Leipzig part 2

So I am behind on a few stories here and since I might be without Internet for a while, since we are switching contracts, I should better finish some posts here.

So I am  in Leipzig for almost 5 month now. Totally crazy! So many things happened. I finished my internship, moved again, got a job and still didn't manage to get much done for uni which totally sucks but I am on to it.

For the internship part. Well it was pretty cool. i learned many things, met many cool people and could really imagine working for the foreign services in the future. The only bad thing came afterwards. 2 months are gone and i still haven't gotten my letter of recommendation. Obviously the people at the consulate think we just worked there for the fun of it. Will write another email tonight and hope that this whole thing is behind me very soon. Weird is also that I didn't learned much about the US during my internship. Maybe because I new already so much but it is strange anyway. But I learned tons about Germany and the region were I am from (Saxony-Anhalt) and now living (Saxony) which might be good fro the future. And I learned that just because people work for a government doesn't mean that they are necessarily smarter than an ordinary student. And it is obviously much harder to work for the German foreign services than for the US state secretary. ;)

As I mentioned , I moved again. After sleeping at a friends place for a week and staying at my parents place for another couple of days I was very fortunate to find and apartment with 2 lovely flat mates.  the two girls and i get along well and I think we'll have a good time together. After sleeping on an air mattress for 3 weeks I finally have furniture. More about the decoration of my room in another post, very soon. :D


Luckily in the same week that I found my new flat I also found a job. I am working now part time at Subway, the sandwich store. I never thought i would stay there more than a couple of month but who knows. The salary is super bad but the people are very nice and I get free food for every shift I do. So i am very lazy in cooking lately but at least i am eating healthier. And I worked over 50% more than I should this months. Not that I will get that extra money right away (stupid German tax system) but at least i can plan my vacation to Copenhagen for July now without worrying that i won't have enough hours in July.

So much for now!

better late then never

Here a little flashback on my trip to Finland in March. I know it is already the end of May but i was busy and well better late than never :D

So from March 1st until March 8th I was in Finland, in Lahti, Turku and Helsinki to be precise. And I am so glad that I have so amazing friends there. I never had to pay for any accommodation just for trains and buses which were super expensive as always. But well it's Finland after all.

In Lahti, usual, I went to the Lahti Ski Games. Same procedure as every year you might say, just that this time I didn't have so many friends around. But well with 2 Katrins in the city I still had a fun time including a night out with dancing and watching ex-skijumpers, coaches and Nordic combined athletes getting drunk and hitting on ugly old women. Well if they need it! :D
Oh jeap and then there was 'some' wind again. looks like every 3 years or so Lahti weather just sucks. So half of my comps were canceled and this year i didn't had a press accreditation so no place to sit and warm up. Really need to work there next year to make it fun again. :)
But to spice things up I almost killed myself. Totally by accident of course! Stupid Steffi doesn't listen when people tell her: Don't walk over the frozen lake. Steffi just sees ice fishers on there and thinks: If they can do it, I can do it! I ended up ankle deep in water and knee deep in snow, made it to the shore, totally exhausted and scared as h*ll. After almost crashing my car a couple of years ago, I think this was the second near death experience in my life. I hope the last one. At least i won't go on a frozen lake ever again!

Oh and in Lahti I finally had the chance to watch an ice hockey match again (Ok not true I watched a regional league match in February in Leipzig but well that doesn't really count). It was a pretty cool game. The Pelicans from Lahti won, who later came in 2nd in the Finnish championship. Nothing compared to a match Turku but  we have the second biggest arena in the country so of course the ice hockey stadium in Lahti looked kind of cute to me. :D

And this year I got another cool souvenir from Lahti. During the last 2 years I started (thanks to my friend Katrin) collecting bibs (start numbers) from different Nordic Combined athletes. and this year I got one from my favorite ski jumper. Too bad that he fel in exactly the bib from the team competition that i got but he was Ok in the end and kind enough to sign the bib. Now i will have to frame it together with my Mikko bib from last year and then i will have some cool wall decoration in my new room.

All in all I was from Thursday till Sunday morning in Lahti. And if i say morning i mean my bus to Turku left at 4am! So after dancing half of teh night I spend the rest sleeping in the bus, or well trying.

I arrived around 7am in Turku, went straight to McDonalds, the only one in Turku and the only place open that early on a Sunday. I had 2 cocoas (I LOVE OBOY!) and killed 2 hours before surprising my friends. Oh my goodness. Who would have thought people could be so happy to see me. Surprise visits are just the best. I was for 2 more days in Turku and went on Tuesday morning to Helsinki to visit other friends. :D Seriously it is so awesome to see people again who you are so close to but haven't seen in 6 or 9 months! 
I then did some sightseeing with my friend Laura and just relaxed the last days in Helsinki.


I had to fly back early in Thursday morning. early means i had to be at the bus stop around 5AM. And of course the troubles started already there. i didn't have enough money for the bus and was almost kicked out of it again. But a nice man gave me the 15c that were missing. Can you believe it that somebody makes such a fuss about 15c. Ok in Germany nobody would have borrowed me that money and i would have been kicked out of the bus for sure but in Finland it was a surprise for me. The whole bus was full and nobody besides the driver would have checked if i paid or not and in Turku the bus driver would have taken me in for free but well Helsinki people are always different. So and then the bus driver almost drove the wrong way and we were so very late that i nearly missed my flight. So much stress so early in the morning. But also no surprise here, always when I travel everything just goes wrong. But I arrived eventually in Berlin were I spend the rest of the day.

Unfortunately the weather was really bad so i didn't really do anything besides waiting to meet another friend for diner. Around 9pm I finally caught my train back to Leipzig. Totally exhausted and somehow i caught some stomach flew on the way which made my next working day a very short one.

So much for my trip to Finland and Berlin. Don't know when I'll be back home in Suomi but everybody, especially the people in Turku told me to move back. Well if it was that easy. But I think if I ever go back for longer I might not leave again. third try is the charm, isn't it?

Next trip: Copenhagen in July. I hope! :D



 

ESC - the recap

Wow this Eurovison Song Contest sucked so badly. Not just because I could barely watch a performance because my computer is a piece of junk but no this voting result is a shame for Europe. That Denmark barely got points is so sad but that Sweden won and ALBANIA, a song which doesn't even deserve to be called music got more points then Estonia and Germany. Seriously, I don't get it! And Sweden didn't even give points to Denmark! The Balkan countries are perfect in giving neighboring countries many points even if the songs suck but Northers and western Europe really need to work on this.

 Ok Estonia became sixth in the end, and Germany, which had for the first time since 2004 a song that I actually liked, became 8th which is Ok. And Serbia who became third had a good song as well. But poor Iceland and poor Denmark. Amazing songs and in the end just 20th and 23rd place out of 26.
Ok i am way to flipping exhausted after today and this week to wait for the officially pages not to overran and working again, so I will update the results tomorrow. If i manage before my evening shift.

But Conan was as always right:

Good night everybody!
 

in case you didn't know ;)

Eurovision Song Contest 2012

Same procedure as every year. It is ESC time. Always around my b-day but I got used to it. :D

And thanks to my new very cute USB-loudspeakers, I am able to watch it at home without inviting myself to somebody with a tv or working computer. (Oh how I missed listening to music or just watching a movie or tv series)

As last year I listened to all songs and well what can I say, most of them suck of course! I have the feeling the more often I watch it, the crappier the songs get but well it is entertaining after all. But there were some great surprises as well.

So here is my TOP 5 list of the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku.

5th Place: Divided between Israel and Netherlands (Seriously I can't decide!)
Israel: Izabo - Time
What a fun song! A bit weird sounding chorus but seriously I like it. Fun to listen to even though the clowns are insane.
Netherlands: Joan Franka - You and Me
When you just listen to the song, it is a really great folk song. I like songs like that a lot. But please leave away the Pocahontas costume from the live show.  It ruins the song!
6 Points!

4th Place:  Island: Gréta Salóme & Jónsi - Never Forget
This song is exactly what I expect from Iceland. A very good song which sounds somehow familiar. And that model like singer is of course a great bonus for us girls (Nordic guys are just the best!) ;) And the video makes me want to pack my bags and fly to Iceland right away! Well next year maybe! :) 7 Points!

3rd Place:  Denmark: Soluna Samay - Should've known better
In knew I heard this song already on the radio when I listened to all ESC 2012 songs last Thursday. Really great song, weird costume the girl had in the live show but who cares if the song is nice. 8 Points!

2nd Place:  Finland: Pernilla Karlsson -Jag är blunda
Of course I always support Finland in the ESC but this year, as last year (Heja Oskar!), I am very surprised about the song and like it a lot. It is in Swedish, which hasn’t happened in a while (since 1990 precisely) and it is a very nice song. It really was my favorite until last Thursday, now it's my No. 2 and running on my mp3 player very often since I heard it for the first time. :) Kymmenen pistettä Suomeen! 10 Points to Finland! (or 11 if I could choose!)

1st Place Estonia Ott Lepland - Kuula
My undefeated Number 1 this year! The more often I listen to this song, the more I love it. Seriously can’t believe that until last Thursday I haven’t heard about it! What a great and powerful ballad. 12 Points or much much more!!!

Also nice songs this year come from Switzerland (The singer just should learn English pronunciation), Hungary (good song, could run on the radio all day long) and surprisingly Germany (But you can't go wrong with a song written by Jamie Cullum).

So and the worst songs this year, well there are so many but I am seriously disappointed by Norway (You don't have to send an Erik Saade copy since he sucked already last year and his Doppelgänger sucks even more), Sweden (I really don’t get why everybody thinks this song will win), Russia (send this Babushki back to their old people’s home!), Turkey (usually one of my favorite ESC contestants :( ) and well Austria (I can’t even put in words what I think about this song). I won't post any of the links here. I don't want to encourage bad taste ;) but you can find all the videos on youtube.

Last but not least, a bit out of the ranking for me is Slovakia. They only real rock song. Pretty OK song but what I will most remember is the gorgeous singer. Are men allowed to be that beautiful? Wow! Usually I wouldn’t say something like that, or at least not in public ;) but he is definitely a keeper. And that hair!!! I am so jealous! Definitely my highlight of this years Eurovision when it comes to looks.


And since my favorite Swedish Eurovision show did it this year es well, some highlights from the past that I like:

Brainstorm - My Star (ESC 2000- Latvia, and no i don't think the singer was on drugs ;)) 
Roger Pontare - When Spirits Are Calling My Name (ESC 2000 Sweden) 
 August & Telma - Tell Me! (ESC 2000 Iceland)
Lordi - Hard Rock Hallelujah (ESC 2006 - Finland \,,/) 
Marija Šerifović - Molitva (ESC 2007 - Serbia 
Bonaparti.lv - Questa notte (ESC  2007 - Latvia) 
Eirikur Hauksson - Valentine Lost (ESC 2007 - Iceland)
The Ark - The Worrying Kind - (ESC 2007 - Sweden) 
Boaz Mauda - The Fire In Your Eyes (ESC 2008 - Israel, my favorite ESC song ever! Knew it by heart 1 day after hearing it for the first time) 
Anonymous - Salvem el món (ESC 2007 - Andorra)
Yohanna - Is it true (ESC 2009 - Iceland) 
Urban Symphony - Rändajad (ESC 2009 - Estonia)
Tom Dice - Me and my Guitar (ESC 2010 - Belgium) 
Jon Lilygreen & The Islanders - Life Looks Better In Spring (ESC 2010 - Cyprus) 
Anna Bergendahl - This Is My Life (ESC 2010 - Sweden) 
Didrik Solli-Tangen - My Heart Is Yours (ESC 2010 - Norway)

And something really old (well one year older than me so super old :P), until last year I didn’t know that it exist but I had the chance to meet the younger brother in this group so I had to check it out. Herreys with Diggi-loo Diggi-ley. Oh and I was able to touch the golden boots! Haha funny moment indeed!

So enough for this year! now it is time to watch the shows!

Enjoy the ESC 2012 and Light your fire!

 

My new mantra

                                                                                               

THE GAME IS ON!

The Ice Hockey World championships started today! After last years sensational win of the Finnish Team, the Worldchamps are taking place in Sweden and Finland this year. I don't think the Finns can repeat the victory from last year, especially with Ville Peltonen missing, but we'll see if it is enough to score a medal.

 So let the games begins!

 
 

Sometimes

That's how I feel a little bit at the moment. Way too much of everything going on and no strong shoulder to cry on. So i just have to chin up and keep going on my own. As always!

Hauskaa Vappua! Glada Wappen!

As every year May 1st is Vappu in Finland. Too bad that i missed the craziness this year but if somebody forgot what it is all about, check last years post or ask google or auntie wiki.




PS I hope I have soon some time top write a few posts since a lot has happened during the last weeks. I got a job and a new flat but even though today I had the day off, I was just too lazy to write anything. Sorry about that!