Archives for July 2005

yes, here I am…and it feels kind of strange :) but let me start from where I last left off…Sunday afternoon we went to Venice Beach, walked along the promenade and had dinner at one of the sidewalk cafés. It was very nice :) then we walked all the way back to Santa Monica (where we had parked our car) and waited for the Sunset. Here are the last photos that we took that day.

Then we went back to the Motel and stopped at a supermarket on the way to get a few more things for on the plane.

We had a really nice and relaxed night and got up at 9:00 a.m. to go and have breakfast at IHOP which was right around the corner. I was already looking forward to a Belgian Waffle with Strawberries when we realized that the IHOP place was new and not yet open :( so we had to look for another place to eat and we found a little café, but they only had “very American breakfasts” with eggs, bacon, sausages and that kind of stuff. So I thought, what the heck, I won’t have that for a while anyways ;)

Jon took me to the airport at noon, we checked my bags and then went back to the car to hang out a little bit. Boarding time was at 2:30 p.m., so I was going to go back inside around 2 p.m. – I couldn’t help but cry a little bit when I had to go, but it wasn’t that much because I had to leave Jon [it’s only four weeks… piece of cake ;)] but more because of the whole situation at the airport that we had so many times before with a more uncertain future. Once I was in the terminal, it was ok though.

The flight was delayed for a little bit and we took off about 35 minutes later than scheduled, but the good news was: the flight would only be 10 hours (instead of 11) which I thought was great. I had a seat on the aisle (because I always try to drink as much as possible and have to go pee then every 30 minutes :)) and the seat next to me was empty. Lucky me!

Nevertheless, I couldn’t sleep at all, so I basically skipped the whole night’s sleep from Monday to Tuesday. I arrived in Düsseldorf at 11 a.m. sharp and my parents, my sister and my aunt were there to pick me up.
I always hate it when I am waiting for my luggage and people can see you through the glass doors already… this is usually my time to get prepared for seeing my family [or whoever picks me up] again ;)

They were totally excited and it was fantastic to see them :) but at the same time it felt so weird to be back here… can’t really explain it.
We went home [and I asked my Dad to put down the paddle on the Autobahn ;)] and then we had a nice welcome brunch at my house. My Granddad and Great-aunt came over as well and they were sooo happy to see me, as you can imagine. I hadn’t seen them for 19 months and my Granddad had been in the hospital recently. He always brushed it off as it was nothing, but he had been treated for prostate cancer [the doctor’s said it hadn’t spread out luckily] and he admitted that he had been kind of scared that he won’t see me again :(

We had a nice afternoon together, my sister had baked a pie for me and in the evening my uncle came over as well to see me. It was great, but at that time I was dead-tired. I didn’t go to bed before 11 p.m. though as I was trying to avoid a “real” jetleg by getting into a regular sleeping pattern.

I spent the day with my parents and my sister yesterday. We went to IKEA – always fun! – and Nina and I participated in a sweep stake and believe it or not… 20 minutes later my sister was announced over the store’s speakers as the winner of an Ikea gift certificate. I couldn’t believe it… my sister ALWAYS wins shit everywhere. It’s really not fair :)

In the evening, Dirk [Nina’s boyfriend] came over for dinner. I must say that my Mom treats me with really good German food right now :) it’s soooo good!

So, the next thing I am looking forward to is meeting Sanni on Monday *aah* I can’t believe it’s only 4 days! I hope I’ll have fully recovered from my sleep deprivation by then *lol* talk to you all soon.

we are at a hotel close to LAX now and the room has High Speed Internet *yay* :) which means I can quickly update you before I am going on the plane tomorrow.
We spent the last few days at Jon’s parents house in Ventura… went to the beach, relaxed, had great food :) I feel like I am on vacation [wait… I AM :) kind of]. Then we drove down to LA on Highway 1 this morning and checked into a hotel and later we’ll go back to Venice and have dinner and spend the evening there.
Tomorrow around noon Jon will take me to the airport… since we are so close to it, we can sleep in and have a nice breakfast before we go which is nice.
I am getting kind of excited…. although it feels weird at the same time. Can’t explain it really, but you, who have traveled to the US and back, will probably know what I am talking about.
I’ll see you all very soon… will enjoy my last 24 hours here now!

before I am back in Germany. Jon and I are driving down to Ventura tonight and I am not sure yet if I will be able to go online again [which will be very hard for me :)], so I might just get in touch with you again when I am back in Germany.The last two days were kind of busy and I am trying to organize my stuff, run some errands, and decide what to take to Germany and what to leave here. It’s a very weird situation right now, because I want to treat it like I am going on vacation, but on the other hand I am thinking if I should take things back just in case I won’t return… but these are stupid thoughts, right? because I will be back here in September…

I really don’t like this feeling of not knowing what’s going to happen, although I am hopeful that everything will work out just fine after all the hassle that we had. Of course I am excited to see my family and friends again [esp. the ones I have yet to meet *lol*].

Last night, we went to see the Swains, because I wanted to say goodbye to them… and since they had just returned from Europe, they had some Euros that they wanted to get rid off and I was very happy to get them off their hands. They gave me a really good exchange rate and it was a mutually benefiting deal for the both of us as we didn’t have to pay any fees or commissions. We had a lovely evening with them.

So, I guess I’ll see you all soon guys… well, most of you at least :) I am excited!

well, I got sunburned this weekend and I can’t move. I am so stupid… although I used sunscreen (I thought I was getting really good with remembering to use sunscreen in these extreme temperatures, last weekend proved me wrong again…), I got burned on my calves and back. I can’t believe it.
Well, let’s tell the story from the start… Friday after work we had the Bookclub over for a BBQ. It wasn’t an offical bookclub meeting really (since we didn’t read a book because -yes I admit it – I didn’t manage to pick something to read). I had been pretty busy at work wrapping up my projects that I couldn’t even think about reading). So Stoyan, Claudia, Scott and his co-worker came over and with Maria and Aaron, we were a group of 8 people. It was fun!

I got a call from Regine that night and she asked if I would be interested to go the coast on Saturday with her and Elcin (both girls were at the dessert party – remember?). I thought that was a brilliant idea, since it was supposed to get really hot again and you can’t pass up the opportunity to get some cooler air at the coast. I asked Maria if she wanted to come along and so we left for Davis at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning.
Elcin and Regine had rented a car, so we put our stuff in their car and were off for our adventure :)

We first drove to the Muir Woods lookout and it was kind of overcast and foggy when we got there. As you can see here…

 

We drove a little further north after that to Stinson Beach and all of a sudden the clouds were gone and we had beautiful sunshine. We hung out at the beach for a couple of hours talking and lying around [and that’s where I didn’t pay attention to the spots that I hadn’t put sunscreen on].

We had a good time though and laughed a lot :) From there, we drove up to Mt. Tamalpais where you have a beautiful view over the whole Bay Area. We had to take a little hike up the mountain, but the view was just gorgeous. A few clouds were coming into the Bay and it just looked amazing. Elcin couldn’t stop talking about the beautiful “stratocumulus clouds” [you gotta know that she’s getting a PhD in Athmospheric Sciences ;)]

Around 6 p.m. we headed back to Davis and Maria and I had some dinner at Bakers Square – we could of course not resist to have some pie for dessert ;)
It was a very nice day – besides the fact that I was really exhausted from the heat, sunburned and possibly a little sun stroked. I went to bed pretty much right away.

On Sunday, I had agreed to meet Tatjana at the Arden Fair Mall. She needed to go shopping and wanted to see me again before I leave. Maria came along, because we wanted to go to the grocery store to buy stuff for Aaron’s birthday [which was today] afterwards.
It was really funny, because we went bra-shopping with Tatjana since she needed a strapless bra for a dress she is going to wear at a wedding next week. It can be quite entertaining when three girls are looking for bras *lol* :) as there were so many weird colors and all these supposedly “shaping” bras that just look ridiculous on you when you try them on.
We had quite a laugh in the fitting room! :

Well, and today was my last day at work… it was kind of weird, I must say. I expected it to be quite laid back, but it turned out to be a very busy day actually. I had to finish up some stuff for Gerald and also give him an overview over the projects I had been working on.
At lunch time, Gerald and Michelle took me out for a “good bye and see you soon” lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. I had never been there before, but it was awesome :) I had a Grilled Shrimp & Bacon Club Sandwich and afterwards they made me order a piece of cheesecake (which fortunately we split among the three of us!) It was delicious :)

They were both kind of sad to say good bye and told me that they hope to have me back soon again. Gerald really complimented my work again, which was a great feeling!
I ended up staying at the office till 7pm, because I had to clean up my computer (didn’t want to leave private files on there) and also had to clean up my desk. ;)

Then we celebrated Aaron’s birthday tonight. Three friends had come from San Francisco and they made their own Sushi for dinner (I was actually still full from lunch and skipped dinner completely).
Later on, we went for a swim in the pool… Maria and I hadn’t really planned on going swimming, but ended up taking a swim in our clothes *lol* [I have to say that we did that voluntarily and weren’t pushed in by the guys or anything ;)]

Well, and now it’s another 8 days until I will be back in Germany… start the countdown ;)

P.S. Don’t read further if you’re not up for yet another exhausting visa-related story… I had mentioned that I needed to get my degree translated and evaluated, right? So I found out about this company in New York who does it and I faxed them my documents last week Monday and requested a 3-day service, because I needed the documents back pretty quickly. I didn’t get a confirmation or case number from them, so I called them Wednesday to make sure that they had gotten everything and they told me on the phone that someone was working on my case. Didn’t hear from them for the rest of the week and decided to call them again this morning. They were all confused and apologized, but said that my case hadn’t been completed [just great :( not that I needed the documents yesterday], so they asked me to fax the documents again and that it would be taken care of today (!). When I hung up, I was like whatever, this is no news to me.
Fortunately, they kept their word this time and faxed me a copy of the translation and evaluation in the afternoon (which I forwarded to my sponsor company) and I’ll get the hardcopy in the mail.
I hope everything is taken care of now… wouldn’t be surprised if there is still more to come though :(