Barcelona!

Today in the evening I arrived back from my weekend trip from Barcelona. It was really an amazing but exhausting time (a lot of walking, partying and not too much sleep). On friday morning, I left Switzerland in the snowy morning and arrived in the spring of Barcelona with around 15° and sunshine. After a short stop in the youth hostel we went of course straight to the beach. Later on in the evening (after a siesta of course) we went first to eat paella and then met with my friend Jenny (former intern from Bosch in Stuttgart) and her flatmate. After some local beer from Catalunya we went to a club called Mojito.

The day afterwards we got up at 11 and went to Parc Güell - a park built after the archetype of an english garden - which is UNESCO cultural heritage since 1984. After this we went to La sagrada familia, the famous cathedral designed by Antoni Gaudi. Although they started to build it already back in 1882 it´s still not finished and judging from the plans it will take a while to finish it. In the evening (after another siesta and some tapas for dinner) we met again Jenny and some friends and went to a club called baja which is situated directly at the beach. We partied all night long and due to the change to summertime and losing one hour we arrived back in the hostel at 7 am...

Still, next morning we woke up already at 11 again and continued our Barcelona tour. We went to Montjuïc, the hill in the southern part of the city where you can have a look at the city, the beach and the harbour. After taking a look at the olympic stadium we went to the Palau National, a huge palace which is situated just in front of the Plaça d'Espanya. After the obligatory siesta, another paella we went again to the beach for an extensive photo-shooting session of nightpictures and the for a beer in bar in the city centre again.

Today we then finished our trip easily with having some coffees before going to the airport. There we faced some problems - we didn´t have electronic ticketnr. because we had to reschedule our flight (Swiss cancelled our original return flight to Basel). At the same time we had to explain why we just need the flight to Zurich and we don´t want to have our luggage brought to Basel again (our connection to Basel would have left 6 hours after arriving in Zurich). Anyway we managed to get all troubles solved and even appeared at the gate in time for boarding...

Ps. For more pictures surf here

Happy End of Chapter I

After I received the long awaited letter from university I finally can close Chapter I of my master studies. The grades arrived! It turned out that I did quite good in my exams. In the important courses (the ones with more credits) I performed slightly better than in the less important ones ;-) And with an average which is higher than in my bachelors or during high school I´m of course very very happy!!! Chapter one finished with a happy end!!! Hope to continue the same way...

New born...

I feel like a new born at the moment. My last exam for this term is over. I´m glad I was lazy in the last days because otherwise I would have learnt too much. My mood is excellent although I´m still a bit sick.

Two weeks of holidays are ahead. This weekend I´ll finally go snowboarding for the first time this season (and probably the last time as well). Then I can enjoy some days at home doing nothing, sleeping in, hopefully with good weather.

And theeen, I´ll go to Barcelona for the weekend. Hopefully being able to go to the beach, enjoying the sun and stuff like that - a preview of summer.

Life comes back slowly

Finally I survived the army for this year. But it was close... In the end of last week I got sick (flu) and didn´t really have that much possibility to recover and since friday I´m pumping drugs into me. At least since yesterday it gets better and I am only coughing around.
Besides taking care of my health situation, I should study for my next exam on thursday. But I´m really not motivated to do so. The topic doesn´t interest me that much which makes it even harder to pull myself together and study seriously. And the worst part: I´m sitting at home, sometimes outside but most of the time inside and the weather is so beautiful. The thing I really like to do at the moment is just hanging around in the sun or go outside and do some sport. Really it´ll keep until post-thursday where I finally will have holidays for 2 weeks...

CH Confidential - night report from the swiss alps

We're in the middle of the night - 3am to be exact. At least that's what the clock on my computer is saying. We can't confirm that, as we're several hundreds of meters away from a place where we could see the sky. Yes, I'm still in military service, in a top secret place. I'm not allowed to tell you where it is. Somewhere IN a mountain in the swiss alps. We're running the nightshift of the helpdesk, in case someone has a problem with computer, radio units, beamers etc. in this facility. But as it's in the middle of the night for everyone else, there's nothing to do. We're 4 people in this room - one is watching futurama, one is travelling around the world with google earth and the other two are just surfing around. It's a boring time, and there are still 5 hours to go - that's why I decided to write something. Should I start the study for my exams right now? - No boring to, proabably more boring than just collecting webmiles.
We just got a call. Maybe there's something to do soon? - No, my colleague just told the other guy to come here. He's outside the facility. It will take him at least half an hour to come here. We have to wait. And then big action. Give him another battery for a radio unit and the work is done. Nothing new, nothing big.
Now all others went for a smoke. I have the room for my own. What a responsability!! ;-) Maybe the phone will ring? No. Maybe a big boss comes in? No but instead my colleagues are back and we're going back to the usual silence, the usual pretending of working, in case someone accidentally stumbles into our room...

Check this out!

A former class mate from school and some others who finished like me in 2002 formed soon after we left school a band. After around 5 years, some changes in the lineup, switching the band name from Shunt to Karsumpu and many concerts, their debut album is coming out next month. The official PR text from their music label says:

Karsumpu kitzelt, kratzt und schlägt zu. Die berndeutschen Songs beinhalten Anekdoten und Schnappschüsse aus dem rauschenden Strom des Lebens und werden geprägt von frisch frechen oder melancholisch nachdenklichen Violin- und Mundharmonikaparts. Die Stilpalette ist vielseitig. Rock, Tango, Ballade, Pop, Reggae; die Mischung macht's.

If you like it, check out the website www.karsumpu.ch for further demo tracks and concert dates!