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 . . . .