I am back from San Jose and still have to do my update on last week. For now, let me show you something work related: eBay published a very neat tool, which lets you include auctions (e.g. your auctions) on myspace and other websites. Just visit eBay To Go So far it's only available for the US site, but I am sure other countries will follow.
After about 6 hours of sleep I woke up at 6 o'clock this morning (which could be expected). But no problem, since I had a lot of plans for the day. After a short breakfast - scrumbled eggs and bacon - I got on the road heading straight to the Gilroy Outlet Center: 145 outlet stores with great bargains and in combination with the strong Euro, it's shopping heaven!
As you might remember from my blog, the last time I was in Gilroy, I only had 2 hours. Look for yourself what happened, after 5 hours of shopping:
I don't recall to ever having bought this many clothes within one day... not even a year! I just hope that I can fit everything in my suitcase! But at least I am happy now! As you might know, shopping can be quite exhausting. Lucky me, there also is the best burger chain in the world: In-and-Out
There were so many people that I actually had to wait in line for 15 minutes, but it was definitely worth it!
Later in the evening I went to the movies and watched Shrek III. It was o.k., but I wouldn't recommend the movie. They are just repeating all the jokes from part one and two... O.k., going to sleep now... Good night!
Hi there, I'm back! I've been quite busy with my new job and too lazy to write my blog, but now I have a reason to do another post: After a 22 hour trip I finally arrived at my hotel in San Francisco. Right now I am enjoying an instant noodle soup (chicken) in front of the TV. Interesting to watch, what kind of shows they have in other countries. "Cheaters" is a show, where detectives spy on cheating husbands and then show the footage to the wife and in the end confront the cheating husband. It's kind of like watching a train crash and not being able to switch the channel. But this makes me appreciate the privacy laws we have in Germany.
I learned this week, that you can officially wish a "Happy New Year" until the 15th of January. That's good, because it took me two weeks to get around to write this post
As a regular reader, you probably already know, because you've been there: I had a great new years party at my place this year! Many of my friends from Paris and even some from Munich came to visit.
I had been cooking for three days and we had way too much to eat. But it's still amazing what amounts of food and alcohol can be consumed just by 13 people. At midnight we went on the roof of my appartment and had a wonderful few of the skyline of Berlin and all the fireworks that started at midnight. It was really amazing!
As you can see, it was quite windy up there. Also I didn't expect all the fireworks that were launched from the street to explode right at roof level. So you could say we really were in the middle of the fireworks.
As it got quite chilly up there, we went back inside and did some dancing to loud music. My neighbors must have either gone out on a party themselves, or are very torlerant. It's for sure that they haven't been sleeping!
I think we left around 4.30 in the morning to go to another Bar: The Gainsbourg But we only had a couple rounds of Tequila before we went home. Overall I would say, it was definetly one of my better New Years Evenings. I really had a lot of funa and I think all the others did as well.
The next morning (3 pm) we had a Weisswurst breakfast, of course. In case you are not familiar with the term: That's cooked white sausage with honey mustard, brezels and beer...
I spent the Christmas Holidays at my parents house in Munich this year, well as almost every year, I suppose. But this year was special, since it was the last Christmas in the house I grew up in. My parents just sold it a couple weeks ago and in March it will be torn down. They have about two months to get the house cleaned out, so when I arrived friday night, there was already a big pile of old and long forgotten toys waiting for me in the living room, waiting to be moved to Berlin. You could say, I got a whole lot of presents for Christmas this year... and I am going to sell them all on eBay!
Now I'm back in Berlin... working. Well I don't know if "working" is the right term. There's nobody there! I don't get any Emails and people I write are on holidays. So I do other usefull things, like cleaning my desk. Or...Click here to see me dance...
I really need to catch up with my writing... I am about 3 weeks behind! After my great holidays in Asia, I stayed 4 days in Berlin, which gave me just enough time to wash my clothes. On friday I was already on the way to the airport again.
I was so lucky to get invited to a summit in San Jose for work and took the opportunity to visit my host family were I had stayed for a year in High School. It had been 12 years since I had seen them for the last time and I was really excited about the trip. I flew from Berlin over London and Denver to Rapid City, SD, where I took a rental car and drove two hours to Hulett, Wy. The flight from Berlin already had one hour delay and since this left me only half an hour to get to my connecting flight, I could be fairly sure, that my luggage wouldn't make it. In Denver I got the confirmation, but at least British Airways knew where it was. So I continued to Rapid City with United, not knowing that by doing this, the responsibility for my baggage claim would also be handed over to United. As a result, British Airways didn't feel like they would still need to talk to me and United didn't know where my baggage was. Long story short: For 4 days the clothes on my body where everything I had and I was really relieved when they finally delivered my suitcase, just in time before I left for San Jose. And did you know, that for lost baggage you only get 20 Euros per kilo? That's ridiculous!
But all the problems didn't really bother me a lot, since I had a wonderful time back in Hulett. Although it had been 12 years since my last visit, the town didn't really change that much. It's just that most of the people and teachers I knew had moved away. Hulett is about 9 miles away from the Devils Tower. If you've seen Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, you probably already know it.
It was great to meet at least some of my old classmates, a few still live in the area. For the first time in my life, I could even go inside a sallon, which was a funny experience. It really is like in the movies
Also I made the acquaintance with some of the other locals...
... just kidding. Seriously, I had a wonderful time with Jannice and Dan and it almost seemed as if I had never been away. Unfortunately I could only stay for four days, before I had to continue my trip to San Jose.
This time I had a layover in Salt Lake City and again I managed to get my adrenalin pumping. Just before I wanted to board the connecting flight, I realized that my ticket an passport were missing! I remembered that I had put them in my computer bag when I got on the first flight, so I ran back to the arrival desk and asked them if they had found something. They called the plane and lucky me, they found the passport. Five minutes later and the plane would have been gone!
In San Jose I stayed at the Marriot in the city center. There even was a christmas market with fake snow, but I kind of had problems to get in the right christmas feeling when they sell hot dogs, burgers and nachos instead of gingerbread and mulled wine (Glühwein).
One of the highlights was my visit to the Google-Plex, where I had a great dinner with Cynthia in the Google Caffeteria. I know it's just an office building like there are many others in the world. Still, when you spent so much time working with a company and their services, it's just great to see the people behind it and where they work. So I probably acted like an excited little kid when Cyn gave me a tour across the complex (THANKS AGAIN). Of course I had to take some pictures!
What else did I learn? It's only the Tekkies who not only have lunch, but also stay for dinner at the Google cafeteria. And in the restrooms you can think about changing programming riddles while peeing.
Another great place close to San Jose are the Gilroy Premium Outlets. There are so many stores and prices are much, much cheaper!!! I really got on a shopping spree, so I even had to buy a new suitcase. I'll have to go back soon! I also had the best Cheesburger EVER at the In-n-Out Burger. It's just delicious!
My flight back to Germany left from San Francisco in the evening. This left me enough time to visit my "Aunt Helga". She lives in a wonderful appartment in Sausalito and was so nice to show me some of the highlights of the area.
As you can see it was pretty cold and windy, nevertheless I had a lot of fun.
My flight back was quite o.k. and I arrived at 8 o'clock Sunday morning in Berlin. Good to be home...
But not for long: On Friday I went to Paris. Like I said, I try to go there every 2 months to see my friends and practice my french. I stayed with my friend Antoine, who took me to a "Soirée Champagne" on Friday. Actually quite nice, I should do something like that in Berlin one day. We came home somewhere around 4 o'clock in the morning and let me tell you: This doesn't really help getting over a jet-lag! Saturday I did my Christmas Shopping, but I am sure, I forgot to buy a present for a lot of people this year!
O.k., I got to catch a plane now... I'm going to visit my parents in Munich and I hope to spend a CALM weekend. I really need some rest!!!
We spent two nights in Siem Reap before we left Cambodia and went to Bangkok. We staid at the JW Marriot, again an extremely nice hotel. When you get to the hotel with a taxi, you cannot drive up to the entrance before the guards have looked under the car and in the trunk to make sure there aren't any explosivs. Kind of scary, considering that if somebody had a bomb he certainly wouldn't be stopped by just two guards...
As we've been to Bangkok before, we didn't do any sight-seeing. And what do you do, if there's nothing to do? You just try to act cool....
(By the way, I haven't had a cigarette since...)
Frank's brother joined us from Bejing and also a friend who's living in Bangkok. The great thing about going out at night with locals is that they know where to go. We started at the Bed Supper Club, very hip, very stylish, but also very crowded.
From the outside it almost looks like a big barrel and you can see the shadows of people dancing inside.
We only staid for two drinks and than went to another club about 500m further. The Q Bar is a great club and bar to spend the night. Also neatly designed and mostly populated by tourists.
It's kind of funny though that in Bangkok almost all bars close between 1 and 2 a.m. This was introduced by the former president in order to prevent party life take control of Thailand. But I heard that since the last "revolution" more and more clubs stay open all night as paying the local police a "fee" is getting more common again.
After two nights of partying in Bangkok we packed our suitcases to travel to the last destination of our trip: The beautyful beaches of Pukhet. We staid at Patong and I have to say, we were a little shocked when we went down-town for the first time at night. It's kind of a mix between Oktoberfest and an open air Go-Go-Bar. It's just too crazy for me, especially because 99,9% of the tourists there don't seem like the kind of people I would like to hang around with. But there are a couple night clubs, which are quite o.k. and you can have a very good time.
But of course there are very nice beaches as well, where you can easily spend a week relaxing in the sun. It's really like you see it on the post cards. If you want to spend a more quiet holiday in Pukhet, I would recommend one of the bungalow-complexes at the beach a little outside of Patong.
Well, that's about it. After a week of sun bathing and going out at night, we flew back to Kuala Lumpur and the next day I went back home to Berlin. I had four days, before I left the town again in order to go to the US, but that's a story I'll tell another time....
And guess what... in Thailand the have Christmas, too....
So where did I stop... oh, yes, my crippled foot... I didn't really have the time to think about it a lot, since we left KL to fly to Cambodia the next day. With the budget airlines, flying isn't that expensive anymore. We took an Air Asia flight to Siem Reap. At the airport Frank drove me around on a baggage cart, but refused to continue after people started giving us looks. Evidently he cared more about what people thought, than for my pain. It probably was destiny's revenge that he lost is mobile on the way from the airport to the hotel
Siem Reap is kind of a strange place: The country is very poor, but Siem Reap seems like an oasis built for tourists. Everything is paid in Dollars and you don't have to do without your western food and luxuries. You want Pizza, Wiener Schnitzel or the Beaujolais Nouvau? No problem, if you have the right currency. On the other hand you see people selling used shoes at the local street market.
We chose to book a decent hotel and were a little surprised when the manager told us, that the hotel was fully booked. (On a seperate note: Out of four hotel bookings I did online so far, only a single one worked without a problem.) After many appologies he told us, that we would have to change the hotel, but that there would be no extra charge. The cab brought us to the very nice 5-star Sokha Hotel, so we didn't really have a reason to complain. If you take a look at ther websit you'll probably understand why we were quite content with how things turned out.
The next morning the taxi driver picked us up, to drive us to Angkor Wat
Actually it's the largest temple complex in the world. There are different temples from different time periods which mix elements of budhist and hindu religion. The most famous complex is Angkor Wat which is also represented on the national flag. Some temples are in the dshungle and trees are growing on the ruins.
The taxi driver dropped us off at each temple, then we could wander around as long as we wanted and he would pick us up on the other side. A pretty easy job, considering that he earned with us, what other Cambodians probably wouldn't earn during a month of hard labour. But we did our best to strengthen the local tourist industry and didn't really mind spending a little more... Although the Angkor Wat was very exciting, after 5 hours of "watching stones" in the heat, we decided to go back to the hotel.
I have so much to tell, I don't even know if I have enough time to fit everything in one post. So lets start with my holidays in Asia.
My good old friend Frank is living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, right now. So I decided to pay him a visit and then do a two week trip through Asia with him. The flight to Kuala Lumpur was quite long and let me give you an advice: At the check-in, ask for a seat that's not next to the kitchen and not next to the toilet. My seat was just next to both of them and I had a great time people bumping into me for 14 hours. But I survived and Frank even picked me up from the airport.
He has a very nice appartment at Mount Kiara, but we didn't spend much time there and went directly to the next Golf Shop to buy me a new set of Mizuno clubs. They are so much cheaper in Malaysia! (Don't forget to pay customs, though ) So the next three days we went golfing. I love my new clubs! I probably don't play much better than before, but it feels better...
Tuesday night we went to play soccer. In KL you can rent an indoor soccer field and they provide you with a team to play against. So we played against a team from - I blieve - Pakistan. They were very good technicaly, but not very effective... No wonder... I was the goal-keeper. I probably should have stayed between the two goal posts, because the only time I left my post to go after the ball, I was fouled and twisted my ankle really bad.
So for the rest of the holidays, I couldn't really walk anymore and I still suffer from the injury. (yes... poor me)
Unfortunately I don't have time to write more right now, since I have to leave for Paris. But I will continue my report. Promissed!
busy
) So the next three days we went golfing. I love my new clubs! I probably don't play much better than before, but it feels better...