New Post!

It was brought to my attention that apparently I am not writing enough here and should start posting more often again about my life. I know that I haven't been that active in writing lately, which is mostly due to my current life situation.

As you might know I am writing - or rather supposed to write - my thesis at the moment. I am almost done or to put it better: I am supposed to hand it in soon. In the next 2-3 weeks I will have to put in some work and I know that I will work through some nights to get it finished - as always. 

I am good though! I had an awesome and super relaxing weekend with A. here in Hamburg. We have been out most of the time to enjoy the last days of the late summer. Finally we have temperatures over 20°C again and sunshine. 

The last two weekends were super nice. The one weekend M., a friend of A., was here to visit us. A. & M. met in Stockholm, while A. was working there and hadn't seen each other ever since. We were spending the days together and went to Landungsbrücken to see the Queen Mary II leaving the harbor of Hamburg. She was here the last time this year and... wow I have to say, she is quite impressive. Such a big ship!

Anyways, the last weekend was super relaxing, as I mentioned. A. and I were going around the city, enjoying the late summer and visited some of the numerous street- and block-parties here in Hamburg. 

On Sunday we went out of the city down the Elbe to Wedel. We were walking through the fields and meadows and along the dikes. We were stopping at a small cafe for a rest and walked back among the herds of sheep.

It was just a relaxing weekend and I woke up this morning even before the alarm rang. Now I just quickly wrote here, will work on my thesis and then at some point work on the pictures, put the into the post and publish it.

At some point I will pack some few things and go to the city to catch my ride to Aachen. I have to go home, since I have to empty my flat in Bad Honnef and get my few things from there. Then I will come back here on Wednesday evening with my parents who will be visiting for the weekend.

~M~

Last Month

I haven't been writing for over a month. The problem is, that I am not really in the mood to do so and I am also not really in the mood to take pictures. This all is because my life is kinda dull a.t.m., due to my thesis. Anyways, here some pix with few annotations!

Having a picnic at the Alster

 Sitting in the park of Hamburg's University Campus during the Campus Open Air Festival

 

 Having some people over at our place before going for a night-out

Sitting by the water after the night-out on Reeperbahn, or how you call it in Hamburg: Kiez

 Having a cocktail at home after A. left to Finland

 My mum leaving, as chef for a youth-group of 50 people, for a two week trip to Denmark

Chilling on a pier at Mühlenkamp in the sun after A. returned from Finland

 Sitting in front of Balzac Coffee on Mühlenkamp talking about my thesis with A.

 

Getting some more furniture for our flat - little by little we are changing the flat to a home

 Putting something green into our flat... sorry, home

 A nice mansion spotted during a hike through the Alstertal

 Opening a cask of beer

That's it, folks! I hope to find more motivation in the next month to write and to take pictures. However, there is not so much to take pictures off, since the weather is pretty bad and not summery at all. Also I am writing my thesis still and come now into the last month, so I really have to get crackin'... I will make it though!

Anyways, I will see how I feel in the next weeks and if I find the time and energy to write here!

~M~

Starting a Routine!

I am in Hamburg! Actually I am here already for a while. After my last post I still went to visit my grandma in the retirement home and then caught my ride to Hamburg. The drive was ok, not too many hold-ups and rather relaxing. Despite the fact that the driver was listening to very weird music very loud for something like over an hour it was ok and from time to time quite communicative.

When I arrived in Hamburg I took the bus home and A. picked me up from the bus stop close to our flat. We then went out to eat, since neither A. nor me were up for cooking something. We walked the few hundred meters to Winterhude and were eating in an Indian restaurant.

The weekend we spent mostly at home, the weather was simply not nice enough. We went grocery shopping on Saturday though and when we biked to the Stadtpark on Sunday we found the cutest ice cream parlor in Hamburg. The two best things are: it has the best ice cream in town and it's just around the corner from our flat.

We used the two days together to get used to each other again and organized our stuff in the flat a bit. Really living together is a huge difference to occasionally being in each others flat for some time. We were cooking together and were enjoying a nice bottle of wine or a beer with the food.

The new week then started early. A. had to go to work and I had to get to work as well; of course not really work, but I wanted to go to the university library to work on my thesis. I biked there and spent the morning reading and writing. I already made some progress and am quite confident that I will be able to go on in this pace of working. After working for some hours I met up with A. for lunch and went home afterwards.

A. cutting the TV to be able to plug a cable in!

Today I stayed in, I needed to do some more research and had to have internet (which I don't in the library). The morning was quite efficient: I did the dishes, fixed some things in the flat, did a virus check on my PC and was drinking coffee. Despite doing all these things I actually did some research and wrote some 400 words for my thesis.

Now I am waiting for A. to come home. She already called and said she has to do overtime, but I hope this wont take too long. This afternoon we maybe go shopping to Hamburger Meile still, depending on how A. feels upon return.

~M~

Busy, Busy!

I know I haven't been writing for two weeks again. But today is the first day of July and I felt I could start the new month with a post so that you get to know what changes the last month brought! Right now I am still in Aachen at my parent's house, but will leave in something like 2 hours. Before going back to Hamburg I am going to visit my grandma in the retirement home.

As I said, the last weeks have been busy and have brought some changes. Shortly after my last post I packed most of my stuff in Bad Honnef. I just left some few clothes and other things I don't need on a daily basis. The same day I left Bad Honnef I signed up for my thesis. Now I have three months to finish it and by now already two weeks of this time have passed.

With all my stuff I went to Aachen. A. was on her way from Hamburg to come and visit my parents again as well and so we met up that evening in my home town. We spend the weekend packing some of my stuff into boxes and into the car. We also went to my grandparents' flat to get some of their stuff. Since my grandpa died seven weeks ago and my grandma is living in the retirement home for over two years already we were free to take whatever we wanted to have. So we took some few furniture and also other things like vases and china for our new home in Hamburg. We packed it all into my mum's car, which she had lent me for the whole week.

My mum wrapping glasses!

We went back to Hamburg on Sunday and took two more passengers with us. When we arrived it was already late and so we had dinner at Subway before we unloaded all the things. We were too tired to unpack everything, though, and so we put everything just into the flat.

The next week we were unpacking my things and went to get more things. We bought a big closet, a bigger fridge and some other decorative things, like pillows and candles and stuff; you can tell: I'm now living with a girl! And, what's most important: I bought a used bike! This is really essential in Hamburg.

The week went by way too fast and was quite stressful. Besides getting new furniture A. & I also went to some kind of circus performance, for which she had gotten tickets over her company. Later that week we also went to a Midsommar party of Scandic Hotels directly at the Alster.

Not the circus tickets! Just other tickets I bought!

On Sunday I went back to Aachen and took some people with me. We had many traffic jams on the way and so the drive to Aachen took extremely long. We were even going off the motorway and took country roads for some time to avoid the traffic jams.

Anyways, the last week I have been here in Aachen. I went to the university library each day and was reading for and working on my thesis. Yesterday I wrote the first couple of sentences and hope to be able to continue working so successfully on it in Hamburg.

As I said before, I'm going back to Hamburg soon. I have most of my stuff packed again and will head to visit my grandma and then to the meeting point in 30 minutes. I can't wait to be back in Hamburg and will stay there for something like three weeks now. I want to get a routine in living with A. and working on my thesis in Hamburg.

~M~

Prague

I am back from Prague already for two days and now I finally found the time to write here. After coming back on Monday night I was working on Tuesday on my thesis proposal and had a meeting with my supervisor. This morning I was working on it again and will sign up for my thesis tomorrow or on Friday; then it is official and I will have three months to hand the thesis in. So, no fooling around then!

Anyways, I went to Prague on Friday morning or rather in the middle of the night. I had to get up at 4 o'clock, had to leave the house at 4.30 to catch my train at 5 o'clock; the first of three trains that brought me to Frankfurt Airport. At the airport I met A., who came from Hamburg and we took the flight together to Prague.

In Prague we went to the hotel, but since it was so early - something like 10.30 a.m. - we could not check-in yet. We left our luggage and walked around the area. We bought some snacks and went down to the river to have an early lunch. On the way back we found a small cafe in a park, which most probably has the best coffee in Prague!

When we returned to the hotel we could check in and had a nap. After all we both had been getting up quite early and were tired from traveling. After something like two hours we got up, fixed ourselves and took the tram to the city.

We walked around the main squares and went over the Charles Bridge. On the other side of the river we turned away from the main tourist routes and walked the backstreets. We came along a small bridge with many locks on the rails and then to a wall with loads of graffiti. In the wall was a small entrance to a backyard, where we found a small local restaurant in which we had our dinner.

The next day we slept long, enjoyed the breakfast buffet and eventually took the tram to the city or rather the castle. We walked up the old castle stairs and were hit by the masses of tourists. We walked further, enjoyed the view from time to time, took some pictures and finally went into the castle.

The castle was way too full and over crowded by tourists and tour groups. Everything had an entrance fee and the line-ups were just insane. I could not really enjoy the beautiful buildings and the surrounding, it was simply too full. A. felt the same and so we decided to leave the castle.

We went down to the part of the city where all the embassies are and walked to the backside of the German Embassy. Back in 1989, when Germany was still divided in two parts, many Germans from the East went to Prague and climbed over the fence of the Embassy of West Germany; their hope was that they could leave Prague to West Germany and flee the political system in the East. As a reminder of this time a Czech artist has created a sculpture of a golden Trabbi with long legs, which is now located in the backyard of the embassy.

Anyways, the weather soon changed and we went for lunch and a beer in a restaurant close to the dancing building. The goulash-soup was good and I enjoyed sitting down; my legs and feet were hurting already a bit. 

We then walked around the city a bit more, went back to the hotel and used the vouchers for a welcome drink we hadn't used before. In the evening we went again to the city, had some cocktails and then went back to the hotel, when it started raining.

On Sunday morning it was still raining when we got up. So we did not hurry, had a relaxed breakfast and went to the city despite the rain. We walked into a cafe to have another morning coffee - the instant coffee in the hotel was not really good - and started to write postcards.

After the rain had stopped we walked around the city again - what else should you do during a city break ?! - and were trying to stay away from the tourist centers. We found a nice restaurant not far away from the center, which had reasonable prices and had lunch. While waiting for our food A. went on writing her cards.

In the afternoon we went to the hotel, A. had another coffee and we picked up our sparkling wine we had bought the day before. We also changed to summer clothes, since it had gotten quite warm after the rain had stopped. 

We took our sparkling wine and went up a hill opposite the city. We were walking around the park and were taking some pictures of the amazing view over the city. Then we found the spot with the best view over Prague, sat down and were enjoying our sparkling wine. 

In the evening we had our dinner in a traditional brew-house and were enjoying the atmosphere and the good music played by a concertina player. After the dinner we again walked around, sat on one of the islands and were having a beer.

The Monday morning we had our breakfast and packed our stuff. We checked out and left our luggage in the hotel. We visited the "yellow market", a market with loads of stands of Asian immigrants mostly selling counterfeit clothes and other things, mostly worthless rubbish. Anyways, I found a nice scarf and bought it.

 

We then were going back to the city and visited the Jewish quarter shortly, but again there were too many people and it was simply too full to enjoy it. We had lunch and slowly moved back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and headed to the airport.

All in all we had a great time in Prague and I am so thankful that A. and I got this trip from my parents for Christmas! I really like Prague and am happy that I was there again! We were walking a lot, we were eating a lot and we were drinking a little. Despite the short rainy period Saturday evening and Sunday morning we had awesome weather.

In the end we flew back to Frankfurt, A. went further to Hamburg and I took the train back to Bad Honnef. Now I am here, preparing the last things to write my thesis and will start writing it next week. I already have done some formal work and prepared the Word-document according to the requirements. Now I just have to sign up, write and hand it in... if it would only be "just" that ;-)

~M~