Time flies - I don't

(at least not at the moment)
June is already over? How did that happened? Seriously the second half of the year started and I am wondering where the time went.

I am working my butt off, well literally just my legs since I can't feel them except for the pain every night after work but well no pain no gain, right? So since my last real post not much has changes. I am still doing other people's food almost every day, have 2 lovely flatmates and do spend many evenings just sitting in the kitchen talking about this and that. last night my flatmate M and i even cleaned the kitchen. Long planed by us and finally executed. Who need 15 pots anyway, so now our kitchen is a bit more organized and the basement storage space is not empty anymore :D

And I've been to the 4th of July party by the US Consulate General here in Leipzig. Not as a guest but I was there as a service team member and was even allowed to guard the toilets. What a special task! I had tickets for a 'Die Ärzte' concert (one of my favorite German bands) for the same night but I decided to work at the Consulate instead. Kind of stupid I thought but in the end it was worth it. To see everybody from the Consulate again was so awesome, I finally got my letter of recommendation (there will be an extra post about it later), I saw my English professor and had a nice chat with him, met some people I got to know while working at the ConGen (so great that my work actually made an impact), I saw my new bosses (they didn't saw me,luckily) and a colleague from another Subway store. So funny! Oh and of course I made a couple of Euros which is always good. Oh and my vacation is taking shape but I'll post about that also later. So enough for today. Need to get some rest before work and another 4th of July bbq. :) Have a nice weekend

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



 

Moin moin ...

Ich liebe die Schiffe, das Meer und den Hafen,
und ich liebe es, nach ´ner Party, ... am Elbstrand einzuschlafen.
Ich bin ein Hamburger Jung und ich komm voll in Schwung,
wenn ich hüpf´ und spring und von Hamburg sing.
Schon Störtebeker wusste, dass der Norden rockt
und hat mir seinem Kahn hier gleich angedockt...

So as somebody might have guessed, I was in Hamburg. For just one day but Hamburg is always worth it. It's my third favorite German city and it has been a while since my last visit. And it is so amazing how the city has changed since my first visit about 10 years ago.

After searching one hour for a parking spot, we ended up right in the Speicherstadt. Which was nice since we could walk around the harbor and the little distance to the town hall and Binnenalster. My friend Steffi went with her boyfriend to the Miniatur Wunderland while I was doing some sightseeing and shopping. I am just not that much into small trains and pregere Northern Europe and the Alps in original size. :P

For the first time I went up the famous church tower of the Michel (St. Michaelis church) which was pretty cool, literally. It was freezing and so windy but definitely worth the few Euros for the entry. I took some nice pictures of Hamburg from above. Then I went to the city center - if you can call it like that - around the town hall. I did some shopping, went back to the harbor to look at some ships and finally ended up in the newly constructed HafenCity.

Well I have to say I love architecture. Historic and modern likewise. I wanted to study it and I still think I could have been a good architect. So i was curious about the new area with the high prized office and apartment buildings. So ähm yeah well I felt like I was back in the GDR. The only difference between these new buildings and the GDR Plattenbauten (prefabricated concrete slabs) is the prize and that you have a bit more glass windows and walls. Seriously I don't get why you would pay millions to live in a concrete and glass cube just because it is right at the harbor. Weird. But I found one building in which I would actually move into. It was white and was the only building with round shapes. You can see a little bit of it in one of the pictures.

Nordisch, wohoohoo, nordisch by nature ....



So much for Hamburg. I am still trying to find a job in Leipzig and waiting for one specific call. Wish me luck!

Sturmfrei! :)

So my parents are for 2 weeks on the Canary Isles which means I can finally do what I want to do. And today it was this:



So let's hope it will make it in one piece to Magdeburg. But before I go to the b-day party of a good friend, I will go to a local ski jumping competition in the neighboring city. Will be interesting. I hope. A friend will be the stadium commentator and i haven't been to that ski jump yet, just saw is from far away. And unfortunately I missed the Nordic combined summer grand prix this year :'( Well and, of course, one should support the local kids :D So a lot of reasons to watch crazy kids doing an insane sport :D

Sun and fun in Sverige and Suomi

So I'm on the road for more than a week now and well it's been fun. I stopped counting on how many surfaces i slept. I just have to say Airports are not my favorite but at least it is not as cold as the train station in Bamberg in the end of December :D

I was in Sweden from Monday night till Saturday evening. I met a lot of great people, learned a lot and am sure that I have enough power now to survive at my parents place for a while.

On Sunday morning I arrived in Finland and well i was supported to go back to Germany on Tuesday but due to great people here I got a bed (the first real bed i slept in a week!) for 2 more nights so I had more time to meet people, buy some last minute things and just enjoy the wonderful weather. So it is Wednesday and tonight I'm going to Vantaa (next to Helsinki) to spend my last night in Finland at a friends place.
Tomorrow at 6pm my ferry to Rostock is leaving. I will be there on Friday evening, will try to find a place to sleep at the train station because thanks to the Hanse Sail you can't find a bed in the city anymore. But well at least I will get some of the atmosphere my parents experience a few times in the past.

So and i might get a job next week so everybody cross your fingers that my future-boss won't kill me when i tell him that i have to do an internship still and won't be able to work in September or October. :)

Stockholm

so my short trip to France was accompanied by a few hours in Stockholm and with 20kg of luggage i was walking for around 3 hours through the city (insane, I know!) and as always I like to share a few pics with you.
I'm not sure if i ever gonna like Swedish people but the capital has its beautiful sides. Especially during sunset. :D


PS Finally updated my picasa photo album with the last pics from January :) Enjoy

Salut!

Bonjour en France! Je suis maintenant dans un petit village près de la frontière suisse. :) Je rends visite à une bonne amie ici. La météo est bonne, mais il n'y a presque pas de neige.



Ok enough with French. So I am here in the French Jura mountains for a week. At the weekend I was at the Nordic combined competition in Chaux-Neuve and now I am just enjoying the last two days here before I go back to Sweden on Wednesday and Thursday to Finland. There is not much to tell about the weekend just that it was quite nice, besides the freezing cold wind on Friday and Saturday. So just a few pics here.

Lappi on ihana!!!!!

So I'm back from Lapland. Still exhausted, since i just came back this morning, and I still have to much work to do so here are just a few impressions for the moment, the stories follow later.









So enjoy the pics and feel free to be jealous :P














more pics you find in my picasa album

busy busy

sorry that i haven't written about the great survival weekend yet. I started but I have a lot to do at the moment, then I had a friend from Germany over for 3 days and now I pack the rest of my stuff for my 4 day trip to Lapland. Cross your fingers that everything will work out and that none of us 6 will freeze to death during the -17°C during 3 of those 4 days! I'm really a bit worried since I never drove a car in Winter and well it will be an interesting adventure. I survived 2 weeks in Russia without speaking Russian so 4 days in freezing Lapland should be really easy to handle. ;) Well, we'll see.

So hopefully I'm back next week with looooooots of things to tell. :)
If I haven't posted till next Thursday you all should get worried ;)

Moi, moi