Trip to Slovakia - Part III

Here´s the third and last part of my report about the happenings in Slovakia. Next post will be about a nice experience I had in Kosice. But first enjoy Episode III of the story...

31^th Dec - new years eve
D-day finally arrived. We planned to go bowling during the day but when we heard that it was booked out completely for the whole previous day, we didn´t even try to go there. Instead one of the slovaks - the one with the two apple pies in McDonalds three days before - had the idea to play pool-billiard. We wanted to have a nice lunch before, because we weren´t sure how good the dinner would be (based on what we heard and saw from the days before…). Therefore we decided to go once again to the place with the marvellous steaks. We even convinced the other swiss delegates to come with us instead of going to paintball. Kates convincing tactic was very funny - “you get blue spots all over your body and it´s gonna last at least for two weeks…” Anyway, when we arrived in the city centre we had to notice that the place was closed. Too bad, but hey what, we went to La bomba again and ordered there US steaks, which were even slightly bigger than the ones before. And there as well, it was delicious again.

After our at least 2 hours lunch we searched the place to play billard. Unfortunately we couldn´t find one which was still open, so we ended up in a internet café. Dan & Kate wanted to write new years text messages, I wanted to check my connection to travel home and the other three planned to go aqua-city in poprad-tatry and looked up some information about it… Half an hour later when we left the place again we realized, that the christmas market was open again (which wasn´t the case the previous days we spent there). So, we ended up there drinking silvester punch and hot wine. Even though it was already dark we realized that it wasn´t too late yet and that we should stop after the second one… Instead we went to Kaufland again to buy some important things for the evening and then went back to the flat or the dorm in order to prepare for the official dinner which started around 2 hours later.

The official dinner was in the dorm itself in a cold and unfriendly room. First they served some salad with bread and a drink for the toast which was quite ok. Then it only got worse - first we realized that the red wine we bought on our own wasn´t very good. Later - actually a lot later - the dinner was served and it was already cold. So we went back to the kitchen and heated our plates in the microwave again. Then, we opened our bottle of white wine, which was even worse. In the mean time they started with a game in the official program which was as funny as a power breakdown… At around 11 o´clock when we were pissed off enough we decided to grab our bottles of champagne and go to the city centre. We supposed that there was more going on as we already saw that they built a stage next to the christmas market - and there was more going on. So, we ended our year with candles and hot wine and music from the stage. It was sort of a cover band playing there which was ok - they seemed to like Queen…

We started our new year with some champagne, a nordic circle - those who know what it is can imagine how cool it was - and then another hot wine… All in all a great start to a hopefully successful year 2007! After some partying on there we went to a club where they played some turkish music for some time. Then we let the day/night die away in the dorm room of our swiss delegates before we went to bed at around 0430…

1^st Jan 07 - I´m coming home…
Already 4.5 hours later I woke up again. After showering and packing my stuff I walked with my heavy backpack for half an hour through the deserted city of Kosice to the mainstation where I had to catch the train at 1018. What followed was a 6.5 hrs long and boring train ride to Bratislava. The train stopped more or less everywhere on the way - I´m sure I saw the railway stations of each town which has more than 5´000 inhabitants… Anyway I spent my time with sleeping, listening music or reading Vodka (nooo, I´m not drunk, that´s really the name of the book I´m reading at the moment!). In Bratislava I had to wait for my connection for approx. one hour. So I rushed to the centre, took some pictures of the presidential palace on the way, bought some dinner in McDonalds (as it was more or less the only thing opened and I didn´t have much time) and rushed back to hlavna stanica where I boarded the train to Vienna.

After this nutrition I felt pretty good so I decided to start studying which I did for around one hour! Thanx to earplugs I even could absorb the noise of the grouching kidz from the compartment next door…

In Vienna I spent another hour waiting for my nighttrain with drinking coffee and reading in Vodka ;-) Then finally I went to the platform and searched my wagon. But I couldn´t find it. So I walked up the whole platform and then again down and finally I saw it, but strange, it was the first one! When I got in the wagon I finally realized why the ticket they sold me in Kosice was sooo expensive - because the incompetent woman from Slovakrail booked a bed in a two-bed room instead of one in a 6 bed compartment. Anyhoo, the money was already spent so I made the best out of it (as I´m a student I´m used to do such things). I ordered of course a full, 4-component breakfast because it was included - not that I´m a hungry person early in the morning :) My breakfast therefore included 2 orange juices, 1 coffee and one fruit.

At around 0620 on 2^nd in the morning I finally arrived in Zürich, means at 0730 I was in Bern and at 8 o´clock after almost 22 hours on the road I finally arrived back home, where I first took a nice, hot and long shower. Afterwards I went to sleep for around three hours and then started to study - I only had 8 days left till my first exam…!

To conclude I can say, that I´m glad I finally decided to go to Slovakia. Although some parts weren´t that cool, we spent a lot of great & funny moments together. Dan, François, Kate, Kathrin & Mirjam: It was great to spent NYE with you in the city centre of Kosice. Or as a kazakh journalist once said: “Niiiice, I liiiike!” ;-)

new year´s eve in the city centre

the presidential palace in bratislava

Trip to Slovakia - Part II

Another rather long post about what happened in Slovakia. This time about 29th and 30th of December. I´m sorry for the mistakes in the previous post (it was already late when I wrote it...). Once again for this post as well: Whoever finds mistakes may keep them!

29^th Dec - first official day & global village
New day, new funny stuff experienced. Dan, Kate and me decided to meet around 1230 next to the hostel where we were supposed to stay and where all other delegates were. At the agreed time - no sign of the other two. So I waited and waited. After around half an hour I received the following text message: “Simu we need your help!! Find us please! We are hanging for half an hour around different Dom Mladezi but can´t find the right one :((“ As I was almost a local in the area (the flat was just 5mins away) I found them immediately - of course ;-) They weren´t too far away, but didn´t find the right dorm building. I guided the upset, tired and hungry Dan&Kate to the check-in and the flat we lived for the rest of our stay in Kosice.

While relaxing there a bit, we got a message from the three other swiss delegates - they missed the connection in Vienna and told us that they will arrive late in the evening. We thought, that this can´t be true and can´t happen because they had important stuff for our global village. Beside, Dan and me had the took the same connection from Zürich to Bratislava two days earlier and spent 3 hours in Bratislava and managed to be in Kosice before the arrival time they mentioned. So, we made some remote travel management: First of all, we told them to go Bratislava at least and take the next connection from there - they somehow didn´t come up with this idea yet. Then we told them which train they have to catch there and they did it - our stuff for global village arrived in time :)

After these issues were solved we went again to city centre. Dan and Kate wanted to eat something, then we met again with Tanya (one of the Ukrainian girls) and the girls wanted to go to a place where they have the “icecreamiest ice-cream” ever. Dan and me ended up drinking coffee and the girls eating ice-cream - somehow Ukrainians are more used to eat ice-cream in winter than swiss...

In the evening we went to Kaufland in order to buy some bread for our fondue at global village. I decided that I want to eat something so, we went to the food corner in this mall and I bought a pita kebab. The others didn´t want to eat as they weren´t hungry yet. Dan even said: “I´ll eat at the global village!” - yeah Dan, this was a very wise decision as we saw later on… ;-)

At around half past nine in the evening, the global village finally started. We had a nice fondue served with white wine, some chocolate and of course some swiss tequila and we distributed stickers with swiss cross on it to everyone - by the end of the evening almost everyone was somehow swiss. There were even people who came to us and asked if we have stickers left!

Dan´s condition started to get bad already at around 11 o´clock - somehow he couldn´t executed his plan - how surprised I was… Anyway Kate and me brought him to our flat and I went back to the dorm where the afterparty already started. When I arrived there again, two of the other swiss delegates told me that they´ll go to sleep, while the third one started an intercultural communication with Slovakia… Soon after I returned to the dorm I already left again, went back to the flat and got some sleep as well…

30^th Dec - the day before THE day
On Saturday we planned to go skiing/snowboarding in a place called Plejsy which is about 40km from Kosice. After one hour with train and a nice ski-bus (picture below) we arrived in the ski resort. But there were just two problems: First, long queues at the “ski rental station”, second one, almost no snow - well they were producing artificial snow with some snow machines but that wasn´t enough for the whole resort. Still we started to queue in order to rent snowboards or skis. After some time we heard that there are no snowboards left - we decided to ski again after several years without skiing ;-) But as efficiency was somehow a foreign word we could see any progress. We went to another place to rent skis but there was as well a queue which didn´t progress. After some time we gave up, bought a one-way ticket for the chairlift and went up. It took us around twenty minutes go up the mountain and when we arrived we were almost frozen - therefore we went to the restaurant first. After some thing to drink and some food (yes Dan was hungry for once:) we decided to walk down at least…

When we arrived back in Kosice it was already evening and after showering we went to have dinner. I proposed the place where I´ve been on the first evening because it was pretty close and had some nice Italian food. But this time another funny thing happened: First I wanted to order a salad. The waitress said “Sorry we don´t have vegetables anymore!” Ok, I thought, somehow strange but anyway, then I´ll just take a Pizza al Prosciutto. Her answer: “As I already told you, we don´t have vegetables anymore because of the end of the year we didn´t order new supplies yet. You can have this Pizza, but there won´t be tomatos on it!” Hmmm, ok, whatever I´ll take it without vegetables. Dan ordered Pasta - so no problem with that. Kate wanted to have a steak - no problem with that either. But then the waitress returned and said: “Sorry, we don´t have steaks anymore…” After we finally got our meals and eat the other two wanted to order dessert - but guess what, yes they almost had nothing left. Well Kate ordered something with coconut and Dan with chocolat - what he got was something like hot Nutella… ;-)

We thought that we had our fun for the day already after we left our dining place, but noooo, we were wrong. We didn´t take the other swiss delegates into account. When we got to their room and asked how their day was, they came up with the following story: they were caught in a tram without ticket. And they thought they are smart - the only slovak guy there pretended to be foreigner who doesn´t understand as well and they played stupid foreigner didn´t know what to do and how to buy tickets. Well, somehow it didn´t work. Then they thought that they´re even smarter and showed their swiss IDs to prove there point - didn´t work out as planned because the controller took their IDs away. So, everything ended up in a bit a mess and each of them had to pay a fee in order to get their IDs back…

After they told us their story we went to a pub to drink some beer. Then we returned to the dorm and joined topalky party which wasn´t very good. So we went to a room of some slovak people where - at midnight - we did a pre-run of new years eve in order to make sure that we are well-prepared and everything will go smoothly the day afterwards!

to be continued...

Fondue @ global village

(almost) everyone was somehow Swiss

the SkiBus which took us to Plejsy

Swiss delegates & Kate

Trip to Slovakia - Part I

After some relaxing and already some studying, I´m now able again to write about what we experienced on our trip to Kosice, Slovakia for new years eve celebration. I decided to split the whole story in different posts, as it would be too long for one. So, here comes Part I:

The travel
It all started on the evening of 26.12.06 at around 9 o´clock in the evening when Dan and me boarded the train to Zürich. After we talked a bit about how we celebrated christmas, we already arrived and switched to the night train to Vienna. As we realized, that our beds would be in railway cars which were pretty far apart, we decided to go to a car in the middle. We spent the next hours with some chips and beer before we already went to sleep.

At 8 in the morning we met again the platform in Vienna where we switched to the train in direction of Bratislava. After crossing the boarder we finally arrived there. First thing which caught our eye in Slovakia, was the sign “Intim Salon - Happy-a-GoGo” which we saw from the train. Happy-a-GoGo developed to one of our running gag during the next days…

In Bratislava we left the train and spent 3 hours in the city. What we saw: beefeaters wearing sunglasses, the castle, McDonalds and Coffee&Co. There Dan ordered a hot chocolate and was very surprised when he got “melted chocolate”. We found out later in Kosice, that this seems to be very common in Slovakia. At around 13 o´clock we took the train to where we arrived at around 7 pm.

Ludmila, a friend of mine, which I met in Germany, and her boyfriend picked us up at the train station. After bringing Dan to the hotel he booked before we went to her flat, where I could stay during the whole stay (Dan and Kate joined two days later as well). The evening we spent with catching up a bit and talking about Switzerland and Slovakia. Unfortunately, my friend left already next morning as the had celebration of her sisters engagement…

28^th Dec - the day before it officially started

On the following day I met again around lunch time with Dan and Kate. First we went to eat something as they didn´t have breakfast yet. Afterwards we met two other ukrainian Aiesecers and went to a place called “La bomba” in order to drink hot wine. It was very funny there, because of the different discussions and question people had. Dan for example presented us his idea about toilet business in Ukraine - very interesting ;-) Then afterwards we were asked, very funny questions about Switzerland: “Do you have villages?”, “Do you have toilets on the street?” and “Do you have kangaroos in Switzerland?”

In the evening we went to have a really nice and compared to Switzerland very cheap dinner in a steak house - yummy, the beef steak was very delicious. After that we joined the other Aiesecers in a bar drank some stuff and then went to Mc Donalds because the girls wanted to have some ice cream and it was the only place still open. The boys ended up with eating apple pie - a slovak guy even bought two pies simply because there was a promotion and not because he wanted to! After that we all walked home and went to a well-deserved sleep…

Some pictures of the first day:

The castle in Bratislava

City centre of Kosice

Dan & Kate @ late night dessert

Happy 2007!

Soo, finally arrived in 2007 and back home from Slovakia again. It was very cool in Kosice but right now I´m too tired to write too much about it. Therefore just: Happy new year from Swiss NYE 06 Delegates! - More to come later on...

Merry Xmas

Since last week, when I weak up I always think, something is wrong. No, it´s not beacause the candle in the wind or the weather but because I feel powerless. But there´s really no time for that right now. The show must go on! I´ve to study, then I´ll go abroad on the day after tomorrow and when I return (probably on 2nd) I´ve to study again. Hope to be energized again soon...

Anyway I wish you Merry Christmas (for those who are celebrating). For the others I wish not too boring days. And then have a really good end of the year and a marvellous start into 2007!I will spend new years eve in Slovakia and be back again next year.

Until then, Good night and good luck!

Parlez francais!

The Xmaszeit

When the last Kalender-sheets
flattern through the winterstreets
and the Dezemberwind is blowing
then ist everybody knowing
that it is not allzuweit:
she does come – the Weihnachtszeit.

All the Menschen, Leute, people
flippen out of ihr warm Stueble,
run to Kaufhof, Aldi, Mess,
make Konsum and business.
Kaufen this und jene things
and the Churchturmglocke rings.

Manche holen sich a Taennchen,
when this brennt, they cry "Attention".
Rufen for the Feuerwehr:
"Please come quick to loeschen her!"
Goes the Taennchen of in Rauch,
they are standing on the Schlauch.

In the kitchen of the house
mother makes the Christmasschmaus.
She is working, schufts and bakes
the hit is now her Yoghurtkeks.
And the Opa says als Tester:
"We are killed bis to Silvester".
Then he fills the last Glas wine –
yes, this is the Christmastime!

Day by day does so vergang,
and the Holy night does come.
You can think, you can remember,
this is immer in Dezember.

Then the childrenlein are coming
candle-Wachs is abwaerts running.
Bing of Crosby Christmas sings
while the Towerglocke rings
and the angels look so fine –
well this is the Weihnachtstime.

Baby-eyes are big and rund,
the family feels kerngesund
when unterm Weihnachtsbaum they’re hocking
then nothing can them ever shocking.
They are so happy, are so fine –
this happens in the Christmastime!

The animals all in the house,
the Hund, the Katz, the bird, the mouse,
are turning round the Weihnachtsstress,
enjoy this day as never nie,
well they find Kittekat and Chappi
in the Geschenkkarton von Pappi.

The family begins to sing
and wieder does a Gloeckchen ring.
Zum song vom gruenen Tannenbaum
the Traenen rennen down and down.
Bis our mother ploetzlich flennt:
"The christmas-Gans im Ofen brennt!"
Her nose indeed is very fine.
End of the Weihnachtstime.

Videos of the week

Cool U2-video:

Tactic if you want to watch your preferred tv-program:

Gossip reloaded

Ok, some possible implications. Each implication is derived from the corresponding rule-nr. Should you take it serious? - it´s up to you:

1. Don´t trust anyone! Even the person you´re producing gossip with, could take out a camera and record the evidence for other purposes than just the own memory.
2. Nothing is what it seems. But the better the artwork the more valuable the information. In order to produce valuable information, better be creative.
3. The earlier you produce gossip, the smaller the potential damage - it takes longer until evidence is presented = gossip travels slower = less potential damage. Therefore if you intend to produce gossip, do it straight from the beginning on.
4. Always stand up in plenary and admit that the presented gossip is TRUE. It´ll count as extenuating circumstances.
5. If you realize on the next day that your gossip-partner is not fitting you´re perception, then you have to spread even more gossip about yourself in order to explain yourself.
6. You should help the FBI officers to get a clear picture of the gossip - otherwise someone else might get the credits.
7. Gossip needs all your resources. Although men and women are recording the evidence, they might set different focus and you don´t want to drop out because you only attracted one focus right?
8. Next time have a closer look on the FBI officers. They just want to hide something!
9. You´ll never see the most interesting gossip in plenary, because the victim might be present and per definition he/she is not supposed to see it at the same time you do.
10. Give your best while producing gossip. There are always competitors around who try to produce a better output.

As long as you love me...

Another update about the time when I was in Stuttgart. Today it´s about Alp (Turkish Aiesec-Trainee in my departement at Bosch) on the left and Alex (Brazilian Aiesec-Trainee & my flat-mate) on the right aka. backstreet boys...

The cardinal rules of gossip

During my hunt for a master thesis topic, I stumbled over the book "Rumors and Rumor Control" by Allan J. Kimmel. There he mentiones the ten cardinal rules of gossip. Here they come:

1. Everyone gossips. Even if you´ve just stood around listening, it´s tantamount to gossiping.
2. No one ever asks if the information is true. Everyone assumes that it is.
3. The greater the potential damage, the faster the gossip travels.
4. The more you try to tell people that the gossip is not true, the more they will believe it is.
5. Major decisions have been based on gossip. When the decision turns out to be bad, gossipy rumors arise to explain the bad decision.
6. Of all forms of communication, gossip is the most easily distorted.
7. Men gossip just as much as women, and gossip is filtered through socioeconomic strata by both genders.
8. People gossip to protect their own reputations. When the focus is on someone else, one receives a momentary reprieve.
9. The more demeaning or hurtful the gossip, the longer it takes for the victim to hear about it.
10. Gossip thrives in an atmoshpere of secrecy and competition. It tends to thrive most where there is too much secrecy and where advancement is based on overcompetition.
    

Deutschland - ein Sommermärchen?

A long time ago, on an early december morning, a hick took his bags, packed with some of his belongings and went to the city. When he arrived there, he wasn´t confused, not even disoriented as you might suppose. No, he had been there many times before. But the city wasn´t his final destination. He boarded a vehicle and went in direction of the rising sun. Soon afterwards, around one hour later, he had to lift his heavy bags again, because he wanted to change direction and the vehicle didn´t want to. So, he took his belongings and searched for another transportation which went his planned way. Some time after he settled down, still on his way now in the direction of the region where the Vikings were believed to live, he realized that most people around him were speaking a different language. But as it was only slightly different he was still able to understand it. He lost track of the time but it must have been around 3 hours after he changed direction, when he reached his final destination…

It all happened 365 days ago, the final destination was Stuttgart, and the hick… It was me! I remember, arriving there at the mainstation, being picked-up by two people I just had contact to, through a couple of emails. I still see the dirty, sticky table in the living room of the flat (probably from a party from the evening before) in front of me. And what I still know from my first day is the time I met the first other trainee… I faced some problems to understand him. I realized that he was talking german, but still - it was more like turkish-german ;-) And he tried to talk while he was in his room and I was in the living room. Anyway, we got used to each other as we worked for 9 months in the same company, for 6 months even in the same department and spent many hours apart from work together with the other trainees…

It was really an amazing time in Germany. It was definitely more than a summer fary tale. A pleasure u can´t measure ;-) I had an interesting job. Beside work, there are great memories from my last year - Twin week in Finland with @ Bern, Tampere & Jyväskylä, Easter weekend with 7 friends in Venice, a whole month of party, good mood and excellent weather in June during world cup, a lot of great people I met and many, many other things. 3 months have passed since I returned. But still, I miss some things and I hope to see those people again (hopefully very soon). And when I think back to this time, I always get a smile upon my face…

Thinking

A mental process which allows beings to model the world, and so to deal with it effectively according to their goals, plans, ends and desires. Words referring to similar concepts and processes include cognition, sentience, consciousness, idea, and imagination. It involves manipulation of information, as when we form concepts, engage in problem solving, reason and make decisions. It is a higher cognitive function and the analysis of thinking processes is part of cognitive psychology.
The basic mechanics of the human mind reflect a process of pattern matching or rather recognition. In a "moment of reflection", new situations and new experiences are judged against recalled ones and judgements are made. In order to make these judgements, the intellect maintains present experience and sorts relevant past experience. It does this while keeping present and past experience distinct and separate. The intellect can mix, match, merge, sift, and sort concepts, perceptions, and experience. This process is called reasoning. (Wikipedia)

Lately I have the impression, that people are experiencing things like me. It goes like that: Someone says something and there´s a spontaneous reaction and afterwards, the topic is changed. But later, probably on their own they start to think about it and the topic keeps coming up and up again. As I mentioned, it happened to me this week - even twice. Once on sunday at do-it and once yesterday at university. Well i´m wondering and thinking about what I could and want to do besides the studies. At the moment, there are two things which could be interesting. And yes, there are rumours around - but only in my head ;-)

topic of the day

can´t get it out of my head

since I woke up today and heard this song on the radio, it´s following me...

Just did-it

Sitting in the train between Göschenen and Arth-Goldau, looking out the window to the ugly grey, rainy sky, I have some time reflecting about the weekend and write down some things. Once again I was in Fiesch, this time for Do-it. But not as a delegate but as a member of the extended organizing committee. I really saw the conference from a totally different perspective. The first two times I was there I joined the sessions and workshop. This time the only one I attended was the closing plenary. I really had no clue about the content of the sessions the delegates where attending. The only information I had, was that this track wants to have a coffee break at this specific time in that location and the amount of delegates…

My sub-team - the logistics - was responsible for these coffee breaks, to set up workshop rooms and clean afterwards. This job really raised my awareness for trash handling. It´s really strange how the delegates threw there stuff away. They put packaging of coffee or sugar into the organic trash when there is a normal trash almost next to it (maybe 2 metres is two far away?), empty recyclable bottles into the normal trash when we had the bag for recyclables just next to it (is 30cm still to far away?) or they left half full bottles and half eaten candy bars just somewhere (not even throwing them away). And it´s really interesting what a mess people can make just with babybel-packaging.

Well, yesterday evening at around 6 o´clock the conference finished officially. My timetable since then:

1800-2000 cleaning workshop rooms and coffee breaks
2000-2200 oc dinner
2200-0100 cleaning the dirty sticky floor of the party room
0100-0200 cleaning the dormitories, some random stuff
0200-0500 sitting together with the oc and just talking about random stuff (eg. our future in @)
0500-0800 sleeping finally
0830-1300 travelling back to St. Gallen
1400-… Back at university for a meeting for our research project

Ok, for those out there who want to do a project soon I have some suggestion for topics:

• The “latte macchiato” case: Process orientation in trash behaviour
  
• The optimal allocation of trash bins
• Consumer behaviour influenced by alcohol
• The differences of organic trash, recyclable and normal trash from the customer perspective

Some awards I´d like to give:

Award for the Inkind, with which you can make the best mess (Nominees: chips, peanuts, party-kiss)
Winner: party-kiss

Award for the funniest thing in the early morning:
Winner: to see the faces of the delegates

Award for the funniest thing in before lunch:
Winner: Sue´s party concept with her “Emmi Gascho”

Award for the funniest thing in the evening:
Winner: Discussion with some OC members about the inhabitants of Bitsch (and some other OC members misunderstanding us)

Award for special delegate:
Winner: Yavor, for the support of the OC with tidying after awards-night and supporting after conference was finished! Thank you!!

Award for the best core OC:
Winner: The OCs of my beloved LC Berne, for the marvellous job they did in the past months!

Award for the best OCP:
Winner: Martin, for his outstanding job!!

Nuit gravement à la santé

Q without A

for two weeks now i´m intensively thinking about my master thesis. i realized that if i want to finish my thesis before a possible exchange term, i should start in february with it. therefore i really should start to get a topic...
but hmmm... what should i write about? what could be interesting? is there a blockbuster topic out there? is there an interesting topic which i could write about in a cooperation with a company? who´s a good prof.? sofar there are only questions here. i´m browsing institute website, websites of other universities, company websites, websites with topics of already written diploma thesis in order to find some answers, to have an input to think about, to get a solution in the end.
maybe i get THE idea tomorrow while taking a shower, maybe in a week at do-it after not sleeping enough? perhaps santa claus tells me a solution or maybe i´ll find it under a christmas tree somewhere?
anyways, it might take some time to come up with a topic and i´ll take my time to choose it. the first step in the right direction i made already: i have now at least 5% more brain capacity to use, because i cut my hair ;-)

Advertising space

While I was surfing around to get ideas for a topic for my master thesis something on a blog catched my attention. well some stuff might be a bit politically incorrect, but still funny...

Situation 1: You´re a divorce laywer and want to attract as many potential customers as possible. How to do? Maybe like this...


Situation 2: How to make sustainable advertisment? Like that...?


Situation 3: The war of the car industry in a little bit different way...


Situation 4: Ever looked at the "wash" etiquette of your clothes? If you do maybe you find this...

even november can be beautiful

earlier this week in front of my window...

University marketing & journalism - or what students really think

First it begins like one of those very emotional car ads, then it has a very short sequence of a very low-budget scary movie and then it switches to the real message in this movie - the attempt to market the marketing. The movie is done by the Institute of Marketing at the University of Berne - where I studied before my bachelor. Therefore I have some insights and the strange part about this youtube sequence for me is the following:

1. first student statement - first part: I decided to study in Berne because of the good reputation
Ok, for me the reputation (related to business studies!) of my former university is neither good nor bad. It´s average. If you ask students from other universities in Switzerland they even might say that there´s a reputation of acquiring a degree with not so much effort.

2. first student statement - second part: It´s a good feeling to know that I study in the capital of Switzerland
How is the education itself and the quality related to the simple fact that the university is in the capital of a country?

3. Why does Prof. Harley Krohmer have to mention that the lecture is based on "this book" and he´s not showing it fully? Well if he doesn´t say which book it is, there´s no value in this sentence. If he mentions the title, everyone realizes that it´s self-marketing because he wrote it on his own. Well he´s not unique in selling his book as an obligatory reading for his own lecture. Many other Profs do this as well...

4. It´s strange that the 2 students talking on camera happen to be working for the institute (or were former employees). The credibility even gets higher when one of them says that Prof. Krohmer and his assitants have a good "access" to the students. What´s the keyword - aaah yeah, self-praise...

5. They put this video on youtube. They wanna do some marketing. The university wants to attract students from abroad as well. So, why do they let the people speak in swiss german?


So far so good. That was the first part. Now something else, I happen to know. There was an "article" on a news show in swiss television (10vor10) about the high salary of top managers. In the second part, they do an interview at University of St. Gallen (where I study now). Sometimes after around 5.30" they say that still it is important for students, that they earn a lot after studying. They ask this lady why she´s studying in St. Gallen. She says because I like it and of course because of the future salary.
So, question: Are statements really what students think? Well in her case I don´t know if it was the truth, but I know the following fact: Reporters from the tv station were wandering around and asking girls, if they were willing to say "I´m studying here because I want to earn much/more afterwards". Well, is this the journalism I´d like to get if I watch news shows? Is it reflecting the truth? For me - No...

Broadcast yourself

Today I had a lecture about “economics and human behaviour”. It was about blogs, communities (like brand communities or hate communities), broadcast yourself like youtube and opinion leaders and their importance for marketing. As I´m interested in this I decided to write some things here...

Some facts provided today in my lecture about decreasing importance mass media (only us market):

- CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox had a historical low audience rate in July 06

- Sales of music albums (incl. digital downloads) were on a 10-year-low in July 06

- Audience rate for radio decreased for antoher 8.5% this year

- Newspaper consumption decreased 2.6% this year

Compared to this consumer generated content is highly increasing. Some facts as well provided in todays lecture:

- 100 Mio. videos are watched on youtube - daily. Growth of 297% (!) in the first half of 2006

- Each day 1.6 Mio. postings in blogs per day = 18.6 postings per sec.

- The social network Myspace has 15 Mio. logins per day and has a growth of 240´000 users per day.

Why am I blogging about this? First of all because I think there´s a huge shift towards an e-life. People are not only using the net-technology to send emails and disconnect afterwards. They´re using it to gather information, to entertain themselves. Instead of meeting face-to-face or calling people, they spend evenings on msn chatting with friends while playing online games, watching movies or surfing on the internet. They spend hours each day in front of their computer and connect to the web. And with online communities, “broadcast yourself” sites and blogs they´re not only consuming, they´re producing content...

Secondly I´m blogging about this, because I´m studying marketing. I think that we have important changes in society here. Those changes affect consumption behaviour, they affect the way of gathering information about products and services and thus they have an influence on what we buy and how we decide what to buy. We might not want to buy an ipod anymore because we visited http://www.smashmyipod.com? Maybe we suddendly dislike Starbucks coffee because we visited http://www.ihatestarbucks.com? Online communities and blogs can have a huge impact on the opinion of each of us. As a future marketer, I´ll be probably dealing with stuff like that.

And thirdly there´s a post about this because I have just an intrinsic, personal interest in this. It will probably affect my future in my field of work, then I´m a member of this new, 2.0 web society and I´m interested in information- and communication-technology which is closely linked to this topic. And maybe I´ll write a thesis about a specific topic in this field. Who knows?

Simus music charts

The following albums I like to hear at the moment:

1. Fort Minor - The rising tied
2. Muse - Black holes & revelations
3. My chemical romance - The black parade

These are the singles I like most currently:

1. Fort Minor - Where´d you go
2. Snow Patrol - Chasing cars
3. Breaking Benjamin - The diary of Jane

The next 3 songs I like to play on guitar:

1. Metallica - Nothing else matters
2. Green Day - Wake me up when september ends
3. Eric Clapton - Tears in heaven

And when a song of those 3 artist is played, I rather switch off radio:

1. Crazy Frog
2. Tokio Hotel
3. Plüsch

From the following collaboration I´d like to hear more:

Tough 1st week in different ways

This week finally my real life as a student started again. After an introductory lecture in customer value and communication management, the whole monday was filled with visiting the different institutes, talking to the professers and getting an image of what each institutes works on mainly.

On tuesday we visited with a group of 4 students a rather small company which develops tuning and performance items for Saab cars - it´s called Hirsch Performance AG. They presented themselves and we had to ask some questions in order to get a picture about customer orientation and stuff like that. It´s not really a tuning in the sense of Fast and Furious movies or Need for Speed Underground games - or can you imagine a Saab with a blue illumination of the bottom? - but still it seems to be a very interesting business. In the afternoon we had prepare a presentation and present "our company" to the other groups which visited other "companies" like St. Galler Tagblatt, Migros Ostschweiz, Radisson Hotel or Kinderdorf Pestalozzi. These first two days started at 8am and ended around 6pm - more or less interesting but very tiring...

Wednesday was the start of real classes (not in terms of introduction). After a lectrue on research projects and methods I had a 4 hours class on business-to-business marketing. It seems to be an interesting topic. Too bad this lecture is from 4 till 8pm... Thursday then was the first quiet day. I only had a class late in the afternoon (6-8pm). But it´s about competition and faireness which makes it not so easy. It seems that it´s a combination of economics and sociology, which are both not my core competencies ;-)

The end of this rather tough week was the hardest part - the funeral of my grandma who died on monday. I think it´s the best for her this way but still it´s sad to lose someone close. And it made me realize, that there are things like topics of discussion (or even fights) which are really not that important...

The start of Episode II

On Thursday and yesterday I had my start of "Life as a Student - Episode II" (hopefully the follow up is as good as Part I). First there was an introductory afternoon where we got general information about studies here in St. Gallen, then a short campus tour, followed by an introduction into the it-system (which wasn´t very helpful btw) and finally a short info about the library (which wasn´t new for people like me who used the same system at another university in CH). But altough we had fun, because I met a guy with whom I spent 4 years ago very nice 15 weeks hiding in the forrest, shooting around or just waiting for further instruction. He used to study his Bachelor in Basel and now joins HSG like me.

Yesterday was a kick-off event for all master students (not just the newies) with the topic "Social innovation". After a short welcome note from our Dean - which probably tries to implement dramatic pauses after 2 words in order to enhance the importance of his speech - there was a pretty interesting speech from Robert Roth CEO of Job Factory - a company which enables young people internship position to enhance their knowledge because they might face problems with acquiring an apprenticeship position. After a short dialogue session and lunch we decided to leave the event in order to socialise a bit in town...

Ready, set and go

My studies are soon starting again. Here are my next steps:

• going to hooverphonic concert tonight
• leaving bern tomorrow morning
• information event of university in st. gallen tomorrow 2.30 pm
  
• kick-off day for master students on friday from 9.30 am on
  
• recovering from jet-lag on weekend ;-)
• starting with 1st classes and introduction in my masters topic on mon 8 am (isn´t that time a violation of students rights? :)
  

Pimp my room

After a beautiful weekend in Scuol where my cousin married, I travelled on sunday evening directly to St. Gallen. Yesterday evening and today I pimped my room - my new centre of creativity ;-) And tonight I finally got access to our wlan, so everything is set up for the start next week...

I like to move it, move it

It´s been a busy week sofar. After I got home from Fiesch last saturday I started to call people in order to set up visiting dates for free rooms in St. Gallen. I managed to visit 2 flats on monday. Finally on monday evening I had the confirmation of one of them. Means - I have a place to live now!! :))

The day afterwards I went shopping of course, because I needed some furniture for my room. I went to Ikea, Mediamarkt, Shoppyland, Interio and Eschenmoser (no, I didn´t buy everywhere everything!!). Me and my sister (who moves to SG once again) packed our stuff (mostly her stuff of course) into the van we rented. Yesterday then, we drove to St. Gallen, placed my belongings into the cellar of the house where I´ll be living (my room is not yet free) and the went to my sisters place and unpacked her stuff. I can´t believe it - it´s the first flat I saw, which is on ground floor level, but where you have to climb first stairs with 50 steps. And her furniture wasn´t very light... Anyway, no our stuff is where it should be and next week I´m going there once again to set up my room. Do it yourself S.O.S. ;-)

When we were eating lunch yesterday, I got a short message from Nadine, telling me that she´s going to leave tomorrow for her traineeship in London and inviting me to her bye bye party. It´s really funny, she got her position in a company where I applied as well around a year ago. Probably it´s the same traineeship position I applied for but unfortunately didn´t get. So, I know from the job description, that it´s a really exciting position. Nadine, enjoy it and have fun there!! And I wanna know what I missed ;-)

Back from Fiesch

Yesterday in the afternoon I returned from the Berner Feriensportlager in Fiesch. As always it was a great week and as we didn´t sleep that much during the week, I was really tired when I returned - but who wasn´t?!

A week ago the "teachers" started the camp with the journey to Fiesch. After the first meeting with general information we had an apéro and then dinner, followed by a first evening in "our" bar - the bäregrabe;-) On sunday some of the leaders went back to Bern to get the kids there. Me and my co-leader were lucky because someone took our 4 bernese kids and we could stay in Fiesch and spend a relaxing and quiet day there - until the kids arrived.

On monday then our courses started. We had in our "life-saver" course 1 boy from Bern, 3 girls from Bern and 4 girls from Fiesch who were between 13 and 15 years old. We taught them in 8 hours (mo-thu 2 hours) the necessary things they have to know. On friday finally they had the exam - luckily everyone passed ;-) In the afternoon I had to lead twice "Emergency - what to do", once Sauna and once bowling and one afternoon I had off.

But it wasn´t only "teaching" the kids important things. I could do a lot of stuff as well. I went to play unihockey, I did archery twice and played some badminton.

Thursday was a special day. First we had a rescheduling of the afternoon courses because we had a very, very, very important guest who had a short speech: Mr. "Freude herrscht" Adolf Ogi. We had "Vil Fröööd";-) There was another speciality on thursday evening. We (the 2 life-savers plus the 3 divers) organized for our fellow leaders a pool party. We had snacks, some wine, some beer a bit of music - and we enlightened the swimming hall just with 400 candles. It really looked amazing!! Next year I should bring my camera and take pictures for those who don´t believe me!

We learned as well important things from our kids. We learned who´s cool, who they hate. We learned that good, nice things are not "cool" anymore (like in the days we were in school). Today things are "In da house" :=))

Once again nothing new

And another uneventful week has passed. The nice weather was again a good opportunity to do some outdoor sports. Then today I went again to St. Gallen because next week I don´t have time to deal with flat issues. It´s always the same. "Unfortunately we took another person/the room has been given to another person. But good luck with your further search." But I´m still hoping for some good news next week.
I think there might be a market gap for "generator of randomized flat rejection messages". Maybe I should quit studying and open business in this sector;-) Anyway, I got some insider news which creates some hope (although it´s from a cruel origin): Soon the exam results are gonna be published which might lead to an increase of offered rooms...
Now, to the nice part of life. Tomorrow I´m heading to Fiesch (yes to the very nice Feriendorf;-) It´s gonna be Feriensportlager next week. I´m expecting (based on my experience) a great & funny week with a lot of people, a lot of sport and a lot of some thing else;-)

Traineeship map

Lately I had the idea to create "traineeship map". The red dots (unfortunately) don´t show all the places where I´ve been in the the last few months but they show the home countries of the people I met in Stuttgart. There´s only one thing to add:
You can go on a traineeship (only) to Germany and have a cultural experience as well - You can be only 350km far away and live in a different and very international environment.

Sun, fun and...

What a nice feeling. Just sitting outside at home, heated by early september sun, see the blue sky, listening to Jack Johnson and updating my blog at the same time. Feels really like being on holiday. And I started to sleep in again, which I couldn´t do when I was already on holiday but still in Stuttgart. I´m glad I have some spare time to spend until semester starts in October...

Not yet a week has passed since I left Germany and people are already writing me emails about how I do at home, keep me updated about flat issues (I´m glad I don´t have to deal with that anymore) or just talk with me on msn. Isn´t it nice?

The most important thing which I have to deal with at the moment is looking for a room in a flat in St. Gallen. Yesterday I´ve been there already for the third time visited my flats Nr. 8 - 11. I really hope it´ll work out this time - if someone has insider infos about someone looking for a new flatmate there just contact me.

Bittersweet home

Yesterday the day arrived. I had to say goodbye to people working in my department and to my friends in Stuttgart. After living there for 9 months, working on an interesting job with nice people in the company, after having 9 months of spending time and having fun together with a lot of friends it wasn´t easy to go home. Regular employees saying the "S*** you´re leaving", trainees asking "You´re leaving already today?" made me feel that I probably did the right things and did it well. And it showed me once more that it was a great time and Stuttgart felt like home. And I met a lot of nice, funny and interesting people which I will probably see again soon.
Now, almost 24 hours have passed since I arrived back in Bern. It feels somehow not home but familiar. It´s more like being on holiday in a place you´ve been several times before. It will take a bit then it´s gonna be home sweet home for sure...

Confused

Just got home from work - for the last time! In the last two months I really wished today to arrive. Now, the day has come and it feels weird. There was so much to do, I was stressed sometime, I worked a lot - therefore I thought it´s gonna be nice when I finished my traineeship.
But the work I had to do was really interesting, I got used to these workdays and there were so many nice people at my work place which I will leave behind. I made a lot of friends and I don´t know how many of them I will ever see again... At least there´s gonna be a huge goodbye party in a week here in my flat. I really look foward to it. I hope it doesn´t feel too weird afterwards or when I´m sitting in my room back "home" in Switzerland.

Actually, I´m wondering at the moment what/where "home" really is. Is it the place where your parents are? Is it the place where you were born? Is it the place where your friends are? If you have friends in two places - which place would you prefer (maybe one group of your friends is not better than the other but different...)?

Berlin

Last weekend I had another opportunity to travel. I went to Banane. Noo, unfortunately I couldn´t go to jungle for a short trip. Ban.ane is Berlin Adventure weekeNd. Action Never Ends. That´s an AIESEC and IAESTE reception event. I really like to meet the person who came up with this name...

Anyway, after a short trip of only 6 hours we arrived on friday evening in Berlin. And who do we meet there: some iaeste ppl from stuttgart, we just got to know the day before. Germany is like a town sometimes. After dinner started a party which wasn´t that exciting - at least the drinks were for free and i got to know the true history of Buffalo, if you know what i mean ;-)

On saturday was first a bus tour on the "menu" and after we were stopped at Alex because of a Nazi - Anti-Nazi Demonstration we had to wait sometime until we could start our city walk "east berlin". Unfortunately it didn´t turn out that well - just the east side gallery was ok. And finally at 5pm we could visit Reichstag which was great as we could go up on the roof. Afterwards the five of us who were really stuck together the whole weekend as we knew eachother from Tanzschiff, went to have dinner and to strandbar instead of going to aiesec dinner. As the weather was amazing and we were walking around with shorts and flip-flops it was much better than going to university for dinner. In the end of the evening we ended at AIESEC party of course...


On sunday we went to jewish museum but unfortunately we didn´t have soo much time for everything (there would have been a special freud exhibition as well). After saying goodbye to everyone I ended up in another boring train until I got home again to Stuttgart...

In the end

After a week of holiday, last week continued like before I went home. Except that my boss was still on holiday. Reduction of extra hours? I wished... Anyway I survived it and on friday was another goodbye - the one of the British empire ;-). The time has come now, where many of us are leaving the company after half a year or even a bit more. Actually in 1 month almost everyone in our department will have experience of max. 1 month or even less. It´s really strange - I get to know now people who are successors of people who started later than me (I even know their predecessor).

But "those others" are not the only one leaving. My time here is running out as well. My successor arrived today and one of my last tasks is to give him a good introduction (unfortunately it´s not the only task I still have :(

At the moment it´s like in sport competition for me: I already see the finishing line - it´s 7 work days from where I am right now - but I think I have to fight until I cross the line on 25.8....

Think about it...

A song I like a lot:

Don't tell me that you are ready to change.
Don't tell me that from now it won't be the same.
It doesn't matter, 'cause at the end of the day,
it isn't what you say, it's what you do!

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!

What you say will be forgotten someday.
What you do will be remembered.
Empty promises all fade away.
What you keep will last forever.

Don't tell me you'll make things better for us.
Don't tell me that you're some one I can trust.
It doesn't mean a thing to me because,
it isn't what you say, it's what you do!

Your actions will speak louder than you!

What you say will be forgotten someday.
What you do will be remembered.
Empty promises all fade away.
What you keep will last forever.

So show me that you really figured it out.
And show me everything that you are about.
But if you can't then just shut your mouth!..

'cause I don't care what you say or what you do,
You can't take back what you've put me through.
Your actions will speak louder than you!..

What you say will be forgotten someday.
What you do will be remembered.
Empty promises all fade away.
What you keep will last forever.

What you say will be forgotten someday.
What you do will be remembered.
Empty promises all fade away.
What you keep will last forever.

What you keep will last forever.

What you keep will last forever.

Forever...

"Don´t tell me" by Hoobastank

Finally a break

After 5 months without real holiday I finally had a week off last week. I went back to Bern because my sister returned form USA lately, to celebrate my dads birthday, to meet some friends. And of course I went to Bern to watch the aare-fireworks for 1. august. Afterwards on thursday I went to St. Gallen to look for a room in a flat. I visited 5 different flats and hope I´ll find something soon.

On friday I left home already as I went to Tanzschiff on Bodensee. Originally we planned just to go as party delegates but then we decided to take part in IPS workshop. I´m really glad of this decision because I actually for the first time liked the workshop (and especially the participants) more than the party itself. The simple reason is that we were all trainees and the workshop was more like discussions, connecting with people and of course having a lot of fun in different environments (Weinfest, coffee bar in Konstanz or workshop room).
But during this workshop was a really strange situation: we had a session together with XPS - the ones who want to be trainees and go abroad. When they were asked what they´re proud of about Germany everyone was silent. It was strange because the WS was more for XPS people but the ones who were talking were facis and trainees from IPS workshop. After some time we found out, that some of them just can be proud of things they achieved on their own and not of things others achieved centuries ago. So we asked them what they like about Germany, what they would present abroad or what they would tell someone abroad who might be interested in going to Germany for a traineeship. Someones answer: That´s in central europe and your really fast abroad... Someone who was asked how she would explain where her hometown is located replied: It´s close to Netherlands...
Is that really what you want to hear if your interested in Germany? Why do Germans come up mostly with negative points if they´re asked "What are typical german characteristics"? Did those guys just not think about such stuff before or are typical german characteristics really just negative and they can´t be proud of them/like them?

Anyway, Nicole and Heidi thanks for being great Facis. And Ludmila, Keiko, Gonca, Shadi and Mikhail it was really nice to meet you guys and have fun together! You really made my weekend!

Recent developments

It´s been hell of a week last week. First of all I was really stuck in work. Our bosses had this meeting for half of the week. Usually you should be able to enjoy the time while they´re out of office. But unfortunately for me was the opposite. I had to finish stuff for my boss´ presentation on friday - of course it was last minute work...

Secondly I participated with a team on our PT cup, a soccer tournament for our Power Tool Division. And guess what - as we were a truly international team with german, turkish, brazilian, english and swiss players we won the cup. Noo, time for loosers cause we are the champions....! ;-)

And third and most important: My near future is now set. I finally got the confirmation. I´ll change university for my master studies. On wednesday I got finally approved for the Master in Marketing, Services and Communication in St. Gallen. Which means I will head towards east for a really interesting master programm - but I already miss my bernese fellows!! And one thing to make clear: If my character will change, it´ll be to the good. I mean I think I did pretty well during the last half a year here in Germany. So it should be possible as well in St. Gallen!

General situation

In times like these
In times like those
What will be will be
And so it goes
And it always goes on and on...
On and on it goes

And there has always been laughing, crying, birth, and dying
Boys and girls with hearts that take and give and break
And heal and grow and recreate and raise and nurture
But then hurt from time to time like these
And times like those
And what will be will be
And so it goes

And there will always be stop and go and fast and slow
Action, Reaction, sticks and stones and broken bones
Those for peace and those for war
And god bless these ones, not those ones
But these ones made times like these
And times like those
What will be will be
And so it goes
And it always goes on and on...
On and on it goes

But somehow I know it won't be the same
Somehow I know it will never be the same.

times like these by jack johnson

Just floating

"I´m not dead just floating"! It´s been a really busy week. First at work, I felt like entering a "supermassive black hole" and my boss was throwing things at me which i tried to catch and do something nice out of it. Well, sofar I think I did pretty well and from wednesday on it shouldn´t be so tough anymore as the whole dept. is out for a meeting for the rest of the week (except the interns of course).

Then on friday, one of our AIESEC trainees had birthday and we partied first at their place and then went to coyote ugly bar. But as good as it was - it was a sad moment as well. It was Caro´s Bye Bye Party. After working and having fun together for 6 month it´s always hard to say goodbye. BUT - Caro, don´t keep your promise about not getting abroad anymore, because you hate this "saying goodbye stuff"!! And you won´t get rid of us so easily - we´ll visit you! ;-)

On Saturday we had to relax of course, that´s why we went to swimming pool for the whole afternoon. In the evening then we went to the Lichterfest on Killesberg Park. It was pretty nice, although 7.50€ entrance fee is still too much! Yesterday it was just a regular day to hang around and do nothing. Now, it´s again monday and we´re stuck in work again... But at least three of us who´re finishing end of august/beginning of september know our successors. And all of them will start on august 15th. It´s gonna be fun tough...

Last Worldcup Weekend - Photo Blog Part II - Finale

Last Worldcup Weekend - Photo Blog Part I

Stuttgart ist viel schöner als Berlin

Tonight, it´s gonna be the last world cup game here in Stuttgart. And we´re expecting a huge party. Germany is playing against Portugal; 70ooo ppl are expected on Fan Fest (the public viewing place) - but i think it will be a bit less because the weather is not so excellent anymore like the weeks before. Let´s see what the evening and the night will bring!

And good thing is: german fans got their humour back: they´re singing Stuttgart ist viel schöner als Berlin which is absolutely true of course ;-)

Grazie mille amici d´Italia

Finalmente! What I really hoped for a long time, happened yesterday! Germany lost and can´t be World champion 2006. Don´t get me wrong. I didn´t hope this for the german team, because they surprised me as well (eg. against Sweden) and I liked their offensive way of playing football. But I really hoped this for many germans and their behaviour of overestimating their team and a bit a losing sense of reality. The whole euphoria about german team seemed to be like a bubble from a chewing gum. From a point 0 the bubble was inflated with a lot of hot air and then - yesterday - it burst.

After winning the game against Poland - luckily they scored in 91st minute - one sentence stuck in my head with a bad impression: "So sehen Siege aus, shalalalala". Today I said this sentence as well. And their it was again - the urgent need for some germans to tear others in to pieces instead of just being proud of what they reached. "At least we were better than Switzerland". My answer was, that it doesn´t matter if you lose in Round of 16 or if you´re third - as long as your not in the final. They couldn´t agree with this. But I think you won´t be remembered easily if you didn´t reach the final (although your performance should be apperciated more).

A little test:

1990 - Andy Brehme scored with penalty, Germany won 1-0 against Argentina. Who was third and fourth?

1994 - Roberto Baggio sent the last penalty towards the clouds. Brazil won against Italy 3-2 after penalties. Who was third and fourth?

1998 - Zinedine Zidane scored twice during the final. France won 3-0 against Brazil. Who was third and fourth?

2002 - Ronaldo scored twice in the final. Brazil won 2-0 against Germany. Who was third and fourth?

I could just easily remember who was third and fourth in 2002. For the other mentioned world cups I really had to think hard or consult internet. For those who don´t know either:

1990 - 3rd Italy; 4th England (2-1)
1994 - 3rd Sweden; 4th Bulgaria (4-0)
1998 - 3rd Croatia; 4th Netherlands (2-1)
2002 - 3rd Turkey; 4th South Korea (3-2)

German behaviour - ok or wrong?

Time for a new (real) update. The last three weeks were really packed with work (especially last week) and watching football games. Now, there´s sort of emptiness as we don´t have a party tonight and no game. How´s it gonna feel after this whole thing is over? I think it will never be the same again (at least not for the next two years).

Last week when I was on Schlossplatz watching the games Switzerland - Ukraine and Italy - Ukraine there were some strange moments (no not because of Ukraine). I´m not sure if it´s just me with a dislike against some german behaviour? But I was really upset, when the majority of fans in the stadium during swiss game started to cheer for Lukas Podolski or sing "Ohne Holland fahren wir nach Berlin".

Same happened when Italy was playing and some Germans started to sing "Steht auf wenn ihr Deutsche seid" (on Schlossplatz). When I commented that those people didn´t realize that it´s Italy against Ukraine, a german friend snapped back that they can´t just forget that they won (against Argentina) and they have to celebrate. OK, that´s true, but then you don´t have to go to a place where they´re showing another game and people are there to watch THIS game. You can celebrate everywhere else. For me the behaviour in those two situation is just a lack of respect for the playing teams!