Waiting for spring

March is in few days. That means spring is coming. Hopefully. I mean it hasn't been so bad - sunny pretty much for the whole week but so damn cold!!! Arctic air.
Today finally some plus degrees.
Last week I was almost the whole week in Istanbul. Some days of work and then Friday off and spending Fri and Sat with Filip. Friday we had sun and +17C!!!! Sooooo nice!

See yourselves - water front 500m from Filip's place:



We had really fun. On Thu evening we went to hamam. Love it!
Friday there was a dinner out with a Spanish connection, then some beers in one club. Nice but we got home at 05.30 so Sat was a bit sloooow.
Anyway, first we had some kind of brunch:



Then off to the European side. Since I have already seen most of the "musts" we just took it easy. Walked a lot. My God! - we were walking for over 1 hr to get some kumpir!!!
We stopped often to have Cay. Chilled out. Discovered many small and cozy streets. This city is amazing!











I was leaving very early on Sunday - got up 0445! So the whole day (again) I was tired. But at least had pretty much the whole day at home. Alex arrived 4 hours after me - from Sthlm. He had -20C and snow... Then in the evening a colleague from Romania came home for a beer. Nice.

Work wise it is ok. Although the international gang is getting smaller again :( Oh well, part of the expat life... The negative part.

Next week - a trip to Sweden.

Cold

It is not really cold outside. I just got cold... Was away quite much with work - first Sweden, then the week after Romania. Got back to the office full of coughing and sneezing people and got cold. Or flue. Bläh.
It feels weird to have one day of work. Hope tomorrow will be better so I can go to work.
Nothing else happens really. GBG was nice, then I had a leadership training for 2 days (part1). Looking forward part 2 and 3 :)
Romania - this time Lugoj. Small town. Nice plant. Cushions - so totally different from everyday seatbelts.

January has passed with warmer temperatures than Dec. And almost no snow...
Well, in the beginning of Jan it was quite bad. I even got into a car accident - I mean a truck tried to change the lane and hit my car. Bleee! Now we are still in discussions with their insurance company about the cost of repair and all of that. Neverending story ;) But hopefully it will be solved soon so my Beetle can be fixed.

Otherwise things are fine. Focusing more and more on going back to Swe.

Oh yeah - last night I baked filmjölksbröd - a bread with the special kind of yougurt-milk (Swedish thing). I had to improvise to make the "filmjölk", and also didn't have the right bread baking form but I succeeded :) Mums!

New Year

My God! Already 6th Jan!! And such a long break in updates...
So much has happened that I don't know where to start ;-)
Well, December passed by fast. I had only 10 working days here in Germany. Then 5 days of holidays in Göteborg (incl. Petra's & Magnus daughter's baptism), meeting friends, looking for apartments, the usual stuff ;)
GBG looked more less like that:





Trip back to HH was already a bit of an adventure, since my plane got cancelled! Technical problems they said..So got rerouted via Frankfurt and was in HH on Sun evening instead of noon. Oh well.

Then my business trip to Tallinn. There was so much snow over there! Work was fine. In the evening we went out for a dinner and saw a local Xmas market. They had glögg! :)



On the way back to HH, I made it to Copenhagen first. Was supposed to fly back to HH around 21.00. At 21.10 they said 23.10. OK...a bit of reading, eating smth, fine. Boarding started before 23. As soon as I sat down I fell asleep. Woke up after ca 45 min ready to get out of the plane but the pilot actually announced that we had to go back to the terminal, since HH airport is closing at 24. What?!!? We never took off!! So the adventure started. First lining up to get a voucher for a taxi and hotel in CPH, together with many complaining Germans. Then lining up for a cab together with 10000 other travellers whose flights got cancelled. Crap weather, midnight, tired.
Shared cab with 2 other guys. As soon as we got to the hotel we went straight away to the computers to buy train tickets to HH for the day after (at the airport they couldn't guarantee that we would get seats to HH for Saturday). Waiting for ages for ticket print-outs since there were many people getting rooms and only 1 poor guy in the reception.
Went to bed after 02. Got up early. Nice thing - Danish breakfast! Mums!!!!
Met a funny guy from Uruguay who was also going to HH so we had a bit of fun with one German and the Uruguay guy.

Got back to the apartment in HH on Sat at 16. Yoohoo! Now repacking and leaving to Poland on Sun afternoon... Didn't even manage to do laundry.

Trip to Poland - only 3 hrs delay. Peanuts! I was so immune that actually had fun and time passed by fast. Met a Mexican guy who was going to visit some friends in Poland. It was fun to teach him a bit of Polish :) And have some tea with 3 other Poles.

Few days in Gdynia passed quite fast. Filip arrived on Thu night and on Fri we took off to celebrate Xmas. Xmas was nice, a bit chaos, presents, lots of snow.
And tons of food!





Then went to Romania. Spent night before flight in a hotel opposite from the airport in Poznan. Didn't want to risk to miss the flight early in the morning.
Flight was a bit delayed to Munich. So I had to run in Munich to catch my flight to Bucharest. Puh! Hardly made it! But did it! :) However, my luggage didn't make it :(
I got it anyway the day after. And funny - the guys who came with the bags made a meeting point at MacDonald's - so all people from Brasov and nearby could come to pick the bags up... There were so many people!!! Amazing!!
We had fun in BV, stayed at Alex dad's place. We were in the city, went to some pub for quizz. Then we went to Sibiu before New Year's eve and visited Alex' friends. And New Year's Eve celebration was in a village outside of Sibiu.
A different kind of party that we were used to ;) But anyway funny to see how people celebrated.








Trip back went fine. Well we had two different flights but we cmae home safe and fine. With all luggage.
Now the first week at work has passed. Happy New Year to all of you!!! Hope it's gonna be a great one!!

Winter

Yes, winter arrived early this year. When I went to pick up my winter clothes from the cellar it felt so weird - I had a feeling that I just placed them in there! (which is sort of true since I left them in the cellar in April or so..). Anyway, so we have winter again. It snowed quite much in HH the past days. But now it is supposed to get a bit warmer - whatever that means ;-)

Xmas fever has also started. I gave a try with Xmas gift shopping but didn't succeed really. It shouldn't be so difficult to get 1 present (in my family we draw lots so actually each person gets a present for only 1 person), but since Alex won't be with us this year I also have to get a present from his side. On top of that there are some kids in the family so actually there is no "one-gift-project"... Oh well. I will be still in Sweden next week so I hope I can find nice presents there.
Otherwise...don't know - airports? ;-)

I have only 4 days left at work here in HH :-/ Next week 3 days + weekend in Göteborg. Then 2 days in HH and 3 days in Tallinn with work. Then flying to Gdynia.
Xmas as usually at my grandmom's place, and then flying to Romania to spend rest of my holidays with Alex.

Well now it is time to join some friends at Xmas market in Altona. Some gluhwein to warm up will be nice :)

November

Last week of Nov will start. My God! Time is passing by so fast! On the other hand, those months are not so exciting so maybe better they finish quickly ;-)
Eternal greyness is here. Mixed with full darkness, 100% moisture (that is rain). Misery! Candles at home are helping a bit :)
During the week I was 3 days in Brasov. We had 20C and sun (OK, those temperatures are not normal for this season) but it was soooo nice! Felt like late summer or early fall. Of course Romanians love to have it warm indoors so radiators were on! I thought I would faint in the hotel room but managed to cool down a room a bit.
Every time I go to Romania, I discover new stuff ;) This time I got really positively surprised by driving culture. Something is maybe changing over there. I mean people don't drive so crazy, and there was quite ok culture on the roads. Of course there were some stupid people as well but only few. And the new road between Bucharest and Brasov is also nice! (around "plotesti") ;-)
Can't wait for indoor smoking prohibition in public places...
Anyway, it feels always nice to go to BV :-)

I got back, only 2 days of work here, and the weekend. Met with Monica and we went to the Arandas to see the new baby girl. Cute!
I also managed to find some of my (and Alex') winter clothes in the cellar. Good to be prepared!

The coming week - a short business trip to France, so again a shorter week here. Then just 2 weekend in HH and off to Göteborg! Can't wait! I was "forced" to take out all my holidays before the end of the year so it's gonna be almost 5 days in GBG :) Then just 1 week at work and off for Xmas holidays. Nice! But there will be quite much pressure at work before that...
Xmas as usually with the family. Our traditional drawing lots who is getting a present for whom has taken place. Puh not easy! ;-) After Xmas - flying to Romania for new year's eve.

Halloween party

Last Friday we had a party at home - of course with a theme of Halloween. Alex asked all the guys to dress up but at the end only few people had some outfits.
Anyway we had really fun, as usual too much food and drinks (so we need to organize another party ;-)
Miguel came for one day to our company so it was fun to get some updates from him at the party. We also had Thomas there - too bad Txell couldn't be with us.

Alex and Thomas:


Our pumpkin that Alex made:






Playing beer pong:


Skype with Melody late at night (at our place):


The weekend was quite calm. But I managed to get some fall shoes and also color my hair so something achieved :)
On Sunday we had a very long brunch at some Swedish/German couple's place. It was nice and cozy. And good to be inside when the weather was so crappy...
The whole week was fine although a bit difficult to handle time change - dark dark dark, and lots of rain the whole week. Sooo bad! Hope we can have some sun this weekend.
Tomorrow we may go to WEFUNK radio party in Schanze (depending on the moods); otherwise taking it easy I guess. Maybe a bit of biking as well.

Weekend in Gdynia

This weekend I'm at my parents' place in Gdynia. Came on Fri evening and actually staying until Monday. Magda with her boys came as well so it was a full house those 2 days :) Nice! We had a really good time together, nice dinner with family, walk at the waterfront in Gdynia. Max is such a cute little boy!
Here with his mom:



Family at the beach:




Tomorrow - another massage session. I've got to fix my back. And flight back to HH in the afternoon. Of course the trip is like a big project but cheap flights - what to do...