It's been quiet here for a while. I wish all of you a merry Christmas and a happy new year, may you celebrate it with the people you love and care about.
To all Holm bros and sis, I hope we meet in Austria and Switzerland the coming summer during the Euro Cup! Alp guys, prepare your apartments for some serious couch sharing.
And the official Barcelona-Trip Friends episode is: 804 - The One With The Video Tape Vesna, thanks for reminding me :)
Yesterday morning, on my way from the airport, I ran into a neighbour. When she saw me, with my shoulders bright red, my hair a mess, my clothes slightly dirty and very wrinkled, and limping with both feet - in short, looking like I just ran away from a vicious band of kidnappers - she exclaimed: "Oh, my God! What happened to you?" I shrugged and replied with a tired smile: "Oh, just a vacation with friends".
So here's the first report (hopefully, one of many). And, I think you know this about me already, it will be long and very detailed. I'll try to leave things out, so that others can add something ;-). Let's start at the beginning. I was the first to arrive to this wonderful Catalonian city, late last Thursday evening. I spent that first night in a dorm room in a tiny and cute hostel in the city center (aka Barri Gotic). Not a big fan of sharing a room with five complete strangers, I left as soon as I woke up, and called Andre. Andre is the owner of the appartment, which we found totally by chance on the internet and rented - that proved to be an excellent move. The appartment was huge, and very nice, but its best feature was definitely the 30 sqm large roof terrace! Once I saw it, all my plans to do some "preliminary" sightseeing fell through, I barely managed to explore the neighbourhood and buy some... erh... refreshments (ok, it was 5 bottles of wine) for the evening. The rest of the afternoon I spent sun-bathing on the terrace. At least I read the complete Barcelona guide :-). People started arriving at 19h and this "arriving", and waiting for it, continued through most of the evening. But, finally, by 1.30am we were all there: Laura, Jens, Filip, Tomasz, Lars, Tobias and I. And since we still had some wine left, we stayed right where we were - on the adored terrace, under the (almost) full moon. I just wanna add our sandwich story, because booze goes bad w/o food. So, Tomek and I volunteered (due to our unrivaled Spanish mumbling skills) to take care of food and therefore went for a loco taxi ride around midnight. Long story short: We couldn't find food nearby so we took the yellow pages grabbed a taxi and told him to drive us to a fast food place which we found in the yellow pages and which was still open (we tried a home delivery service first but it was closed, Tomek and I weren’t anyway looking forward to ordering food in Spanish via phone… hehehe). We didn't know that it would take like forever with the taxi... When we arrived at the other end of the city we luckily ordered 9 bocadillos although the place was about to close down. The way back was not less exciting. We were super lucky finding a free taxi in that area to drive us to the next metro station. From there we went by metro back to our place. Tomek the super controler came up with that idea... I just say budget constrains need to be kept.
Next morning, we were more or less all awake by 11h, and Christian had arrived. After a hearty breakfast (with Coke instead of coffee), Tomasz took us to Montjuic - one of the two hills over Barcelona. We were joined by Filip and his three friends (they are travelling together all over the Iberian peninsula, but Filip mostly ignored his buddies and hung out with us) and climbed very slowly all over Montjuic. At one point we took the cable car and went all the way to the top, to the Castell de Montjuic. Having admired the view, we took another very steep and very high cable car, which took us all the way down to the beach. Ah, the wonderful beach, which Tomasz is lucky enough to see every day. We had sweet cocktails and compared sun-burns, and I think we could have stayed there forever. However, we had plans for the evening and all of us could use a shower.
That evening we first went to see the Font Magica (not the magic font, but fountain) - a show of water, colours and music. It's sweeter than cotton-candy, but still quite nice, so the eight of us and two friends of Tomek had quite a nice time there. We had dinner in a nice restaurant - at midnight, as the rule "when in Rome" demands. As I was somehow very tired, I went home after that. What the others did - well, let them tell you :-). And then it was already Sunday - the last day. The boys had some troubles waking up, so Laura and I took care of grocery shopping and around noon we finally had breakfast together. Around 14h Andre came back, to take the keys and his appartment, by when Laura and Tobias had already left for the airport. Jens, Christian, Lars, Filip and I went to see the Sagrada Familia - this Gaudi's masterpiece being probably Barcelona's most recognizable "sight" we figured we might as well. But it was more a "veni, vidi... playa" kind of deal, as pretty soon we were back on the beach, sipping cold drinks.
And, boy, so soon it was time to say "good-bye" again. The Germans left, Filip went back to his neglected friends (We said good-bye to Filip in his hotel room. When we left he said he would take a short power nap. Totally reminded me of Filip sleeping all thru our Moscow city trip. *evil laughter*), Tomasz was preparing for yet another party of his hard business life, and I went in search of my next hostel. When I reached the building I almost didn't go in: it looked awful! An old, decreipt building, and a simple door on the first floor with the words "Pension" printed on regular white paper stuck on it. A moustachioed old woman opened the said door, and I felt like I was in a horror movie. However, I soon had to see how wrong first impressions can be. The room was very nice, with A/C, a fully stacked mini-bar, and a complete toiletries set in my en-suite bathroom. I guess it was cheap because of the horrible state of the building. Well, fine by me. On Monday I decided to see as many beautiful sights of Barcelona as I could. So I walked. I saw the fantasy-like Parc Güell (created by the architect Gaudi), and La Pedrera (another famous Gaudi building), walked through the amazing old Barri Gotic, through the very charming district El Born, had my lunch break in the pretty Parc de la Ciutadella, walked along the coast and saw the Columbus monument and walked down Las Ramblas, the "main" street full of tourists, street performers and stands with souvenirs, flowers and birds. Even though I had quite comfortable shoes, they were apparently not comfortable enough, as by the end I could barely walk. Around 21h I made my way to the airport, with the last remains of strenght left in my feet. My check-in time was at 4h in the morning, so I hadn't booked a room for that night, I figured I would just spend it at the airport. I wasn't aware that the designers of the Barcelona airport had little regard for the sleepy passengers - the floors were tiled, cold and hard and all the chairs had arm-rests, so one could not lie down over them. So, I spent the night reading, watching TV-shows on iPod and chatting with a 50-yr old American cowboy (ok, I don't know what he does for a living, but he was dressed completely in jeans, with cowboy boots and a cowboy hat). At 10h I was home. And met my neighbour.
End of report :-). There are other photos here. Altogether - it was fantastic. Each of us commented at one point (very originally, but I guess that also means that it's true): it's amazing how we just continued talking and joking around as if no time had passed since the last time we met (The reunion's theme song could have been the theme from Cheers "Where everybody knows your name...". That reminds me of the London Friends ep where Joey is missing NY and the Cheers song starts playing...). Yes, the magic is still there :-). We already decided to continue reuniting. I just hope that next time there will be even more of us!
p.s. it's only mine and Tomek's photos, but it was fun playing with them :).
REUNION in Barcelona, Fri 29 June - Sun 1 July are there any objections? or can we start looking for cheap flights? :-)
(Please indicate your preferences or suggest alternatives by Sat, 17 March.) Ok, Saturday has come and gone. And since two thirds of the people have voted for the second option, both "publicly" and "anonymously" (in the BlogPoll), I guess we will be meeting on the weekend of 29 June - 01 July. As for the cities (Rome or Barcelona), as far as I know few people have voiced an actual preference, and when they did it was Barcelona.
WHEN? Option 1: Fri, 15 June - Sun, 17 June 1. Charissa 2. Tomasz (this date is my 1st preference, as 29th June -1st July I wanted to go to Polish Heineken Open'er Festival... but... if you guys are all coming to BCN at that time then I will stay in BCN and join you :-))
Option 2: Fri, 29 June - Sun, 1 July 1. Mellie 2. Vesna 3. Jens 4. Christian
WHO? Who can join and what are your possible dates: - Mellie: preferably 28 June - 4 July (I will be in Europe from 17 June) - Michael - Vesna: anywhere, anytime, preferably a weekend - Jens: I'll be there for you... - Charissa: backpacking Europe 7 May - 15 June, after 15 June - Christian Hertig: May to June (the earlier, the better) - Tomasz: living in Barcelona from May until end 2007; so BCN as 1st preference, but I am flexi :) - Sylvia - Tobias - Guillermo: I might go to Italy around June for some time - Laura (prefers weekend) - Lars (prefers weekend; might be in Madrid in early June) - Vicente - Giovanni - Alberto - Filip (will follow the herd :))
WHERE? In terms of Cities: - Barcelona, Spain - Madrid, Spain - Rome, Italy
Last update: 5th March Please scroll down for Reunion updates and contributions!
Hi guys,
Sorry for not writing for ages and ages and ages. I've been super busy with school work (graduating in December) and I was recently in Harvard (Cambridge, Massachusetts) for a short conference, and later in NYC for a 3-day vacation. Check out the photos from Harvard below! NYC photos to come soon (Jen, I DID in fact touch the bull's balls in tradition of getting good fortune. My friends were somewhat not as amused as I thought they would have been. Though the tourists around me were! *LOL*).
Anyhow, I will be in Europe for about 3 weeks (tentatively the dates are 18 June to 5 July)... and I would like to propose a summer reunion in 2007 in either Spain or Italy!
Is anyone interested and available during this period? Any ideas/comments on where we could meet for about 2-3 days at least? What are your available dates?
Let me know! Email me at ngmelissa[at]gmail[dot]com or just skype me whenever you catch me online. :)
I'm really excited to meet up with some of you again this summer!!!
Please also update with your interest/information through blogger or by leaving comments!
PEOPLE Who can join and what are your possible dates: - Mellie: preferably 28 June - 4 July (I will be in Europe from 17 June) - Michael - Vesna: anywhere, anytime, preferably a weekend - Jens: I'll be there for you... - Charissa: backpacking Europe 7 May - 15 June, after 15 June - Christian Hertig: May to June (the earlier, the better) - Tomasz: living in Barcelona from May until end 2007; so BCN as 1st preference, but I am flexi :) - Sylvia - Tobias - Guillermo: I might go to Italy around June for some time
and since Mellie said Spain or Italy - Rome is always beautiful and exciting, with or without festivals :-)
Update from Mellie (5 Mar): Hi guys! As Sylvia mentioned, it's probably best to pick the dates first. Whether or not we manage to get a festival would be dependent on those dates, and I suppose even without one, we still can party right? ;)
For myself, the best dates for me will be anytime between 28 June and 5 July. Sorry I realise it's a very small time frame, but I have already planned on going to the Greek islands with my girlfriends from 18-27 June. Coming earlier is abit tricky because my friend's wedding is on 16 June. =P
So let's see how it goes. Does anyone have any "preferred" dates also? Please email me! We can try to work out a compromise!
Hej hej vänner! I hope you all "weathered" the recent hurricanes and windstorms without any injuries or losses. Kyrill was playing hard on us here in Europe. So let me tell you my short Kyrill episode - The One with the Giant Poking Device. Friends episodes just fit for every moment in life. I am expecting a "thumbs up" comment from you Jen :).
Episode titles I could have used already: * The One with the Mugging (As my wallet got stolen 2x in Madrid)
* The One with the Male Nanny (This Christmas I spent almost every day with children and I gained quite some experience, *STAR*. Do just everything to make them laugh and get rid of any pride. Better to have no pride but a happy child, than keeping your pride but have the hell of a crying nightmare)
* The One with the Videotape - No I am just kidding, there is no "videotape" of any kind :D
* But I am just waiting for the day when I can write about my life using this episode title - The one with all the friends. When will that be? When will there be the day with all of us partying again? By this chance I just apologize for not organizing any Karneval events. But my exams are clashing with Karneval this time. And I missed so many exams in the last year already, that I finally have to get into pace. I didn't forget you guys.
Back to: The One with the Giant Poking Device Kyrill was rattling Cologne. I walked to university as I thought it might be smart to attend classes a few weeks before the exams. The classes got canceled actually but therefore I could enjoy crazy Kyrill making me walk like Monty Python's Ministry Of Silly Walks. Too bored walking right back home I visited a friend. Together we got stuck in the weather voyeurism. We kept watching all these silly TV programs that we covering Kyrill 24h with live cams all over the place. Everything you could see and hear was the same: "Public traffic is canceled", "strong and high speed wind", "lots of rain". That got repeated by 500 poor reporters facing the weather from 500 locations nonstop for 24h :D. As if you had no window to take a look outside and see it yourself. People like the two of us were waiting to see something happen. But thankfully Kyrill didn't kill or injured as many people as many feared.
Yep, thankfully. The next day I looked out of my kitchen window. In front of my kitchen window there is a small roof. On the roof I saw a HUGE piece of our old terrestrial antenna. It just got stock on the eaves gutter. Damn that was close. If that bastard would have fallen down on the sidewalk, oh boy. When I took an indepth look I saw four roof tiles lying on my tiny roof, too. Again, thankfully. Those could have caused some serious damaged. But everything got stock on my little roof which is at the bottom of the actual roof. I picked up the tiles which were perfectly in shape and put them just back in place. Now comes the giant poking device. I used a long round wooden stick which I found in the cellar and duct taped an umbrella on the top of it. Yep duct tape, you know I love it :D. Thanks to my nintendo-trained handling skills I managed to get the antenna out of the eaves gutter and managed to pull it towards me. The antenna almost didn't fit thru my window.
Thankfully some serious damage got avoided because all the dangerous debris got stuck. And thanks to wisdom of Friends (I think the poking device was actually even Joey's idea) it was a piece of cake securing the debris.
That's all folks. Please, keep posting. Visit my blog (magnum80.com), where I am posting on a weekly (sometimes daily) basis.
Hej people! ¡Feliz año nuevo! How is everybody doing? So here it is... a whole new year ahead and I got to have the first posting ha!!!... Wish you all the best in every aspect of your lives... I hope you had a great new year's eve... Me? I almost had to spend it in the middle of nowhere with people from all over the world (Canadians, Americans, French, Italians, Germans and of course Mexicans) who I did not know...
How did that happen? Well me and some relatives went North of Mexico for a couple days to the Copper Canyon. The initial idea was to come back on the 28 for new years celebrations... The first day was pretty sunny and very warm... Next day however (the day we were supposed to come back) it snowed literally from freaking 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.... Roads were closed, collapses damaged the train tracks, we lost electricity for some hours, we were in the middle of freaking nowhere, we weren't carrying enough cash (you don't find atm's on those places), we did not carry clothes for snow, etc, etc... We had to stay there for 2 days more than expected... Fortunately for us, the roads reopened on the 30th (the train still did not work) and we were able to go to Chihuahua to take a plane to Guadalajara... just in time for new year's eve, and I mean just in time 'cause I saw later on the news that it is still snowing a lot up there... The strange thing is that while it snows on the top of the mountains, local people seed mango, papaya and all kind of tropical fruits on the bottom :s ... Anyway in the end everything worked out for the best for us... I only hope the American group were not able to get out of there... ahem.., ahem... I mean I hope they were able to get out of there as well, yes of course... I do not dislike Americans at all... no señor...
How have you been? I have to admit, my autumn has been quite dull. Rather ambitiously, I decided to finish all my exams during this term (I mean, really, it's time!), so I've been swamped with lectures, papers, studying, research and all those extremely exciting stuff... Since August, I've only managed to go to Croatia once, for a weekend, and I'm starting to miss my friends&family horribly (am really thankful for Skype lately).
I did however manage to escape for a longer weekend to England, about a month ago. Now, that was fantastic. My Viennese best-friend is from Reading and we went to visit her parents there. I must admit, I am quite an England-fan and I thouroughly enjoyed the whole experience - the brick houses, the "village green", I even insisted we go to the local pub named Bull&Chequers in Woodley (the suburb of Reading, where the said parents live). On my last day there, my friend's dad drove us to Windsor, where we admired the huge, ancient castle. Then we went on to see Eton ('cause it was on the way) - and that was scary! It looked like something from the Twilight Zone - the wonderful huge buildings, and nobody on the streets except well-groomed little boys in black tuxedo tail coats and starched white shirts. In the end he drove us to London, where he left us to first tour the major sights (Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Buckingham palace etc.), then have dinner in a quaint Chinese restaurant in SoHo and finally see a musical (I mean, we were in West End, how could we not?).
Life in Vienna continued as usual, mostly studying, only occasionally partying, and then, last Thursday, I set off in the early morning to the CEMS annual event in Dublin. This thing is (as you probably guessed) organised once a year for the CEMS students, where those who managed to fulfill all the requirements graduate, and everybody flocks to the Career Forum and the stands of our Corporate Partners. After everybody tries to charm the pants off of each other (mostly not literary), the main highlight is the party at the end. First of all, I really enjoyed Dublin. I spent a lot of time walking around (even though the weather wasn't perfect), it's very comfortable, has some great sights and is extremely cultural (it gave the world such literary giants as Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and George Bernard Shaw - and my hotel was in the street where Bram Stoker, the "father" of Dracula, lived). People are very sweet and they really seem to enjoy life. In lovely company (with Jonathan and Tomek) I also visited the Guinness Storehouse, a "must-see" for all beer enthusiasts. OK, I'm not one of those, but I have friends who wouldn't have forgiven me, if I'd been so close and hadn't gone there. Finally at the event, and even more so, at the party, I was extremely happy to meet many of the Stockholm crowd. Besides the afore-mentioned Dynamic Duo, there were Emma, Erica, Louise, Anna Stig, Felix Badura, Nikolai and Gabor - and maybe more, but I only managed to locate these in the drunken crowd. It was wonderful to finally be able to make fotos like this again: Now, with my batteries charged (at least emotionally) it's back to some more studying, until the Christmas break.
First of all sorry for not posting for a long time. I realise there are no proper excuses.
As most of you know, I have been kept relatively busy trying to finish my thesis. September 1st I started working at Vestas Wind Systems, together with Tomek (HQ left). We're both doing the graduate programme, which is a two year course that takes us to three jobs of eight months each in three different countries - as I suspect most of you know by now...
We're right now both in Randers, where we're sharing a little house downtown with one more graduate:
So far, so good. I am having fun. Weekdays have been pretty cool - playing pool, darts, poker, going to the movies, etc. Pretty standard, I guess. We are beginning to get to know a few people locally, which is of course nice. I am nevertheless really thankful Tomek is here. If we weren't already, we have definitely become best friends - so that makes it a bit easier to be stuck in a village in Jutland :-).
Weekdays I'm working too, of course, which is not bad either. It's interesting, challenging, and the hours are pretty good (8am-4pm is the standard, except for those who get stuck on projects with external consultants, hehe). Colleagues are also nice (more about that later). I have had a couple of opportunities to climb some of our turbines, and it's a pretty exciting thing. I love that product. I wish some of you would have an opportunity to try it out sometime. In May I'm moving to Portland on the US West Coast. You should drop by! Within two hours it is supposedly possible to drive to amazing skiing, hiking and rafting. Deserts, oceans, rain forests and mountains all within 200km. The job sounds fun too, even if I am not totally sure what I will be working on. It seems I'll be referring directly to the CFO, and the american market is the largest and fastest growing market around. So that all sounds promising. For the final rotation I'm still hoping to end up somewhere in Asia. But Australia or South America could be a lot of fun, too.
The thesis was of course a pain in the ass. I should have finished it before I started working. But then again, it would be stupid to turn down a dream-job only because to finish this damn thing, when the only purpose of finishing it is to get a dream-job... So anyways, my weekends were not that much fun from September 'till now, mostly going to Copenhagen and working 14 hours a day both Saturdays and Sunday. But that's history now. We finished printing last monday at 0330, and handed it in a couple of hours later. I went back and slept some 12 hours. Just the defense left, which is basically a formality.
Thursday-Friday we had a teambuilding event in legoland, which was a lot of fun (and a bit of seriousness as well). Friday night it was time for the annnual Julefrokost for our local office. Julefrokost is a Danish word for getting drunk and embarassing together with all your colleagues. So we did. 400 people. Food, wine and drinks ad libitum. Music, singing, strippers (male strippers, by the way). A bit of dancing for all those who could still hold their balance. I posted a couple of the less embarassing photos below. And no I don't know what the photos indicate, but to the best of my knowledge and to the girls' luck Tomek is neither gay, nor smoking :-).
Alright, thats it for now. I hope this provides a (somewhat fragmented) picture of what has been happening in the last couple of months for my part. Next weekend its time for the CEMS Annual Events in Dublin, where we're going to promote Vestas at the career forum, and drink a hell of a lot of beers with friends from Stockholm and all over... You can alwyas stay up to date on my own site: www.jdhh.dk
Whats up with the rest of you who haven't posted forever???
Regardless, I hope you are all well and enjoying life where ever you are!
Now that finger-freezing European winter is approaching, now that long and cold nights are getting closer, now that you'll only see the sun every once in a while don't get depressed... think about all those people having a harder time with weather in other countries...
hheee... sorry sorry not my fault German people convinced me to upload these pics... blame it on them in any case! But hej Jonathan's right... we should post a bit more... me? I am still studying, one semester to go and really a lot of work... Other than that I have a German roomie this term, a girl from Koln, so I am hangging out with Germans once in a while (I guess some things never change ;)) as well as with some exchange students here. I met some time ago a few Swedish students, it was fun to talk with them about what I liked about Sweden and so on... but I realized I miss it :( I wish it could've lasted longer... it's good to know Alberto finally decided to post, I hope the rest of the Spanish people do so as well, and the rest of you? Keep us updated with your lives! Gotta go now, I guess I won't be winning the "who-can-write-the-longest-post challenge" but at least I am posting!
See you soon I hope, and I am still waiting for someone that would like to cross the ocean to visit me in Mexico!
(Please indicate your preferences or suggest alternatives by Sat, 17 March.)
How did that happen? Well me and some relatives went North of Mexico for a couple days to the Copper Canyon. The initial idea was to come back on the 28 for new years celebrations... The first day was pretty sunny and very warm...
thouroughly enjoyed the whole experience - the brick houses, the "village green", I even insisted we go to the local pub named Bull&Chequers in Woodley (the suburb of Reading, where the said parents live). On my last day there, my friend's dad drove us to Windsor, where we admired the huge, ancient castle. Then we went on to see Eton ('cause it was on the way) - and that was scary! It looked like something from the Twilight Zone - the wonderful huge buildings, and nobody on the streets except well-groomed little boys in black tuxedo tail coats and starched white shirts. In the end he drove us to London, where he left us to first tour the major sights (Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Buckingham palace etc.), then have dinner in a quaint Chinese restaurant in SoHo and finally see a musical (I mean, we were in West End, how could we not?).
As most of you know, I have been kept relatively busy trying to finish my thesis. September 1st I started working at Vestas Wind Systems, together with Tomek (HQ left). We're both doing the graduate programme, which is a two year course that takes us to three jobs of eight months each in three different countries - as I suspect most of you know by now...
that later). I have had a couple of opportunities to climb some of our turbines, and it's a pretty exciting thing. I love that product. I wish some of you would have an opportunity to try it out sometime. In May I'm moving to Portland on the US West Coast. You should drop by! Within two hours it is supposedly possible to drive to amazing skiing, hiking and rafting. Deserts, oceans, rain forests and mountains all within 200km. The job sounds fun too, even if I am not totally sure what I will be working on. It seems I'll be referring directly to the CFO, and the american market is the largest and fastest growing market around. So that all sounds promising. For the final rotation I'm still hoping to end up somewhere in Asia. But Australia or South America could be a lot of fun, too.
