and it goes on . .

Oh my, it started to get freaking cold here in small Wismar and its dark too. Which is the worst for me right now. Additionally getting up at 6am feels like impossible at the moment. 

Studies:

Too much at all. Its all fun but  . . . I started to panic this morning (or lets better say this midday when I got out of bed). You could say I hit the rock bottom this morning. But it will go over, I hope. 

In two weeks time christmas holidays are going to start and I am sooo looking forward to it, even if it is not a relaxing holiday.

But till then two more presentations are to present and an interim presentation has to be held next Tuesday. 

I'm sure there's somehing more but I cannot remember it at the moment. 

Sorry if I sound frustrated but I am, at some point. 

New Zealand:

It is definite that I'll be going to Auckland next July for studying one year at UNITEC!!!!!! 

That's the main thing which keeps me holding on on my studies right now. 

Wismar:

The lovely christmas market had its opening this past Sunday. So cute. So small but the mulled wine tastes so good. It feels like christmas hit me in the back with all its powers. I'm getting into some christmas mood but very slow-moving.

Alright folks, I hope when I write the next time I'll be in a better cheerier mood and can tell you more interesting things.

Cheers Cony and happy St Nicholas

part 2

This first semester is kind of strange. . . 

First of all I'm currently studying 2 semesters on one time. The 1st and the 3rd, cause of my still planned NZ stay next year. I'll be away in the 3rd, so I'm already studying it. Additionally I have joined 2 elective courses, my student job and the job at the office. That sounds a bit too much, but in fact it is alright and to handle in some way.

This past week Wismar was host for the '1st international light symposioum'. I am working for the Lighting Design Course professor so I was somehow involved in this in the very end. 

From the 4th-8th of November 200 people (lighting designer and students) from all over the world came to Wismar to be or take part in the Symposium. There were speeches all day, workshops and exibitions from several sponsors, like Philips. 

The organization team Bilge, Claudia and I (I joined in in the past 2 weeks) were there to help with everything. It was a really tough week, but the standing ovations at the end, only for us, helped to remember the good moments and to be very proud of the whole event. 

At the farewell party, at the Steigenberger Hotel in Wismar, we had time to talk to people and enjoy ourselves. All in all it was a good experience and I had much fun with my two lads by my side, thanks to Bilge & Claudia! You guys were awesome!!!

Cheers Cony

Update, update, update . . .

It is unbelievable how busy one can be not even to manage to write a couple of lines to ones friends. . . .

Where to start? My Master Semester has already started ages ago (End of September, but it feels like ages) and I am looking forward to celebrate Christmas Day with my lovely family. But before that there was the Tirol vacation:

Starting at Sunday the 14th of September. At 8am we got in the car and went south for about 13 hours. Crossing Hannover, Augsburg and Munich. Having sunshine, rain and nearly everything else we arrived at 8.45pm at our house up in the hills of Buchholz (Pochi)/Tirol. It is a little village above Salorno/Tirol which is the southest German village in Europe. Even if it is behind Austria and adjacend to Italy, it is still 50% German. 

The next morning I got up early to get some fresh bread at the bakery, 200m up hill. It is only open from 7.30-11am and it is the only grocery at this area. To get some food or cigarettes or what else you need you have to drive a couple of K's to get it. And if you're lucky there is no siesta.

The next days we explored the area around the various apple and grapefields. They're huge and so beautiful. Not far from our house is the 'Kalterer See' one of the warmest lakes in Europe located in the mountains. 

One afternoon we drove up the 1635m high 'Mendelpass'. Serpentines which seemed to have no end. We got on four nearly 1 hour until we reached the village. There we had a fantastic view over the whole area. 

Back at the house I jumped into the pool. Cold but nice. You have a view over the mountains and can relay a little bit. Unfortunately it wasn't the 30°C all day long, which a friend had one week before, but it was still a relief to be somewhere else than Wismar. In the morning we only had about 3-5°C and than it got up to 20-24°C, depending on where your are. 

The rest of our stay we went to Bozen, Neumarkt, tried to get to a couple of castles, but never found the path to them, we were walking through a nearby sculpture park and went back to restaurant on a really steep hill (I haven't seen those in Seattle or San Francisco and they have steep hills too), we enjoyed the sun at the deck and used the fireplace to warm up the house in the evenings. 

After one lovely, mostly sunny week we headed back to Germany. After exhausting 15 hours we arrived back home. During the journey we had a fantastic view on the alps and again the impressing Allianz Arena in Munich.

It was nice to be out of Germany even only for a week. 

The next week back home I had to get back to Wismar. My 1st Semester of my Master started . . . .

working class hero

I'm still in my semester break, waiting for the masters to start......... and what am I doing?
Working.......
The architecture office, in which I completed an internship earlier this year, asked me to help out over August. It's so much fun. The atmosphere is great and the projects are interesting. Working for a bit shows me always how much I like to be a student. Flexible in time and working when I want to..... just great. Although earning some money is a huge alternation in my student life.

This last weekend I took of for my parents again and spent the days and nights at two birthdays, eating too much and having a real good time. Seeing all my friends again is always a pleasure.
My Mum and I did a little shopping trip to Lübeck on Saturday and on Sunday I met up with Kay and Melli at her place. Kay, who started school again on Monday to get a vocational school degree, got a 'goodie-cornet' from me. He wasn't that much excited about it than I or Melli were. Unfortunately. But I think the Jelly Beans I put in the bottom treated him well :)

This next days I'll relax a bit, or least trying to do it, before I'll work for another week at the office and than start off for another holiday week in Tirol / Bozen.

At the 23rd of September the Master will start and I still have to figure out how I am going to arrange my schedule. Because I'm planning to get a double master (studying in Germany for a year and than one year in New Zealand, and another semester for my thesis in Germany) I have to see how all the lectures and studios from the 3rd (German) semester can be done 'cause I'll be in NZ during the 3rd semester. All confusing, I hope my Prof knows more and can tell me how it'll all work out somehow.

got company last week

Bang on time to Melli's visit to Wismar, the summer appeared at its best .....

Last Saturday, Melli (from Eichede, long term best friend) arrived for one week visit. She had been here once, to my birthday (2 years ago) and didn't see much of this lovely city and it surroundings..... and me.

This first eve we took a walk to the harbor and grabbed a delicious ice cream at Ricardo's on our way. At the harbor we got on the Poeler Kogge and had a little tour on our own through this impressive ship.

On Sunday we got on the bikes and drove off to Poel. It is a 13 K's ride through the landscape and adjacent to the coast of Wismar. Very nice. It were about 30°C (~87°F) but the wind helped a lot, not to collapse or something else.
After about an hour we reached the peninsula and rode on north to Gollwitz. Here we took a break and got into the water. The bike road is directly next to the water and we had a wonderful view over the baltic sea.


We went on to Kirchdorf and ate lunch, a fish sandwich. The harbor of Kirchdorf was a bit disappointing: it was so small! I don't know why, but somehow I thought it would be a bit bigger and more for tourists. Anyways, we went further west to Timmendorf Strand and had another swim break. Then, we took a different road back to Kirchdorf. Through some cornfields and along the coast.
Late afternoon, we decided to ride back to Wismar. Our bottoms were delighted to hear that decision.
The sun was still shining very bright on us and our last water were drank some K's before we reached Wismar.
All in all was it a great day and I've seen some interesting and beautiful places on Poel which I haven't seen before. Back home we had a look on the map and added the K's we rode, 55 in total. That doesn't sound too much, but Melli hasn't been on a bike tour in ages and so do I.

Monday was the day of my Master interview here in Wismar.
But before, Melli and I went a little bit shopping. Now that we have the H&M here its much more fun.
At 2:45pm was my interview, so I was called into the room at about 3:15pm and sat in front of three of my former Professors. Great I thought. Before the interview some of my student colleagues told frightening things about how the interview might go. I hate this. But they got me afraid as well. So, I went in and ........ everything went quite good for me. They were asking barely questions instead they talked about my grades and me being in the states and wanting to study in New Zealand ..... after 10 minutes they told me that they are proud that I want to continue studying here and I was in. Easy.

Meanwhile Melli was chatting outside with Claudia, she was right behind me to have the interview. She made it, of course. :)

Later this day, we were sitting at the balcony and drank some beer, talking about this and that. I think it was also on Monday when we saw '50 first dates' with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. Nice movie.

Tuesday, due to the sun, we spent most of the day at the beach. We took our bikes to Wendorf (about 15 min.) and drove to the end of the cliff line. There were only a couple of people and loads of swallows. The day ended quiet on the balcony and with 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' a movie with Robert Downey Jr.

Wednesday was a bit cloudy and rainy, so we decided to do some cultural things. We took off for the Schabbelhaus - Museum, took a tour of the 80 Meters high Marien - Church - Tower, and got into some more shops in the city center. In the evening the sun came out and we went to the harbor again. It was Melli's last evening here so we got ourselves another beer and spent the evening talking.

[Most of the time when I am visiting my parents it is over the weekend. Unfortunately there are only three or less days for me to visit my friends. So it comes that we mostly meet at Melli's house with everyone. See, rare time for private talking.]

I truly enjoyed this week with Melli and the time we spend together ...... I hope it won't take us another two years to repeat something like this.

On Thursday Melli and I drove off to Eichede. I had an appointment in Bad Oldesloe in the morning. Melli was waiting there for me and later we spent some time in the city. It's a long time ago since I've been walking through this (I'll call it) town. I used to live there for ..... think...... 18 years. Wismar is twice as big with 45.000 pop
My parents are living in Eichede as well, which is about 20 minutes away from B.O., so Melli and were back in the car together. Because of the beautiful day we were sitting outside for another coffee enjoying the afternoon in the garden.

Friday, Melli Kay and I tried to spent the day at 'Großensee' ( a lake nearby). After 2 hours the clouds managed to frighten us and the little thunder noises did as well. We paused at a grocery in the village and the rain pored down like there is no tomorrow. I love that smell, when its hot all week, days and nights....... and then comes the rain only for some minutes........ the smell that's the best!

The rest of my weekend was spent with my parents at their house. Relaxing at the terrace, talking, cooking good food ( I have no kitchen in my flat) and doing not that much........ lovely!
Sunday, my Mum and I visited my brother and his wife. They're also living around in the next village. We had some coffee and cake and nice chatting together.


Back in Wismar......... its colder, rainy and still no kitchen.....(but we do have a stove)

summer break :)

Most of you know it already, I'm finished with my Bachelor of Arts!!!!! That's such a great feeling.

After I had my colloquium on July 8th, I went home on Wednesday. On Thursday Claudia and I went into the 'Heide Park'(amusement park) in Soltau, Germany. We had such an awesome time, although it was a rainy & cloudy day. Our pent-up stress were shouted out loud at the tremendous attractions, such as the 'Scream' - gyro drop tower. Did I mention that I am terrifies of heights? This thing (scream) is 71 meters high and you are falling with a speed of 98 km/h down to the ground. Perfect!!!! And such fun!!!!









I also loved the 'Colossos' which is the highest wooden roller coaster in the world with a maximum height of 60 meters.



Now I have a problem: I was on the highest wooden coaster and the highest drop tower, what now? I decided I have to go to the 'Cedar Point' amusement park in Ohio. The roller coaster capital. Sometime later......

After a couple of days at my parents house, I went back to Wismar. It was raining so there wasn't much going on.
My new roommates came by to bring some things and Anne, moved in completely this week. Enrico will be in next week and Jella will be here around the middle of August.
It is relaxing and a lot of fun with my new roomies, we'll see where it will take us.

This past week I was working for one day at the architecture office (I'll call it the office by now). We went again to Goldberg to the NVA area and sneaked into the files. Yesterday, finally, I made it to the beach!!! So great. I love it. In the evening I took my bike, after I brought it to Rocco to fix it. I had some trouble after I came back from the beach. And took a little tour (about 1.5h) around the bay area.
I hope my bike won't let me down. Melli is coming to visit (from Eichede). She's staying until Thursday and we are planning to make a tour to Poel with our bikes. Melli visited me once in Wismar (at my birthday 2 years ago) so I'm showing her around the town and the nearby areas.

So far from me, I hope you are all well and enjoy the summer wherever you are!!

Cheers

Final week to come

Hey folks, I'm sorry that I kept you waiting so long without posting some news.
But my final semester kept me so busy.

I'm about to finish the text part of my 91 pages long Bachelor Thesis. You may be able to imagine what kind of relief that is to think of myself going to the copy shop this Monday and finally print this piece of book I made.

Up next I have to build the architectural model of my house, which will take probably another sleepless week. On the 30th of June I have to hand all this in and prepare my presentation for the 8th of July. On the ninth I'll be officially a Bachelor of Arts. That sounds so easy if I re-read it.
I could do with some sleep and free time, but I don't have to wait much longer for it to come.

Besides me writing my Thesis nothing really happens in my life. Claudia and I mostly stopped running (lack of time and bad conscious doing something else than working), I haven't left Wismar since Easter and my social life is a disaster.

Yesterday I was calling Kay, to see how everything is in Bad Oldesloe. That was so cool, to listening to another voice and hearing stories from other people's life.

Two days ago I caught myself staring at the raindrops on my balcony....things like this happen to me quite often these days...... So I'm happy about every news I can get.

So far from me.....

el sol está brillando

Finally, summer has arrived in lovely Wismar!

I don't really know if there's something pretty interesting going on right now, but I'm telling you anyway what happened the last few weeks.

First of all, Paris, Claudia and I at long last made it happen. We arranged the perfect dinner for our lovely friends two weeks ago. It was hard to decide what to cook and how to decorate with such a strong local competition. As you all might know our predecessors made quite a good job before.
So we decided on a Mediterranean topic. For the entry there was Tabule salad on recommendation of Paris served in a salad leaf. Additionally we made olive spinach blue cheese puff pastry pockets. (you know what I mean, I hope). All in all we had this huge bowl of salad and about 30 pockets of the delicious spinach blue cheese pockets. Before we went shopping for the groceries Paris had the idea we could also go with some Humus with chickpeas and sesame paste for the entry. The result was that I personally was done after the entry.


For the main menu we had Spanish Moussaka with potatoes, zucchini, hash, loads of garlic (in every meal) tomatoes and yogurt combined with garlic and cream cheese for the topping. SOOOooo delicious!
During the dinner Claudia (roommate of Steffen & Laura) called a friend to help us eating all the food. Rike came promptly and enjoyed it.

The night before the big dinner Claudia and I prepared the dessert. Tiramisu with a heap of coffee and mascarpone.

Lucky us, everyone liked it enjoyed this very nice evening as well as our daisy decoration on the dinner table.


This past one and half weeks the summer arrived in Wismar and gets all the trees green and me a sunburn. But what gets red also gets brown.

On Thursday this weeks was the first of May and here it is a bank holiday. It was also fathers day, that's why you saw a whole lot of people pretty drunk and funny. There were quite a few sitting on the loading space of pick ups making decent music.
My parents had a short visit and we walked to the harbor enjoying the sunshine and drunken, music making people. It was fun and I needed the rest from my studies, which are nearly driving me crazy by the way.
But at the end of this week I'll have my final presentation for the design project III and than the thesis will start.

Cheers

Season started

Finally.......... the Baseball Season '08 had started.

It was spectacularly!
2 weeks ago, we had sunny weather, we met at the Bürger Park in Wismar. Same place same time.
It was awesome, that we were so many people, some never seen before, some never played before. We had so much fun. Honestly, I hope that for the future we are able to gather so many people together again.
During the 8 Innings, jep we only played 8 instead of 9, we had a final score of 30:25 or something like this.
We had funny moments, such like 4 us were able to 'walk' 4 points! Arguing about baseball rules were rising through the fresh air, Jule baked delicious cakes and so on. Hope to see you all there this Sunday. Same place same time.

Claudia and I are still running about three time a week.
Our newly destination is Wendorf / Seebrücke. It's quite nice to see the Baltic Sea in the morning time and it's a decent lap to run, about 8 k's.
We both think that we may run a half marathon this August. We'll see if this will happen or not.

With the Bachelor Thesis on my way, time is a precious thing to have. So running and other socializing activities would have to wait first unfortunately.

getting closer to become a professional Bachelor

My last Bachelor semester had already started.

I finished my internship in Rostock one week before the last semester began and did mostly not much. Besides giving my coffee tables some new painting and re-organizing my portfolio I did some running and relaxing by starting a new book and watching stupid TV shows.

This last week I finally got the ground plans of my thesis topic house. It is one, adjacent to my house I'm living in. It is pretty old (no news, we are in Wismar) and really huge. I'm planning some re-arranging and renovating so far. My original idea was a hostel located in this building but it is weigh to big for only accommodate a hostel. So we'll see what happens.

The last Friday, Claudia and I, at long last managed it to join a try out-training at the Wonnemar here in Wismar. It lasted 4 hours and we were able to use everything they have in there. Awesome.
We got our own coach for 1,5 hours. She did some checking, of course, and found out that we are nearly out of shape. Surprise.
She created a training plan for each of us and for the next 1 hour we were sitting at the machines steeling our body's. Next we were off in the main part of the swimming pool and enjoyed sliding down the tube slides for a couple of minutes before we explored the big spa area.

After these 4 hours of pure wellness we got pretty hungry and bought some food. At home at Claudia's we cooked an, at least 4 star dinner and then we were chilling on the couch for the rest of the evening.

Yesterday (Sunday) we both were off to Hamburg, to celebrate Claudia's 26th with some friends.
We met them at the Down Under to have some Aussi food and liquor. Steffie and her boyfriend Marius as well as Timo, a friend of them, joined us first while Julia, Claudia's cousin came a bit later. Julia baked an absolutely tremendous chocolate cake for Claudia which we had to try while sitting in the restaurant. A bit later we had some cool Australian food, beer and happy hour cocktails. Yummi.

After all these deliciousness we were heading to Altona and into the Zeise cinema's to watch 'I'm not there'. Great movie, but I have to admit that I definitely need some background information about the life of the glorious Bob Dylan.
At the final end of this really nice day we had a cup of Portuguese coffee and headed to the station to catch the train back home.

This morning I arrived back in Wismar and saw the sun fading behind some ugly, cold snowflakes.....

Internship, Copenhagen..... & a cold

Hi folks,

here I am sitting at my beloved couch and having my first cold this year. I hope it will be over soon.

Since the last three weeks I am doing the internship in Rostock. It is really cool. The people at the office are quite nice and they have a lot to do. I am mostly doing the 3D models for current projects. Such as interior elevations or just normal 3D elevations.
Now I have one week left. There also might be a chance that I'll get a job out of it. They have offices in Rostock, Hamburg and Wismar. The last one is across the street a few minutes from my flat. So press your thumbs and I'll keep you posted.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show in Schwerin was fantastic. It was awesome. James if you read this: Do you remember John who is working at the theater (I met him first at the Avocado wine testing)? He was in the band during the performance playing the awesome sounding piano.
If you guys haven't ever seen this performance, please go watching it. It is worth it.



From the 14th til the 17th February I spent my days in Copenhagen/Denmark with Claudia and some other students from the lighting design course. It was all about the Osram Light on Site event. We arrived at about 12pm and got a tour through the 2004 opened opera house,


champagne and a lot of delicious food. Until the afternoon there were lectures from famous lighting designers from for instance London and Germany. The two lighting designers from the opera house told and showed us all about the lighting concept for this huge house. It was really interesting even if I was so tired.

Before we arrived in Copenhagen we had to get up at 5am again (I'm getting pretty good in it). I got another coffee at Claudia's and we managed to pick up Ren Wei (he was waiting at the wrong car park) and Paulina. Off we went to Fehmarn were we took the ferry to Rodby/Denmark.
As we were on our way we realized that we miscalculated the time we'd need to get to the ferry terminal. I tried to call the shipping agency but unfortunately the number wasn't assigned. Great. Long story short we made it in the last minute.
Being on a ferry again was great. Seeing just water & having this cool feeling when you're walking. I like it. We got some custom-free stuff and there we were in Rodby/Denmark.
It took us another 2,5hours to get to Copenhagen and find the Hotel 27, were the buses will pick us all up.

During the day we found out that there were about 150 people participating the event. Most of them lighting designers, manufacturers or employees from Osram or PLDA itself.
Later the first day we, after some more champagne, were put in three groups. All of us, except for Paulina, were in the last group.
The first group was about 1 hour ahead of us. This fact got us all a free city of Copenhagen before we arrived at the newly built IT university campus/Danish Radio Site. Our purpose there was having a look at the construction site of the new concert hall designed by Jean Nouvel.

After seeing this huge concert hall and the nearly finished rehearsal rooms ( fascinating) we were all put back in buses and driven to an Italian restaurant.
Just imagine for a moment: 150 people in a restaurant. The had reserved the whole restaurant for us as well as a group of actors from Hamburg! who played the waiters for the first couple of hours. They were like, ohh you want another beer? Why don't you share the one with your neighbor he just got a new one?!?! Or, ohh you speak German, can you teach me a bit?!?!?! They were really good.
We were served a full five-course dinner. Delicious!!!! Only this dinner must have cost a fortune. So paying 70Euros for this whole event was quite a good choice.

After dinner we were driven back to the hotel where we got the chance to have a free drink at the Copenhagen Ice Hotel. Another high light of the day. We had so much alcohol during the day. unbelievable.

Again later, we made our way to the hostel and fell into our bed.

The next day we were staying, all day long, at the IT university. We heard lectures about lighting, lighting and energy ...... we had lunch and more champagne. At about 4pm the event was over we were put in buses and brought back to the hotel.
Now I have to think we did afterwards. Mmmh, yeah. We did some walking because we wanted to see the Tivoli. Unfortunately it was closed.


After this we decided to have a look at the ice skating ring in the city center. It was a long freezing way, so we had a look here and then into some shops to get warm again. In the end we stayed in an Irish pub for a couple of hours and afterwards we had a look at the ice skating ring. It was not slippery because we had the great idea of skating on our shoes. So went to another bar. More walking in the freezing night.
We arrived, grabbed some more beers and went again. This time back to the hostel and straight into bed.

Saturday was just tourist, sightseeing day. Again, it was sooooo cold and windy and we all definitely hadn't the proper closes on ourself.
First we marched to the change of the guards at the Amalienburg. Secondly we had a look into the nearby Frederik's church and joined a tour to the roof top terrace. Did you know that I'm really afraid of heights? I was a bit proud of myself.

During the day we had some lunch in the Cap Horn restaurant ( a bit too expensive, Nuno Claudia and Paolo from Portugal thought the exchange course was really good, but they somehow got it wrong so they thought everything is quite cheap, happens), visited the little mermaid, went to Christiana ( a state in the city of Copenhagen) and spent about 3 hours in a cute cafe. All day long we made it to cross the same streets quite too often. It isn't that easy to make a choice of what to see or where to go if you are 8 people. But it was a lot fun anyways.

Sunday was time to see the design museum (really nice) and some more of Copenhagen.

Again we made it in the very last minute on the ferry. This time there were higher waves so everyone felt drunk during the whole ride.

Unfortunately I missed the dinner of Kjelt and Daniel and Uli but I think the next time it is my turn, so have to make up my mind about that.

Even though I don't like to live in Copenhagen, visiting this city is every Krone (currency of Denmark) worth it.

So I know this was a long post, but you made to the end.
There are more pictures to see on flickr and here is a link from Nuno who made really nice pictures from the whole trip as well.


Cheers

Update

Oh oh, I'm a lazy writer.

It would be pretty boring for you if I make a list of what I've done or what I wanted to do actually.
So I won't do this.

Right now I'm sitting in front of my Dad's PC in Eichede and I'm just enjoying my new found liberty.
I finished all of my important projects this week. Mexico, the one and only required course of Planning and building in constancy ended with an oral exam and I fnished the compulsory course of light & material and the AutoCAD one as well.

It feels so gooooood! Just hanging around and reading a book or just watching stupid TV shows without having a bad concience. Awesome.
This morning I went running, which I wanted to start again with months ago and I saw the sunrise at 8am. Usually I'd never get up at this time of the day but its my Mum's birthday and that's a special occasion. Now it is 11 am and I already am bored. Fantastic.
I HAVE NOTHING TO DO.

Even if it sounds weird to you, but, I really love my studies, I do. But this past two weeks were a bit too much.

Alright, enough with this.
The next 5 weeks will be study free and I'm looking forward to the Copenhagen trip at the 14th of February and the Rocky Horror Picture performance in Schwerin which was a present to my Mum today.

Other than that I really hope that I'll get the internship at the architecture office in Wismar, even if I won't have that much freetime. Anyway. I like to have a job there later so I have to make a sacrififce.

Wintertime in Germany is still a mixture of rain and cold wind or sunny days with a warmer temprature like we'd have in fall. So everything's quite normal.

I forgot

It's not a big deal, but I'm a little bit proud that I got published in the new Seattle Schmap guide with a picture of the Westlake Center.

appendum

The first post of 2008

I spent my new years eve with my family. My brother and his wife joined us and we had a great time. Joking, eating and having fireworks of course. Luckily it stopped raining right before midnight, so we had good conditions for our own light show with rockets and sparkling stuff.

On my following birthday I invited a hand full of good friends for a breakfast at the Remember in Bargteheide. Claudia, Kay, Robert, Kirsten and Janina ( who I first met in Seattle) came by and we had a great time.
Later that day, Claudia and I drove to Boesner, a wholesale in which you can get all this cool stuff for drawing, photography frames, books about art and architecture. A really nice playground for architecture students. Anyway, I'm glad that my final bill at the counter was way below 100 euro's.

I stayed until Saturday at my parents house and the drove me back to Wismar the afternoon.

The evening I met Robert (James roommate), Kjelt and the rest of the Weasels at the Schlauch.
We played a game called Phase 10 and it lasted the whole evening. We only played one round with 7 people. Steffen and Kjelt were a team and they somehow were jealous of me having some luck in a game I were playing for the first time in my life. Anyway they gave me the intermission card pretty (too) often. Although it was Caro who made the game!

Yesterday school started again, and its getting nasty. Working, studying, doing some more drawings for an elective course, Mexico design project, light and material .... argh! In two weeks everything important will be done!

Cheers!

ps. new pictures at right (click me)