YUMMY!!!

Walking home...

Meeting old friends
The trip to Prague was a perfect gift... I had never been to Prague before and I wanted visit Simona this year anyway! Remember my cool Czech friend Simona? She was a trainee in Piter when I first got here.
Simona picked us up from the airport, took us around for a night sightseeing tour in the car, drove us to the airport on Sunday morning and went clubbing with us :-) THANKS!!!
The bad news for Simona: I want to go soon again to Prague and bug her! ;-)

The Prague Castle
Saturday was dedicated to the Prague Castle, which turned out to be a "slippery" and very cold adventure.

The stairs and paths were like skating rinks; it was more sliding and crawling than walking. However, we never fell :-)

The Prague Castle

Night sightseeing with Simona in the car

We had a safe flight home and I miss Europe again :-( I truly love my time in Russia, but it is time to go back. GREAT thanks to TELPHIN for this awesome weekend, and thanks to Masha for being such a great companion and her effort of speaking English with me all weekend long! And... see you soon, Simona ;-)

Simply cold

2006-01-24T12:22:00.000+01:00

It's really warm today, it's only -5 or so! Due to the coldness, I didn't do much last week and over the weekend. Most apartments are cold, down to +15 (at least there is a "plus"). We were partying at Igor's again on Saturday when the electricity went off and it didn't come back until yesterday evening (Monday...). I heard the city needs to save electricity these days...

I'm going to Prague on Thursday with my co-worker Masha. We will stay in a **** hotel and I can't wait to see Simona and Libby!!! Remember the two Czech girls from the summer?

Nothing more to say... I'm doing excellent :-) watching movies, eating and sleeping all the time! Work is extremely busy these days, but I like it!!! Hope you are also doing well!

Finally winter!

2006-01-17T14:40:00.000+01:00

Yesterday the weather forecast promised that we'd have -18 today and I gave it a smirk, because they also said it would be REALLY cold for New Year's eve and we hardly had minus degrees. However, I put on an extra sweater this morning before I walked out of the door.. I got out, sniffed the air and thought, 'silly forecast, this isn't cold'. I walked down the stairs and crossed the square in front of my house and thought, 'Hm, well, it is colder than yesterday, but not -18! (I always have a very hot shower in the morning plus very hot coffee so usually I can't wait to leave the building, because I'm overheating...) Finally, by the time I arrived at the metro I was ready to admit that we indeed have -18 today... but at least the sun is shining! In Moscow it is -25 and Novosibirsk has -40 :-)
I spotted wonderful ice stars in the hallway towards my office though.
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I had a fine weekend with lots of "health activities". First of all, I started to take cold (very short) showers in the morning!
On Friday we had Chunxiao's farewell party (the 1st one in a long list) in her apartment and I refused to get up before noon on Saturday. Sonya had spent the night in my apartment and we were being lazy tattletales till 5 in the afternoon. We finished the day with a great sweating session in a banya with most of the trainees and a great dinner at a Chinese restaurant on Vasileovsky Ostrov - where I used to live in summer.
On Saturday I went skiing - Yay - and made it down all the hills more or less gracefully... at least I didn't fall! :-)
Followed by this was Chunxiao's 2nd farewell party in her apartment. Her 3rd one is taking place tonight and we will see her off at the train station tomorrow! She says she discovered her "housewife" qualities at the age of 32... So, I hope it will also hit me some day! :-)

2006 says hello

2006-01-10T13:16:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone!

THANK YOU for your wonderful emails, pictures and comments! I'm so happy to be in touch with you and know what you are doing! I will answer emails bit by bit... works has gotten busy again!

I hope you all had a great New Year's eve party and a promising first week of the new year! I certainly had a crazy and bizarre, but really cool week :-)

I met the new year on Place Square, right outside the Hermitage with all the foreigners after an awesome dinner party at "The cottage" (Daniel, Louise and Cristina live there). I was dancing on Nevski Prospekt at Gostiniy Dvor till 3 in the morning and had a blast!
Sonya and Anna

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It's Russia and you'd think that nothing works on New year's for it is the biggest party event during the year, BUT the metro started working at 4 am already! AND the security lady in the metro was in the best mood ever, smiling and greeting everyone! If that isn't a promising start??!!

We had visitors from Germany, from the West-Harz to be exact (the small mountain region where I come from, only that I'm from the east) and all German speaking foreigners hang out a lot together. So on New Year's! :-) With the VERY convincing argument, "I haven't been to Zoom yet this year", we went to Zoom... my favorite restaurant as you might know by now!

Kanal Griboyedova

On Monday I went to "The castle" to join the ENJEC-New Year's party. It was quite sad to be there without Mari Sophie, Armen, Masha and Samson! We miss you guys!!!
It was a fun party though, although sleeping in two armchairs wasn't really... so I dragged myself home at 6 in the morning :-(

On Tuesday I went to the movies with Sonya, Tyoma, Vitya and some unkown girls, and watched "Broken Flowers" with Bill Murray! Awesome! That dude just sits on a sofa not doin' anything and is just filling the scene and atmosphere! Great movie followed by a bizarre evening... We go to a cafe after the movie and eventually Tyoma and Vitya get up and force Sonya and me to pay, get our jackets and leave the cafe within one minute, because Tyoma has a super important appointment with someone. It is 11pm by then and Sonya and I decide to go home... As we walk down the street, the guys INFORM us that we are going to Tyoma's apartment for dinner and a movie. Of course, we have to stop at a shop and buy a movie... All of a sudden this urgent appointment is forgotten and they take 20 min to choose a movie. By the time we arrive at Tyoma's flat it is too late for the last metro :-( But I really, really wanted to see Mishka (Tyoma's cat if you remember?). Cutie Mishky remembers me and is all nice - look at the picuture!!!
However, it is getting even more awkward now. Vitya and Tyoma apparently have been playing "house" for the last 4 days... cooking, cleaning etc. together. All Sonya and I have to do is to sit down and look nice (well, me being silly with Mishka). We got a superb dinner!!!
Mishka, the cutie, climed on my chest while we watched the movie later on. He put his paws around my neck and rested his head on my shoulder! I was extremely flattered!!! I never allowed him this sort of thing when we were living together. He loves me! Yay!!!

Sonya, Tyoma, Vitya and Anna

I spent the night after the dinner at Sonya's and we had a great time laughing! I didn't sleep very much and was practically dead... but got my old form back during the day: Hermitage and party till 5 am in my own apartment for a change! :-) Me getting old? Ha! Nope! ;-)

(I slept 13 hours the next night...)

On Thursday I went... tja haahahaha... to Zoom again, this time with Sonya and her Latvian friend Lauma, who is visiting for a few days. Below you can see me and my very favorite dish: Spaghetti with cream chicken sauce! It is a little boring, but I can't get myself to change...

Friday was dedicated to sleeping 12 hours and I only went out with all the trainees for a beer.

On Saturday ice skating was on! Finally outside activities on Krestovski Ostrov with Sonya and Lauma. Lauma was being a diva while Sonya and I were playing "ducks without balance on the ice". Was fun though! Getting better ;-)

After the skating adventure we set off for the famous Marinsky theater, which was simply awesome! The theater itself is soooo beautiful, and the performance of the opera "Mazeppa" by Tshaikovsky perfect. Imagine world class singers and actors, a stunning theater and stage with wonderful music AND English "subtitles" to what was going on made it a perfect event! No theater is ever gonna impress me again :-(

The Marinsky

Sunday... the last day of the holidays! We (Sonya, Lauma and me) decided to go for a walk in the center which turned out to be like a miracle - no kidding, see the photos we took! It was finally a sunny day and it was late afternoon. The city was as pastel-colored as I saw it in summer, but still different because of the coldness and the snow.

Peter and Paul fortress and the Neva

St. Isaac's Cathedral

Sonya and Anna on Palace Bridge

Anna on the Neva (in summer I used to cruise around that very spot in a boat)

Happy new year

2005-12-30T15:08:00.000+01:00

Great, it's Friday afternoon, the day before New Year's eve and I'm drunk already! :-( I love my company, but it seems a little unfair to knock me off before the partying has even started!!!
However, I wish you all a happy new year! Have a great party tomorrow! Lots of love, success and health!

I will celebrate with the AIESEC trainees in town; stick around Nevski Prospekt and hopefully drink a fair amount of vodka :-) We are off work until January 9th - one of the good ideas Mr. Putin has... won't say anything about the efficiency of that, never mind, I'm happy! :-)
I tried to - yeah, FINALLY - send my Christmas/New Year's cards by ordinary mail yesterday and, as a result, started cursing Russia once more. I managed to get rid of 2 out of 8 cards... Sorry, the recipients will have to wait a little longer, because the lady in the post office just wasn't in the mood to sell me stamps :-( ARGH!
BEST WISHES!!! Miss you loads!

Prague

2005-12-27T12:13:00.000+01:00

Guess what... As a reward for good work (will tell you in a sec why) my colleague Maria and I get to go on a 3-day trip to Prague!!! I'm so excited! I have never been to Prague before, but always wanted to go! Simona, a cool Czech girl from Prague - you might remember her - and I became friends in Piter earlier on this year and I said I would stop by soon.
Masha and I are planning to go at the end of January maybe. Well, I won't believe the whole thing until I'm actually on the plane to Prague!

The good work we did... we tend to answer our emails immediately and provide the necessary information :-)
Left to say is: It's Russia! I'm lovin' it! ;-)

Christmas in Russia

2005-12-26T10:36:00.000+01:00

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!!!

Christmas Eve in St. Petersburg was definitely spectecular for it was a great composition of very different events! It started with a great 11 hour sleep, followed by another awesome tour through the Hermitage - I love that place, should have gone there more often!

Read more!

Can you find me?

At 6pm I went to St. Petrikirche, a German Protestant church on Nevski Prospekt to attened the Christmas Eve service. We sang all the German Christmas songs I love, well, I sang... the people around me - apparently Russians - didn't know them! These 1,5 hours made my Christmas!!! Although no one can beat the Christmas services my dad always came up with!

"Silent Night" was still in my head when I walked down Nevski Prospekt to join my co-workers at the Red Lion for our corporate New Year's party. And of course, I did not go home at 10pm as planned... I stumbled out after midnight and had to take a car home!

Masha, Peter and Katya

Thanks to Rosa's and Laura's great cooking abilities, we had the best Christmas feast ever!!! I went home stuffed and happy and passed out for 9 hours!

Nevski Prospekt on Christmas

If you have time, please read this short story! It is a real Christmas story... Years ago my dad told this story as his homily on Christmas Eve in Neudorf, only the candles lit the church...

The Gift Of The Magi by O. Henry

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
<...>
Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.
<...>
Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.

"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."

Down rippled the brown cascade.

"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

"Give it to me quick," said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value--the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.
<...>
Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?"

At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice-- what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."

"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"

Jim looked about the room curiously.

"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."

The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
The complete story here

Merry Christmas

2005-12-22T15:59:00.000+01:00

May all the day's of all the years
that God has still in store...
be filled with every joy and grace
to bless you more and more.

May hope of heart and peace of mind
beside you ever stay.
That's the golden wish I have...
for you, this Christmas Day!!

Irischer Weihnachtssegen

Nicht, dass jedes Leid Dich verschonen möge,
noch dass Dein zukünftiger Weg stets Rosen trage,
keine bittere Träne über deine Wange komme,
und dass kein Schmerz Dich quäle,
nein, dies alles wünsche ich Dir nicht.

Sondern:
Dass dankbar Du allezeit bewahrst
die Erinnerung an gute Tage,
dass mutig Du gehst durch alle Prüfungen,
auch wenn das Kreuz auf Deinen Schultern lastet,
auch wenn das Licht der Hoffnung schwindet.

Was ich dir wünsche:
dass jede Gabe Gottes in dir wachse,
dass einen Freund du hast,
der deiner Freundschaft wert.

Und dass in Freud und Leid
das Lächeln des Mensch gewordenen Gotteskindes
Dich begleiten möge.

3. Advent

2005-12-19T14:07:00.000+01:00

Another week has passed and Christmas is close! For the first time I will celebrate Christmas in a country where December 24th/25th are ordinary days. We are lucky it is a weekend... I'd be utterly depressed having to work on Christmas when there is no Christmas feeling in the air in general!
My dear company has decided to have our corporated New Year's party on Saturday, which I'm very sad to miss! But there is no way I'm celebrating New Year's on Christmas!!!
Read more!
However, I had fine weekend :-) Sonya, her Spanish friends (others than last week, but friends of the Spanish friend from last week...) and I went to banya on Friday! By now my body has adapted really well to the heat and I like it super hot until my ears burn and I'm more a bathtub than sweating... Bad stuff out!!! I slept 11 hours after that!

On Saturday I went to the Hermitage... One of those places where you say, "Great place, entrance is free for students. Will go there very often, aehm, not this weekend... next weekend..." and now it is the end of December and my student ID expires! It was awesome and I will go again next weekend! Spending Christmas in the Hermitage is okay, don't you think?!
Interestingly, I took more pics of the surroundings of the Hermitage than inside... and was being yelled at for sticking my camera out of the window! A (rather friendly, indeed) lady told me that the "milizia" could take my camera and hands as a terroristic act... or whatever!

After the Hermitage we went to see the "Nutcracker". I didn't like it as much as the other ballets I have seen before. Still world class dancers in a stunning theater! Spoiled tourist I am :-)

It is Christmas... which also means that half of the trainees are leaving, some for vacation, others forever! We had the final party in "the castle" and I stumbled home at 8 in the morning. I'm getting too old for this stuff! I couldn't move properly on Sunday. Well, wait, I went Christmas cards shopping and ended up checking out all the shoe shops :-) Haven't bought anything yet, but I'm close to ;-)

I hope you are all enjoying this Christmas time! Have a great time with family and friends!
@Mom: I miss you very much!!!

Cyborg

2005-12-16T08:16:00.000+01:00

This is what one of my co-workers (Pasha) did to another one of my co-workers (Ikar)!

First week back in Russia

2005-12-12T13:22:00.000+01:00

Hey everyone! Hope you are all doing great!
I survived my first week being back in Russia... It started off on Monday with a major event in Igor's apartment. Several people - including me - gathered to spend a quiet evening. It was really nice, but I was still tired from the weekend and announced around 11 o'clock (maybe even earlier) that I would like to go home soon. Of course, people laughed about me... We had just started to relax after the first beers and were having a good time! So, while I was serious about it (though I was laughing in the beginning), I really wanted to go home. By 11.20 pm I was fighting my way towards the door, but had no chance against the stronger men in the room. I made it, however, to the hallway, and to prevent my escape, Igor locked the door from the inside and took the keys... At that point I went nuts: I felt frustrated, because I wasn't taken serious and slightly panicked because of the closed door and my physical helplessness... So... I was so mad that the witch came out of me ;-) I poured water all over Igor's bedroom floor (he didn't notice it until I had long left the flat) and got a cup full of water from the bathroom. I held the cup over Igor, who was sitting on Shekar's bed and asked Shekar and Igor (who share the flat and both have keys) to open the door. I was boiling by then... They laughed at me and shook their heads... So I poured the water over Igor who was so suprised and shocked that he made a strong movement... and the bed broke, forever, unreparable. You can witness that moment on the picture...

Read more!I felt much better by then, but started yelling, "I want to go home RIGHT NOW" and some other funny things! That was fun, but as soon as we left (I was escorted to the metro immediately) I felt so sorry! Igor and I had several discussions about it and tried to explain to each other why this happened! Well, I think I can say that such a thing will never happen again, we both learned from it! (My apolgies again, Igor!)

The rest of the week was pretty decent compared to Monday evening's events ;-) Went over to Rosa's for dinner on Wednesday and to banya with Sonya and a Spanish friend of hers on Thursday. It was great to speak Spanish!!! Although I still mix it with Russian... And I sadly observed that now I speak Russian with some Spanish inbetween... I kept telling one Russian girl the other day that the corkscrew "esta roto" (is broken) which she didn't understand, of course! :-( Silly me!
And then Friday came and we celebrated three birthdays in one big party... aehm:

It started with a decent feast on my table

Dania and I represent TelphinUSA at the moment and after some drinks we had the great idea of taking a nice picture for the website... of me, the marketing department, and him, the sales manager and head!

Our sales managers!

And my dear co-workers decided that I'm a toy which is fun to toss around :-(
(This time I managed not to play with water...)

Saturday evening we celebrated Luise's birthday party with an enormous feast...

Well, on Sunday I finally decided to try the washing maching... Since I haven't had such a device for about a year, I was sort of frightened of it :-)
I also decided to check out the area around my new place of living, which is pretty cool! I stumbled onto an old graveyard and into two orthodox churches and enjoyed the silence there!
Next to my blocks are rather big lakes, frozen by this time of the year. I overcame my fear and stepped onto the lake... BEAUTIFUL!!!

Although it seems that I'm having a great time in Russia, I'm still rather tired of life here and can't wait to go back home! I'm doing my very best to enjoy it and the results you can see above, but the rest isn't soooo much fun anymore!

Goodbye Germany / Back in Russia

2005-12-05T14:29:00.000+01:00

Yeah, I made it back allright to cold and dark Russia! :-( I didn't want to leave and my poor mother had to stand my moans for 1,5 days ;-)
Christmas Market in Braunschweig
Read more!
The flight back via Prague was fun... at least the flight from Prague to Piter... I sit at the gate waiting for my flight to Petersburg and see three guys approaching the gate. "Spainards" crosses my mind as they draw nearer, but then I think, "don't be silly, this is PRAGUE and a flight to RUSSIA... What would Spainards do here???" However, in the airplane I get to sit next to one of them, one is in front of me and the third one in the row behind me... Turns out that they in fact ARE Spanish :-))) I keep my mouth shut and enjoy their nastly little jokes about the big group of elder Irish ladies around us. Of course, I can't help smiling, and eventually they ask me if I speak Spanish ;-) So I end up chatting with the one guy next to me, a friendly 41 year old business man, who (for whatever strange reason) decided to go to Petersburg with his friends/co-workers on vacation. Besides the fact that I have troubles keeping Russian out of my Spanish, I have a great time. The guy asked me a lot about my job and what I do and what I like... and actually offered me a job in Germany or Great Britain!!! Isn't that cool?! I will at least check out the website and see whether teaching engineers is something for me ;-)

Harz and the highest mountain: Der Brocken

Goodbye at the train station: Chen, Sveenie and Paul "Erwin"

Katharinen-Kirche in Braunschweig

My dear mother

I finally moved into my new apartment on Friday and made myself comfy yesterday! FINALLY a place that I can call HOME!
On Saturday I jumped right back into my busy Russian life... trying not to be homesick! I got a haircut (Yippie), went ice-scating with a huge group of crazy foreigners and partying till 8 in the morning. I haven't felt this "trashed" for a long time... Yesterday/Sunday was dedicated to moving around slowly ;-)

I'm back at work now, trying to get back to daily working routine. Two 2 weeks in Germany made me be very German again and this is NOT helpful in a Russian company... ;-) but in two days things will be back to normal!
Well, I'm glad to be with my co-workers again, although I didn't really miss the "Finger-in-den-Po-thingy"!!! Yuck!!!

Back in Piter

Partying in Piter

Igor and the FINEC trainees

Sonya and Anna

Thanks again to everyone for making this vacation such a perfect time!!!
@Simone in Gö: It is a pitty we didn't meet!
@Sergio: I'm sorry for not calling, but I had to get up at 5:45 the next morning and only wanted to sleep! Will write soon!
@Thomas and Krischan: I never said properly bye I think! Or at least I don't remember! Take care and have a good time!
@Anja in New Zealand: I'm sorry for not providing you with any details!!! I hope to write a long email soon!!! Hope you are doing excellent in New Zealand!
@Ania in Lublin: Miss you!!! My plans to travel through Poland are still on!
@Pawel in Wroclaw: The package is on its way and I hope to visit soon as well!
@Chenita: I miss you!!! Next weekend is "Sauna-Zeit" :-)))
@Greetings to everyone else I didn't mention, but I think of you!!!

Germany: Home, sweet home!

2005-11-30T18:44:00.000+01:00

Loads of things have happened since I climbed into the airplane to Hannover last Sunday and HOME!!! Yay!
So... this is going to be a rather long post... just warning you! ;-)

I met Roman, the nice German speaking Russian guy at the airport in Piter, because he had a flight to Berlin 20 min before my take-off to Hannover. The flight was fast and smooth and I got out of the airport in Hannover within 10 min... Stood outside VERY suprised (had forgotten German efficiency and was flattered by the German Bundesgrenzschutz waving me through immigration control...). Right when I left the Terminal a car passed by, obviously looking for a parking spot... my mom!!! What a joy!!!

Mom and I having my welcome dinner on Sunday, December 20th
Read more!

Relaxing: Watching "Der Duft der Frauen"

It felt weird at first to be back in Germany and it took me about 2 days to adjust to speaking German with strangers in shops and streets! Arriving at home and unpacking boxes with my clothes and things was like Christmas, Easter and Birthday together!!!

I went to see a doctor... Turns out I had a nasty bronchitis and I have to take some stuff for 30 days.

I slept 10 hours every night during the first week in Germany.

I met my dad, who left my parents' flat in July and never came back. Apparently he moved in with his bi-sexual girlfriend who drives a sports car... No comment on that one. I still can't believe he just walked out of the door after 30 years of marriage...

The Christmas Market in Braunschweig

Bald nun ist Weihnachtszeit, fr�hliche Zeit!

Der Weihnachtsmarkt am Dom in Braunschweig

On Thursday Mom and I went to Köthen to see my grandma and aunt and uncle. They have two cats, mother and son... You can imagine my behavior :-) I wouldn't let the black and very soft little cat anywhere and he was happy to snuggle in my arms and fell happliy asleep!

Aunt Brigitte and Uncle Klaus

My grandma Elfriede

Me and the wonderful kitten "Teufelchen"

Anna and Teufelchen

The best mother in the world

I went to Bremen over the weekend and drank LOADS of Glühwein. We also discovered lots of empty beer bottles the next morning and decided that it must have been Philip, the invisible roommate... :-) Bremen is beautiful! Especially in December when there are Christmas Markets behinds every corner!

Böttcherstrasse in Bremen

Lovely pigs in Bremen

Das Weser-Ufer in Bremen

Anna and the Bremer "Stadtmusikanten"

Im Bürgerpark in Bremen

Stefan making "self-made" pizza: YUMMY!!!

I have been in Göttingen, my university town, since Sunday evening. Spicy Springroll is playing "Hotel Chen-Yu" again! (THANKS!!!) I had a Döner, went to the "Schlauch", had loads of Glühwein again. Chen and I went shopping... And last night we all ended up really drunk and went to bed early in the morning!

Chen-Yu (Spicy Springroll)

Chen and Anna in the Mensa

Mit Paul und Chenita auf dem Weihnachtsmarkt

Drinking Glühwein with Jojo

Paul found his Funktionsunterwäsche and was allowed to join us to the Weihnachtsmarkt!

Enjoying a strong coffee after a long night

Christmas Market in Göttingen

Weender Straße in Göttingen

Klausi

Klausi and Chen sleeping after partying ;-)

Chen and Sveenie in Cafe Zentral

Happy with 2 Donuts :-)

Tonight I'm going back to Braunschweig and Friday morning it is time to return to Piter :-( I really don't want to go back!!! I got used to Germany again... These two weeks have been exactly like I had pictured them... GREAT!!! Thanks to everyone for hosting and entertaining me! Will miss you all VERY much!

Abschied von Piter

2005-11-18T09:56:00.000+01:00

It is funny :-) Since I have decided to go home, things have improved here! I had a fab week and went out with the ENJEC trainees last night! I wanted to show them my favorite restaurant, famous Zoom, but we were a crowd of 12 and there was no way we fit in :-( So, we moved on to another nice place and had a great time... as you can see on the pics ;-)

On my way home I passed Kazansky Cathedral and the beautiful fireworks show started! What a great end of the day!

@Göttingen: See you Wednesday!

Fireworks at Kazansky Cathedral

Read more!
Jinau, Jenny and Igor

Armen and Masha

Armen smoking

Mari Sophie and Jinau

Anna smoking :-)

Luise and Christina (with Samson in the background)

Vacation in Germany

2005-11-16T14:09:00.000+01:00

Dear friends,
I figured out that I can't wait till January to go home to Germany! Consequently, I just changed my ticket and will be home in Germany by 10am local time on Sunday (well... Airport Hannover).
I'm still sick and still live in that hotel, and nothing is gonna cure me unless I leave the country for a while and find some rest (which will result in heaving partying, watching German TV and traveling/visiting family and friends, shopping and all that other fun stuff I miss at the moment)!

@Mom: You are simply the best!!!
@Chenita: I CAN'T WAIT to see you!!! I wanted NOT to tell you that I'm coming, but there is no way I can keep the news to myself :-(
@Jojo: Hope you are in Gö and Döner and all that fun stuff is on!
@Dear Göttinger: Hope to see you all next week!!! Vodka is coming! ;-)

P.S. Um möglichen Verwirrungen vorzubeugen: Das Foto stammt nicht aus meiner Kamera, sondern kann der offiziellen Pulkovo-Seite entnommen werden :-)

Six months in Russia

2005-11-14T12:31:00.000+01:00

Well, I took all these pictures with my Canon camera!!! No cheating anymore! ;-)

View from FINEC to Kazansky Cathedral and Kanal Griboedova
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I felt quite sick on Friday and went home (to the hotel) at noon :-) I spent the day in bed, sleeping, reading Harry Potter (yes, in Russian and I'm counting CHAPTERS now, not only PAGES) and watching movies. Same routine on Saturday, but went out to attend two parties: The official Welcome Parties for the four FINEC trainees (kindly ignoring the fact that I have been here for 6 months, Sonya for 3, Laura for 2 and Rosa for more than 1 months...) and an ENJEC Welcome Party (for a trainee who had arrived 2 hours earlier from the USA and had a nice jetlag). Both parties were lovely, but I was glad to get home around midnight and spent the entire Sunday sleeping, reading and watching movies :-)

FINEC Trainees: Laura, Sonya, Anna and Rosa

The ENJEC trainees are fun people! Well, some of their stories are no fun at all! They had a projector stolen the other day and AIESEC is giving them a terrible time! One of the them is being stopped by the police every day and spends a lot of time at the police station, because he looks a little too dark. Another one of them loves to sing "Oh, pump it up, oh pump it up" when setting up an airbed, which won't have any air in the morning! A fourth person can't decide whether he prefers Olya, Tanya or Katya... I keep telling him "Tanya"! :-)
Two other of the ENJEC trainees hooked up with each other; well, we don't know exactly WHAT happened, but testimonials are sure THAT something happened.
These people are simpy great and I will miss them all!!!

ENJEC Trainees: Jenny, AIESECer, Luise and Daniel

Samson and Mari Sophie from the "castle"

connecting the AIESEC LCs: Igor and Anna

Yeah, things are not too good here at the moment! I guess that six month in one place is a little too much for me ;-) And I miss my own bed... I did a little counting over the weekend and I have lived in 8 different apartments this year already; not just spending a night, but LIVING! And hopefully I will move this week into my 4th apartment in St. Petersburg ;-)
Today six months ago I arrived in St. Petersburg... Great summer I had here, but now I somehow feel that I'm ready to move on...
Ignore my whining! I'm sick and I miss real TV! ;-) And I miss - as one of my smart friends pointed out to me: European men! Nothing against Russians, they are great! But everyone above 25 is married!

Plans

2005-11-10T14:48:00.000+01:00

It is getting darker and colder in Piter and the daily routine is annoying! I have spend a great deal of time thinking about my vacation and Christmas and Siberia and Germany and Poland:-) Quite a lot and quite difficult "to get under one hat". So this is what I have come up with:

I have a flight to Hannover on December 18th and will change it (if possible) to January 1st or 8th and spend a week in Germany! (@Göttingen: Are you guys there then?)
I would like to fly from Berlin or whatever other place in Germany to Poland and go to Krakow, Wroclaw, Warsaw and Lublin (@Ania, Yuan and Pawel: I would LOVE to see you!!!) I would like to spend at least 10 days in Poland and then go to Kiev, Urkaine :-) From Kiev to Moscow and see all the things I haven't seen yet :-) and back to Piter...

Then, in March or April I want to go to Novosibirsk and Irkutsk for 2 weeks... I'm waiting for the ticket sale! (@Akadempeople (I'm sorry, but there are just too many people I want to see): I hope to see you!!!)

My visa expires on April 20th, 2006 and I'm planning to leave the country on that very day... to Riga! And flay back home with Easyjet to Berlin and find a job in Germany.

How does that all sound?
You think traveling in January is crazy?
What are your plans?

The long November weekend

2005-11-07T13:59:00.000+01:00

Uih! This was a long and desperately needed weekend with lots of social activities! I met loads of new people, all of them from different countries and all of them unique and funny!

Igor, the Serbian guy who grew up in Germany took me out for a drink on Thursday and we met up with Roman, a Russian guy who speaks fluent German. Later the "castle people" joined: Sam from Kenya, Mari Sophie from Norway (the "Norwegian prototype" as she says herself), Masha from Ukraine and Armen from Armenia. AIESEC rented them a "castle" as they call it, because the fridge doesn't work (they use the window sill), their toilet didn't work for the first 2 days, the kitchen stinks of cat piss and the sink does not work. There are several other horrifying facts about that flat, but they have a good laugh about it...
I met them all again on Friday evening and also Shekar from India and Jinau from China who lives in Germany. They are all from the other AIESEC Commitee in town, from ENJEC... I was trespassing ;-)
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I bought a new winter jacket on Saturday, some "altrosa"/pink thingy... which seems to match the local houses ;-) Laura and I went to Shlisselburg on Saturday, which certainly a highlight... especially if we compare the trip with Sonya's and Rosa's trip to Moscow:
We had rain and they had a perfect blue sky. We were walking around in the mud and got dirty and they walked around on solid streets.
We had fun anyway... just taking the train and the feeling of going away for a day was great! We found a very nice, cheap local cafe where we stuffed ourselves with delicious Russian food and were in such a good mood afterwards that we decided to take the later train back to the city :-)

Peter fortress

Stuck in the mud

Anna in her new jacket (note the matching colors of the houses)

Laura (also note the matching colors of the local houses)

Saturdaynight I didn't sleep, but walked into my hotel room at 8.30 in the morning. AIESEC ENJEC had organized a Global Village party in Igor's apartment... Global village means that everybody has to bring a typical dish or drink from his/her country. It was delicious! Almost all the "nations" cooked something, only the Germans and the Irish showed up with a vast amount of beer :-)
Global Village

Laura and Anna having fun :-)

Last people standing... 7 am: Christina, Armen, Luise, Sam and Anna in Igor's kitchen

Yesterday I finally started watching "The Pianist", which I had bought a week ago. Has anyone seen it? It is one of those movies which I consider excellent, but will never watch again! The images are haunting me...

The rest of the weekend was great and my dear co-workers keep asking me, why I look so happy today... Have a great week!!!

Der erste Schnee

2005-10-26T13:19:00.000+02:00

No comment necessary... It was a short autumn :-( Boots, scarf, hats and gloves out!!!

With best regards from my bored coworkers ;-)

2005-10-21T09:11:00.000+02:00

http://www.muglets.com/2GUQ Anna
http://www.muglets.com/2695 Peter
http://www.muglets.com/26CB Daniel

A trip to Europe: Helsinki and Tallinn

2005-10-20T11:36:00.000+02:00

Uih! What a week!!! I haven't had a free minute to update my blog, and actually I still don't have it... I simply decided to give myself a break from working! :-)

Hope you are all doing well! It is getting cold in Russia and my little adventure trip to Europe, well Helsinki and Tallinn, put me in a thoughtful mood once more: What on earth am I doing in RUSSIA??? Unable to answer that question, I will summarize the trip to Europe :-)

Mom and I set off for Helsinki on Wednesday evening by bus.. Helsinki is only about 350km away from St. Pete, but since Piter is in Russia and Helsinki is European Union... Those of you who have been to Russia know what this means... A trip that would take about 3 hours under normal circumstances, took us 8 hours... an adventure!

1. It is really cheap to travel from Piter to Helsinki and the travel companies exist for one reason: smuggling! Most of the people on the bus had their bags full of cigarettes and alcohol, which is both extremely expensive in Helsinki and costs close to nothing in Russia :-)

2. I was a little scared to leave Russia, lose my immigration card and go to an unknown country... it lasted for about 30 min :-)
Mom and I had to get off the bus at 5 am and wait in the train station till 9 am for the opening hour of the tourist office. We got to hear some fun stories from two fellow travellers and smugglers (two nice ladies in their late 60ies)!

3. I was afraid of crossing the streets on crosswalks! I freaked out every time, because mom would just start walking inspite of cars coming up with top speed. BUT: ALL the cars actually stopped!!! A forgotten and exciting experience! But for safety reasons I decided not to get used it... It could cost my lief in Russia!

However, we got a room in the EUROHOSTEL, and despite of being super tired we walked straight out again to enjoy the perfect weather and beauty of Helsinki!

Helsinki
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Helsinki

Helsinki: Market Square

The Cathedral in Helsinki and my mom

Anna in Helsinki

The port in Helsinki

All-you-can-eat in Helsinki after 30hours without sleep

Mirror princess :-)

Mom: after 34 hours finally in bed

Suomenlinna Maritime Fortress

Going to Tallinn on Friday was another adventure... at least the preparation! We had bought the tickets the previous day and the seller had asked us for a valid phone number, just in case. Fine!
So, Friday morning mom and I set off for Suomenlinna, an island reachable only by boat... Of course, half way through the sightseeing walk on the island, we receive a sms saying that the boat to Tallinn is cancelled :-)
At least one thing I have learned in Russia: to take sudden changes and suprises with calm, because I can't change it anyway and in the end everything will be all right! :-) And so it happened... we had no problem taking an earlier Catamaran to Helsinki!

Arrival in Tallinn...

Beautiful autumn in Estonia

Tallinn - the cutest city I have ever visited

St. Olav's Church

Climbing the tower of St. Olav's Church

View from St. Olav's Church: Tallinn

Tallinn: St. Olav's Church

Tallinn: at Kadriorg

Kadriorg

I'm back in Piter, working a whole lot, but that is great!
My appartment is warm since yesterday... 3 days around 0 degrees made the city turn on the heating :-)

Golden Autumn

2005-10-10T15:12:00.000+02:00

Summer definitely left St. Petersburg and autumn has arrived with its beautiful colors, golden sun and a chilly breeze of fresh air! My mom and I just HAD TO spend 2 days outside in parks, walking around and enjoying the beauty of nature!
I have been to Pavlovsk on a hot summer day in August, it was so different this time! Sunday was dedicated to Oranienbaum, a very nice, less touristy, but charming place about 41km west of Piter. The trip in "Holzklasse" was an adventure and I'm glad I got to present this highlight to my mom!

P.S. I'm shocked: Deutschland bekommt mit CDU-Chefin Angela Merkel erstmals eine Bundeskanzlerin. Sie wird als bisher jüngste Regierungschefin die zweite große Koalition in der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik führen... ARGH!!!
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It was a weekend of "going to places where I have been"... First "Pavlovsk" and then "Komarovo" Saturday night, but this time it wasn't camping (Thank God) although finding a place to sleep wasn't really easy. Thanks a lot, Sonya, for finding a place for us and taking care of me!!! ;-)
It is sad, but at the same time I'm really proud (Yeah, Mami, I know that you do not agree..): I do not remember how I got into bed or when, but my contact lenses were neatly in their cases the next morning! :-)

P.S. I'm shocked: Deutschland bekommt mit CDU-Chefin Angela Merkel erstmals eine Bundeskanzlerin. Sie wird als bisher jüngste Regierungschefin die zweite große Koalition in der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik führen... ARGH!!!

2005-10-06T16:05:00.000+02:00

Working routine...

Weekend with Mami

2005-10-03T15:32:00.000+02:00

This was a long, very intensive and nice weekend!!!
Friday evening mom and I went to a figure skating show and it was a real highlight!
On Saturday we did a lot of sightseeing, meaning "walking around" and I'm really proud of my mother! My 64-year-old mother was as fit as 20-year-old chick (which I am not anymore either...) and enjoyed the - FINALLY - good weather. She came along to almost all the parties and didn't say a word about my obvious beer affinity, but joined :-)

We were accompanied by Charisse, a really nice girl from the Philipines who was a trainee in Novosobirsk. Since my Mami doesn't speak English and Charisse doesn't know German, I got to switch between the languages and also had to organize all the Russian stuff. Fun times! Unfortunately I missed to explain everything twice several times which led to funny incidents...

Figure skating show on Friday
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On the Colonade of St. Isaac's Cathedral on Saturday

Boat trip on Saturday

Undefined number of camels

Sightseeing on Sunday

Party on Sunday: Mother and daughter in partner look...
The best thing is: I found a little castle for living for me!!! It is an awesome flat!!! And it has a washing machine... :-))))

Hope you are all doing well!

Mom's arrival and life in the office

2005-09-29T09:29:00.000+02:00

On Tuesday my dear mother arrived, and with her a heavy bag of my winter clothes! We had a fun time going home to my appartment during rush hour... marshrutka, metro, change line, marshrutka again. Those who know what Russia is like, know what kind of trouble we went through... This way mom got a first, very accurate, very Russian impression of St. Petersburg! It is fun to see everything again with her eyes, I'm so used to Russian life that I don't notice all those funny things anymore. Although, the "Why?" still pops up in my head every now and then!

It was my mom's birthday yesterday and I took her to famous Zoom :-) Happy birthday, Mami!!!

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Working life is as nice as always. I asked one of my co-workers yesterday to take some pics of me so I can show some office pics to my mom... The thing turned into a long photo session and we had a great laugh! BUT: We are serious people who really take their job seriously, but love to have a good laugh inbetween!!! :-)

Paintball and AIESEC birthay

2005-09-26T11:05:00.000+02:00

Life has finally slowed down... Since Yuan and John left I get to spend a lot more relaxing time at home alone (Hey China and America, how are you doing?)! :-) Besides, the weather isn't as nice as before; it is getting dark earlier and it is no fun to hang around Nevskiy Prosket all evening long! Sonya and I went to watch "The brothers Grimm" and take turns visiting each other. Unfortunately my flat is still cold :-( However, I get to move once more! Will look at appartments this week! With my mother as luggage :-))) I'm excited to meet her at the airport tomorrow!!!

On Friday Telphin Telephony Company (a lovely crowd of about 16 people) went to play "Paintball". It is more or less a war game where you dress up in uniforms and try to shoot the members of the other team with paint... It hurts when the paint hits you and it is a mess!!! But it was a lot of fun :-)

Paintball with my colleagues
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Saturday Tyoma took us (the giggly trainee gang: Sonya, Laura, Libby and me) to the birthday party of the other AIESEC LC in town. It was a (at least) 50km ride and of course we got lost... but the party was really nice and I met more trainees. I was tipsy enough to play those silly games I usually consider stupid :-( Sonya, Laura and I had a good times chatting till 6am and because of bridges and metro, I arrived at home only at 7.40am and passed out immediately!

Ex-president NSU Lesha Khutoretsky and Anna

Libby, Laura, Tyoma and Anna

Lets party!!!

Sonya and Anna

Happy with a beer in my hand...

Yes, I'm (almost) VERY happy here!
@spicy springroll: the cards were right, remember? :-)

Novgorod

2005-09-19T08:48:00.000+02:00

Всем привет!
I had a really nice weekend and I hope you all also had a great time! The weekend started with a birthday party in the office, which turned into a drinking party after a while... I had plans to go to the cinema afterwards and was quite tipsy by the time I got there. I watched "The wedding crashers", which is not recommendable. Despite the fact that being drunk and tired is not very helpful when it comes to understanding Russian, it is such soft movie and not really funny.

Saturday morning, Sonya - (the Russian/American) trainee I mentioned several times - and I set off for Nogorod, a nice town about 180km east from St. Petersburg. We had a great time chatting during the 3 journey there. Although it was a little disappointing that we couldn't find any place to stay overnight, we managed to see everything in one day and went happily back to Piter in the evening.

Novgorod
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Sonya
The posers at the beach
Anna
The Kremlin
At the bus station

I went for a nice walk to the German Consulate yesterday, but of course it was closed... At least I TRIED to vote! So... not sure yet if I will go home for Christmas or not...
It is getting cold here and I'm afraid that I will have to wear my winter coat from now on. Needless to say that the central heating is not on yet and it is freezing cold in my flat. People pointed - probably correctly - out to me that two people would warm up the place immensely ;-) and so I'm really looking forward to my mother's arrival next week! Hey Mami!!! And with my mom arrive my winter clothes :-)

Life at work

2005-09-15T14:34:00.000+02:00

This picture was taken by our international sales manager's mobile phone camera... Dan is a really relaxed guy! And the hand on top of my head is Peter's - our Russian sales manager, a even more relaxed guy. The guy in the back is Pavel, also known as "Pachan". All three of them enjoy German bad words to an outstanding degree... of course they are testing their knowledge on me!

The little Prince - Chapter 21

2005-09-08T14:43:00.000+02:00

This is one of my favorite chapters and precisely why I like to plan things, live abroad and am a drama sometimes (as Sonya would say)... :-)

"Good morning," said the fox.

"Good morning," the little prince responded politely, although when he turned around he saw nothing.

"I am right here," the voice said, "under the apple tree."

"Who are you?" asked the little prince, and added, "You are very pretty to look at."
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"I am a fox," the fox said.

"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."

"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."

"Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince.

But, after some thought, he added:

"What does that mean--'tame'?"

"You do not live here," said the fox. "What is it that you are looking for?"

"I am looking for men," said the little prince. "What does that mean--'tame'?"

"Men," said the fox. "They have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?"

"No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean--'tame'?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. It means to establish ties."

"'To establish ties'?"

"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world..."

"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower . . . I think that she has tamed me . . ."

"It is possible," said the fox. "On the Earth one sees all sorts of things."

"Oh, but this is not on the Earth!" said the little prince.

The fox seemed perplexed, and very curious.

"On another planet?"

"Yes."

"Are there hunters on that planet?"

"No."

"Ah, that is interesting! Are there chickens?"

"No."

"Nothing is perfect," sighed the fox.

But he came back to his idea.

"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . ."

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.

"Please--tame me!" he said.

"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand."

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me . . ."

"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me--like that--in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day . . ."

The next day the little prince came back.

"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you . . . One must observe the proper rites . . ."

"What is a rite?" asked the little prince.

"Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox. "They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation at all."

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . ."

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added:

"Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."

The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.

"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world."

And the roses were very much embarassed.

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.

And he went back to meet the fox.

"Goodbye," he said.

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."

"It is the time I have wasted for my rose--" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose . . ."

"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

Moscow II or Back in Piter

2005-09-01T16:22:00.000+02:00

I'm back - as expected half dead and getting a cold - from Moscow! It was a really cool trip and I enjoyed every minute of it!!! I didn't sleep at all on the way there, the train was just too noisy and I was too excited about going to Moscow. So, 2 days of seminars, 8 hours every day in Russian was a real challenge. Thank God, my university education seems to have been better than I thought ;-) I had classes about that stuff before, so I could more or less follow easily. I still got some good idea how I can improve my work :-)

Moscow is such a big city... I had forgotten to ask my host WHERE the appartment is located... It turned out to be a 2hour trip to the center... but with a bottle of beer in my hand, heavy rain and good company this was just one more great event in Russia! :-)

I arrived back in Piter this morning and felt like coming home to my beloved little town :-) Now I'm looking forward to banya tonight and a good long sleep!!!

Kreml
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GUM at the Red Square

Anna, tired on the Red Square

Moscow at night

Main building of the University

Moscow

2005-08-29T12:31:00.000+02:00

I get to go on a business trip to Moscow for two days! How cool is that???!!!
My boss sends me as their "specialist" (she actually wrote that in an email to the place I'm going) to a seminar on Internet advertisement! I'm leaving tonight with the night train to Moscow, seminars from 10-19 o'clock tomorrow and on Wednesday and the overnight train back to St. Petersburg. Surely, I will be half dead by Thursday morning, but the seminar plan sounds really interesting!!! I'm really excited about going and attending that thingy!
Do I have to mention that the whole thing is in Russian and we don't know if ANYONE speaks English there??? Right... it will be the challenge of the year! After that my company expects me to use my knowledge... I'm looking forward to it!

It seems that my working career is doing extremely well! I have met great people and found wonderful friends! I should be happy, right?

Duration of my traineeship

2005-08-23T10:55:00.000+02:00

This morning I finally had the guts to ask Katya, my boss, about the length my traineeship... As a matter of fact, I forgot to ask her about it when we had the interview and then the issue never came up again. Viktor, the AIESECer who "matched" me with the company said it was meant for 6 months, but since I got a visa for a year I'm really keen on staying longer here!!! I don't know what it is, there are so many little things I love in Russia, just as much as I hate certain things. But I can't help to notice that I'm happy here!!!

So... I asked Katya how long I can stay and she smiled at me and said, "as long as you can"! Yay!!!! My visa expires in April 2006 and I have no whatsoever intention to leave Russia before that! They will even raise my salary a little bit :-)

Still not sure if I should change my ticket and stay in Piter over Christmas or go to Germany on December 18th as planned for vacation...
However, VISIT ME if you can!!! There is plenty of time!

Camping with Telphin

2005-08-22T15:13:00.000+02:00

I went camping with my company and we had a blast! The weather was perfect and the campside a paradise! I even got to go swimming again... probably for the last time this summer :-( We had lots of shashliky, sausages, potatoes and other delicious food! I slept wonderful 9 hours and was just starting to relax when I had to return to the city (my fault... I wanted to party with the foreigners...).

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My dear friends have noticed an obession about sleep... I keep whining about it, but as a matter of fact I NEVER GET ENOUGH SLEEP! I'm still proud that I managed to go home Saturday evening around midnight and didn't go clubbing with the others till 6 in the morning again!
On Sunday I went to "banya" and I haven't felt this relaxed for a long time!!!

Got to go to a Lithuanian dinner party

2005-08-19T10:59:00.000+02:00

Men are definitely better cooks than women :-) At least when you take "women" as "me" ... Chinese Yuan has shown his excellent cooking skills several times already, and yesterday John (American/Lithuanian) prepared some delicious Lithuanian dish for the funny crowd of foreigners. We all stated that we have similar dishes in our home countries, only Yuan was excited about eating "something completely new". It was really great though... and the various bottles of vine helped to keep the "giggly" atmosphere going! Sonya (Russian/American) and I were quite tipsy by the time we left the appartment (the appartment where I had lived in the beginning) and moved on to Tyoma's flat.

At Tyoma's we had lots of tea, were looking at pictures and I was chasing Mishka the cat (remember him?). (He finally got to share the bed with me...)

Sonya and I decided to stay overnight and kept talking till 3.30 in the morning. It is soooo nice to have female company and talk about "girls' things"! Sonya, just like me, spent a year in Spain and we discovered lots of common characteristics. The first hour we talked in English and then switched to Spanish at some point! How cool is that!!! I get to practise my Spanish! Yay!
My Russian is getting much better and I hope that we can talk some day in Russian just as easily!

I'm beyond being tired now, but it is Friday and I'm going camping with my colleagues over the weekend... vodka, beer and no sleep :-(

Have a great weekend!!!

Alumni Party II

2005-08-16T07:44:00.000+02:00

Всем привет! :-)

I had another nice and stressful week in Piter, followed by an even more stressful weekend. There are too many parties and other events going on! I have to slow down!!!

On Wednesday Yulya Omelchuk from Novosibirsk arrived in Piter and we had a great time! It was sooooo cool to see her and chat about people here and there, traveling and go out for beers. I really miss Siberia and I hope to be able to travel there very soon!

By now I have also figured out why Russians are so fond of their "banyas" (sauna)! We foreigners made it a weekly MUST to go to banya and relax... only to spoil the cleaning event by partying all night long after it :-(

However, summer is over and autumn is coming! Hope you are all doing well!

Parties, parties and work

2005-08-08T09:18:00.000+02:00

I have not become extremely lazy updating my blog, I'm simply extremely busy these days! I'm still having a blast in this country although I'm working a lot!
I really like my job and I hope that my Russian will improve faster, because I have been assigned to deal with ALL the internet advertisement, which includes writing emails to advertisement agencies, our Russian keywords and page titles on the website. This morning I actually had my first Russian conversation on the phone, not only saying "sekundutshku" and getting someone Russian to deal with it... Yay! I'm only a little nervous about asking when I will lose my job :-(

Lots of things have happened since my birthday; I'm still the only girl in the group and still the oldest person around. China (Yuan), America (John) and Poland (Pawel) call me "granny" or Germany. (We started refering to each other by country names, it is so much fun laughing about our countries!) Last weekend we finally went to Peterhof and it was really nice although we didn't manage to get in as Russians... The comination of really Chinese looking Yuan and tourist Pawel screwed it up ;-) and I guess I was being too German that particular day :-(

This Friday we celebrated Pawel's farewell party, because he is leaving tomorrow; and hotel Anna opened again. We had a great time cooking... John prepared some delicious American dish, Yuan something yummy Chinese and Tyoma made wonderful "Shaverma" (that is the closest to "Doener Kebab" you can get here). We learned more drinking games from John. My new favorite one is "presidents and assholes". And guess who turned out to be the asshole??? I will be happy to explain the game if you want to know!
However, the Russians left the party before midnight... due to public transport and we foreigners went on partying. I slept like a rock, since mosquitos tend to leave me in peace when there are other people around :-) All boys told me in the morning that they would never sleep over again... :-) Thanks for keeping away the mosquitos for one night!!! :-)

John, Yuan, Lesha, Tyoma, Sergey, Anna and Pawel
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Tyoma preparing "Shaverma"

Yuan partying :-)

Enjoying the evening sun on the balcony

The AIESEC trainee and the CEEDer

Anna and the current LCP Lesha

Pawel

John

Chilling out on the couch

Killing mosquitos

Half dead on Saturday morning (on Sunday very similar pics were taken...)

Saturday after recovering from mosquitos bites and a nice breakfast we moved on to "banya", sauna. This wasn't a really public place, we just rented the whole thing for 1,5 hours and had a great time! I should have gone straight to bed after that, but I didn't want to waste my weekend and so I only took a 20 minute nap and ran off to the next party.
The AIESECers had invited their 'alumnis', the old AIESECers to get together. Hm, there were five foreigners, four members of the current EB and two alumnis and some other people... Great success ;-) However, I stumbled home at 6.30 in the morning after dancing Rock'n roll all night long. Needless to say that I was the last woman standing and only one Russian kept me company. John and Yuan fled the club around 4am to famous "Datcha", complaining that two worst kinds of music in one club is not bearable... :-) They were still fussing about the music when I met them later in "Datcha". I won't complain! :-)

Alumni party: Anna and the new trainee Sonya. Yay!!! Female support!
Sonya was born in Russia, but raised in California and speaks both languages perfectly! She also spent a year in Spain and is a really nice girl! Although my male friends do not understand why I complain being the "pearl" in the group, but I need some female friends! Pawel admitted though that he is a little bit tired of functioning as my female friend, listening to all the "girls" stuff... ;-)

Birthday

2005-07-26T09:17:00.000+02:00

Like 28 years ago my birthday fell on a Sunday this year and I had a great birthday party in my appartment! I'm really, really flattered about the crowd of people who showed up and made this a wonderful party! I got extremely thoughtful presents, cards and emails, and can't say often enough, "THANK YOU!!!".

Happy Birthday!!!
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Paddy from Ireland, currently AIESEC trainee in Moscow arrived with the overnight train on Saturday morning and didn't know that he wasn't going to get much sleep over the weekend ;-) The party on Saturday was meant to start as Pawel's (CEEDer from Poland) welcome party and turn into my birthday party at some point. Pawel and I bought as much food as we could possibly carry home and EVERYTHING mysteriously disappeared until the next morning. For example, there were at least 10 bananas around and all gone in the morning, but Pawel, Paddy and I never saw anyone eating a banana... I have to admit that my perception was clearly blurred after some time...

Paddy

Tyoma

Pawel and the Polish vodka

Natalia and Yuan on the balcony

My buddy Masha

Zhenya

Ziba

Lesha ("a lover, not a hater" as Paddy correctly observed) and Tania

Public transport stops working in St. Petersburg at midnight, so I had offered everyone to stay overnight. Those who decided to stay, including me :-), started playing a dreadful drinking game called "sink the Bismarck" (John, the US citizen introduced the game to us)... and it finally finished me! I woke up in the morning, distrubed by some really noisy snores next to me. The first thing that occurred to me after my brain started working was, "I'm in bed, how did I get here???" and then I turned around to find out what that noise was and thought, "and what on earth is Lesha doing next to me?". On the floor were 5 more guys, being eaten by about 60 mosquitos... Besides the headache and an uncomfy feeling in my stomach area it was cool. I mean, who wakes up on her 28th birthday surrounded by 6 cute, young guys??? :-)
It turned out that I had fallen asleep on the couch around 2am and they had put me into bed shortly afterwards. Lesha fell asleep shortly after me, and to get him out of their way while playing more drinking games, they placed Lesha next to me on the WIDE couch!

Sergey

sink the "Bismarck"...

and the Bismarck is sinking...

Birthday presents!!!

The crowd watching Pawel's presentation

The Bismarck sank...

from the left: John, Pawel, Ania V., Tyoma, Masha, Tania, Lisa, Yuan, Lesha, Natalia, Sergey, Boris and ?, missing are Zhenya, Paddy and Ziba

We had some breakfast (well... everything that was left) and spent several hours recovering from hangovers. Around 2pm Paddy, Pawel and I set off to Hermitage and a lovely boat trip on the Newa and through the channels! Ignoring the slight headache, it came close to a perfect birthday!

I got to host Paddy and Pawel for another night and "granny" (as those two 20 years olds call me) moved to the floor. Unfortunately we had not been able to catch all the mosquitos and Paddy and I spent more than 1 hour killing mosquitos till 2am in the morning. Pawel, however, slept rather well. But you should have seen his startled look when he woke up during the night and saw Paddy and me standing on chairs and tables, killing mosquitos on the ceiling :-)))

Paddy and Pawel staring at the mosquitos

Birthday presents

Boat trip on July 24th

And the most beautiful sunset...

Swimming

2005-07-18T15:55:00.000+02:00

There is that cat high up on a building on Nevski Prospekt and that bird at one of the channels where you can try to throw and land a coin and make a wish, and whereever you see some golden spot on a monument you can touch it and also make a wish. And guess what: It works :-) But it is like in the parabel with the guy on the roof during the Flood... The guy is really religious and believes that God will save him. A boat passes and wants to help him, but he says, "No, thanks, God will save me". This happens two more times before the water reaches the roof and the guy drowns... Up in heaven he complains that God didn't save him and God says, "I sent you three boats! Why didn't you get into one of them?"
However, I finally got to go swimming this summer!!! Yay! And according to friends, my skin looks "tasty" now! I had lots of fun playing in the water and you wouldn't believe what those AIESECers did...

On Sunday Sergey and his girlfriend Ania took Yuan, Pawel from Poland and me to Pushkin, to the really nice park a bit outside of Piter. We had a great time taking funny pictures which I prefer not to upload here :-)

My Monday started off rather stressful though... I had not realized that I was supposed to be in the office at 9am and walked calmly in at 10am... Furthermore, I had not noticed that my phone was blocked due to low credit and so the sms from my boss didn't get through... Then it turned out that my internet wasn't working and my boss got really nervous about the reports that were due, so I had to work at someone else's computer - the poor person was not happy about that at all. Anyway, there are not many things which can my cheerful mood today!

Relaxing at a lake - finally summer!
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Having a time-out on the lake :-)

The ex-LCP, the LCP and another important AIESEC member...

Anna buried in the sand...

Waiting for the bus to go back: Oleg, Lesha, Tyoma, Vitja and Pawel

LCP Lesha and Tyoma

Ex-LCP Vitja

Sergey, Tania and Lesha

Pushkin

Anna at Pushkin

Sunday at Pushkin

Yay!

More pics

2005-07-15T10:13:00.000+02:00

I went on a wonderful night sightseeing tour on Tuesday night and got to watch all the bridges opening! Unfortunately I arrived back home only at 6:45am and had to get up at 8:15am again...
However, the city is sooooo beautiful!!!

Night Sightseeing Tour
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The bridges open...

The beautiful bridges in Piter

Kanal Griboedova

Gulf of Finland

Hermitage and St. Isaac's Cathedral

Kunstkamera and Peter and Paul Fortress

Anna and the Sphinx

On the Newa

The Riverside at 10pm...

Vyborg

2005-07-11T13:06:00.000+02:00

Another exciting week has passed: Going to the beach after work, meeting my old flat mate and his now roomie, hanging out with my colleagues after work, going to Datcha a few times and to the ballet to watch "Swan lake" were very enjoyable!

Schwanensee

I have adapted so well to life in St. Petersburg that I felt it was time to show it physically :-) So, on Saturday the mission was to find a good and cheap hairdresser! Yuan, this really nice guy from China, was a great help when it came to deal with "Russian services". Russian understanding of running a business is slightly different from common Western thinking. In Russia you have to be thankful if the sales woman in a shop does not yell at you, because you disturbed her conversation with her friends... There are exceptions of course, and we finally found a nice "salon" where I spent 3 hours (being the only client) getting my hair done. They were amazingly friendly and Yuan managed to negotiate a good price for me!

On Sunday we went to Выборг (Vyborg), which is about 150km away from St. Petersburg and very close to Finland. It was a perfect summer day and a Sunday how a Sunday is supposed to be! We didn't mind the 6 hours on the train... It is RUSSIA! The 3 hours back certainly were a Russian experience, because EVERYBODY seemed to have left the city over the weekend and wanted to take our very train back home. People simply didn't fit in and there was a lot of aggression between some of the travellers. I got home safe and sound, warmly welcomed by a hungry cat :-)

Über den Dächern von Выборг
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Vyborg seems very European

View from Vyborg Castle to the Finland Bay

Having fun.... ;-)

Water lilies everywhere!

We rented this lovely thingy and discovered one miracle after another

Left alone on a rock... :-(

Sun, blue sky and blue water! What else you want on a Sunday? :-)

Der Franzensbaum

Tired on the way home (3h by train - normal in Russia)

What age do you act?

2005-07-07T13:22:00.000+02:00

I found this rather interesting test on some site and thought "Hm, it is July... My birthday is coming up... I should try this!" :-)

You Are 28 Years Old

28

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe.

13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.

20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences.

30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!

40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

Beach and Pavlovsk

2005-07-05T12:27:00.000+02:00

Finally the summer arrived in St. Petersburg and I get to wear all my skirts, dresses and sandals. My optimism (like Zhenya Charikov, my former flatmate called it) was worthwhile:-) So, I went to a beautiful beach at the park "300 years of St. Petersburg" on Saturday and to Pavlovsk on Sunday. Pavlovsk was built for Russian Tsar Paul I, the only son of Catherine the Great. The palace is located southeast of the city of St. Petersburg, a few miles beyond the town of Tsarskoe Selo. And there is a REAL FOREST!!! Yay! And millions of mosquitos and other lovable bugs... I was only missing the usual shashlikiy!

Mishka and I are doing fine, although I have the funny feeling that the cat does not REALLY appreciate his diet... He fed him too much and he is a little fat now :-(
I was forced to rearrange the storage of my clothes, because Mishka simply detests closed doors and considers it a personal insult if he can't open one... Last week he finally figured out how to open my underwear drawer...

Yesterday after work I went to the beach again. White nights make it possible and enjoyable to an outmost degree to stay there till 10:30pm. Only the more than urgent need of a toilet drove us away from the beach.

Hanging out at the Park "300 years of St. Petersburg"
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Doing some sports ;-)

Still at the park "300 years of St. Petersburg"

At Pavlovsk

Pavlovsk

Pavlovsk

Watching the sunset from my appartment

At the beach after work

Vasilevsky Island

Party in the office and..... Mishka again

2005-06-27T15:48:00.000+02:00

I met a bunch of foreigners this weekend and I lost track of the number weeks I have already spent in Russia ... I checked the calendar this morning and it was my 6th week in Piter! However, meeting foreigners on Saturday certainly was exciting, although most of them are leaving really soon, because the academic year is over! Nevertheless, I spent the Sunday with some Germans going to the museum of religion and to a cool restaurant!

On Friday we had a great party in the office, and I was really tipsy by the time I left the office. Some of you had to suffer from weird ICQ messages and emails... I'm sorry about it! Everything is back to normal now!

Mishka is still dominating my life... he likes to be where I am. And whenever he does not follow me around in the flat I get really suspicious... being silent has never been a sign for good behavior! But he adapted to my rules and I'm a little softer than I wanted to be, so we met in the middle somewhere!

Telphin: Dania, Anna, Katja and Konstantin
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My dear co-workers

And the party goes on

The "gay" front :-)

I was trying to wash my clothes... no chance!

I m still trying to wash my clothes!!!

I was taking a shower....

The longest day of the year in Piter

2005-06-23T11:37:00.000+02:00

Besides the fact that I consider white nights extremly annoying, because I can't sleep properly - my stupid brain associates daylight with activities and not with sleep... it is BEAUTIFUL!!!! Have a look at the pics I took! It is simply awesome!!!

Nevskiy Prospekt at 11:30 pm

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St. Isaac's Cathredral at 1 am

The bridges open at 1:40 am

Saint Petersburg at 1:49 am

View from St. Isaac's Cathedral at 2:39 am

Sunset/Sunrise at 2:17 am

Mishka and Hermitage

2005-06-20T11:24:00.000+02:00

What can I say? This was my 5th week in Russia and it was mainly ruled by a beautiful black cat! I spent most of the evenings at home entertaining Mishka, and Mishka entertaining me... Yesterday evening he gave me true shock when balancing (once more, although I try to teach him NOT to do it) on the balcony and almost fell down. I live on the 7th floor... I was angrily yelling at him and he disappeared as fast as he could in the bathroom! After that he was calmly sitting at my feet, trying to show that he is a good cat; I dare him to set his cute little paws on the balcony again!
I went, however, for several walks through the city and admired St. Petersburg's white nights! On Saturday and Sunday I tried to sleep as long as I could, which is rather difficult with a cat that learned that I have to get up at 8am and is doing an excellent job as an alarm clock! Thank God, I brought my ohropax!!! He is a heartbreaker with his shy meows!

On Saturday we were having Simona's farewell party (the girl from the Czech Republic and my fellow AIESEC trainee), because she is leaving on Thursday :-((( Besides the AIESEC dances it was a great party and I got really good Czech food! :-) Later that evening Simona and I even got to see a (only half) striptease!!! Yay!

My fifth Sunday in town was finally dedicated to the Hermitage. The best thing about it is - I still can't believe this is possible in Russia - ALL students get in for free!!! Usually the entrance fee for whatever Russian museums, theaters etc. ranges from Russian students, Russians adults, foreign students (and at this point the whole thing gets expensive) to foreign adults. So, as a consequence, people accompanying me to museums tell me to shut up :-) Lovely country!!!

Have a great week!

Kunstkamera
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Hermitage

Simona and Anna in Zoom

Mishka...

Mishka on the balcony

Tyoma and Simona: apparently Tyoma doesn't want Simona to leave! Nobody wants her to leave!!!

Anna and Russians souvenirs

Zhenya and Lesha (It would be boring to upload the official pics!!!)

Metro

Hermitage

View from Hermitage (Winter Palace)

Anna in the Throne Hall in Hermitage

Catherine the Great and small Anna :-)

Day of Russia and a cat

2005-06-14T09:11:00.000+02:00

One entire month has passed since I arrived in Saint Petersburg and I have the feeling that I have been here forever already. This passed weekend was one of those funny and typical Russian weekends when I didn't know for sure whether Monday is a holiday or not. Sunday, 12th of June was The Day of Russia and since Russians do not waste any of their holidays, we also had Monday off :-) But I wasn't sure about that until I called my boss Sunday evening!

Friday I went out with Simona to the nice chill out bar/restaurant/cafe "Zoom" where I had been on my very first evening in the city. I tend to return to good places! By the time two Zhenyas (one of them my former flatmate) joined us, I was a little tipsy already and I didnt really care about closing metro stations and opening bridges. We moved on to a rather small club/bar called "Datsha" where many foreigners were said to hang out. I didnt spot too many of them, but that might be caused my "more-than-tispy/half-drunk" state of mind :-)

Saturday I spent in bed, unable to get up before 6pm and then went off to check out my island. Yes, I'm living on an island: "Vasilevsky Ostrov" :-) I found loads of Russians doing "shashlikiy" and fires at the beach. Honestly, I love Russia! I assimilated most of my so-called "laid back" attitude here. People seem to know how to enjoy the short periods of free time to an outstanding degree. And things always work out anyway, even if there is no plan at all. All it takes is patience and time :-) This doesn't mean that I don't freak out anymore about unorganised and stuborn Russians!
Simona told me this hysterical story from her last camping adventure: They arrived at the lake and hundreds of hungry mosquitos were ready to eat them. Having grown up in Europe, Simona started hunting and killing mosquitos, and happend to hit one of the guys three times rather fast and hard. After the third time he gave her a disapproving look and informed her that there is no need to hit so fast and hard... Russian mosquitos are not fast at all! :-))) (They are smart however: I still havent found the one that kept me awake till 5am Sunday night!!!)

All right, I'm writing too much again... I did a great sightseeing trip on Monday and I'm more than happy to inform you that I'm the proud owner (well, part-time caretaker) of a wonderful black cat called Mishka. His owner will be traveling for some time and I'm the lucky one who got the cat. Don't tell him that I really wanted the cat... I would lose my advantageous position ;-) Mishka is currently checking out my appartment and I'm trying to teach him that my bed is a forbidden zone. I'm sure though that he forgot about it this morning no later than 5 secondes after I walked out of the door! :-(

Have a great week!

Vasilevskiy Ostrov
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Vasilevskiy Ostrov

Gorkovskaya

On the lap of Peter the Great :-)

St. Peter and Paul Fortress

View at Hermitage, St. Isaac's Cathedral and Birzhevaya Ploshchad

Neva

Poser Anna on top of St. Peter and Paul Fortress

Watching the sunset from my appartment

Mishka, my new flatmate

The trip to "Ladoga"

2005-06-06T08:21:00.000+02:00

This past weekend certainly had a bad start, which caused me to have my "I HATE RUSSIA-5 minutes"! As you might know, some AIESECers had planned to go to lake Ladoga on Friday evening with two cars to spend the weekend camping in the forest. I was on my way to the meeting point (well, I was just having a little pee break in the toilet...) when I got the really exciting phone call from Yulya, who informed me that there was only one car going and it was already full! Yay! One driver had refused to drive Friday evening! Couldn't he have thought about it when we asked him the evening before??? However, all the people had the alternatives to go by train in the evening or by car the next morning. Zhenya and I decided to take the train, which in the end seems to have been a good choice: Simona (who was one of the lucky people in the evening car) told me ALL about the difficulties they had meeting everybody, going to the supermarket to buy the food and finding the way... So, Zhenya and I arrived about 20 min earlier than the others in the car :-) although we had left later. Note that the train station was called Komarovo which means mosquito...

Russia is a big country and in contrary to Germany it is no problem to park your car somewhere in the forest, set up a tent and make a great campfire. I m okay with that, especially with the last part :-) Ignoring the murdering crowd of mosquitos, we had a really nice fire and lots of even nicer drinks :-)
I even managed to sleep for several hours before I woke up with my feet completely frozen. Poor Tyoma and Vitja had not slept all night long, but had gone fishing (for the result see the pictures below). Of course, after a week of exams, stressful weekend plannings and a night without sleep it is rather difficult to concentrate on things... It turned out that they had closed the car with the keys and all the food inside! We were especially unhappy about not being able to have breakfast!!! So one girl, who was the driver of the morning car, took Tyoma to the "Datsha" where his father was, get the keys to the appartment in the city, take the 2nd keys for the car, return the keys to his father and come back to the lake. :-)

To give you a full picture of camping in the forest, OF COURSE, there are no toilets (but millions of hungry mosquitos) and no water besides the lake. No problem :-) I happy to state that I m not a spoiled city chick!
I forgot to mention that it was not lake Ladoga where we went, they had changed the plan at some point without telling me :-) But it was a nice place, so, who cares!?

I passed out Saturday night in my comfy city bed for about 10 hours though! :-)
Yesterday I finally started my "culture-program" in St. Petersburg! Masha took me to the "Kunstkammer", the first museum in the city, which hosts the "chamber of curiosities"... no comments, but see the pics!

Lake "Shuchye" (It is meant to mean "Hecht" in German)
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Ania at the campfire

Zhenya doing his morning exercises

Anna enjoying the clean air :-)

Vitja trying to clean his feet

Simona brushing her teeth

Galya and Yulya on a boat trip

Zhenya still busy with the morning exercises :-) (and NO, Zhenya, you can not make fire by just pointing at it!!! It was MY work!)

Lesha preparing firewood

Anna, Tyoma and Ania finally preparing lunch

Lesha, Vitja, Tyoma and Simona waiting for the "shashlikiy"

The first fish is ready! Yummy!

In the chamber of curiosities

Kunstkammer

Figure Skating

2005-06-03T09:55:00.000+02:00

When I was a child (and to a certain degree I still am) I used to watch figure skating on TV and knew all the famous skaters. Unfortunately, I have been too busy in the last years, so I am not familiar with the world's famous figure skaters anymore :-(
Thanks to the Czech Trainee Simona, I went to a figure skating show last night and saw the most famous Russian skaters, among them Evgeni Plushenko! Simona gave me a really disapproving look before the show when I said that I had never heard of the guy before... However, it certainly was one of the highlights of my last 3 weeks in St. Petersburg! He is an entertaining figure skating God! I just did some research and the list of medals is long...

Evgeni Plushenko

I moved and live in a single-flat now! It is gorgeous!!!

Weekend adventures

2005-05-30T09:06:00.000+02:00

I survived another weekend in Saint Petersburg despite heavy partying :-)

When I got home on Friday evening, my dear flat mate was on his way to whatever AIESEC alumni party in an Irish Pub and did a good job convincing me to join him... He complained that I hadn't posted any photo of him in my blog. This is due to the fact that I hadn't taken any pics of him... Below you can see the result of the photo session which followed that complaint!

Zhenya Charikov

Anyway, I had a good time speaking a lovely mixture of English and Russian and once more experienced the advantages (or disadvantages...) of AIESEC: I got to know to some gossip about AIESEC NSU... Yay!
As a result of the exhausting week I slept till 12pm on Saturday :-) Thanks to the sleeping mask and ear-plugs! I dedicated the afternoon to sightseeing in the city: Alexander Nevskij Laura, where I found some nature :-)
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Saturday evening/night... Hm, first I went to a music cafe which really reminded me of the "Nautilus" in Goettingen... I guess the reason were the rather European "messy" haircuts and the music :-)
I don't know what drove me to agree to this, but I ended up going to a night club on an island. This means that you can't go home after midnight by metro and not at all after 2am, because they open the bridges till 5am... and metro starts working at 5:30am again... And as we all know, it is one thing to stay in a club till 5:30am if you may leave any time you want or if you are bound to stay there, because there is no way out!!! I really liked the music and had a good time dancing, but I was half dead by the time I got home... 7am!!! The good thing is that I got the chance to take great pictures at 5:30 in the morning :-))) White Nights in Saint Petersburg!

Yesterday I had a look at my future appartment and will move either today or tomorrow and enjoy a single-flat ;-)

Alexander Nevskij Square

At Alexander Nevskij Laura

Trees!!! Yay!

Trinity Cathedral (I hope this is correct...)

Saturday night in a night club: Zhenya (not my flat mate; the name is really popular in Russia:-)

Anna enjoying Efes

Vitja at 5am...

Going home at 5:30am

Going home at 5:30am

Russian dinner and a cool cat

2005-05-26T09:35:00.000+02:00

Ignoring the fact that I am really tired, because I never get home before 11pm, I m having a great time in Piter. Yesterday for example, I was invited to my buddy's home for dinner... People who have seen me lately know that I love Russian food - you can tell by the weight I gained :-( I enjoyed myself immensely though and I am proud to say that I managed to speak Russian only :-)
And Masha has a really cool cat!

Masha'a cat

I am - despite such statements - in no danger of becoming an alcoholic!!! On Wednesday I went to a park (probably the only one) and had a beer with friends. Yesterday I went for a walk with my flat mate AND a bottle of beer in my hand :-) And guess what my plans are for tonight! ;-)

Work is also cool ;-)

Welcome Party and getaway from the city

2005-05-23T11:51:00.000+02:00

The weather is fabulous in Piter and I managed to get a little sunburn when hanging out all day long at some really cool lake yesterday! Half of an aspirin plus getting completely drunk did the miracle of curing my cold :-) A new week has started and with it came a huge pile of work...

Anyway, on Saturday my buddy Masha and I bought loads of different sorts of beer for my welcome party, which was taking place in my flat mate's room (who had not been asked for permission, but didn't care when he arrived at home pretty drunk around midnight). We were a rather small group of people, but that doesn't mean we didn't have a great time. Since I have spent 6 Siberian winter months in Russia, I am familiar with all sorts of drinking games. Unfortunately I got a little out of practice during the 2,5 months in Germany (clap your hands in two different ways and keep saying stuff like "fuck me, fuck me" "deeper, deeper" "lick me, lick me" without getting confused!!!). And hm, yeah, I was happly being my very self. Please don't call my mom, dear spicy springroll! ;-)
Germany was last in the Eurovision song contest :-(((
I also shuffled in some pelmeni! Yay! Honestly, I have no idea how I have managed to spend a week in Russia without having pelmeni!!!! Btw, some gossip about me made it from Siberia to St. Petersburg and I have a pretty good idea who the source of this is. One disadvantage of AIESEC!!!

Sunday morning I had a friendly hangover and took the second half of the aspirin :-)
I had to get up at 9.30 am... AIESECers do not belong to the working population and don't appreciate the value of a long Sunday morning sleep in. However, it was worth the show of strength! Simona (the cool girl from the Czech Republic) Katja, Vitja, Tyoma (all AIESECers) and I went to a lake a bit outside of the city. I never thought I would say this some day, but I REALLY MISS THE TREES IN AKADEMGORODOK!!! Saint Petersburg is by no means a green city and the traffic is an everlasting annoying background noise.
We had "Shashliki" and enjoyed ourselves in a rubber dinghy on the lake:-)))

All right, I have to work for a while now! Hope you are all doing well!!! :-)

Anna and her favorite toy: fire :-)
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Simona and Katya trying to set up the boat

Tyoma and Vitja

Anna and the "shashlikiy"

Simona and Tyoma on their boat trip

Caught a crab! Or did the crab get me?

A day at a lake

My buddy Masha

Russian Girls

2005-05-20T08:29:00.000+02:00

I got a walk after work with my AIESEC buddy Masha yesterday. She is a cool girl: she patiently explains me all the sights in St. Petersburg (and trust me, there are a lot!) and watches me shuffling in McDonald's food :-))) Unfortunately, I am still fighting my watery eyes and my runny nose. I have the suspicion that it is not a cold but an allergy... to whatever??? How I am ever gonna find out in this big city? I will watch it a few more days and maybe consult a doctor :-(

Anyway, even with only half of my vision available, Piter is a beautiful town!!!
As Masha and I were walking down the streets, we passed a shop where some girls were doing a fashion show! See the pics and you know why I was so keen to buy my "Tussi shoes"!

St. Petersburg
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St. Petersburg (there are way too many sights in the city... Sorry, I don't know what this is... or better: I forgot)

Anna in front of university

My AIESEC buddy Masha (girls with that name tend be really good buddies!!! Greetings to Akademgorodok)

Girl 1

Girl 2

Girl 3

Girl 4

Girl 5

The couple

Girl 6

I got home at 10 pm... The block on the right is my current home :-)

Fotos

2005-05-18T12:30:00.000+02:00

I still don't have my own computer, so I decided to make myself comfortable using this one and downloaded the necessary software to upload pics :-)))

These are most of my colleagues.

Telphin
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Goettingen meets St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg

Der Blick aus meinem Fenster

Back in Russia - Greetings from Saint Petersburg

2005-05-16T09:57:00.000+02:00

This is my first day at work and since everbody is super busy, they left me alone with the internet :-)))
My colleagues are really nice and just presented their best German to me, "eins, zwei, Polizei... drei, vier...." I have also been asked if I smoke, just like every day in Akademgorodok!

So, I made it all right to St. Petersburg on Saturday. It took forever to get through immigration... I was the last one passing for I switched the lines at least 4 times and every time it turned out to be the slowliest one... But three nice Russians had been patiently waiting for me and helped to carry "la bomba" - as I call my heavy luggage - to my appartment. I am currently living with a Russian ex-AIESECer called Eugene in a really nice flat. The problem is that I have to take "marschrutka", then the metro and then another "marschrutka"/20 minute walk to work, which takes about 1,5 h. Therefore, I will have a look at another appartment in the center where I would live alone - very tempting thought! But my current appartment has a washing machine... tough decision!

Saturday after leaving my luggage in my new room, two Russian guys accompanied me on my first trip through St. Petersburg or "Piter" to meet Mel, this cool American girl I met in Akademgorodok. Mel and I exchanged the latest gossip;-) and the two Russians took it with dignity;-)
After this little chat Victor (the AIESECer), Shenya (a co-worker from Akadem, and actually spelled "Zhenya" as he kindly pointed out to me) and me went to have dinner in a neat bar. St. Petersburg is quite European and it feels like home - besides the Russian letters everywhere.

Yesterday I got a 6,5h sightseeing tour by foot with a cool Russian "alumni" (AIESEC) called Nadia. Then we went to some AIESEC meeting where I had been supposed to present myself, but ended up waiting until the meeting was over, because they didn't finish in time. Does that sound familiar, Robbie and Ania??? Same old story ;-)
I got a ride home though, which was really cool! All the AIESECers are extremely nice, but I will also have to find some foreigners...
I am surprised how good my Russian is :-) I understand most of the things and am actually capable of forming sentences! I still prefer English, but it is getting better! This time I will master the language!!! Yay!

All right, this is enough for now. I forgot the cable at home, so I can't upload pics. But: the city is BEAUTIFUL!!! And I do miss Goettingen a little bit ;-)

Ready to rock

2005-05-09T12:23:00.000+02:00

I got my visa :-))) I guess "the more you pay, the faster they work" is true!
I will leave Göttingen tomorrow (unless I get my mother to run to the travel agency and pay for my ticket) and take the plane to St. Petersburg on Saturday!
I hope to see the "Göttinger" tonight!!!

Ready to rock

Tanz in den Mai - Dance into May

2005-05-02T20:07:00.000+02:00

Hello everybody,
this was a long weekend with loads of activities and my camera was always with me. I am sorry, but I have to upload at least some of the pics... it is a rather long list of photos though :-)

I spent Friday as usually in the library, but "blogging" all the time. My friends and I have our "group blog" (Kaputtendorf), and most of us have permanent internet access. So, since we are not at the same place, we use the blog to communicate, and to tease each other. Have a look at Kaputtendorf to see what I mean, it is in German, but the pictures speak their own language...
Friday evening I went to the famous Kellnerweg-Party. It is a dormitory a bit outside of Göttingen, a really beautiful place. I did not drink much alcohol! YAY! (I have to give myself a break for the first vodka attack :-) )

Anna at Kellnerweg
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Anne and her seductive look...

Klausi and Chen...

After a good long sleep after the party on Friday we all met for lunch at university and then coffee at Max L - as always on Saturday's - and NO, we are not boring, but some of us are a bit older and need some kind of routine ;-)

Paul and Klaus (the big) at Max L

Krischan and Kerstin

Anna and Christian

Thomas proudly presenting his work! REALLY GREAT, ARGH!

Krischan, Kerstin, Thomas, Christian and I went to watch "Million Dollar Baby" Saturday evening. Absolutely recommendable movie! It deserves its 4 Oscars! After discussing the movie we went to pick up the second group who were watching a movie at Sven's (YES, your equipment is awesome, Sven! :-)) and went to Nautilus, a nice bar where I got to do what I usually do: I played with fire...

The pyromaniac Anna and...

ups! Help!

On Sunday we met for breakfast at Esprit (Meyer's was closed because of May 1st... the older ones did well with the change though! Wait a sec: who was young in the group? Aehm... ) and enjoyed the sun!

Klaus (the big) with Chen's hat from JLo

Paul with his Sunday afternoon smile

Thomas: isn't that a blue mark??? Good job, Anna!

The men/boys... :-) Klausi, Klaus (the big), Paul, Thomas and Sveenie

Anna

Thomas: Bon appetit!

Since summer arrived we all went to the Kiessee (a nice lake nearby) to get some suntan. Klausi, our picnic expert, brought a whole lot of food and vine, so we had a super cool picnic! Thanks, Klausi!

Klaus (the big) and Paul changing clothes... or whatever :-)

Klausi, our picnic expert, is enjoying the vine

Thomas taking a nap after, aeh... I guess, coffee break

Sveenie and Chen

Anna (note the HUGE blue mark on the knee) and Christian

Chen is... hm... what is this good for???

The beauty and the beasts :-) or is it the other way around?

Katha's birthday

2005-04-29T12:18:00.000+02:00

The birthday party marathon goes on! On Wednesday we happily celebrated Katha's 29th birthday (ups, did I mention the age?) in the 6-Millionen-Dollar-Club. Although some people got really hurt (anyone who does NOT know how bad blue marks feel - please don't hesitate to contact me), we had a great time!

I am still sitting in the library in Göttingen; when I turn my head to the left I can see the spicy springroll with her head smoking - at least one of us is actually working, aren't you, dear? ;-). My invitation from Russia finally arrived on Tuesday and I sent all the necessary documents to Hamburg. Keep your fingers crossed for me! I had to delay my departure for about 2 weeks... Russian bureaucracy and German mail... at least I already know where I will live in St. Petersburg. You can't imagine how much I am looking forward to have my own closet after 2 months living out of a suitcase!!!
@Mel: I hope I will make it to Peter in time to see you and your family!!!

My mother met a nice young English speaking lady on the street the other day. And since my smart mom knows I am writing an essay in English and need someone to read the whole thing, she asked the lady for her phone number. I have to note that my mom doesn't speak any English, but she realized that is was rather fluent English. So, when I was home this week, my mom forced me to call the lady - my stuborn mother dialed the numer and pressed the the phone in my hand. I immediately realized that the lady was not an English native speaker, but we were chatting nicely anway. I had a funny feeling and eventually asked the lady what her native language is... RUSSIAN! :-))) Yay!

I am the proud owner of 4 different apartment keys in Göttingen. It must be funny to watch me changing flats all the time! Thank you very much, Chen-Yu, Katha, Elke, Christian and Jojo!!! I moved in with two men yesterday and got a great dinner last night! ;-)

Die Festsau
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Klausi and Thomas

Chen-Yu, Sveenie and Paul

Markus

Klausi and Chenita

Maren, Anne and Klaus (the big)

"Bartel" and Paul

Anna and Christian

Chen-Yu is 30!!!

2005-04-22T21:55:00.000+02:00

Another one of us hit the 30 and her face is still normal and her hair is black as always... I heard she managed to go out till 3am last night! Not bad, you old cow ;-)
Chen invited us to a great Asian dinner party and did an excellent job cooking!!! (Thanks a lot again, Chenita!) She got lots of presents, including a paddling pool, floating tires, a weird monkey toy, a super size Simpson's cup and lots of other things!

I am looking forward to Russia with mixed feelings now, I got used to Göttingen again and it will be hard to leave :-(((
I hope you are all doing great! Enjoy the pics!

Chen-Yu Lin turned 30... can you believe it??? She is still a good fighting machine... just as a Jedi Knight!
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Klausi preparing himself for the party... quite impressing!

Katha and Maren making Sushi! Yummy seaweed...

Sveenie, Anna and Paul (NO, Paul, NOT TODAY!)

Katha and Elsa (both will turn 30 in exactly one year... looking forward, girls?)

Sveenie Peenie and Chenita

Anne and "Bartel"

The old cow and her young boys - well, most of them ;-)

Thomas and Klaus (the big) are leaving already. I wonder what they are up to...

And by the way:

Overall, Anna scored as follows:
94% scored higher (more nerdy), and
6% scored lower (less nerdy).
What does this mean? Your nerdiness is: Definitely not nerdy, you are probably cool.

Gaston's birthday

2005-04-17T13:17:00.000+02:00

More pictures... :-)))
Gaston, a nice guy from Argentina and with Italian roots, and a ex-colleague of Sven invited us to his birthday party! I had a great time, but was a little bit swamped with all the latinos running around there... and asked myself once more: Why on earth do I want to go back to RUSSIA? Well, Spain is next! (No puedo esperar a visitarte, Sergito)
My invitation from Russia is ready and I can apply for the visa next week! I am really looking forward to St. Petersburg and hope to get a chance to go to Akademgorodok! I miss you all!!!

All right, I have to recover from my slight hangover now :-)

Group picture :-)
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Klaus (the big) in Anna's jacket

Johanna and Anna

kjo (Krischan) and Thomas de Klein. Correct, Thomas?

Chen-Yu

Chen and "Sveenie Peenie and the hotmachine"

Annita

Sveenie, Johanna and Anna on the dancefloor

Charlie's angels

Thomas and Krischan

The kings of the dancefloor!?

Our happy couple :-) "Geht doch nach Hause!" ("Go home")

Elsa's birthday

2005-04-16T15:29:00.000+02:00

A rather unspectacular week has passed in Göttingen. I spend most of my time in the library - physically, but mentally in Akademgorodok, Siberia :-) ICQ is such a great thing! I also got to watch a great movie the other day: 2046. Thanks to the spicy springroll, I slowly become an expert on Asian movies :-)

Thanks to everybody who helped me with my essay so far!!! Greetings to South Africa, Australia, the USA, and whereever you are, Josh.

Ups, did I say the week was unspectacular? NO, it was Elsa's birthday on Thursday and we had our first barbecue-campfire-party this year on Friday, as you can see on the pics.
I am getting old... I turned my back on the WiWi-Party :-((( It used to be my very favorite party! I made it to the entrance door at 2:30am, they still wanted 3€ admission, and I decided to go back to bed. Chen and Klausi had a great time!
More party tonight though ;-)

Anna collecting firewood - YAY
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Chenchen relaxing

Anna

Elsa and some of her guests

Klausi is getting his camera ready

The children playing on the playground (Klausi and Anna)

We are boarding the ship

Captain Chen-Yu

Klausi and Elsa (unsere Festsau)

Anna and the frisby

Sveenie and Elsa

Chen and Klausi... und die übliche Massage

Hm.... it's getting hot in here... :-)

and what we all like best... (or at least second best)

Sveenie and Klausi

The campfire party

I have nothing to say

2005-04-07T15:39:00.000+02:00

I have absolutely nothing interesting to tell. I wake up in the morning, get up and ready for the day (which most likely includes a shower and breakfast - I miss MacKoffee!!!), walk to the library, get a wireless-lan card, look for a comfy spot in the library and settle down. At 12:25pm Chen and I start bugging Klausi to get ready for lunch (we are ALWAYS late anyway), have lunch (which takes FOREVER... try to find a table for 10 people in the Mensa at 1pm when everybody wants a seat...!), then coffee break (since lunch is a tiring business) and crawl back to the library. If I am lucky people chat with me in ICQ (I even chat with Chen who sits a few meters away from me) or I receive some emails. Every second day I go jogging and fall happily asleep around midnight :-)

Flower power :-)

Campus