Marco traveling Europe

Table Mountain

2007-04-09T01:03:00.000+02:00

Today I climbed up Table Mountain. It was a great experience. Feeling exhausted now, but pretty happy about it.

You can find some pictures here.

I am also working on a little map to show what I have been up to. Have a look here.

Quick Hello from Cape Town

2007-04-07T19:23:00.000+02:00

I arrived in Cape Town yesterday for almost two weeks of vacation. I am visiting my friend Jacques and he is so kind to show me around some of his home country.

You can find some pictures here.

St. Patricks

2007-03-19T22:44:00.000+01:00

Last Saturday was the biggest day of the year for the Irish. It was St. Patricks day. And after having missed most of it last year, while being on the train to Galway, I just got right in the middle of it all this year.

Together with my friend Claudia, who was visiting from Coleraine and a few other friends, we went to the parade, a few pubs and clubs, as well as the fun fair.

Great times!

One of the highlights of the weekend happened at the parade though. Out of all groups, it had to be the University of Tennessee marching band, blarring Rocky Top through the streets of Dublin:

The oldest pub +/- 300 years

2007-03-16T02:03:00.000+01:00

After the trip to Austria, I turned right back around to go to Athlone with a friend here in Ireland. Athlone is right in the middle of the country. Really not much there. (hope Jason isn't reading this). It was good though. Nice cozy town. Was great to hang out with Jason and meet his family and his friends.

We actually went to the oldest pub in Ireland, Sean's Bar. Though they are not sure how old. Outside it says "Founded in 600 AD". The Guinness Book of Record marker inside says 900 AD. Who knows. Maybe I was too drunk already to differentiate between the numbers ;)

We then went out to (what seems to be) the only night club in town, Karma. It was pretty nice. It is amazing how much the Irish spend on and invest in night life entertainment. And alcohol.

Which brings me to the next topic. St. Patrick's day is coming up. This year, will spend it in Dublin, after going to Galway last year. Claudia, a friend from High School is coming to visit and we will see if we get up in time for the parade....

traveling again

2007-02-09T20:29:00.000+01:00

Alright, so after going mum for a few weeks (or months), here a quick up-date:

I am currently in the middle of a nice series of weekend trips. Two weeks ago, it started by a trip to the Italien mountains and Milan. Then I went to Berlin with a few friends. Tomorrow then I will fly to Austria to spend a few days with the family in the mountains. This will then be followed by a trip to the heart of Ireland :)

Here just a bit about Italy, were I was able to go to the top of Mt. Blanc and almost freeze to death. It was almost minus 20 degrees celcius. I was not aware of the fact, that I could take pictures with my gloves on, while shaking:

Then I headed on to Milan, where I had a great time and got to see among other things The Last Supper and the Duomo. Very impressive. Here a selection of pictures:

Biology research at the University of South Carolina

2006-12-18T19:41:00.000+01:00


What happens when you have a webcam with a motion detector, bread, boredom, and way too much free time? This. Pretty sweet Jay!

Good guys win!

2006-11-27T00:58:00.000+01:00

Last day wrap up

2006-11-04T03:44:00.000+01:00

I am sitting here in Miami on my last vacation day. A lot happened during the last couple days:

I left Columbia after the game to head to Alabama. I spent a night in Georgia and then arrived in Birmingham around three in the afternoon. There I met with Katie who moved there a couple of months ago. We visited Hoover Metropolitan Stadium, where the SEC baseball tournament is held every year. Then we had dinner at a Japanese Steakhouse (I wish these were more common in Europe). We then went to watch the Carolina Panthers play together with her husband Justin.

The following morning I drove to Auburn to meet with Chris. I spent a good bit of the day walking around campus, as he had to work. I got to see Plainsman Park, a beautiful stadium. The campus as a whole is very pretty. It was also the first time I experienced real warm weather on my trip.

The following day I drove down towards Florida. It was a pretty long ride to Orlando, made more difficult by the fact that I couldn't find a decent radio station. The two hot topics right now, are shallow campaigns for the congressional elections next year and living advice by local church groups. Luckily somebody burned me some music to a CD before leaving.

Now, Orlando is just a whole story to itself. A huge area made for people to spend their money. Be that amusement parks, shopping, or gambling. Of course I had to do some shopping myself, as there were a few good stores around and the dollar is not doing to well right now compared to the euro.

Then, on Wednesday I drove down to Miami to meet with Alexia. The weather here has not been great, so I became a bit lazy and just relaxed for the last two days. Went out in Ft. Lauderdale yesterday and we are about to head to Miami Beach. Had some Cuban food, and strolled a bit around Coral Gables.

I already cleaned out my car (good old Chevy Malibu) and packed my bags (hoping I don't have to pay extra tomorrow).

My flight doesn't leave until six, so I will have plenty of time to sleep and hopefully I get to sleep some on the plane as well, so the jet lag won't be as bad.

Columbia II

2006-10-30T04:08:00.000+01:00

I spent some more time in Columbia on Thursday, meeting with a few more people. Then on Friday I drove to Spartanburg to catch up with the Huesman's. I had also finally found a ticket to get into the stadium for the big game on Saturday.

On Saturday morning I drove to Boiling Springs and met up with Stuart. We drove back to Columbia together. There we hung out in the Fairgrounds meeting with some other friends. Here is a picture of us with Kathy.

We also met a few people that we didn't expect to. There are 80,000 people wandering around the stadium and you randomly meet people that you used to work with or used to go to class with.

The game itself was fun as well. Though the Gamecocks made a lot of mistakes, the game was still competitive for the most part. 2001 was as great as ever and the energy level in the stadium seemed even higher than back in the days when I went to school there.

After the game I hung around for just a bit before driving down south to Georgia. In all I had a good time in Columbia, was able to reflect a good bit on the past, and meet a good number of old friends and colleagues. Unfortunately there was not enough time to meet everybody, so I will have to come back sometime soon.

I spent the night near Augusta and drove on to Birmingham today. Here I spent some time with Katie, who I used to work with and became friends with in my last year in college. She showed me around Birmingham a bit, where she works and I also got to see the Hoover Met, home of the SEC baseball tournament.

More pics here.

First day in Columbia

2006-10-26T00:30:00.000+02:00

I arrived well in Columbia, after a long trip on the road and a quick stop in Charlotte, NC.

Today I used the time to stroll a bit around campus and stick my head into some former professor's and employer's office. It was good to see some old faces and to catch up. I expect a good bit more of this to come during the next few days.

Things here are definitely interesting. I have not been back here in two years, after having lived here for almost four years. Some things are just like they used to be, but a lot more things have changed. A lot of new buildings, new cafeterias, even new trees.

It feels good to be back, but at the same time, it is definitely a different feel. Can't wait to see some more tomorrow and then get ready for the big game on Saturday (still no ticket :( ).

Washington DC

2006-10-24T03:34:00.000+02:00

I am sitting here in my friend's Heather's apartment. I spent the last two days with her here in DC, doing some sight seeing and catching up. Tomorrow I will head down to Charlotte, NC.

Some things that came back to me:

- lots of quarters, instead of 1 or 2 Euro coins
- some of these with states on them, I still miss a few of these (North Dakota seems to be the latest release)
- VAT is not included on the price tag, it gets added by the cashier
- they drive on the right over here
- Everywhere I go (Germany, Spain, the US), I can't seem to get away from Irish pubs anymore. They are everywhere!
- I got KRISPY KREME :)

We also saw American University and walked around the inner city a bit. We didn't go inside any of the sights or museums (did a lot of that two years ago) Here just a few political landmarks:

Squeezing in Toledo

2006-10-24T03:25:00.000+02:00

Alright, so after catching up with picture sorting, it's time to make a quick report on my last trip. (that one before coming over here.)

So in September, my dad, my brother, and I met up in Madrid to spend a couple days there and see the city. It was pretty cool as we met at the airport all coming from different cities.

We saw some neat sights in Madrid, however, most of these I had already seen. One of the exceptions was the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, the home of Real Madrid. I will put some pictures up, as soon as I get the CD sent to me :)

On Saturday we also drove out to see Toledo, a small, old city, on top of a rock outside of Madrid. It was actually the warmest day of our stay and we got burned a bit. However, it was very cool and felt very historic.

Here a quick glance:

More pictures of Toledo here!

rain in the windy city

2006-10-22T01:35:00.000+02:00

After tying things up in Dublin, I flew out to Madrid last night. There I met up with friends and went out to party a bit before flying out to Chicago this morning. It was a pretty long flight, however due to my lack of sleep last night, I had no problem sleeping on the plane.

Now I am sitting at the Chicago Airport waiting for my plane to Washington DC. It's raining pretty badly, almost reminds me of Dublin :)

The Gamecocks beat Vandy already today and I am looking forward to a big game against Tennessee next weekend. I don't know however, how I am going to get a ticket for that one. Will see......

skipping ahead

2006-10-18T21:43:00.000+02:00

Alright, so one person called me out for it! Sorry for skipping my trip to Madrid or my suprise visit from an old friend from the us.

However, I want to go right ahead and tell you about my schedule for my up-coming trip to the US. Very packed, let me tell you. So here is the agenda.

Anousheh Ansari Space Blog

2006-09-26T02:32:00.000+02:00

I know I have been quiet for ages. But before I tell you about my trip to Madrid last week, have a read of this blog about a trip much farther...

Finally something to blog about

2006-08-06T23:23:00.000+02:00

The last week has been very busy and full of fun.

Last weekend, me and my flatmate Henrique took a plane over to Bristol. We did some sightseeing in Bath and Cardiff and then enjoyed the Madonna concert in Cardiff on Sunday. Then on Wednesday my parents came to visit me until today.

We left for Bristol very early last Saturday and got there around 8 am. We then took the train to Bath, a very pretty small city to the south east. There we visited the roman baths. It was amazing. It's hard to believe that parts of these ruins are almost 2000 years old. An ancient version of the modern swimming pool, fed by a hot spring.

Simply for the baths, this is well worth your time to visit. If you want more, you can also see the Abbey and some interesting architectural structures as well. More pictures here.

Then we headed back to Bristol for the night. The next morning we went to Cardiff to queue in line for the tickets.
We then went to the apartment we were sharing with two other people visiting from Dublin. Just to relax a bit and prepare for the concert.

We headed over to the Millenium Stadium about three pm. It is a very nice and modern stadium. Very impressive though it only holds some 60,000 people or so.

The concert itself was very good. Paul van Dyk opened for about an hour and then it was Madonna for about 2 hours straight. Check out some videos here.

On Monday we went to do some more sight seeing before heading back to Bristol. The main sight in Cardiff is the Cardiff Castle. More pictures here

All in all it was a very nice weekend. Lots of fun and still a good bit of relaxing.

From DC to Miami on the Segway

2006-07-03T22:44:00.000+02:00

Alright, so I won't actually do that, though it would be fun. This past weekend I took my first ever ride on a Segway. It was tons of fun!

I also finally planned my trip to the states. I am very excited to go back and meet up with old friends. I will get into DC on October 21st and slowly get down to Miami until November 4th with a bunch of stops in between.

The Hoff

2006-06-21T23:54:00.000+02:00

Now, I almost forgot to tell you about the exciting part of the Berlin trip. Well, I am not a David Hasslehoff fan and I am still not sure why people think all Germans like him. However, it was exciting when he just showed up at the conference and sang a bit....

enjoy:

QDQ.COM - Callejero fotográfico

2006-06-21T23:51:00.000+02:00

Never been to Spain? Still you want to take a virtual tour?No problem. This site lets you do it. You can enter an address or just browse the map. You will find thousands of pictures that are geo tagged. I just checked Madrid and there are tons of pictures there. A lot of streets and buildings very very nice!I read somewhere of the idea, that in the not so distant future you can take pictures with your cell phone. It then attaches the geographic location to it automatically. You can then upload the picture to a public website, where it gets combined with millions of pictures of other users. This way you can very easily and very quickly picture the entire world :) How sweet will that be?

Trip to Berlin

2006-06-21T23:20:00.000+02:00

Shortly after the duck race and a new haircut, we went to a conference in Berlin, which was loads of fun with a lot of cool people.

Before it kicked off though, I got a chance to meet with my parents who drove up for the day. We hang out a bit and got to discover the new central train station of Berlin. It had been opened just the week prior.

The construction of the Lehrter Bahnhof was accompanied by a lot of media attention. It was a huge project, especially if you think about the fact that very few train stations get build today. There is an extensive Wikipedia article on it English and a few links to other language articles as well.

What I found interesting, aside from it being so massive, is that there was such a huge amount of retail space. There where stores of most major chains, drugstores, grocery stores, a food court, mobile stores, and so forth. You could get the impression that the train platforms where only there to allow for long opening hours. In Germany closing laws are very strict and stores have to close at 8pm. Except at train stations and airports....

Of course all of Germany was preparing for the world cup. Here is a picture of the famous Berlin TV tower. The little pink spots you can see on the ball are usually not there. They put them especially there for the cup to make it look like a giant soccer ball. Must be the biggest soccer ball imitation ever created. Don't ask why it is pink. Maybe T-Mobile was the sponsor?

Racing duckies

2006-06-21T23:03:00.000+02:00

A couple of weeks ago, a huge and exciting race started here in Dublin. Well, there is some sarcasm in my voice, if you could hear me.

It is called the World Record Duck Race. Sure, it is for charity and a good cause. Hopefully it helps to bring awareness to the children's life line. (actually I just read they raised over 100.000 Euros, not bad for 150,000 ducks) And sure, it looked pretty. I also got some nice pictures here.

However isn't it just really a huge waste and a "acceptable" form of polluting the envirenoment?

Aside from that, the Liffey is a tidal river and they released the ducks about a mile up stream. So by the time the first duck would have gotten out to the ocean, it would have probably swum up and down the river three or four times. Some of them are probably still trapped in the river. So the winner may not actually be the duck that gets the furthest, but actually the duck that stays within Ireland the longest.....

PS yes Lindsey, I got you one of them ;)

Interesting (fun) weekend

2006-06-01T01:26:00.000+02:00

On friday we went out to celebrate my flatmate's birthday. First we went to a Nepalese restaurant and had some delicious food. It was a new experience and I had no clue what I was going to get when I ordered "something chicken" with a strange name. It turned out to be green. After overcoming my hesitation, it turned out to be very tasty. By now, I also expect to pay somewhere between 20-25 Euros for a dine out meal in Dublin, so the tag wasn't a shocker either anymore. (I know, this must sound crazy).

Then we went to the Westin Hotel, where they play latin music on Friday night and a lot of people go there to mainly salsa. We had a great time, even though we must have looked horrible. The athmosphere was very nice and everybody seemed to have a brilliant time. There, through a colleague we met a DJ who was going to play at the Gaiety Theatre later that night and got us in there for free.

I saw a play in the theatre earlier this year and believe I wrote a bit about it. The building is very nice. Old and big. Nice architecture. I also knew that there was a night club associated with it. But I had no idea how it worked out.

Basically, on Friday and Saturday nights, starting at midnight, the theatre itself becomes the night club. In all the waiting areas and side bars they put up different dance floors, bands, and of course bars. People swarm around the entire theatre and dance to different kinds of music or just listen to a band. The night we were there, they had one band, an oldies dance floor, a salsa floor, and a more modern mixed floor. Also, when you want to take a break, you can go into the main theatre and watch a movie, which is projected on a screen on stage. The upper ranks are closed, but usually there is plenty of space on the main floor.

I really liked the idea and was very impressed by the implementation. They had quite a few security guards of course, but in general, everything seemed to go down in order.

Now it would be interesting to see if this would work out in Germany as well. There are always complaints that culture budgets are too low and theatres need more money. Well, by doing something like this, a theatre could bring in quite a bit of money. It could even raise interest in theatre and culture in general. How about, instead of showing a movie, let independant theatre groups or school groups perform smaller pieces on stage where people could go in and out as they please?

All in all, a very fun night with lots of new impressions.

Hotel Bookings for Europe in Google Earth

2006-05-24T01:37:00.000+02:00

This looks to be very useful. Just in case you plan on doing any traveling in Europe soon.

The Wedding

2006-05-23T22:17:00.000+02:00

Last weekend I traveled back home once more. This time to attend my cousins wedding. It was a pretty brutal trip, as it felt like I spent more time on buses, airports, planes, and trains than actually enjoying the company of friends and family. Nevertheless, I was still able to do just that and had a great time.

It had been quite a while since my last wedding, and this one was a bit different from what I was used to. I suppose it was rather traditional. I got there just before noon, just in time for everything to start.

The couple, together with their parents, grand parents, and best man and maid of honor had already taken off for the formal wedding procedures (not sure about the rest of the world, but in Germany you have to be wedded by a government official and the church ceremony is optional). The wedding party was being transported to the church by three horse carriages. This was rather entertaining. Especially seeing the poor fellow who had to follow us in his car. He was dressed up in tux and good shoes, but every time one of the six horses dropped something, he had to stop and shovel it up into the trunk. Very entertaining.

The reception itself was fun. I was able to catch up with some family members and also see a good friend. My little cousin actually convinced about twelve people to play "Werwolf", a fun role playing game. The food was delicious and there were some fun games involving the bride and groom.

I left a bit early, because a friend from Berlin was picking me up to get to his place. We then had some good talks to catch up with each other and eventually.

And then the next morning it was off to the airport again and heading back home to Dublin....which, that is what it has become over the last couple of months.

Accumulating Frequent Flyer Miles

2006-05-09T21:43:00.000+02:00

OK, so I am running a list of things I still have to blog about..... It begins to resemble my e-mail backlog. (nevermind the fact that I have given up responding to physical mail about 2 1/2 years ago....)

So here is just a quick up-date on whats been happening:

1. I feel like I am just living between flights right now. One trip is chasing another, as I am flying back to Germany again this weekend to attend my cousin's wedding. I am very excited about it, even though my last trip was only two weeks ago to celebrate my dad's big birthday. At the same time, I am also planning a couple cool and exciting trips for the next couple of months. More on that to come later....

2. The other day we had a informal dinner with a couple friends at our appartment. Very good company and lots of good conversation. One of the things we did, was watching our favourite short videos. At some point we just had to try playing this game. We likely never will be as good as that guy, however we still had fun and hit the glas every once in a while.

3. The weather here is becoming much nicer. It still rains every once in a while, but there are plenty of nice and warm days. Almost ready to go to the beach ;)

4. I am getting settled more and more here. Just bought some more furniture for my room and I will get some more later on this week. So it looks like I will be staying here for a bit longer.

OK, that will have to do for now. Hope all of you are well. If you care to, I would be happy if you add a bit to my e-mail backlog and let me know what you have been up to :)

My FotkiMap - See where I took pictures

2006-04-22T23:33:00.000+02:00

Here you can find a map with links of all the places where I have taken pictures and then placed them in albums on Fotki. Very, very neat feature. Enjoy!

Feeling guilty

2006-04-22T23:21:00.000+02:00

Alright, so I still haven't told you about my trip to Belfast or my recent trip down to Enniscorthy and Wexford. I promise, I will. Hopefully much sooner than later.

Right now I am in Germany getting ready to celebrate my fathers big birthday tomorrow. Lots of people expected and sure going to be lots of fun.

The other day I found out a real weird factoid about Ireland. Appearantly it takes ages to get a drivers license in Ireland. The system is set up similar to the one in the states. First you take a written test and get a temporary license. With that you can drive as long as somebody with a real license accompanies you. When you feel comfortable enough, you go in and take the real driving test and then get your license. Now here comes the strange part: appearantly waiting periods just to take the written test range between 6-9 months and then it can take up to a year to take the real test. So it could take you about two years to get your license. Doesn't this feel increadibly painful? I was also told that for some odd loop hole in the system, once you fail your practical test three times, you still have your temporary license but are not required to have somebody with you when driving. Sounds scary?

Desmond part 2

2006-04-19T19:39:00.000+02:00

While I am still trying to catch up on the latest events, I get an e-mail from my friend Hillary, who just happens to know Des as well. He must be some sort of institution down there in Galway. That he must be. Down there by the seashore ;)

Belfast security barriers come down

2006-04-12T01:52:00.000+02:00

I just stumbled accross this article and thought I share. As soon as I have some time (hopefully soon) I will tell you more about my trip to Belfast last Sunday.

Quick update

2006-04-08T18:52:00.000+02:00

Alright, so I am still being a slacker and don't up-date quite often enough. So I thought I give you a couple more bits and pieces:

As usual I have been busy. I took a trip down south a couple of weeks ago, however since the weather was pretty bad, I was not able to see much of the area and therefore was not able to take any pictures. I will go back there soon though and then will report more in depth.

Tomorrow I am planning on going up north to Belfast for a day trip. I am still reading up on some history so that I will be able to put what I see in context.

The weather here is becoming nicer slowly but surely. Much more sunshine lately and that definitely helps the general mood around here.

The Gators won the NCAA tournament, which I am sure will make the Benson's very happy! Was pretty exciting. Especially knowing that USC beat them twice this year. Also, South Carolina Baseball is doing very well right now, which of course makes me happy. I am planning a longer trip to the States for this summer right now. I would like to hit the Midwest a bit (Omaha and Oklahoma), however this may not be possible this time around, so I may just need to limit myself to SC, GA, AL, and FL. Will see, if you want to see me or want me to visit, just shoot me ane-mail :)

Here is a list of phrases that are used quite frequently here, and which I wanted to compile for a while. Expect this list to grow the longer I stay here.

Bye, bye, NOW. - I know, not very unusual. Just that they use it here all the time. It very much sounds like: "Leave already!"
And you! - If you wish somebody to "have fun" or to "have a good night", they just reply like that.
How are you keeping - We are not "doing" around here, we are "keeping"

There is a couple more, but of course, right now I just can't think of them.

Catching up 1 - Galway

2006-03-28T00:20:00.000+02:00

Just as promised, I finally try to catch up and tell a little bit about what I have been up to over the last two weeks.

St. Patricks day weekend, me and a couple of friends decided to leave Dublin and head to the west coast, to the beautiful little town of Galway to be exact. We had planned to leave early in the morning by train so we could catch the parade around noon. Well, it turned out that during official holidays, trains run at the same schedule as on Sundays. Great! So, we actually didn't get to Galway until one in the afternoon and of course missed the parade. Nevertheless, we still had a very enjoyable day. We walked around town (had a horrible kebap for € 7.00) and then went to have some dinner at a very nice semi-traditional Irish restaurant with great seafood and good athmosphere. The conversation was very entertaining, and I ended up being forced to eat some other people's fish as well.... see not-so-favourable picture.

Afterwards we went to a pub called the Quays, which of course was jam packed and it took a minute for every meter of movement (exaggerating here). We still managed to meet some very nice people though. After realizing that the dance club was overcrowded and not being allowed to enter, we decided to leave early and make the most of the following day.

That's what we did. We took a nice bus tour to the Cliffs of Moher which were very impressive. There were some other stops along the way, like an ancient tomb, a cave with stalagmights as old as 5000 years, and of course a pub. The highlight of the tour however, was our extremely entertaining tourguide/bus driver Des. At first we didn't quite know what to make of him as he seemed a bit confused and randomly made some saucy commets about rubbing girl's knees and so forth. However, as the tour went on, we kind of got used to him. Especially him repeating everything he said...: Up there to the left, you see an very old castle. A very old castle is up there to your left. Now a tourguide does this every once in a while, but he did this with about 80% of his comments.... At one point he really got hung up on "the seashore", which he used probably more than 30 times within a 20 minute time frame. We had a hard time avoiding to laugh.

Here are some impressions of the tour:

OK, having some issues uploading pictures. will do so later on.

Still alive

2006-03-23T15:39:00.000+01:00

I know, I haven't posted anything in a long time. This does not mean that I am dead or nothing note worthing is happening in my life. Quite to the contrary. I am just way too busy right now to sit down and reflect. My next entry will come soon, and then I will tell you all about my St. Patricks weekend trip to Galway.

Impressions over the weekend

2006-03-12T19:43:00.000+01:00

This has been quite an eventful weekend for me. It started early as I took off Friday to make a short trip back to Germany. On Thursday night me and a couple friends went to see a theatre play here in Dublin. It was a comedy about three old cleaners who get laid off and turn around to start a phone sex service. Very funny. I understand almost all of it. With the strong accents they have here, that did come a as a surprise.

Friday morning I got up around 4 am to catch one of those great 7 am flights to Berlin. This sounds worse than it actually is. Every day Aer Lingus sends a plane to Berlin, leaving here at 7 am and getting there around 10 am. This takes into account that Berlin is one hour ahead. So getting there, gives me half a day to do things. The plane turns around and leaves there at close to 11 am and arrives in Dublin shortly after noon, again allowing for plenty of time to get something done. Just getting up early is quite annoying. So I bought myself some earplugs and now sleep through the entire flight.

Now, Germany was quite a different sight than Dublin. Snow everywhere. And it kept snowing throughout the weekend. This made traveling by car a bit time consuming but we managed after all.

It was good to see some old friends and family members and arrange for some up coming family celebrations. To bad I didn't take my camera. I would have loved taking some pictures of some famous sights all covered in snow. Next time maybe.

The strangest thing of the weekend awaited me at the Dublin Airport. When I got of the plane I couldn't help but notice dozens and dozens of Scots walking around with their quilts and funny hats. The only thing missing were some bag pipes. Turns out there was a big rugby match between Ireland and Scotland yesterday (Ireland won 15-9) and these were all Scottish fans. This is actually some great form of fan apparel, much more noticeable than your typical sweatshirts and baseball hats. I suppose this only holds true at road games though.

Fun in Barcelona

2006-02-28T00:16:00.000+01:00

It was just time to take a break. So last week I headed down south, back to Spain. This time to Barcelona. On Thursday around noon I flew down there to spend a nice couple of days in the sun and to explore a new city.

Since I didn't have much time lately, I went totally unprepared. I didn't look at tourist guides, websites, maps, forums, or any such thing before going. This is very unlike me, as I try to be prepared and make the most of a trip like this. Turns out, the other approach isn't all that bad either.

I arrived there late Thursday night and had a nice chat with the owner of my hostel. He told me a bit about the sights and places to go out to. Afterwards I went to walk around town a bit and get a first impression of the city. Afterwards I went to a bar for a while. Since I wasn't feeling so well health wise, I kept the partying to a minimum. I will definitely have to go back sometime and experience night life there.

So on Friday I went down to the port area and took the elevator up the Columbus Monument to get a nice overview over the city. The view was good but somewhat obstructed. However, it was worth the Â 2,30 to get up there.

Then I decided to take the Metro to the Paseigh de Gracia to see some of Gaudi's work. I never really thought about him much before and didn't know what he did. However when I visited the casa Battlo, I was very much impressed. The way the building, individual rooms, the attic and the roof look like was simply amazing. Add to this that all of it had a symbolic meaning behind it and many novel architectural concepts where introduced in these buildings, you can't help but be amazed. So I decided to spend the rest of my time there to learn more about his work.

I went to see the Casa Mila (also called La Pedrera) just down the street. The building was more impressive but on a grand scale not as beautiful as Casa Battlo. There they had an exhibition about Gaudi's life and his work. Also the roof and its chimneys and ventilation system was very neat.

On Saturday I met with my friends Heather and Caroline from the states. They came from Paris and stayed until Monday. We went to their hostel to drop of their stuff and then walked through the Gothic Quarter.

Afterwards we went to see La Sagrada Familia and then Park Güell. These were another two very impressive Gaudi buildings. When I read about the Sagrada Familia a while ago, I was just thinking to myself: "Come on, how hard can it be to finish it? Why do you take 150 years for it?" Well, now I know.

The Park was also really fascinating. It was the first time ever that I actually enjoyed walking in a park. That night we had some typical Spanish food: Paella. Afterwards we went down the beach and the girls got to touch the Mediterranean sea for the first time. We went on our quest to reach the Olympic village but I don't think we were very successful.

Then on Sunday I headed back to the Airport to get back to Dublin.

Here some quick notes:

- great city, really enjoyed it
- Gaudi - very impressive
- why are there so many Germans in Barcelona? I even heard a couple homeless people chatting in German
- Definitely coming back when healthier and when weather is nicer
- amazed how open the city is - wide avenues and lots of public places
- people in Madrid are friendlier
- not only Madrid is an big construction siteapparentlyly all of Spain is
- tourist attractions are very tourist friendly - don't laugh, in Europe that's not the case everywhere

For more pictures check out my Fotki album.

Fun party at Stefano's

2006-02-19T23:37:00.000+01:00

Went to a nice party at Stefano's place last night. People from Canada, Japan, Sweden and everything in between.

Here some pictures: the-passengers.blogspot...

PS: Promise, neither of those asses belongs to me.

Houston Police Chief Wants Surveillance Cameras In Private Homes

2006-02-18T22:00:00.000+01:00

When my mom was here, she couldn't stop noticing all the security camereas around here. No apartment complex, no pharmacy, no pub or restaurant without surveillance cameras. I don't even notice it anymore, but when you stop and think about it a bit, it becomes quite scary.

Now, the Houston Police Chief proposed requiring cameras in private homes. Granted, he doesn't want to roll them out over the entire city but only to properties that call on the police more frequently. Well, what gives? You had to call the police twice during the last six months. Now you think there is somebody in your house and you are tempted again, knowing that if you call again, you will be required to put a cam in your living room next week. Get robbed or deal with zero privacy? How great a choice.

Another visitor

2006-02-15T23:17:00.000+01:00

This past weekend I had my mom come and visit from Germany. It was very nice to have her around and being able to show her my new home and introduce her to some friends.

After heavy snow falls in Germany and delayed flights, she finally arrived Friday afternoon just in time to catch a quick lunch with me. That night we went to the Arlington Hotel for dinner and some entertainment. The entertainment consisted of a group of three old man singing and playing various instruments. Now, they weren't actually bad, the problem was just that they couldn't agree on what to play. Once they got the whole crowd jumping and clapping they started playing songs usually heard at a funeral. (did you know that here in Ireland people oftentimes get drunk at funerals?) Then they decided to wake up again and start the wave. (figuratively speaking) At around 9:45 the main act appeared. Three dancers who did some Irish Riverdancing. This was actually very entertaining. It's amazing how fast they move. It also appeared to be very exhausting as they were sweating after two minutes. Can't blame them. However, it must be really bad for their bones and joints, as they constantly smash their feet to the ground to produce as much sound as possible.

On Saturday I showed her a bit of the town. We went to see the Book of Kells, which we were not able to see when Heather was here. Heather, you'll be happy to know that you didn't miss much. The exhibit of the book was not exciting at all. The library itself was amazing. However, paying Â 8,00 to see a library in which you aren't allowed to read sounds like a pretty bad rip-off, doesn't it?
Afterwards we saw St. Stephens Green and the adjacent shopping center as well as my favorite fast food joint, Subway!
We had a drink at one of the strangest pubs in Dublin. It is located in an old Church near the Spire. I will put up some pictures in a separate post.

On Sunday we then took a couple hours to visit Howth in the north of Dublin. This peninsular is quite scenic and you can have some nice walks along the coast. Definitely a place I will head out to again.

Routine => rare posts

2006-02-02T20:36:00.000+01:00

As I get more and more used to being here, I get into a routine and the new and exciting things happening here become rarer. At least those that I care to blog about ;)

However, there are still little things I notice that are unique to living in Ireland. For example do most banks here have a door bell that you have to ring in order to get in. Mind you, this is during normal working hours. At three in the afternoon you ring the bell, flash a smile toward the camera and then you are allowed to come in to stand in line....
Now, I have gotten used to this by now, however yesterday I went out for dinner and encountered a bell just like that at a restaurant. It had glass doors, but in order to get in you had to ring the bell. Luckily we were quite determined to get in, because if we weren't we could have easily given up. First you wonder why does the door not open? You see all the people sitting in there eating, you look at the opening hours and your watch, and look really puzzled. Then you see the bell and try to read the sign above it. When you succeed you really wonder if this could actually be true. Then you ring and this Asian lady slowly comes to the door and with each passing minute (not joking) you are closer to your food. Now she opens the door a crack and asks you what you want.........! What do you think I want? The only thing missing is the door chain.
Either way, we finally got into this Italian restaurant with great pizzas prepared by an army of Asian cooks.

Settled in

2006-01-22T21:46:00.000+01:00

One hard Saturday later I am all moved in an getting comfortable to my new appartment. I really like my room and the living room and its view is just amazing. It overlooks the Grand Canal and parts of Dublin and the surrounding area. Here are some impressions:

I am really getting into cats now

2006-01-20T01:24:00.000+01:00

Settling in?

2006-01-20T00:58:00.000+01:00

Well, this week has been full with things to do so far and is not likely to slow down until Sunday. As I wrote earlier, we went to the dance class on Tuesday. We also have been looking at apartments for the last couple of weeks as I needed a new place to live. We did find a three bed room right by the canal and on Saturday I will be moving in with Henrique and Claire. I am not looking forward to the moving part, but it will be great once everything is settled.

Today I also joined the gym and of course am real proud of myself for it. Look for an update on that sometime in late February, to see if this is not just some new years day dream. The downside to this is, that with all the things going on and with things being a bit pricey, I had to pick either sports or Spanish classes. So I won't be attending any language courses this semester. Instead I will go on with my Assimil self-study book (which I HIGHLY recommend) and Spanish DVDs and Podcasts, just as I did throughout all of last year.

Want to imagine something odd?

2006-01-17T23:37:00.000+01:00

....then picture me doing hip hop dancing! I knew this would be something very strange, but I let some friends convince me to go to a hip hop dance class tonight. Can't hurt, right? So I went full of fears, both about embarrassing myself and hurting myself.

Now, I didn't hurt myself, good thing! If I embarrassed myself? Well, I am not sure what the other people in the class think, but for my part I didn't do all that bad. Of course it will look odd to see a scrawny 6'4" white boy trying to dance like that, but considering that, I must have done alright. It was definitely lots of fun and we'll go back next week!

Will I try this in a club anytime soon? Probably not.

Another Sunday up-date

2006-01-15T19:06:00.000+01:00

The last week has been very busy but also brought lots of fun. Here are just some highlights:

- vastly improved my table tennis skills (yea me)
- saw Brokeback Mountain (it was good but I can't help but feel it a bit overhyped)
- celebrated Lydia's birthday on Saturday with bowling, dinner, pub, and club
- although I enjoyed the club, I came to the conclusion that in Dublin you can go to a bunch of good pubs where you don't have to pay to get in and basically get the same deal. (alright, people there may not be as dressed up as in the clubs, but if that's really what you are into, then Dublin may not be the city for you in the first place)
- I finally got around to getting my b-day present - a wonderful little iPod nano (already listening to a bunch of different pod-casts - some in Spanish, so I don't forget too much)
- I took a walk down to the harbor area today and had to realize that it really isn't a pretty area (yeah, I know...), but it felt good to be near the water again.
- Ordered tickets to the world cup (not really going there for my sake, trust me). It is amazing though what hoops they make you jump through in order to put in a ticket request. Good for them that these tickets are in such demand.

We are still looking for a new apartment. It is turning out to be a bit difficult finding a three bedroom around this area. But we got a few more weeks, so I am hopeful.

For all you cat lovers out there

2006-01-15T19:04:00.000+01:00

Looking for an Irish pub?

2006-01-09T23:14:00.000+01:00

You will find plenty of them here. How about you pick one before visiting and then we go and check it out.

Make the most out of your Firefox

2006-01-07T15:45:00.000+01:00

Now that my favorite extension finally works with Firefox 1.5 (actually it took only a month), I decided it is the perfect time to tell you a bit about Firefox and why you should use it.

If you still use Internet Explorer, then you will notice an advertising at the top of each page in this blog, telling you about Firefox. I do this for two reasons: 1. I really believe Firefox is much better than Internet Explorer and will improve your browsing experience dramatically. 2. Google pays me some money for every person that signs up through that link. (if you want to do that on your own blog or website, click the AdSense button on the right to learn more and shoot me an e-mail)

Now, Firefox is an Internet Explorer, just like the traditional version of Microsoft IE or the old Netscape Browser. However, it is developed by volunteers all over the world. Therefore it is free and receives constant updates.

When downloading Firefox, you get a slim version of it, that is fast, agile, and secure. It has a few more capabilities than Internet Explorer. However, to make it really useful and to fit your need, you need to set it up accordingly by adding extensions. These are little programs that all fulfill different tasks. There are currently over 700 of them and you can find them on mozilla.org

Here is a ranking of my top 10 extensions, which you may also find useful:

1. Super DragAndGo - Drag a link or anything like a URL (e.g. "abc.com" ), and throw it to anywhere blank on the webpage to open the it in a new tab. - Drag highlighted text and do an instant Google search on them.
2. Google Toolbar for Firefox - comes with the package
3. Tab Mix Plus - It comes included with features such as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, undoclosetab and many more.
4. Session Saver - SessionSaver restores your browser -exactly- as you left it, every startup, every time. Not even a crash will phase it. Windows, tabs, even things you were typing -- they're all saved. Use the menu to add + remove sessions; right, shift, or middle-clicking will delete. "Simple mode" for peace of mind, or "Expert mode" for advanced flexibility. Just Click. Install. Rad.
5. FoxClocks - Displays multiple clocks in the application statusbar, toolbars or menubar for any of hundreds of cities around the world, using a database of time zone and daylight saving information.
6. Blogger Web Comments - Lets you easily blog about any site you visit. Also serves you blog entries where others link to a site you are viewing. See my blog web comments here.
7. IE View - Very few sites still don't work in Firefox. With this too you can one click open them in Internet Explorer until they catch up.
8. GMail Notifier - Displays alerts when you get new GMails.
9. Linkification - Converts text links into genuine, clickable links.
10. Colorful Tabs - The most beautiful yet the simplest add-on that makes a lot of sense. Colors every tab in a different color and makes them easy to distinguish while beautifying the overall appeal of the interface. An essential.

Like I said, there are 700 of them. If you find an extension useful, feel free to leave a comment and let me know.

Google: The next Microsoft? Noooo!

2006-01-05T20:47:00.000+01:00

And you thought I was excited about Google.....

Visitor over the weekend

2006-01-02T22:35:00.000+01:00

My friend Heather came to visit this past weekend and it was great to see her again. She is from the states and we met in college at the University of South Carolina. Now she is spending a year in France teaching English there, while working on her French and getting to see some of the world.

She got here late Thursday night and came to visit me in the office on Friday. After getting off work early that day, we went to do some sightseeing. We hit downtown and ended up in two different churches: Christ Church Cathedral and St. Patricks. I am not going to write too much about them here, but head over to Heather's blog, I bet she will write a good piece on them.

We went out with Claire and her friend Mave, who was also visiting from London. Had some good talks and later even went dancing in an Irish pub. (most of those around here are Irish ;) )

On Saturday we did some more sight seeing. We went to Trinity College, where we wanted to see the Book of Kells, one of the most famous Dublin attractions. Too bad that the library was closed between the holidays. I guess I will have to save that for my next visitor. Any volunteers? There were some nice buildings there though and also some very funny shaped trees.

Afterwards we went to the Dublin Tourist Information to see if we could get some background info on some things or maybe even some more tips on what to do. We weren't very successful, however, the office was a sight itself. It used to be a church. As this used to be a very very religious country, churches popped up everywhere. When times changed, the people that had the say were forced to make decisions: either tear some of them down, let them fall apart, or find new uses for them. So one of the better looking churches in the Dublin city center was turned into the tourist information. A few weeks ago I was actually in a pub which used to be a church. Next time I go there I'll bring the camera and post some pics here. I even heard about a church turned apartment complex. Now who would want to live there?

We went on to do some shopping and visit St. Stephen's green park and Merrion Square. Then went home relaxed a bit and headed over to have a nice dinner with a few friends to celebrate new years eve. We had a good time there and then headed out to a few pubs later that night to welcome 2006. One of those moments when you realize just how fast time goes by.....

We didn't do much on Sunday as we didn't get up until very late in the day and then spent some time talking and later met with some friends again. There we stayed until late in the night just talking about a million different things. Then we actually didn't have much more time before she had to go to the airport to head to Paris.

It was great to see an old friend again, share old memories, make new ones, and also at the same time getting to know better some of my new friends here.

Marco Traveling the Net

2005-12-27T18:19:00.000+01:00

Last week I started a new blog. Here I use Google's Blogger Web Comments for Firefox to comment on some of the sites I visit on the web.

It's been a while

2005-12-23T00:11:00.000+01:00

The last week has been somewhat stressfull. I spent a thursday and friday of last week at home with the family before heading to Berlin to spend some time with some friends. There I also played a strange game, called Munchkin. It took a while to get used to and there were phases when I didn't like it. I did enjoy winning though :)

When I returned to Dublin I went straight back to work and kept busy with talking to colleagues. Some had already left for their Christmas vacation, others are leaving these days. It's actually somewhat hard to keep up with who is leaving when.

Anyhow, I talked with a few of my Irish friends and found out that the only thing they actually label "Galic" is Galic Football. They call themselves only Irish and their language as well. Just seems to be a common misconception.

A new experience I had today was riding a bike on the left side of the road. It was difficult to get used to but I guess now my brain has developed a good bit, just by doing so. Try writing with your left hand every once in a while! It will make you "smarter".

Then I tried to buy an iPod Nano, however the 4GB version is sold out and some stores don't think they will get new supplies until February. Crazy! My birthday gift will have to wait even longer.

Visiting Germany

2005-12-15T00:15:00.000+01:00

I made it safely to Germany earlier today. I landed in Frankfurt and got my first rental car. Everything went well, just that it was a bit draining.
I visited Claudia in Jena and by chance crossed paths with another old friend back from the days I went to school in Cottbus. That was actually in the last millenium......how time flies....

We spent a good hour walking around (she was a pretty good and considerate tour guide). It is a very nice town with a lot of beautiful old buildings.

I came to the conclusion that driving along the A4 in east Germany can be very interesting for tourists. First you stop in Eisenach, where you can find the Wartburg. Here Luther spent a big part of his life and also translated parts of the bible from ~~Latin~~ ancient Greek and Hebrew. You go on to Erfurt, where you can find another old and pretty city. If I recall correctly, it is also the only place in Europe where they have a catholic dome built right next to a protestant church. Then you go on visiting Weimar further in the east. This town is closely tied to the former German republic of the same name. Just a few miles further east you find Jena. Then passing into Saxony you get to Chemnitz, which was formally called Karl-Marx-Stadt. An hour later you come to the jewel: Dresden. In my humble opinion, this is the pretties cities of eastern Germany and surely can compete with a lot of nice cities all over Europe. I will write about it the next time I take a trip there.

After visiting Dresden you can then decide to visit my family in Cottbus and head on to Berlin, go to Görlitz and cross the Polish border, or head south to the mountains and the Czech border.

This looks like a great tourist route to me :)

Exciting times

2005-12-14T01:53:00.000+01:00

After being in Ireland for almost six weeks, I will return to Germany tomorrow. I fly into Frankfurt and will drive to Cottbus via a short stop in Jena to visit a good friend. Then I will spend a couple of days visiting friends and family and finally head to Berlin for the weekend. Visit a few more friends there, maybe party a bit and then head back to Dublin on Monday. So, if I haven't told you already, just give me a call on my German cell or shoot me an e-mail to meet up and share a laugh or two.

Blockbuster material

2005-12-11T16:18:00.000+01:00

I just finished reading the first chapter of a great book. Well, it's neither a book nor a blockbuster. Right now at least. Bruno Giussani writes about a possible scenario in the not so distant future. When suddenly all the information we ever handed out over the Internet is made public for everyone to see. This includes personal information in e-mail, search history, government records, corporate business plans and so on and on. Read this and try imagining what everybody will suddenly find out about you and your secrets......

Now, the question is, would this be entirely bad? If the playing field would actually be fair (unlikely, but just imagine) and the same amount of information was available on everybody and every organization. Wouldn't people have to think about their actions much more and consider the consequences? Without being able to cover up ones mistakes, being held accountable for ones actions, wouldn't we live a better live? Alright now, I 'll stop. There are plenty of negatives about this scenario and there are plenty of occasions when secrecy is crucial. However, not all is bad and there are probably some good things in a scenario like this as well.

However, take a couple things from this story! Be careful with what you do on the Internet, because really, everything gets stored somewhere. Probably for eternity (or at least beyond your life time). With laws like the Patriot Act, you actually don't know who is reading your e-mail, who is looking at your search history, who is looking Ameritrade account.

This is not meant to frighten anybody, just be aware of what you do on the Internet and every once in a while ask yourself if your really want that information to be seen by a third party.

In the meantime, while waiting on the next blockbuster, go and watch The Net with Sandra Bullock. It is very intriguing itself.

Pre-Christmas Fun

2005-12-11T04:07:00.000+01:00

Just got home from a long pub night and thought I'd have to write a bit before going to bed or I won't put anything here for a while. So Excuse my grammar, spelling and so forth.

It's been a long, busy but fun week! On thursday we had the second christmas dinner with the German team and I met some more people there. Also some guys from the German office came to visit and gave us some insight on what they are working on.

On friday we got off work early because we had our christmas party. I didn't have big expectations or anything as I thought this would be just a normal get together. Boy, was I wrong? This thing was amazing! The theme was glitz and glamour, so everybody dressed up nicely and it almost felt like a prom. We got in to the Mansion House and where greeted by costumed guys on stilts, holding flames and greeting everybody. We went inside to socialize a bit and they had two women with snakes, two magicians, and a juggler there who mingled and entertained everybody. After some snacks the music started and we basically danced all night long. In all it was just a great night with loads of fun.

So after getting up at three in the afternoon today I did some things around the house, worked a bit on the computer and then went out again with a couple of friends. There was Lydia, who had her friend Carmen and her brother visiting from Spain, Henrique from Portugal, Claire from London and Laura from Ireland. We went to a pub that was very different from those we have been to. It was very bright and crowded. Nobody was dancing, just us seven thought, lets do it anyways.

Remember how I wrote about the ATMs and queues in front of them over here? Well, they even had one in the pub. And guess what! There was queue in front of that one as well.

Privacy and the internet

2005-12-08T01:17:00.000+01:00

I have to apologize for not posting much lately! Trust me though, I have been working hard and didn't actually spend all week in bed :)

Lately I have been reading a lot of different articles and blogs about Google and other developments around the internet. One of the interesting topics I stumbled upon is privacy. Most of you, and I guess most people in general are more concerned about this than I ever was (as you can see, laying out my life to you publicly in this blog ;) ). So reading a bit about it finally made me understand (somewhat) what this is all about. Here are two interesting blog entries from two guys who spent most of their wake time to think about stuff like this:

Garett Rogers

John Battelle

Lazy sunday

2005-12-04T20:12:00.000+01:00

Last night I went to work buddy's birthday party. It was entertaining as I was able to catch up with a couple people from work that I haven't talked to a lot lately and also meet some new people. Interestingly enough, I also met a girl who just lives about 15 minutes from my parents' house in Germany. Her boyfriend works here and they commute forth and back every three weeks or so.

Of course we were not able to get a cab when we left at 2:30 am, so we ended up walking in the Dublin rain for 40 minutes or so. Now, you probably have heard that it rains here all the time, however I have to tell you, it is not as bad as you might think. That was only the second time since I have been here when I would have really needed an umbrella. Sometimes it rains at night, or in the middle of the day when I am in the office, but in general there is probably less rain here than in Germany. (now it will start pouring next week ;) )

So, after going to bed late, I thought about sleeping in and being lazy. At 10:30 though I was woken up by some strange sounds, and after coming to my senses I realized that there was a rugby game going on in the stadium a few blocks away and I could hear the fans and the announcer. I suppose the home team finally won, as I hadn't heard any noise the last couple of weeks.

After doing some laundry, cleaning, and reading the daily news on the internet, I decided to do some christmas shopping and did find some nice but again very pricey stuff.

The one thing that is very noticable here in Dublin are the ever present queues in front of ATMs (also called cash mashines). They have a lot of them here, everywhere you go. In every street and in most little convenience stores at the major streets. However, if you want to draw money there will be at least five people in front of you. My favourite one (notice the sarcasm) is in an extremely windy street and I have not passed by it without a queue of 10 or more people standing there.....

Christmas Dinner and more

2005-12-01T03:03:00.000+01:00

Tonight we had the first of a million company christmas events. We went to Tante Zoe's. Even though this name sounds German, they actually serve some really tasty cajun food. Far far away from Louisiana and hoping that New Orleans will be built up soon again, I will enjoy this alternative a couple more times until my next visit.

Aside from that things are going well. Work, friends, food, got past the quick flue, teaching myself more and more about the internet everyday and discovering new sites. Like this one:

http://top500.feedster.com/

Not that I have any hope to be on this list anytime soon, however, it does give you a neat listing of the blogs that are most popular in the internet community. So when you are bored, head over there and I am sure you will find some very interesting things to read about.

PS: The Xoogler blog I wrote about is quickly becoming the hit of the week and will likely to be high up on that list the next time it gets up-dated. They are expanding to three bloggers now. All people who were with Google in the early stages.

Some good readings about Google

2005-11-28T02:28:00.000+01:00

I just found this blog a few hours ago and found it very interesting. It is written by a few former Googlers as they give their perspective on Google, its history, new products, and future developments.

For now, there are only about six or seven posts, basically telling the background story about the main writer. How he got to Google and what happened during his first few weeks there. Of course he also talks a bit about why he isn't there anymore. So if you are interested, start reading the first post at the bottom of the page and then work your way up.

Ironically, I found this by using one of Google's new products. The Google Reader is still in Beta, meaning that it is not a complete product yet. Google does this with almost all of its products. Once a product gets checked for functionality and security it is released in Google Labs for interested users to test it. They in turn can write in their observations and prepare something like a whishlist of what they would like to see added or improved. This way, in a short amount of time and without much of a market research campaign, Google can develop products that are extremely helpful to the user and easy to use. Best of all, most of these products will be available for free.

So, basically what you can do with Google Reader, you can bundle your favorite blogs, online newspapers, and similar online sources of information and get all of their updates in one place. Most sites like these provide a feed that gets updated automatically once the site is updated. This feed communicates with the reader. So everytime you open the reader you get the latest news and updates from all the sources of information that you subscribe to without having to visit every single site. Very convinient and you will never miss a piece of news.

Here is the feed to my blog.

Fun weekend in bloody freezing Dublin

2005-11-28T01:39:00.000+01:00

I had a weekend filled with fun in a very very cold Dublin. On friday night we went out with a couple people from the office, had a few drinks in a bar before going out to dance a bit. The nightlife here is in sharp contrast to Madrid. Where in Spain, the party doesn't start until 3am in the morning, here, the pubs, bars and clubs (I still think these terms are used interchangably here) turn off the music and turn on the lights at 3am to signal that it is time to go home. Of course the fun starts earlier, around 10 or 11 pm, however it is a bit strange. I suppose there has to be some law regulating the sale of alcohol and hence the owners want everybody to be out of there as soon as possible after the beer stops flowing....

Now, since everybody is leaving the hundreds of venues all over town at the same time, you are faced with a huge problem: There is now way that you can get a cab to take you home! Sometimes you have to wait for 15 min or more as 50 or more occupied cabs pass you...

On saturday I went out with a couple natives. I do need to make some contacts with the locals so that I don't spend all of my time here caught up at work and with people from everywhere BUT Ireland. (even though I have some very nice colleagues from around here) So we went to a concert of the Dublin Symphony Orchestra, which suprisingly I enjoyed a lot. Not sure if I ever heard anything by Brahms before, but that was awesome. And of course I did enjoy Tschaikowski. The fun started though when we tried to squeeze 3 Irish guy, me and a tuba in a small VW Polo. Of course I still get scared every now and then driving on the wrong side of the road. (I usually get in in the driver seat as well, pretending to know what I am doing)

Then on Sunday, for the first time since I have been here, I left Dublin and visited the small town of Maynooth. It was very calm and peaceful and a nice change from city life. Appearantly the biggest attraction in the area is Maynooth College, which has a beatiful architecture and some really nice landscaping around it. I was told that it also serves as the headquartes of the Catholic Church in Ireland and that it is a Seminary.
Also, Nicolas Callan invented the induction coil here in 1836.

Check for a few more pictures here.

Change of Seasons

2005-11-25T01:44:00.000+01:00

I just got in (few minutes after midnight and ready for bed) and guess what! We got our first snow here this year. Of course I can appreciate this a lot more than the rain. Though I can't complain there either, since it has not been raining much at all since I have gotten here. The best part about the snow? It melts as soon as it hits the ground! (as of right now)

Cost of Living

2005-11-21T23:32:00.000+01:00

€Anybody that has been to Dublin lately will probably tell you this: Dublin is EXPENSIVE! This city has absorbed so many immigrants over the last decade that everything has become extremely expensive and I just notice that over and over again.

As a matter of fact, in 2005 Dublin ranks as the 13th most expensive city in the world. One spot up from 2004 and right between Paris and St. Petersburg. Incidentially it shares just that spot with New York City.

It all starts with renting a place to live. For a decent sized room close to the city center in a shared appartment, you are likely to pay between € 550 and € 700 plus bills. A parking spot will cost you another € 100 a month. A lot of students or young professionals even decide to share rooms to cut down on expenses. You may be able to find something cheaper a little bit away from the city center. However, be aware that Dublin's public transportation system is still pretty much set up to serve a city half of its current size. I will write about it a bit more later on.

I got a pretty decently priced room in an appartment that I share with one more guy hailing from Italy. However, for this money I could probably rent a pretty good appartment in Berlin. The interesting thing about utility expenses here, is the fact that you don't pay for water. I am not exactly sure why....maybe its all the rain they get here or the ocean around us. Who knows? Either way, I can take extensive showers to wake up in the mornings.

Eating out is really a luxury here. If you go to Burger King or Subway, you can expect to leave about € 8 and to dine out nicely expect to spend at least € 25 a person. I went to eat Mexican with a friend of mine, expecting it to be fairly inexpensive. However, for an appetizer, an entre and two margaritas I payed a bit over € 40! I am sure there must be other places that are more affordable, I will just have to start looking for them. Today, me and two friends actually wanted to go and have some pizza. In the end we decided to go to Tesco's and bought 3 Pizzas and a Fanta for € 9,75. :)

The issue of prizes is so important that I heard girls talk about them flying to London for their shopping tours and still saving money. Considering that they have to buy the plane tickets, lodging, food, and the fact that London isn't cheap either, this tells you just how expensive Dublin is!

A funny note I discovered in the tourist guide, was the advise to buy newspapers imported from England, as they are cheaper than the local versions.

However, as market forces usually balance, these factors have an impact on recruiting tactics for companies trying to attract employees to the area. Check out this article talking about these issues!

New Home

2005-11-20T20:17:00.000+01:00

As promised, here are a couple pictures of my new home. I live near the city center closer to the coast of Ireland. The River Liffey isn't too far away and neither is the office, entertainment, and public transportation.

The living room!

View from the balcony. In the east we have the the Stadium on Lansdowne Road home of all the big rugby matches. However in a few months renovations will start and the games will move to the north side of the city for a while.

To the south you can see the Dublin mountains. Interesting fact about the Dublin Mountains: "None of the so-called Dublin Mountains is high enough to meet the criteria required to claim mountain status. The Sugarloaf is the tallest 'Dublin Mountain' yet measures a mere 1389 feet above sea level."

Further to the east I have a nice view of this newly developed apartment complex. Looks very nice and should be ready within a couple of months. Right next to it is the office complex where I go to work every day. Less than two minutes by foot.

The unique feature about the apartment complex is the fact that it is build on the grounds of a greyhound dog racing track. From the other side of the building you can overlook the track and see as many races for free as you want to. Of course it is hard to bet this way. I will write about the race experience a bit later on.

Things outside the world of sports

2005-11-16T23:24:00.000+01:00

After talking about the most important events of the weekend in my previous post, I will now turn to all the other events :)

On friday I and a couple of friends went out around town to hang out in different pubs and clubs. We had a good time, meeting other people from work everywhere we went and had some good conversation and laughs. We ended up in a place that fits just about the same category as I had written about earlier: too big and too nice to fit in a city like Dublin. It is kind of strange, this appears to be a city of extremes, conflicts, and opposites. I will have observe a bit more to figure this out though. Either way, the place was very nice, just that most of the locals were extremely drunk when we got there and dancing wasn't as much fun with people bumping into us all the time. Also, the fact that there are still people out there that have not heard the gospel of deodorants.......

On saturday I did some sightseeing. Just to get a general overview of the city. Unfortunately the bus tour we selected wasn't as good as expected, so I will have to read up on a few things. We did get some nice impressions of the city and already know about some of the things we will want to see pretty soon. Of course, the Guinness Brewery and the adjacent museum is one of those. I had my first Guinness the other day and it was quite tasty, though I won't be drinking it regularly.

After the tour, we decided to have a look at Dublin Castle, which was mostly the home of the representative of the British crown and residence of the Kings and Queens of England while on visit in Ireland. It was quite interesting and you can find some nice pictures here. It really has a long history and some interesting features about it, check out the link to the homepage which is LOADED with information!

On sunday I finally moved to my new appartment (or rather the room within). It was a very nice feeling. For one, it is the first time that I really am living on my own in something else than a dorm. Taking care of myself, learning how to cook, paying monthly bill, cleaning (didn't do much of that in college, as some of you might recall), getting the mail every day, etc. However, somehow this still feels like college. The walls and the bathroom really remind me of South Quad and East Quad. Just that even with these prices here I am still getting more for my money than I would have ever gotten in one of those.

The second reason why I am excited is because this is the first time in over a month that I won't have a room service. Yes, for exactly one month and one day I have been living in hostels, hotels, and Bed and Breakfasts. So it feels good to have a key I know I don't have to return anytime soon, to have a kitchen where I can cook, have a decent sized TV, a reliable internet connection, and a bed that is not made when I lay down to sleep. And that is exactly what I am going to do now :)

Day of the BIG games

2005-11-12T23:12:00.000+01:00

Today was an awesome day! My beloved Gamecocks beat the University of Florida Gators 30-22! This was one of the many firsts in Steve Spurriers first season as the Gamecocks' "head ball coach". I am extremely pumped and I am not sure if I will be able to get any sleep tonight. This means a lot to the school, its fans, and also for the future of the program. In the same season, we beat Tennessee and Florida, traditionally the two biggest programs in the SEC. Now Spurrier has to hit the recruiting trail to get some more outstanding players and put on an even better show next year. But don't forget, next week we have to beat Clemson!

Check here for photos!

This was not the only big game today. Of course there were more in the US, particuarly the SEC, however there was also one taking place right here in Dublin....
The Irish Rugby team hosted the New Zealand national team for a highly anticipated match-up. For weeks everybody had been talking about this intense rivalry. We actually have a guy from New Zealand working in the office and he fought hard to get a ticket to the game.

On my way to downtown via train, I pass by the stadium and of course encountered some fans from both teams along the way. On these pictures you see three generations of excited New Zealand fans. It was amazing to see so many of them around town. That must be an expensive roadtrip.

Something strange happened last night though. A fire broke out underneath the north stands of the stadium and officials decided to close them for the game, not to permit anybody to the game holding tickets to these sections, and promised to refund the tickets later on. The real interesting thing about this is however, that most of the fans in these sections were from New Zealand..... Imagine what would happen if that happened to the Georgia fanblock at Williams-Brice! The SEC would probably sue us for half a million dollar......

The game itself was very entertaining. I had never seen a rugby match before and therefor had no clue about the rules. However it appeared to not be very hard and we caught on quite quickly. Soon enough we came to talk about what New Zealand did right and what went wrong with the Irish team. However, our new found coaching expertise didn't help the Irish as they suffered a bitter 45-7 defeat.

Getting used to everything

2005-11-10T23:00:00.000+01:00

I am in the middle of my first full week in Dublin and things have been quite interesting. Work has been a bit exhausting, just a lot of new things to take in and try to remember as much as possible. However the atmosphere is very good and there are plenty of laughs and breaks so things are good and I am enjoying myself.

Dublin is turning into quite an adventure for me. One moment, you walk past a bunch of townhouses and you feel like this is just a small village, then you enter an amazing bar/club whose equal you'd have to look for hard in a city of 4 or 5 million. The next thing you know, is that the public transportation lines stop running at 11:30 and then you ask yourself: "Where am I?" Interesting though is, that the Irish appear to really go out and drink a LOT. There are still a good number of people in business clothing out in the pubs at midnight, during the week....

I talked with my future appartment mate and landlord today and things will be ready for me to move in on sunday. I am really looking forward to having a place again which I can call home! Haven't had that for a while. The guy I will be living with is Italian and seems to be quite cool. We already started deabating politics, and you know I can do that on and on and on. Also I was told that he is quite a good cook. So hopefully I can learn a few things and won't have to shell out the big bucks for a cooking class. Because one way or another I will have to start learning to take care of my stomach in a healthy manner.

Also the gym is very close and has a nice pool. So, now my goal is to go swimming in the mornings at least twice a week. Any encouragement is very welcome ;)

To finish this off, I had a very interesting/disturbing experience today. I went grocery shopping and bough an orange/pineapple juice. Again, trying to eat healthier, I opted for the one saying "No Added Suger". I don't think I have ever drunken anything as sweet as this stuff. To top it of, when I read the list of ingrediants, I noticed the line: "Suitable for Vegetarians" Don't you expect that when you buy fruit juice?

Sunday update

2005-11-06T23:26:00.000+01:00

This past weekend has been quite interesting. After visiting several rooms to live with I finally found a very good match. Very close to work and for quite a reasonable price, at least for Dublin. I will share a two bedroom appartment with an Italian guy near the port area and about two minutes walk to work. The city center will only be 15 minutes away and I got a good link to public transportation. It won't be free until next weekend, so I will spend another week in the Bed and Breakfast. But that's not too bad either....they make my bed here :)

I also walked around some more and was able to get to know another of my future colleagues, Henrique from Portugal. Tomorrow we will start work and I am very excited to get going. It is hard to believe however in less than 12 hours it will be reality :)

I am getting to like this city. You don't notice that it is that big as the city center is very compact and the rest of the city just really seems to be a collection of small suburbs with townhouses, one or two family houses or very small and older appartment complexes. These pictures are quite typical. That's how I imagined places in Ireland and that's what I found :)

The weather has been better than expected. After a very cold friday and a rainy saturday morning, we had a very sunny and mild weekend. I was told this has been a very mild and rainless november for the area. Also, the winters are likely not to be as cold, just very nasty with a lot of rain. Therefore I am extremely happy to be living that close to everything.

One thing I still have problems with is the fact that they drive on the other side of the road. After living in Madrid for a month, this is a drastic change. There you have a million one way streets all over town. So when I see a car driving on the left here, I automatically assume that this must be a one way street and get very suprised when out of the blue another car approaches from the other side. I know, very dangerous. Thats why I appreciate these litte hints put in place by the authorities ;)

The concorde

2005-11-06T22:55:00.000+01:00

The most visible structure in Dublin is this spire which towers over all buildings
and bridges in downtown Dublin. At first sight, Lydia dubbed it the "concorde", therefore we call it that ever since.
Originally it was planned to be constructed for the millenium celebration. However, as you can imagine a lot of controversy arose over it and construction plans were stopped. It finally was erected in December of 2002 and January of 2003. It is 120 meter high and only measures three meters at the base. It looks very fragile but somehow extremely beautiful.
At night part of it are lighted and can be seen all over town.

First steps in Dublin

2005-11-05T13:19:00.000+01:00

I arrived in Dublin late thursday night and decided to take a cab instead of going through the hazzle of public transportation. After all I will have a pretty good job soon ;) Quickly I discovered thought that they were driving on the "wrong" side of the road here as well and after thirty minutes I had my first Irish headache.

I arrived at the B&B, which is provided by Google for seven days, and I was amazed just how big and nice the room is. The next day for breakfast I already met one of my future colleagues, Lydia, who is from southern France. She is a very nice and we already are teasing each other without end.

We did some sightseeing in the city and I took some nice pictures. The big sightseeing will have to wait though until I get settled into a new appartment. For that I received a very very nice e-mail from a friend in Germany about which things to go and see. (Thank you Romy)

In the afternoon we had a relocation meeting and learned a bit about what too look for and what to expect when searching for a place to stay in Dublin. It will be quite expensive and I will likely share a place with one or more other people. However, that shouldn't be too bad as this is something I had in mind from the get go. Just finding a good place might be difficult.... I called one lady and she seemed very amused about me asking what kind of flooring there was in the room and how big it was. I also arranged three viewings for friday late afternoon.... well, one wasn't there, the second one had given the room to someone else about an hour earlier and the third one would simply refuse to open the door.... this is going to be fun :)

At the meeting I met about 15 other people who are going to start work on monday. Two more from Germany and one from Austria. The others come from all over Europe, from Portugal to Sweden. But it seemed like a great group and work should be fun. I am very excited about monday.

Now I am heading off to see two rooms right in the center of town. Good location, new buildings, and horrendous prices ;)

Moving day

2005-11-03T11:22:00.000+01:00

Today is the last day. At 19:25 I will take off from Madrid and head to Dublin.

I had a nice couple of weeks in Madrid. In all I was here for three weeks and two days. I have seen a lot, experienced a lot, got to know a good number of people, made a few friends, learned a bit about the culture and the country, practiced my Spanish, and also developed a bit personally.

The first week or so I spent interviewing with various companies here, sent out resumes to others, and had some phone interviews to Dublin. I actually didn't do as much sightseeing this time around, as I had seen most of the major sights last December. Rather I tried to get to know some people and make connections here, with the idea in mind that I would actually stay here. So I went clubbing and to a couple of parties and enjoyed myself. (now I am broke ;) )

What I did see were two more museums. After having seen the Prado last time, I went to the Centro de arte Reina Sofia and the Museo de arte Thyssen-Bornemisza this time. Now don't think that I am a big Connoisseur of art, but I thought I should go and see these, especially having a friend with me who knows a bit about art and could explain things to me. Last time I found the Prado to be quite big and overwhelming, not to say tiring. These two were a bit smaller and also more entertaining. Especially the Thyssen collection was quite interesting as it had paintings from vastely different epoches and all kind of styles. However there are some things I will never understand about some pieces of art and how they can be as well regarded as they are. My favourite in this category would have to be Verde sobre morado.

I did learn a bit about art though and discovered that I really do like the paintings of Salvador Dalí. This is a pretty neat site with a lot of pictures of his work.

The best things about these museums is that you can visit for free on certain days:

Prado: Sundays between 9:00 and 19:00 as well as the 2nd and 18th of May, the 12th of October, and the 6th of December

Reina Sofia: Saturdays between 14:30 and 21:00, Sunday between 10:00 and 14:30 as well as the 18th of May, the 12th of October, and the 6th of December.

I held back on looking for an appartment, as I wanted to be sure that I would be staying here before putting down a security deposit, paying a month in advance, or even signing a contract over a couple of months. So all this time I spent in a hostel. Well, I had to move three times. Twice to change rooms within the same hostel and once to a different one. However it all worked out well. I am all packed now and am waiting for my flight.

I already spent some time looking for a place to live in Dublin. As it turns out, it won't be that cheap, or easy to find a nice place to stay. I likely will move in with some other folks for a couple of months, then see how things are developing and then start looking for something serious in February or March.

On monday I will start working and am very excited about it already. After three weeks of vacation (that is essentially what this was) I am very eager to get started on something and put my time and effort to good use.

So, from now on, this blog will take a bit of a turn and I hope I will be able to tell you about my first experiences in Ireland soon.

Interesting note about 'la enfanta'

2005-10-31T15:57:00.000+01:00

This article states that just between 9:30 and 11:00 this morning, the national lottery has allready sold all 1,700 lottery tickets with the number 31105 for the big chrismas drawing.
Of course a couple tickets were held back to present to the parents.

Babies

2005-10-31T15:34:00.000+01:00

Spain is celebrating. This past night crown prince Felipe, el Príncipe de Asturias, became father for the first time, as la enfante Leonor was born. A lot of people waited in front of the hospital all night long and TV is reporting live all day long. Of course there is a procedure who is visiting first, who second and so on. As I understand it, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia were first, followed by the mother's parents, and then the head of government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. I would think that at least the grandmothers-to-be would be there at the time of birth. Especially since the mother had been in the hospital all night and there wasn't much suspense about it. But what do I know?
Either way, everybody is happy and if tomorrow wasn't a bank holiday already, they may had just thought of making it one, so it seems.

What's interesting are the ways of communication. I was watching TV late last night (some typical movie from the '80s) and every half an hour or so they interupted the movie to give the latest news on what's going on in the hospital. The reporter stood in front of the building in the rain together with dozens of other reporters and a waiting crowd. And every time she said, that she had just received a SMS from the speaker of the royal family, up-dating her on the situation. Eventually the message of the child being born was delivered via text message to her cell phone as well. Interesting times we live in, isn't it? Image 400 years ago how the message of the birth of the future queen would be transmitted.....

In all, it is very interesting to see how many women here are pregnant. The German government would be thrilled if just half as many women would get pregnant in Germany!

Weekend

2005-10-30T13:41:00.000+01:00

The party on friday night was great. It was a Mexican theme party with proper decoration and awesome food. I also met a couple of nice people from Mexico and Spain and had some good conversations. Definitely good to practice my Spanish as well. What I always found to be one of the most difficult things about learning a language, is to understand humor and tell jokes yourself. Because more often than not, it comes down to a play on words and if you are not too advanced in learning the language you are likely to miss out on a lot of the meaning.
However, on friday there was plenty to laugh about even though my Spanish wasn't as great. Which reminds me, if you come to Madrid, go and check out this bar in Chueca that't called LL. There you will find some of the funniest transvestites ever. They do their usual lipsinging, however the highlight really is their stand-up comedy in between. If it seems to crowded, don't worry and head in anyways, the waiters do a great job in crowd management.

Just another side note: Don't try to catch a cab between 4 and 5 pm. The driver will take you, however not to where you want to go, but instead only to one particular place...and that is wherever he plans on eating his lunch that particular day.

Moving to Ireland

2005-10-28T15:11:00.000+02:00

Toward the end of last week, I did get the call that I would be offered a position at a company in Ireland and I accepted. So now I am heading to Dublin. The last couple of weeks have been a little crazy, as you can imagine. Going through various interviews with them, while at the same time looking (and actually finding) a job here to get a food on the ground. In the meantime I stayed in a hostel all along as it didn't make much sense to look for an apartment and then leave a couple weeks later. However, all is good now. I will travel to Ireland next Thursday, the fourth of November, and will get started there. It's not that I don't like it here, actually the last couple of weeks have been great. It's just that the job in Dublin is almost like a little dream coming true, and in any case better than what I would find here without speaking Spanish.
So, I had a nice little vacation here, made some friends, and will enjoy the rest of my stay until it is time to leave.
Now I gotta run and get some information about Ireland. Come to think of it...I really have never met anyone from Ireland...

Some more notes about shopping here

2005-10-27T15:22:00.000+02:00

In every country, sometimes even in different regions, there are little things that are done differently. Some of them are really neat, others are a little strange, and some of these 'rituals' won't ever be understood by outsiders.
Here I want to share a few things I have noticed today.

I went grocery shopping for a themeparty on friday. We went to a huge grocery store, bigger than anything I have seen in the States or in Germany. It was actually very clean. Maybe even cleaner than those in Germany, which tells you a lot.

When entering you have the choice of either a huge buggy to collect your shoppings or a basket, which you can carry around with you. The funny thing about the basket is that you can tow it behind you just as you would with some suitcases.

In the vegetables/fruit section, everybody puts on thin plastic gloves when touching food. I thought this to be extremely neat and hope stores in other countries will think of this soon.

There are a couple stands where people service you. Cheese, meat, and also a stand where you can order take-away food. The interesting thing here is, that just like in most places you draw a number and then wait until it is called. The same thing happens in cell phone stores. You really do feel like you are at some sort of public agency. (Which reminds me: In order to get my social security number, I actually had to not bring my passport, but a copy of it. So the clerk in the office told me to go across the street to a copy shop and come back with a copy of it. Now I am used to beaucratic ways and difficult procedures....after all, I lived in Germany for a total of 17 years and then some....but this really topped everything I have experienced, so far.)

Another neat thing they do here is that when it rains, the obligatory security guard at the entrance of clothing stores will have a couple of plastic covers ready for you to carry your wet umbrella with you.

And one last little note: Today I saw a photoshop that was called DiaFragma....

An Egyptian temple in Madrid?

2005-10-22T21:43:00.000+02:00

This is one of the most interesting structures you will find in Madrid. The Templo de Debod is located near Moncloa in the northwest of Madrid. Its construction started over 2100 years ago in Egypt, where it stood until 1968, when the Egyptian government presented it to Spain.

Construction of the second Aswan Dam in the 1960's threatened to destroy several historical significant sites. The UNESCO asked for help to rescue these sites and it was decided to relocate this particular temple to Madrid. It was relocated stone by stone and first opened to the public in 1972.

Here is something I thought I'd never do

2005-10-21T19:21:00.000+02:00

Welcome to southern Europe :)

I was pretty scared that something might drop. However this worked out well after all.

Convento de la Encarnacion

2005-10-19T23:22:00.000+02:00

So, I visit this convent today, which is located close to the Royal Palace and is highly recommended in my travel guide. The first suprise happens when I find out that there is no cost of entry on wednesday for citizen of the European Union. So I think to myself this is really neat...didn't even have to use my student ID to get a discount. However, then I start thinking, what if I'd go to some place in the US and they tell me "Today you can enter for free...but show me your US passport first"? I'd be pretty pissed. So on one hand, it is a neat idea...but don't expect everybody to be happy with it. How about making it a free day for catholics or people under 22?

Either way, next thing I notice, no tours in English. Spanish only. Now it didn't bother me to much, since I do want to practice my Spanish. However, it again brings me to the idea, that Madrid is not very tourist friendly. With a little bit of work here, some cleaning there, some combined effort, and the will to get more foreigners to visit Madrid, this could be an extremely appealing city to Tourists. In 10 or 20 years it could be mentioned among the great cities in the world. If you think about it, it got everything.... Prado, Centro Arte de Reina Sofia (Picasso & Co), other Museums without end, a great Royal Palace, a fairly new Cathedral, plenty of other religious buildings, great shopping, and a vibrant nightlife without comparison. Add to that plenty of green space, a superb public transportation system and it's unique flavor and you really could have something special. Well, to me it allready is :)

Back to the convent....interesting thing, they got security cameras everywhere. At least two per room. These paintings have to be worth something or the nuns in there really do feel threatened... Some of the rooms are closed off as well, since there are still 30 some nuns living in there and doing what nuns do. (Wow am I ignorent. Basically all I know about nuns is based on Sister Act...can anybody tell me, btw, why on TV they always show Sister Act and never Sister Act Two? That one was much better.)

The most interesting piece of the exhibition is vial containing some dried blood of Saint Pantaleon, which once a year, on July 27th is said to turn fluid. I imagine that day you would find a long line (especially if it falls on a wednesday), so get there early!

One last notice on this: Isn't it interesting, how all of these catholic places have a marvellous architecture, are full of beautiful paitings and sculptures, decorated with gold and other expensive material, and in this case, loaded with surveillance cameras, and they are still asking for more donations? All of the treasures in that convent combined could probably feed some african nation for a couple of months....

Wednesday update

2005-10-19T20:52:00.000+02:00

So, to calm all of your nerves.....yes, I finally did get shoes :) They are actually quite nice and cost me less than €50.

There are quite a few things going on and I can't write about everything right now, however I will fill you in on the details later on. Just in general, I am meeting new people here in Madrid. Some are from here and others are from all over the world. And I realized (again) that Mexicans are just the best :) Extremely nice, polite, friendly, happy, and extremely hardworking. I will have to go to Mexico sometime soon and hold true on a promise or two.

My Spanish isn't necessarly improving, however I am growing more self-confident with it. On monday I had a lengthy conversation at the bank about opening an account. It took a bit but I understood quite a bit and was able to communicate my thoughts. However, can you imagine, that if your monthly income is below €620, they will charge you € 63 a month in account fees? I was shocked!

Today I had another nice experience regarding the language. An elderly lady approached me in the street asking for directions. And guess what! I was able to help her in Spanish :) A week ago it would have been the other way around (and likely will be again tomorrow).

Allright, sometime soon I will sit down, talk about some of the sights, some of the things I have noticed here and also about Madrid's endless obsession about construction and renovation.

Cool again!

2005-10-16T07:38:00.000+02:00

What a day! Of course, after yesterday I was very spent and had to sleep a little longer. I got up around 2pm and promptly mised breakfast :)As it was saturday I was still trying to get some shoes. I got a new pair of jeans and a couple of tops on friday and now had to find shoes. No success :( I went through probably twenty different stores. Either they had nothing I liked or they didn't have my size (Spanish folks really are a bit shorter than I am) or, worse yet, they had something I liked and which was available in my size, but it was simply out of my price range. So, no shoes yet.

While shopping, I get a call from Jacque, a South African guy who teaches English here. We meet up and have a couple of drinks before we decide it is time to get our hair cut. Again, another interesting experience. I sat in this chair for more than 90 minutes getting my hair fixed.
I don't think I have spent that much time at a barber the entire 6 months prior, combined. So these guys (there were actually two of them cutting) do a very detailed job of cutting, asking for my opinion (yeah, try giving that in Spanish!) and cutting some more. Finally they wash the hair (in Germany they wash first and then cut, but oh well, this way you have less you need to clean). After they are done with all of that, they completly fried it. But in the end it looks good, I suppose. I little wild and crazy, but knowing me, you can see how that won't hurt me at all.

During dinner I learn some interesting things about South Africa and realize that I didn't have a clue about that region of the world and its history. Shame on me. After dinner we head out to all kind of bars. And I mean literally every kind of bar! We finally end up in a crowded place with a stage where people do karaoke and drag queens do some stand up comedy. Even though I understood only about half of what was said, it was still hilarious!

Later on we decided to head out dancing and after much debate, we decide to go to Cool again. We arrived at 2am and I was very dissapointed since there were hardly any people there. So we sat down and talked a bit more and after about an hour the place starts filling up. Around 3:30 we start dancing and don't stop until shortly before 7am. It was wild great crowd, better and bigger than yesterday. And the music was even better yet. I know a special person in Germany who will definitly have to come here soon, 'cause he will be in extasy and will have to be carried off of the dance floor :)

One negative did come out of this, though. I realized that I really spent a lot of money these past two days and will have to be a bit more carefull with the way I am spending my savings. After all, I don't know yet when my next paycheck comes in.

Shopping?

2005-10-14T14:52:00.000+02:00

Today I was a bit down emotionally. Just a lot of things going through my mind and me trying to sort it out. You get the idea. So I decided to do something that other people do when they feel that way or if they need to release stress. I was told it really works. So, I went shopping. And guess what? For the first time in my life I actually enjoyed going to different stores, putting on clothes and actually spending money. I might do that more often now :)

Shopping for clothes here is just pretty much like everywhere else, even though I was told the stores have an above average selection and good quality here, compared to other big cities. Interesting though, when I went to look for some shoes, it was different. What happens, is that of each design, they have one pair of shoes sitting out. You tell the salesperson the number that is attached to it and the size you would like to see. So they radio it back to the store and they pick out your shoes. You sit down in some sort of sitting area (in one store it looked like the waitingroom in an airport and could have easily seated more than a 100 people) and try them on.

Later I went to meet with a friend and we went to a couple of places to eat and drink. I also met some of his Spanish friends and had a feel good experience when I was able to at least understand one of them pretty well. The issue I am facing, is that most people here in Spain speak not only were fast, but also very quiet and soft. And if you try telling them that you could understand them better, in most cases they just don't understand what you are saying... or maybe I need to work on making that point clearer :) Either way, she spoke very loudly and clearly so I was able to understand most of what she said.

At around 3 am I met up with some Erasmus students from Germany in a danceclub called Cool. Though the entrance was quite steep (they charge €15 a person) it was well worth it. The place was packed! Full of goodlucking guys and some of the best GoGo-Dancers you can imagine ;) I stayed until about 7am but that party was still going strong and they probably went on for quite some time. So if you are in Madrid, you defintely should check out this place!!!

The big parade

2005-10-12T23:17:00.000+02:00

Today is a holiday in Spain as the discovery of the new world by Christopher Columbus is celebrated. The main act of celebration is a parade here in Madrid. Of course I wouldn't miss this and headed down to the Palacio de Comunicaciones to see the spactacle. I am not sure anymor what exactly I was expecting, but definitely not this.

Basically the entire parade consisted of different units of the Spanish military presenting themselves, mixed in with some foreign units and the Guardia Civil.

It started out with quite a bit of armored equipment (forgive me, my knowledge of military terms is soley based on some Tom Clancy novels). Some of the tanks were crossing the street with more than 30 miles per hour. I was suprised that they were able to and on the same hand it was quite scary, seeing them roll through a major city just like this. I didn't feel too well seeing this, even though thousands of Spaniards were standing by and cheered very loudly.

Later on there were quite a few groups of infantry and calvary. And a goat carrying a banner that read Venezuela. Not sure what that was about.

To end it all, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia driving by in a car.

First steps in Madrid

2005-10-12T09:05:00.000+02:00

Allright, so after over a year back home in Cottbus, I decided that it was time to take the next step. After having previously fallen in love with Madrid, I decided to go there and have some new experiences.

I arrived on tuesday October 11th, with quite a strange feeling. What would expect me? How would things turn out? I came with a couple objectives.....I want to achieve a better understanding of Spain, its people, and its culture. On top of that I finally want to learn Spanish so that I can maybe one day go and discover Latin America :)

So, on the plane I made my first buddy, meeting Doreen. A girl who would be spending half a year in Madrid as an Au-Pair while improving her Spanish. Later that I day I did some grocery shopping in one of the many markets around here. Of course I made the common mistake of a 'tourist' to grab the fruits myself rather than have a vendor take it up for me..... won't do that again.