tisdag 25 november 2008

Crisis, winter, ages ago...

Sorry for not updating you with the stuff from here. But the thing is that my 1 year old MacBook died!!!! More than 2 weeks ago it just froze, some strange noise was coming from the loudspeaker (I swear it sounded like there were crickets inside) and then everything got blue. That's it. So after trying all possible options to get the laptop alive, I gave up and went to Mac store (or a store which sells Apple things). And then the problem started...Those guys never had such a case! They told me that the hard disk crashed (I'm lucky with the warranty). And now they laptio has been there for ca 10 days and my data is still being transferred from the crashed disk to some device in order to ne then transferred to the new HD. This is insane!!! Takes ages!!!

Beside the laptop problem, in the meantime I went to Poland to celebrate my grandmom's birthday. Filip came to HH and we flew together. Last Friday. We were supposed to pick up Alex from the airport in Poznan but his plane from Stuttgart never took off... There were no other flights to Poznan and the earliest he could arrive would be Saturday at 6PM...Great!!! So poor him, he had to stay in Niefern.
Grandmom was quite surprised to see us (we managed to tease her a bit that we wouldn't come). There were many relatives whom I have never met before so it was quite funny. Especially when we tried to figure out who was who. At the end I drew the Family Tree or rather a graph with all of them and other relatives so we all know in the future who is who :-)

It was really cold in Poland and snowing quite much. Usch! Winter is here... Now it is just few months and we have spring ;-)

Now I just have less than 2 weeks left at work and then I'm on holidays. Due to the car industry crisis, we have to use all our holidays until the end of the year. Too bad I don't really have plans for December. Filip, Dan and I are thinking of some trip to a warm country, or maybe Filip and I will go skiing. But it is all "maybe"..

This crisis is some kind of paranoia. But hopefully we will all survive. Somehow.

måndag 10 november 2008

Göteborg...after 3 months...

It's been 3 months since I went to Göteborg last time! That's why I went there last weekend, to spend time with my la familja, get updated and have some good time.
On the plane on Friday I already got cold, so now I'm trying to heal it somehow. Got to Tania's place and we talked a little. Saturday we spent downtown, walking around, having lunch, doing a bit shopping. In the evening we were invited for a dinner at Dan's place. The dinner was great (I still need the recepy for the dessert!). Then we had some drinks and dancing and our typical "karaoke" (with the remote control as microphones) started ;-) Dan's neighbors joined our party as well. Then...Petra disappeared. She decided to take the bus and she left so soon. Magnus had to leave earlier as well. So at the end we were 4 and at 01.30 we decided it was time to go out. And we went for 80's party in Röda Sten (http://www.rodasten.com/). I think we were the oldest ones. And the only ones who weren't dressed like in the 80's... Anyway we had fun. Then we had a small after-party at Dan's again, and we got home at 05.00. Not bad! (as for us "pensionaires"). Sunday was grey, windy and rainy. Bläh!
Tania and I managed to go to Bengans to look for some CDs. Then fika with Calle and Handan, and then flight back to Hamburg. Sunday passed so fast...

måndag 3 november 2008

Some reflections...

I just feel like I have to write about it. Already now in the beginning I have to say to all my Germans friends that I don't mean anything bad, and hope you won't get me wrong. It is just some observations that one (I) makes while living in a foreign country. And I bet I would make this kind of observations anywhere I would live.
So there is the thing: this is not the first time that I see how unflexible and short-sighted German people are (I mean NOT all of them! I don't want to generalize here). I just got back home from the gym (I will write some stories about this gym some other time - the topic for one complete blog, I'm telling you). And while stepping there on this cardio machine (which I most of the time do), I look at people around. And since around 19-20 o'clock this place is usually full, some people have to stand at the wall or walk around the place to get a free machine. So I see one girl who is waiting, and another one who comes some minutes after her. And the machine next to me gets free. So the girl number 2 who walked around saw this free machine (and I swear she had no clue that there was this girl number 1 in line) and she approached it at the same time as the girl 1 did it (with an angry face expression). So girl 1 tells girl 2 that she was waiting longer. OK, fine, girl 2 makes no issues and looks for something else.
Girl 1 gets on the machine, and starts to plug in her headset. Which apparently doesn't work! (I mean the connection in the machine doesn't work). So what she does is that she gets down and starts looking for some other machine...
My God!!! How about next time trying first your headset (without making fuzz that I was the 1 st one in the line) and in case it doesn't work, letting the other person use the machine??!?!?!
This is so typical! There is the "rule" first goes first. But there is absolutely no flexibility and no proactiveness to take this rule somehow softer!
It is just one example of the kind of behavior that I also observed at work. We have rules and we have to obey them but how about sometimes making life easier (I'm not talking about breaking serious rules), just be a bit human and proactive and FLEXIBLE! Life will be easier, I swear.
A similar behavior can sometimes be on a highway. Some guys driving like crazy, flashing you with the long (full) lights, overtaking and in 1 minute breaking since there are other 5 cars on the left lane. Get a break!! ave a look first on the situation ahead instead of stresing everybody.
Puh! OK, I just had to le it out from me...
Again, please don't take it as an offending issue. I get angry at stuff in Poland or Sweden, or Romania for that matter... But since now I'm here I'm just sharing the experiences.

Otherwise, grey and 100% moisture (=light rain). Bläh!
But at least now I got the complete set of winter tyres.

söndag 2 november 2008

I-lands problem...as it is called in Swedish

Why so? (in Swedish it is Industrialized-countries problem). Well last week at work we got to know that we have to use all our holidays until the end of this year... Due to cancelled orders from our customers (car manufacturers) we need some savings. Plus if there are no orders - there is no work for us. So now I have a "problem" since I'm off from work on the 6th of Dec already!!!! I mean it is nice with holidays, don't get me wrong, but would be better to have some plans. If I had known about it earlier, I would have bought a ticket to Mexico, Argentina or whatever - for almost the whole month! But now it is a bit too late. So I'm asking around some friends and maybe Dan and I will go to Egypt. If we manage to find some cheap last minute trip. Anybody else who would like to join?
Then back to Hamburg, then Poland, Xmas, and then Marbella. Should be nice!

All Saints weekend has been quite calm and quiet. Alex arrived on Friday - he came by car cause he was supposed to change the tyres - for the winter ones. On Saturday he went with Sandra and Hans downtown to get some electrinic gadgets (GPS and some presents for his dad), while I went to gym. Then we met in the city for fika. In the afternoon Alex started to change my tyres first. Everything went fine until....the 4th wheel, which just had some different nut and couldn't be unscrewed! So now I have 3 winter tyres and one summer one left. So I guess I have to go to some car workshop on Tuesday or so. Puh!
A neighbor of ours was also changing the tyres yesterday so it looked like "winter-tyre-picknick" ;-) Except the weather wasn't so nice...


This morning Alex started to change his tyres...and guess what? The rims don't fit in!! :-( So he has to look for some other ones and try to change them with someone in Stuttgart. Crap! Anyway, I managed to take a photo of (what I thought) him changing the tyres.


So now he left to Stuttgart.
Next week is Göteborg for me :-)