Whatever happens…

Have a little patience

2012-06-26T20:29:00.000+02:00

Today I had one of those epiphanies again... I realized (well some people told me as well) that I am incredibly impatient. I expect wonders within just a few days, I wanna see results as fast as possible and I wanna take pretty much everything to the next step as soon as I reach a further step. I is a constant race between me and my achievements. I can tell you, this is exhausting. I wanna know how other people manage to sit back and relax and wait for results?! It is a mystery to me!

Especially in dating and work life I could definitely relax a little bit more. As a smart person showed me recently in a Facebook post "Love is like a fart: If you have to force it, it's probably shit!" If anyone got smart tips on how to relax, please feel free to share them with me!

Take That -- Patience - MyVideo
(Oh and thank you GEMA once again for blocking nearly every f***ing video)

Lesson learnt or "just give it a try"

2011-12-14T00:52:00.002+01:00

Sometimes I am wondering, if we should always go for "lesson learnt" and never repeat a certain action again, just because we failed once. Is a failure in something at the first attempt always a reason not to try again? I don't think so. Some things might work out at the second or third attempt, but when is it enough with trying? When should we conclude a failure with "lesson learnt and I will never try again"? I am referring both to work and private life...

When can you actually judge somebody as naive for keeping on trying to succeed in a certain matter and when can you admire somebody for his/her persistence?

Right now I am a little frustrated with a task at work, where I keep on getting "no" as an answer from cooperation partners, however I keep in trying - also because I kinda have to. But when should I draw the line and accept the no and maybe try again at a later point or not at all? Same goes for relationships: when should I start listening to my gutt feeling? When should I stop trying because my gutt tells me "Watch out, this is how it started going down the bad road the last time - let him go." After all, everyone is different, right?

So the question is: follow your instinct or just give everything a try despite the guttfeeling?

Girly stuff

2011-10-16T01:41:00.001+02:00

Today I stumbled across this video, which was posted on Facebook. Sometimes it can be great being a girl and being able to weep at stuff like that. Cheers and good night:

Comeback!

2011-10-16T01:05:00.004+02:00

As it often goes with a lot of changes in life, I kind of neglected my blogging. I started a new job in May, I moved once again after the old apartment brought some major hick-ups with it but after all the dust has settled now. It took a while getting used to my job and I think I am still not completely "in", but things smoothed down and I feel like I am in control again. A big plus of my job is working from home and doing a lot of things in my own pace, but it also means to stick to my own goals and being disciplined. So far it works out well, although I sometimes need to remind myself to switch off the computer and have a normal evening.

Just work and no fun does not turn out well and sooner or later even the most hardcore workaholic will get sick of it. After I slowly drifted down that bad road, forgetting to just stick to my schedule, taking breaks, doing sports, spreading 8 hours of work into 12 hours my batteries said: enough! And so said my wrist, which did not enjoy mouse clicks on 12 hours a day... So it was time for a break from that self-imposed routine. My break took me to Stockholm and to Venice.

Stockholm, as usual, did not leave any time for rest, it was my time to meet my friends, absorb the beauty of the city and just feel like I am back home. I left a year ago and still, whenever I am back, I always feel like the city is welcoming me back with open arms. I stayed with my lovely friend Michi. Her room is full of love, memories and it always makes me feel like being back where I belong. We did not take it easy but instead we plunged ourselves into Stockholm and whatever it has to offer. My visit was also due to a friend's birthday and the same time his big good-bye from Stockholm. Lately more and more of my friends decided to leave Stockholm. It seems like no matter how beautiful this city and this amazing country is, there is a due to date if you are a foreigner. Either this due to date is caused by the incredibly difficult job hunt or the completely ridiculous housing market. It hit me, that I need to leave Sweden, when I had just quit my horrible last job in Stockholm and I was determined to find something better. There was this one job, that I REALLY wanted to have, so I applied and started a little experiment at the same time: I applied for the same job twice, just to prove to myself what I was already suspecting. Once I applied with my own name and the second time I applied with a fake Swedish name: Svenja Svensson. And guess what?! I got an interview... with the fake name, while my application with my real name got rejected followed by the explanation, that the position had already been filled. Needless to say, the CVs were both the same and therefore the qualification were also the same. Then and there I reached the point where I felt "Thank you Sweden, for wonderful 4 years, but from now on we need to go separate ways." Honesty can be brutal, but at least then one knows what one is dealing with - and I really missed that honesty in Sweden. If a job only requires English and no Swedish will be needed, why are you asking for applications in Swedish only and reject applications of foreigners? At least have the decency to ask for applications by Swedish citizens only.

However, back to my holiday: Well Michi and me did not sleep at all in two consecutive nights, but when you are having the time of your life, apparently you don't need any sleep. Also standing in line of Soap Bar for more than one hour seems bearable, despite your legs and feet being frozen blue.

After a fantastic time in Stockholm I continued to Venice for some me-time. And what can I say: 5 days no talking (besides ordering food) was bliss. Me, my book and the sun had a pretty darn good time together. When i was not eating ice cream, cookies, pasta or pizza I was walking around in the endless narrow streets, crossed countless bridges or took boats to the islands. A big advantage of the off-season is that especially those "remote" island like Torcello, Burano and Lido are empty. I had the beaches and harbours just to myself. No noises besides the ocean and the occasional birds: bliss! Also I had nice 22 degrees during the day and the sun was not too strong: my pasty white skin appreciated that a lot!

Beautiful Burano and its artistically colourful houses:

Oh Italy, you and your food. Mjam!

When in Italy.... I had Aperol every single day!

So now I am back in Berlin already dreaming myself off to my next travels. Coming up: Amsterdam in December, Mexico in January and San Francisco in March. A friends also tipped me off to this amazing festival "Tomorrowland" which will definitely be on the agenda for summer next year. I am already counting the days to my next journey, seems like the travel itch is never stopping - and I am so grateful for that!

I will upload some pics of the journey soon. Oh and my Mando Diao addiction is back... or have I ever gotten rid of it?!

Times are changing....

2011-04-24T21:44:00.003+02:00

....once again.

Sorry for the bad updating but I cannot seem to settle down. I have quit my current job and will start a new one once my 2 weeks notice have passed. In the new job I will finally have the chance to do what I studied: write, create events and interact with people. The only thing I am really nervous about is that I cannot live up to the expectations. Since I got some time to settle in the job and there will be a boot camp to get to know the company and my future tasks, I will soon enough know more :-) Immediately after I got the ok for the new job I received a phone call from an HR-woman of another company, something like a headhunter, asking if I was interested in a job. How is it possible, that I am waiting for something like this to happen more than 1.5 years and now everything is happening in just one week??? Being told to move out of the apartment, being offered a new job, agreeing to the job, being offered another job and quitting the current job: that is quite a lot happening in just one week!

Task number 2 on my agenda: finding and apartment yet again. I live in my current place since 4 weeks and now it is time to move again. Berlin flat market looks kind of alright though in comparison to other European capitals, also pricewise, but depending on the area, which one is aiming to live in, one can also stand in line in the staircase with 30 couples. Really motivating, I can tell you. I looked at a promising flat yesterday and I was also the first one to look at it. Maybe this comes as an advantage. Immediately after I looked at the flat I emailed the landlord. Please feel free to cross your fingers for me!

Hopefully there will be a decision on Tuesday.

One Night Only -- Can You Feel It - MyVideo

The Naked And Famous -- Young Blood - MyVideo

(Sorry for the stupid advertisement before the video... youtube has deactivated those videos for publishing on other sides...)

My sore spot

2011-04-10T22:50:00.003+02:00

There are not many things in the world that really piss me off and annoy the hell out of me. I am happy to announce that the German railway (Deutsche Bahn) is constantly leading my charts. As soon as I take one step into a trainstation I get this hint of annoyance. The Berlin main trainstation really pushed me to my annoyance level: Following the signs to the luggage storage led me and my visitor through all 4 levels of the stations, walking in circles and loops and finally ending up at the luggage lockers just to find a sign which said "please go to level 1 to the luggage storage". WTF?

So we asked the friendly lady at the service point where to put the luggage: we got some direction to the luggage storage service of the German railways (with the advise that all the lockers are full for today). It only took as mere 20 minutes in line with the ridiculous sum of 2 people before us until it was out turn. Then we had the pleasure to watch one of Frankenstein's monsters trying to fix a stapler and nearly stapling himself to his desk before he finally realized that a couple of VERY annoyed people were waiting to hand in their luggage. Honestly, ridiculous! At that point we were already aware of the fact: we need to pick up the bag at the same location in a while...

Next stop: buying a ticket. My dear visitor still had a voucher from his last trainride on a sleep train. Why he got a voucher? The entire sleeping cabin was contaminated with bedbugs... However it was impossible to use the voucher online and on the ticket machine. So, back to queuing up again. The woman at the counter informed us that there are so many different vouchers and only a max of 50% of them work in the ticket machines... Great, thank you dear ticket selling woman for pointing out the incompetence of Deutsche Bahn. And another detail which just makes me shake my head in disbelief: when you buy a ticket at the counter you have to pay EUR 2,50 service charge... I wonder why this voucher did not work at the ticket machine.

When we arrived on the platform the fun continued with endless delays without any clarification when the train will arrive and why it has been delayed.

There is just one thing left to say to express my embarassment for having this awful company having the railway monopoly: Zänk juu for träwelling wiz Deutsche Bahn.

(for you non-Germans: The German Railway is very well known for their excellent English skills, therefore there is a group on the German facebook just dedicated to this amazing company....)

Springtime is here

2011-04-03T18:28:00.007+02:00

This weekend Berlin had the pleasure to meet a long forgotten friend: Spring!

I will just let the pictures speak. I took them yesterday and today at Tempelhofer Feld, Volkspark Hasenheide and Mauerpark. The entire city changes with the increase of temperatures and the sun light. I even feel quite energetic although I haven't been to the gym in 2 weeks and I haven't had remotely enough sleep laterly. Enjoy the pics!

I don't like violence, but...

2011-04-02T20:20:00.003+02:00

... when it seems so justified like in the case of this Australian school boy I cannot do anything but cheer. What a brave boy, fighting back after years of mobbing and torture! When you have a little sibling who has been given a hard time at school although he would never harm a fly you just develop empathy for those poor sufferer.

Teenagers or school children in general can be so awfully cruel and I am so glad, that I am not in school anymore nor a teenager. I was lucky enough to never have been picked on and in general school time was rather easy-peasy for me (could have had better grades but hey, I guest I was busy with other things ;-) )

Besides the skinny moron being evil, I am also wondering why nobody has lost a single word about all the teenies standing around and filming this and cheering on the idiot child punching the poor (until recently) helpless Casie. How can you stand next to something like that and cheer? And how can you not have a better idea than filming this?

The skinny boy decided that he should also use the publicity his violence has caused and claim that he is the real victim. Sure, I agree that this videoclip has caused a big media stir and the pressure for the 12-year old offender and his family must have been immense, but claiming to be the real victim just goes too far. He started this thing and the only one to blame for the pressure being put on him and his family is himself. Everybody is responsible for his or her own action. Be aware of the consequences of your actions! This boy (hopefully) learned this lesson!

Oh happy day!

2011-03-27T22:29:00.002+02:00

After bad times, come good times. This is probably something we can rely on. And I finally hit the turning point. After something that felt like an eternity I finally spoke again to my BFF in a country far far away. This wonderful girl got engaged to somebody, which makes her an even happier person than she has already been.

You know, sometimes you meet a person and you immediately know that this person is your soul mate. And this person is Ana. I miss her everyday and even though we sometimes don't speak for months, when we finally find the time to catch up it is as if nothing has happened and that we last spoke yesterday.

When we finally skyped a couple of days ago she told me her whole beautiful engagement story. It is so good to know that there are men out there, who would do ANYTHING to make their chosen girl the happiest girl in the world. He put so much thought and romance into the beginning of a new chapter of their lives together that it makes me speechless. And in the middle of this fairytale like story Ana asked me if I want to be her bridesmaid. This was the cherry on the cake and I just burst into tears. I feel so honoured!

Ever since that evening I feel so happy and cheerful. Whenever work gets annoying (yes, I had to work the entire weekend) I just thought of Ana's voice and the most beautiful questions that she could ask me and I feel happy again. Thank you darling for letting me be part of your love story! :-*

Crazy days

2011-03-15T00:18:00.004+01:00

Do you know that feeling? Sometimes nothing is happening at all and you feel restless because you wanna change something, just anything. And then there are times, when the 24 hours of the day just don't feel sufficient? Today is one of those days when I wish it had at least 36 hours.

Tomorrow I am moving house, yet again. I will also sleep over at a friend's place to avoid being homeless for a night. Wednesday I am flying to Stockholm, straight after work. Mainly to pick up my things or more having them picked up. I also want to meet up as many of my beautiful friends as possible, but at the same time it is impossible to plan anything because I still don't know when the moving guy is coming to Stockholm and picks everything up. Might be Thursday, might be Monday, God knows!

I am in bed and my head is just spinning around. I just want everything to move a lot slower. Somehow I am under the impression, that the world keeps on spinning faster and faster and it becomes more and more difficult to just enjoy the moment. Especially when good things are happening. You just want to stand still for a while, take a deep breath and inhale all the positive energy. Those rare moments, in which you actually HAVE the time to stand still, I mostly appreciate when they already passed by. Like last Sunday, when I managed to take a 1 hour walk and just enjoyed the sunshine. This Saturday I was happy enough to have the best Saturday in a long time: I went to the ITB fair for tourism, on which I met up with a great colleague and friend of mine. Turns out, when you see exhibition stands of all those amazing places on earth, it is rather difficult to accept that you are bound to one place for a while. What makes it easier is to share those moment with someone who feel the exact same way. (Thank you dear Ivan)

Afterwards I met another colleague/friend for dinner. Geat food, great talk, amazing person! I finished that day with watching Melodifestivalen, the Swedish pre-round basically for the Eurovision Song Contest. Being in a cosy apartment, with great company (Thank you J.), watching cheesy Swedish songs on a projector, having some nice wine: honestly, what could be better???

After such an amazing day I walked home with my feet burning badly (stupid idea to wear heels for a day on a fair...) and just felt happy!

So now I should catch some sleep, big day ahead!

The perfect way to start a Sunday

2011-03-06T13:29:00.003+01:00

Yesterday a friend of mine came to visit. We did not go out that long yesterday, but being woken up by the awful children from the family living above me (awful because they are the loudest human beings I have ever experienced) at 9am I thought "wuuuäääääähääääähääääh". Opening the curtains I could see tons of people enjoying the bright sunshine. Admittedly I had to squint my eyes at first, but what is better than waking up and seeing sunshine, having the feeling that spring time has arrived? Nothing! Even terrible neighbour children cannot spoil that mood: hopping out of bed I was lucky enough to receive a very nice message and I started listening to this amazing song:

Watch the video! Oahu with all its beautiful beaches (and surferboys :-) )

So far I managed to take a long walk down Kastanienallee, along Bernauer Strasse with the leftovers of the Berlin Wall, I climbed up a watch tower so I could see the graveyard and the wall from the top, I walked across the flea market at Mauerpark, got myself a nice juice and walked back home. Now I still got plenty of plans ahead and I got the feeling that an amazing Sunday lies ahead of me!

Enjoy your weekend!

Who would have thought...

2011-03-06T13:21:00.005+01:00

I am not really a big fan of Gwyneth Paltrow, neither of Chris Martin and Coldplay. And seriously, naming your children Apple and Moses, that is just wrong. However I have to admit, that I really like her singing voice. Who would have thought that she has such a lovely voice?

Life's too short

2011-03-02T23:05:00.004+01:00

We all have had those moments in which we realize: "Hey, life can be short!" You'll never know how long it will last, you better make good use of it.

By a weird coincidence I found out that my 1998 summer camp "boyfriend" died half a year ago in a tragic car accident. Just a few weeks before his passing away we had started getting back in touch again, sending messages to each other and updating each other on what had happened in the past years. I was already wondering why he has not replied but figured that he is busy.

Here I was sitting, pittying myself to be in a city, that I don't like, being single again, wondering why I did not follow my dream to become a journalist and blah blah blah. These sad news certainly helped to snap out of it. We all only have this one life, and we will never know how much time we have left. So we better make sure to make the best of it and live it to its fullest.

Thank you dear friend for reminding me of how precious life is. I hope you rest in peace.

Easy steps to find out, whether or not this is a week to stay at home...

2011-03-02T22:16:00.004+01:00

My week started already a little sleepy, as I worked on the weekend. Being completely convinced that my compensation day (one day off in the week before and one day after the work weekend) was on Tuesday, I made plenty of appointments for that day. The most important thing though was to sleep long as I had the feeling I was trapped in a bubble of sleepiness. 7.55am I receive a call from work: "You know that your compensation day is tomorrow, right?"... Good start into the day!

Today after work I had my language course again. I barely made it to my tram, got off at the wrong stop, had to walk to the closest subway station, missed my train by split seconds, realizing, that I only have 5 minutes left until the class starts but still a 20 minute journey ahead of me, I decided to go back home and study there. That is the moment when my next challenge was waiting for me: getting home. I took the tram which I thought was right, after 10 minutes of journey I got the hunch that it was the wrong tram, I got off, started walking around a little just to realize: Damn, it was the right tram! To look at the bright side, I could at least entertain my sister while I was chatting with her on my way home.

Unbelievable! That is when I realized, that it is maybe time to go home before I start hurting somebody or myself.

Two birds with one stone

2011-02-20T22:52:00.002+01:00

As I had written before I am taking a Turkish class since a couple of weeks. It is going quite alright although I get a knot in my brain every once in a while. The whole language structure is completely upside down in comparison to English, Swedish and German. I have a very nice teacher, who has all kinds of advise how to get vocabulary into the brain. Right now our whole apartment is plastered with sticky notes saying "fridge", "light switch", "door", "shoes", "mobile" and so on. The tricky grammar stuff is at the bathroom mirror as I spend a little bit more time over there. Since I put the numbers, grammar structures and conjugations there two positive side effects occurred.

1.: I brush my teeth longer and even use mouth wash again just to spend more time in front of the mirror, trying to memorize everything.

2.: My roomie also learns Turkish now. I bet she can count to 10 by now :-)

Another advise of our teacher is to use index cards for vocabulary on to always carry it around, for example on the bus or subway. I admit, I am a little geeky from time to time, but I decided to do the language course thing right from the beginning. So I am actually one of the geeks on the subway studying with index cards. And it actually works!

If I had had the same ambitions back in the days in school I probably would have understood French. But right now just the sound of that language makes me gag (sorry, I got nothing against French people, I just dislike the language!).

Me like?

2011-02-15T23:53:00.006+01:00

Well since I am unable to survive without music, I also always try to find new songs, old bands, songs that touch me and I am always most happy if I discover someone really really good by coincidence.

Latest discovery is the new band of Liam Gallagher. I am really not sure if I like it, it just sounds too much like Oasis (which I ADORE) but still not quite as good. Liam's voice is simply too recognizable but everything else is just not convincing. Same same as Oasis but still different.

Then my long-time favs Beatsteaks have released their new album. I am sorry, but I am so disappointed. I always loved them but somehow I had higher expectations after years of break. What a shame, was so looking forward to that. Still love Arnim's voice, still love just staring at him, but... it is just not enough... yet. Maybe I get there after a few more times listening to it.

Then I also realized very late that Gogol Bordello had released a new album last year. Since the wonderful balkan-wedding of Svetlana and Andrea I discovered balkan and gipsy music even more for me, like Shantel and well, Gogol Bordello :-)

I am trying to get used to Berlin (I know, I have heard often enough that I should feel damn lucky to be here) so I opened the concert season again and spend all my spare money on concert tickets. Coming up: Friska Viljor, Kaizers Orchestra, System of a Down and I am still considering getting Mando Diao tickets.

They are just too big in Germany and I am not sure if I am still able to stand in a teenage girls crowd. Always so exhausting and impossible to listen to hear the music with all the screaming. Unfortunately all tickets for Robyn in March are sold out. Maybe I can find a spare ticket somewhere... Would be great!

Alrighty then, time for sleep and sweet dreams. xx

Playing games

2011-02-15T00:34:00.012+01:00

Love has an uncounted number of synonyms and is probably the reason for the most wonderful songs on this world.

Right now nobody describes love better for me than Pat Benatar: Love is a battlefield. And when are you most confronted with that topic? Right! On Valentines day. I am one of the poor fellas that has been heartbroken right before lover's day. Speaking of timing, huh?

In war like in love there are no rules, this already implies that sooner or later somebody will be hurt. However I refuse to take the safe road and hold back my feelings for someone simply because of the fear to get hurt because what's the point then? I rather have been madly in love with somebody and be crashed and burned badly than looking back and realize that I have never loved. As much as it hurts me to admit that right now, but it is true. For all the pain that I am feeling right now I am still grateful that even after all those painful experiences of the past years that I am still able to love somebody unconditionally, madly, unreasonably, to the moon and back.

Little background story: Just imagine somebody telling you those magic three words and after half a year basically takes them back again. I am not making this up, things like that happen also in real life, not only in cheesy soap operas. And for a fact I know that I am not the only one trapped in such an awful soap.

When finding yourself in extreme situations sooner or later the only thing that seems to count is power. Who has the last word, who has said what, whose turn is it to apologize, who needs to make the first step and so on. Love is therefore not only a battlefield but also a big playground for childish and unreasonable behaviour. I am not excluding myself from that although I like to believe that I am still kind of reasonable and down to earth. Speaking to my girlfriends I hear the funniest, saddest, weirdest, most disturbing and entertaining stories from their love playground. It is fascinating to see that even the most reasonable friend of mine is capable of doing insane things, say the most hurtful things to a person she supposedly is in love with just because of jealousy, love or whatever you might wanna call those extreme feelings.

The classic "playing games" would be of course: Person A likes Person B (the gender is of no importance here,both men and women can be truly fucked up), as soon as Person A shows more affection than Person B, Person B looses interest. (The same can happen vice versa.) As soon as Person A realizes that Person B is not returning as much affection, Person A is holding back. This creates more interest in Person B, causing Person B to show more affection to Person A. Person A being happy that the whole "holding back" has worked out... and so on. We all know that game either exactly that same way on in slight variations but the general dynamics stay the same.

Another type of playing games would be a concept called the "what-if" person. The general concept behind this that we have a so called what if person, a person of which we always wonder if things could have worked out. This person stays something like a mystery, you never know if things would have worked out in a parallel universe or even in reality. We like to stay in occasional contact with that person just to see what this one special person is up to, check the relationship status on facebook and so on. We might not admit it to ourselves but mostly there are pretty well defines reasons why we are not together with the what-if-person. Let it be distance, just being into the looks of the person or not that much into the character, liking the persons way of thinking but not liking the outside (yeah admit it, sometimes we are just superficial!), whatever the reasons might be, but there is at least ONE reason why it would never work with the what-if person. The simplest explanation: we know exactly that we have idolized that person so much in our minds that we know that hit by reality we can only be disappointed.

I find myself wondering if those games are really inevitable? How do those happy couples around me, that got married recently or will get married soon, manage to reach that point of getting married, admitting to each other that they want to spend of their lives together? I always seem to end up with boys that first are head over heels and after a while back-off and realize that they enjoy being singles and wanna take things slowly (meaning pushing me away). Am I picking the wrong men or are the wrong men picking me? Am I making decisions in the whole mess or am I just following someone else's lead?

I once had this all absorbing, unconditional, harmonic, crazy, honest love and it somehow got fucked up as well after years of wonderful being together. This man wanted to be with me, would have done anything for me, followed me wherever, supported my every decision, even if it meant letting me go far away for a while if it meant making me happy, the kind of love that many write songs about. Where did that love go? Where does love go to when it suddenly just disappears? Interesting side note is that we never actually used the L-word but just knew that we love each other.

Little message from me to all you girls and boys who are fans of big romantic words: Instead of telling someone "I love you" and by this raising expectations, rather SHOW that you love the person with smaller and bigger gestures. In the end this does not put that much pressure on a fresh relationship but in my opinion rather creates a atmosphere of love. The L-word is a very very big deal to me, three words full of hope, expectations and meaning that are used way too casual if you ask me. But hey, that's just my opinion.

One thing we can conclude for sure: When a heart breaks it don't break even, but time will for sure heal all wounds and I KNOW that I will still be able to fall in love! Because I want to!

Sleep tight all my wonderful friends all over the world! xx

The Script - Breakeven (Official Video)

Berlin calling

2011-02-12T11:46:00.004+01:00

Good morning!

If one of you was wondering, why everyone is hyping Berlin, this article might bring some clarification. I am still not the biggest fan of the city and still have a severe allergy against hypes but the writer certainly got a point or two.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/berlin-became-coolest-city-planet-97748

BTW: also give the comment section a glance and discover the clash between tourist opinions and born Berliners (fyi: born Berliners are of course the ones claiming that no one else understands the city like they do and no one who moved to Berlin is allowed to have an opinion about the city)

Trying to be strong

2011-02-10T23:16:00.005+01:00

I am trying out new approaches. Approach number one: trying to be reasonable. Meaning: taking a job that I did not really want, moving to a city that I swore to myself I would never move to, resisting the travel urge in me that wants to join my lovely friend Michaela, who has just landed in Bangkok and will spend the next 3 months traveling around in Southeast Asia, and my handsome friend Pedro, who will go to Bali for a month.

Although there is nothing else I wanna do RIGHT NOW but leaving this city and see the wonderful places on earth, I have to stick to one thing for once. Stockholm has not exactly been easy in 2010. I had found a job which turned out to be awful and boring, frustrating and depressing. So this time I had no high expectation of the job but was positively surprised by the atmosphere and my co-workers. There is a lot going on in this company. Every other week we are meeting after work for some drinks, there are Christmas parties and Christmas bonuses, there are bonuses for good work, there are plenty of opportunities to develop within the company and so on. So maybe it is not the worst thing to be reasonable for a change (though the travel bug is quite intense...)

Maybe I just need to stick to one thing for a change, see if I can last for half a year or even a year before I follow another dream. First traveling for a while and then moving to Istanbul. You cannot imagine how badly I fell in love with this city. I have been there a couple of times now and can say with absolute certainty: I wanna move there for a while. Luckily a friend of mine from Stockholm, who is half Turkish is also considering leaving Stockholm and moving to Istanbul. That would be truly amazing.

Three weeks ago I started taking Turkish lessons, which I enjoy a lot. The language is quite demanding because the whole structure is kind of upside down in comparison to Swedish and German. However I am enjoying it a lot. Last weekend when I went to Istanbul again I had my first mini conversation with a taxi driver, which went quite alright. Since he made a few compliments, which I understood, he was expecting to get double the money than the journey costs... nice try!

The mentality will surely be very difficult in the beginning, but with some determination (which I definitely have) I think this will be an amazing adventure. It is something to look forward to.

This is basically the key how to survive a rough patch or in my case a patch of reason: creating the light at the end of the tunnel. I am back to writing applications for Istanbul and planning my summer. I bought several concert tickets for Friska Viljor, Kaizer's Orchestra and System of a down. I am also planning on going to the Capoeira workshop again in Portugal. The best vacation one can have: training, sun, heat, beach, playing instruments, meeting exciting international people, clubbing... just pure perfection!

First things first, I need to find another apartment again within the next 5 weeks. My landlord apparently got kicked out by wifey (so he says) so he needs his apartment and me and my roomie need to move. In general it is not so difficult t find a place t live in Berlin, but I REALLY don't want to get a place of my own, I rather just move with my 2 suitcases. I cannot be bothered to buy furniture as Berlin is just supposed to be a stop over for me. I still got plenty of moving boxes in Stockholm, which I need to pick up next month so I rather keep everything light while in Berlin.

I keep you posted how that works out! Now out into the sun!

An open book

2011-02-10T22:35:00.004+01:00

Let me introduce myself: My name is Svenja and I am an open book.

Yesterday at work we had our first official team meeting. Until one week ago we were all just one big family with three team leaders. Since we will get 50 more colleagues by the end of July we were divided up into teams.

So, yesterday the first meeting. Our team leader had the idea to hand out three little papers to each one of us on which we were supposed to write three secrets about ourselves. We had one hour time during work to come up with ideas. While my team mates were most worried not to share something too private with the team my problem was rather: I don't have a secret. I say what I think, I say what I feel and although I have just been at that job for a little more than two months most people already know quite a lot about me. Since I was little my mother used to warn me not to share too much personal info with strangers but apparently up to this age I haven't managed to hold back. Apparently this is who I am, this is how I roll. If I was a celebrity I would be all over the tabloids and papparazzi don't even need to follow me, I would probably tell them everything straight away and take the pictures for them.

Maybe I should try to be a little bit more careful, the world is cruel to naive girls who assume that everyone is nice and honest. Personal information is such a valuable thing and it should not be available to everyone who is asking for it (and in my case not even asking for it). It is the constant struggle between knowing one thing and doing the other thing, between heart and brain.

I am not sure if me being so open is a good thing or not, but all the time fighting who I am does not seem like the right track either. Some people might find me overwhelming and too talkative, but I am not aiming at being everybody's darling. First of all because it is impossible to be liked by everyone and second: why would I? I used to have classmates and friends who were changing their opinion depending on who they were talking to. I wonder if you are still able to have a really own opinion after all if you keep on changing your direction like a little flag in the wind?

So my colleagues wrote down things like "I like traveling", "I like vampire movies", "I am married" and "Globetrotter" while I wrote down "Have recently been heartbroken", "I am terribly scared of clowns and spiders" and "I hate making mistakes because I wanna be faster at work". While most of my colleagues wrote quite general things on their papers it was rather difficult to guess who wrote what. On the contrary it was very easy for the others to guess which notes I had written. Again, I am an open book!

Good night dear friends!

To hell and back

2010-12-18T21:58:00.004+01:00

Today, on the last Saturday before Christmas, I had the semi-smart idea to go to the city center. And believe me, I should have prepared myself for a war-like situation. I just wanted to get some Christmas cards and since my family and me decided to have another Christmas without presents, I had forgotten that everyone else is still doing the annual shopping for presents. When I arrived at the mall, the main entrance was closed as there was too much water from melted snow. The whole floor was basically 4cm under water. So I had to walk aaaaaaaall the way around the mall to the other entrance. I was not the only person, moreover I was in a bunch of some 100 people. Arriving in the mall some idiot teenage boys threw their milkshakes down from the first floor onto the people below. This time I got lucky and nothing hit me, but some other people looked quite disgusting after the milkshake attack.

When I finally got back home, which took a while since the tube didn't work anymore and I basically walked one hour home, all I wanted was food, some nice wine and something funny to look at. Luckily my sister supplied me with some fun animals clips. Oh and in the supermarket the usual thing happened again: As soon as little Svenja goes alcohol shopping, people get a huge interest in my ID. I picked a nice wine and went to the cashier and she kept on looking at me, not constantly but every once in a while while she was scanning all the other items. In the end I just asked her "Do you wanna see my ID?" and she just answered "I was not sure, if you would count it as an insult but I am really not sure if you are old enough..." Note for foreigners: buying wine in Germany is allowed from age 16.

I say cheers to that!

Back to business!

2010-12-08T18:54:00.004+01:00

Soooo, finally, I have something to do again. This week I started my new job at an amazing company. So far I am more than happy: a company full of opportunities, like-minded people (most of us are "home-comers" to Germany and spent a lot of time abroad; also many people from abroad), working language is English, yummy lunch at the office, new office building, big fruit baskets, chocolate surprises for Saint Nicolas' day etc. It is pretty much the kind of working place that I have been searching for a long long time. I am still kind of adapting to being back in Germany and being in the one city in which I never wanted to be. However it does not feel bad at all, especially since I am living in a very handy location close to the subway stop (it only takes me 20 minutes from my house to my work place: booyah!), all kinds of bars, restaurants and nice shops. It is also a cozy apartment with high ceilings and timber floor boards. I think what also helps my transition is that I am surrounded by foreign languages pretty much all the time.

This first week is dedicated to training, which means that we need to learn a lot about the booking system, regulations, the company and hierarchies. I am completely pooped every evening and feel like going straight to bed at like 7.30pm. After two months of no routine whatsoever getting back into a daily routine can be a little tough. Don't get me wrong: I am more than happy to have a routine again and so much input! Getting those rusty braincells back into action! Also getting to know so many different and yet so similar people is amazing!

Friday is the first test to evaluate how much we could actually remember. Since I need to apply all those new things soon, I better study a little tonight!

TTYL

Car talk

2010-11-29T20:04:00.001+01:00

We had that chapter before: my car. I believe after 21 years even a Volvo gets tired (although my Swedish friends keep on disagreeing with me on this matter). However, I brought it to the shop a couple of weeks ago just to have some weird sounds checked out. There was squeaking, rattling and a problem with servo steering. Well and of course my windshield wiper went missing on the motorway (ooops). I told the car mechanic to not fix anything but to give me some estimates before taking care of anything. Well, the number came and I would have been very thankful if he would have told me to sit down first: 800 Euros! The breaks are apparently fucked up and get stuck all the time, the windshield wiper motor broken and a hole in the exhauster. Great! I asked him about the squeaking noise and the difficulties with the steering. He didn't check that. And my assumption, that it could have something to do with the v-belt and the hydraulic pump just made him look at me as if I was annoying him. Well I decided to not have anything fixed after all, since 800 Euros would exceed the actual worth of the car.

This weekend I visited a very capable engineering friend who took a look at my car. First thing he found: a 1 meter long rusty piece of pipe, just lying around in the motor compartment. It belonged to my air filter. Second thing he saw: the loose v-belt and the hydraulic pump are in each other's way as soon as I am steering causing that annoying noise and making steering the car as difficult as pushing a tank. Thanks, my car mechanic, for not even having a look into the motor compartment!

Instead of paying 800 Euros we got a new pipe for 24 euros and by this got rid of noises and difficulties. The breaks can indeed be loosened with cobbled stones. And who needs a back windshield wiper?

But cars seem to be a man's world and the only way for girls to be allowed in it is to wash it.

C'est la vie

2010-11-29T19:18:00.004+01:00

It always happens towards the end of the year, that pretty much everyone of us starts reminiscing about the past year. It is also time to evaluate achievements of the year, all the ups and downs, our friendships and so on. It is also often the time when we start getting back in touch with people, at least I tend to do that. Today I heard some really really good news from the other end of the world, but also some sad news from loved ones. It often seems like good news are accompanied by bad ones, just to keep the universe in balance.

2010 hasn't exactly been my year. Most of the things went down the drains in pretty much all parts of my life. After half a year of searching the only job I found was working as marketing assistant, which is not my thing really. The "company" was crushing my spirits within a matter of days, which made me quit something for the first time in my life. And I really tried hard to get along with it. The fact that EVERYONE I worked with has also quit by now says something about the quality of this work place. Then there was trouble in apartment-heaven of Stockholm, which resulted in me being kicked out of the apartment thanks to a stupid little mistake of my landlady. Then there was the third break-in into my car since I am in Stockholm. Before that the back windshield wiper was bend down and the valve of one tire was kicked off. The only thing the thief could get from my empty car was the user manual of Volvo in German. Congrats! Packing up my stuff, leaving Sweden. Packing the car I also ended up with a parking ticket for standing in front of the house two minutes too long. That pretty much closed the deal of me leaving for good. (btw: never paid that ticket!) I simply had no idea anymore what would hold me in Stockholm. Most of my friends wanted to leave soon anyway and besides the fashion industry and the daily styling inspiration on random people there was nothing to keep me from leaving Stockholm for good.

The fact that I really don't miss Stockholm besides the good shops and the few friends left there tells me that it was the right decision to leave.

Since two months I am back home, living in my home village and it just happened last week, that something finally happened. I got offered a job at a fantastic company and I will start next Monday. I am so grateful to finally get something to do again. The bonus is that I will start before the years ends which will give me the chance to start 2011 with a brighter outlook. And I will also start exactly one month before my birthday, which I also take as a good omen.

In the meantime I kept myself busy with language courses, visits of job fairs, going to the gym, visiting friends and relatives and taking care of bureaucratic work. Admittedly I had to get used to doing everything a little slower. It was good to slow down for once. The hectic will come back faster than I wish for.

I had made so many plans for going traveling in South America but sometimes unforeseen factors enter the calculation with the result: change of plans. I was really looking forward to taking half a year for traveling, learning new languages, enjoying the company of many different people but also the luxury of being completely on my own. Change of plans does not mean, and that is for sure, that I will not take that journey someday. Just for now I need to be reasonable, start working for real, get experience, enter a new city and save up some money for the one big trip, which will come for sure! I already had the chance to meet so many fantastic people, that I want to visit: Brasil, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Scotland, China. The travelbug has bitten me a long time ago and I am convinced that this bite is incurable!

Until I indulge my travel passion again I will be happy about my new job and the new beginning!

How to fix a car

2010-11-10T14:36:00.004+01:00

Recently I had to realize that 21 years are a high age for a car. Last year I had a few things fixed to get it through car inspection once more. Exactly one year later I had to see the shop again because the car started to make funny noises. Turns out that the exhauster has a hole, the breaks got kind of stuck so they make a squeaking sound and on top of that my back windshield wiper first got bent down by an idiot (by this the motor of the wiper also got damaged) and afterwards I lost the dangling wiper on the motorway. Ooops! All in all: it would have been expensive. The costs would have exceeded the actual value of the car.

Yesterday I could actually fix the breaks: A street of cobblestone. No squeaking sounds anymore, woop woop.

Maybe I can fix the hole in the exhauster with chewing gum or gaffa tape, who knows :-)