Have a little patience

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

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


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

Lesson learnt or "just give it a try"

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

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

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

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

Girly stuff

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

Comeback!

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

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

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

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

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





Beautiful Burano and its artistically colourful houses:


Oh Italy, you and your food. Mjam!


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


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

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

Times are changing....

....once again.

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

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

Hopefully there will be a decision on Tuesday.

One Night Only -- Can You Feel It - MyVideo

The Naked And Famous -- Young Blood - MyVideo

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

My sore spot

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

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

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

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

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

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

Springtime is here

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

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

I don't like violence, but...

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

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

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

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

Oh happy day!

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

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

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

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

Crazy days

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

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

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

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

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

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