Friends start leaving...

It is getting sad in the multi-culti environment here... Yesterday Txell & Thomas had their Farewell party. This will be their last week in Hamburg, next weekend they move to Barcelona (both of them will be working at our company there). It's been almost 3 years for Txell in Hamburg; for Thomas this will be a new adventure. We will miss you guys!!!
I will add some pictures from their party soon.
I will take over their apartment at the end of June. So soon we have to start packing and preparing for the move. And probably there will be another party in this flat. This time - a house warming one :-)

Pedro (Brasil) will also leave next week. His contract is over and he will start working at VW in Wolfsburg. Pity that Paula (his girl) will go back to Brasil. But Pedro promised to come to HH almost every weekend so we are not going to loose him forever :-)
Here are some photos from the big grill they organized last week.
Of course Pedro with his "thumbs-up", glad gang, and the youngest beer-lover - Katia.






I cannot believe it is already the end of May... Work is OK, little bit hysterical the last week but still OK.
Meg and I still plan to have some holidays in Portugal in June. Hope we will manage to book something this week. It would be great with short vacations.
Next week I'm going to Sweden, will work at ALS on Friday and stay over the weekend in GBG. Yuppi!!!

Summer is here!

We've had summer here for over 2 weeks now... This past weekend we had a long weekend (Pingst). We were so lucky with summer weather! Filip came from Denmark and on Friday we had dinner at home with Txell and Monica. Then we went out to Repeerbahn and met with Thomas. The whole weekend was Hafengeburtstag (I've never experienced any harbor b.day in Gdynia or Göteborg) and there were many people out. On Saturday we went dowtown and afterwards biked to St. Pauli to see some of the celebrations. But due to the heat we didn't manage to see much. In the evening we went to one of the beach clubs at Elbe to celebrate Miguel's (2) birthday. Oh yeah - this is another invention here - those beach clubs at Elbe - a little bit "wanna-be" from Hamburgers side..since there is no real sea here, they've decided to import sand, make some bars, place sun chairs and make a few clubs at the river. Well...little bit funny idea but somehow it works. The evening was nice, Miguel was happy and we had fun.




On Sunday we went to the beach at Elbe. Again...beach and beach... but it was nice and warm. Too bad you can't swim in Elbe...anyway water is still too cold... In the evening we did nothing. Just ate a dinner and chatted...
Monday was nice, we went to Alster and laid on the grass. Filip was leaving back to Denmark around 4 PM. I'm writing this blog now and Alex is taking a nap. Poor him, suffering of the heat ;-)
Until the next time...

Long weekend in Göteborg

On Thu May 1st, Alex and I went to Göteborg. We drove his car since we had to pick up some cases of beer at the Bordershop in Puttgarten (this was a real adventure!). Anyway, not so far from Hamburg we already got stuck in a STAU due to a motorcycle accident - so already one hour longer trip...Later on we got to the Bordershop - for those who have never heard the word - it is "cheap alcohol paradise". 90% of people are Swedish. And funny - you can buy Swedish beer which has been transported from Swe to Germany, and then you transport it back to Sweden again. I thought that those 10 cases of beer which we had to get were a lot, but no way! People were loading trailers with alcohol. We looked like losers ;-)
Anyway, after shopping, we took the boat to Denmark. We left HH with sun and +18 degrees, we got to Malmö and it was pouring rain and cold in Sweden :-(
We arrived to Dan's place and went out to Götas for a good pizza together with Dan, Magnus, Fredrik and Tommy. Alex got the first introduction to IFK :-D
On Friday we went to Marstrand (Bohuslän in a pill). It was sunny and nice. We walked around the island for some hours, had obligatory fika with kanelbulle. Mums!


Then driving back to GBG and preparing for grill at the Willquists'. We were quite many since Tania had over her sister with family. Below you can see some pictures from the grill. Theo was so sweet! And cool in his sunglasses, huh?





On Saturday it was time to visit the city. We went around from Haga, Vasaplatsen to Götaplatsen with Poseidon, then Kronhusbodarna and Trägårds.



I had some intentions to buy new shoes but didn't succeed :-( Alex liked the city very much. In the evening we had dinner with Christer (he was also working in Brasov when we were there).

Later on we met Dan for one beer.
Sunday - packing, breakfast and coffee with Dan & Magnus and taking off.

I really didn't want to leave :-((((( It is home over there! And the weather was soooo nice on Sunday (not for driving some hours).
The trip went well until we got to the boat. As soon as we got out of it, there was again STAU in Germany. Grrrr!! And then again before HH. So again the trip took 9,5h... And I know people managed in 7 hrs or so...
Anyway, we had a very nice weekend. The weather was great. Some quality time with my "la familja". I miss it...

Year's first BBQ

On Sunday we had summer weather in HH. Already some weeks ago we decided that we would make BBQ this day and almost everybody showed up (we missed Dennis - it was his b.day by the way, and Cyril...
Migue's grill beats all grills I know. It is HUGE! And American! ;-)
Thanks to that we could grill a lot at the same time. Of course we didn't lack beer and good moods :-)
Check out the "orange" amigo-team at the grill:



After eating we decided to play a kind of American football. Well....kind of...we were tough and the game was a little bit dangerous ;-)
We had a lot of food (as usual) left and at one point one guy who was sitting a bit from us, came to us and said he would like to buy some food from us, since it smells so good over here.. We just wanted to give him food but he didn't give up and gave us money. Well...we decided that we can manage to have a job in case we may get fired ;-) On the picture you can see how the "business" was running:

Berlin trip, finally spring!

It's been a while since I wrote anything. Last weekend we had an ex-trainee meeting in Berlin.
We were 5 going from Hamburg by car. The trip took over 3 hours (ok, we missed one ausfahrt already close to HH but afterwards it went quite smoothly).
When we arrived Ales and Axel were already at the hotel. We went out for a dinner (a nice restaurant which had Ubahn over the restaurant's roof).
Then Handan and I went back to the hotel, while the guys partied until 5 AM!
Saturday was a sight-seeing day; after breakfast (oh well...almost lunch) we took a boat tour on the river. It was nice, we saw many highlights of Berlin. Later on we had lunch in a restaurant which had many pictures of German history.


We went to New Synagogue, Brandenburger Tor, see the remains of the Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Potsdamer Platz, a museum at Checkpoint Charlie.




Berlin is amazing - during the last years so many new, mainly glass buildings have popped out...
Mixed with the old architecture it is cool. Also, totally different feeling than in HH; the streets are so wide and there is lots of space somehow. I have to go back one day to see more....


On Sunday we have got some sun and little bit of spring feeling.We went to Kreuzberg which is a multicultural district, had a fika, and later on met also Kico (Kristin's boyfriend) who was in Berlin with his art school. So good to see him again!!!

Sunday evening it got warm and nice. And now during the week it felt finally like we got spring!!!! Alex helped to change my car to summer tyres so that's officially spring! ;-)
Looking forward a nice weekend; there will be one birthday party and grill with multi-culti bunch on Sunday.

If you thought that finding one parking spot is hard...

... try to find two of them ;-)
Last week Alex came here by car. After some adventures on the road (like 4,5 hr stuck in stau or snow storm close to Hannover) he got here around 23.30. And then it took him "just" 35 min to find a parking spot fot the car. This is insane!!
Anyway, now it is not only a challenge to park my Bubbla but also Alex's Golf.
On Friday we went with Pedro and Paula and Txell and Thomas to one club with funk, soul, etc. The party was fun! Until some drunk Brittish guys started loosing balance and were spilling their vodka&red bull all over...
Then on Saturday we were sitting outside in the sun, having fika with Guillem and little Nadia. Soooo nice!! In the evening there was an IKEA trip and then we were exhausted....
Sunday - meeting Monica and also Guillem (that was unplanned). Eimsbuttel is a really small place ;-)
In the evening we saw W. Anderson "Darjeeling Limited" - I recommend this one!!!

The week has started. Rain again. Crap!
The weekend is gonna be in Berlin. Alex will party with the guys here in HH.

Oh yeah. This picture shows how "fresh" Handan, Cyril and I are in the mornings before driving to work.

April weather

Does any of you think that we will get any spring this year??? I had good hopes last weekend but then it was really cold, snowing, raining, hail for the whole week...Today we had some sun, mostly in the evening. Oh well, hopefully it will get better soon and I can finally put my jacket, boots and gloves into closets. The weekend passed by really fast (as usual). Yesterday Monica, Handan and I went to Guillem's & Sveta's place to celebrate their daughter's 1 year. We had fika with some chocolate cake. It was the 1st time I've been to their place (after almost 1 year...no comment ;-). Then Handan and I went downtown; I finally found some curtains to the living room but I'm too short to reach to the metal string to take down the present "curtain". So now I have one new and one old. Very unique ;-)
We wanted to go to the movie theater but guess what??? One of the two movie theaters that show the original (e.g. English) speaking movies, got closed!!! This is insane!!! So now there is only one place and they don't have any good movies now..Grrr!! Why cannot Germans show the movies in the original language?!?! I wonder if they ever quit dubbing...
On Sunday I cleaned the apartment, then met Miguel and some friends for fika/lunch. Miguel wanted to see F1. Kubica got the 3rd place! (not that I'm into Formula 1...).
Then I did some gymnastics for my back and the day is almost gone...I'm not looking forward to have Monday :-( But the good thing is that Alex is coming on Tuesday!
Have a good week everybody!