Markus efter Sverige

Since two weeks is "felt-spring". The month started with long waited for highlight as I had a small Nica-Reunion in Amsterdam. Although I spent most of the weekend in trains between Aken, Den Haag and Amsterdam, it was nice and worth the effort. I visited Amsterdam's flower market and even watched the local match of the world wide pillow fight. I looked like quite funny since you could only see a crowd of people and flying pillows and feather-clouds above them. In the end Kiki and I met with Ward for dinner in Nieuw Vennep. The restaurant "De Oude Molen" had awesome atmosphere and I can recommend everybody to go out there for dinner. One day Amsterdam Thanks to eastern holidays the week was rather short. Jens stopped by on Thursday and we started my second Dutch weekend. Again I spent most of the time in transit - either cars or trains. We had perfect weather, but as soon the temperatures were above 20 degrees my hayfeaver came back. That is a good reason to g...

As constant readers know, I went on a last big trip before I start working in less than a week. I went to Nicaragua for a little bit more than 4 weeks starting 10 minutes before the new year. The trip was... intense. I missed the biggest attractions, but met a lot of nice people I hope to stay in contact with. There were treasure moments as well as worst moments. But still, it was the absolute right decision to go. Like a short movie of life, if you like. And since my job is supposed to give me a lot of freedom, it for sure won't have been my last big thing for this year. The amount of new stories is intense. By far too much for a blog. So I suppose, if you want to hear them, we have to meet. Since Christmas market in Aachen is closed since more than one month, I suggest a hot chocolate instead of Glühwein. If you make it to stay over night, we can exchange the chocolate with a few cold beers. And if I can trust my flatmates there should be some of this liqueur left :-) Costa Rica...

Now, it is official: I will go back. For one last time I will go back to Sundsvall, for presenting my master thesis on the weekend before Christmas. Was I first looking forward, I now have mixed feelings about it. It will only be two days there. Luckily the presentation is on Saturday morning, so I will have Saturday afternoon and whole Sunday to catch up some memories while I wait for my plane back to Germany. It will be dark the whole day and it must be cold then. A walk through the woods once again would be nice. All alone, only with snow and firs. A place where you actually fill in some space.

The last two days in Italy were dedicated to big lakes. Ward, Silvia and Thomas had to leave already on Tuesday morning, so Christian and I have been almost alone again. We ate lunch with the remaining Italians and Thomas and drove then with Andrea and Mathias to Largo di Garda in order to take a ferry. Unfortunately we missed our ferry closely, so we took another one going to Sirmione. But that ferry was also half an hour late. That did not really matter for the duration of waiting, because since Ward had left, we had blue sky, sunshine and hot temperatures again. But when we reached after one hour boat tour the island, we had only half an hour for walking around until the last ferry went back to where we came from. Lake Garda was beautiful, if you ignore the tourists. But the blue water, the amazing weather and the high mountains made it nice. Sirmione is made for tourists, but still cute - for half an hour. If you ever go there, you should maybe still plan a little bit more time in...

Monday the 15th was supposed to be the day we came for at first place: Marcos restaurant opening. To kill the time until the evening, we walked around in the city, watched the university and copied a picture from all of us in order to give it as a present to Marco. We also drove to big Marco's home for checking some stuff in the internet like check in, addresses for postcards or simply just emails. On the way back to Brescia we stopped in a big shopping center, because everybody wanted to bring some orginal Italian food as souvenirs for family back home. Without doing that much, it was finally half past 8 and we drove to the restaurant out of the city. The place looks excellent and you see from the first moment on: you do not come for dinner here every evening. I had little bit doubts about the food, because I figured that night that I am definitely not a friend of pure fish. The buffet I tried to skip politely. But then came the pasta. With shrimps. It - was - so - delicious. Afte...

On Sunday Carolina had to leave already in the morning to be back in Spain for working. The only advantage was that there was enough space now in the apartment, so Christian and I could move in which halved the price for a night. Thomas had the idea that we could drive to Verona, the city of Romeo and Julia. Although the weather was unreliable, we gave it a try and we had luck, because the rain followed us only half way. Grandpa Markus had been in Verona before; in 2001, to be exactly. I uploaded some pictures of that trip on my very old homepage . It was a trip of the school of the whole class. I recognized some places. In a restaurant we had the perfect example of Italian language skills. We tried to order in English, but as so often, the waitress could not speak English. But French, German and Spanish. Good that our group could cover all these languages. We decided to let Thomas order in French. And he said, her French was excellent. Somehow the Italians often seem to know German or...

It was only our third day but I already had lost the feeling for time. It was Saturday and we planned to drive to Brescia to meet with Ward, Silvia, Thomas and Carolina. The weather had changed. Because Maritha makes currently sure Nicaragua gets its yearly rain season, it was up to Ward to bring Dutch weather to Italy. And he did not spare a drop of rain. Especially on Saturday it rained a lot. Totally wet Christian and I found the apartment where the others lived for the weekend. Later Marco & Marco joined. Because the appartment was to small for Christian and me to move in, too, we booked a room in a hostel outside Brescia. That also meant that I could not drink alcohol, because I had to drive. At night we met with a lot of erasmus students from Sundsvall in the city center of Brescia and went out for dinner. For those of you, who know the people: Luca, Andrea, Mathias, Valentina, Thomas, Ward, Silvia, Marco, Marco, Christian, Carolina and I. The dinner was ok, although this fir...

The night was interesting, because we did not have beds where we could sleep. I woke up several times at night, because owls or something were screaming from the roof of a nearby building. Once I woke up and scared a small dog that did not realize me up to the moment it stood next to me. It ran away. I wanted to whistle, but a mosquito had bit me in my lips, therefore I could not make a sound and scared the poor little creature maybe even more. Once it started to rain a little bit, so I moved my benches under a tree, but it did not rain anymore that night. Around 6 I felt very cold and could not sleep anymore. When I scared the first pedastrians away, I thought it is time to stand up. We felt bad. The day before had been so hot that our clothes were filthy of sweat. At least we had some water to wash ourselves a little bit. But we were longing for a shower. So we drove back to Piacenza hoing to find a tourist information who could explain us the detailed way to a hostel. Piacenza is a ...

The idea came up already a few months ago. At Maritha's good bye party in the end of June Ward told me about his plan to surprise small Marco at his restaurant opening on the 15th of September. The decision was made quickly and in July Christian, Ward and I had booked our flights. Who else would join was never sure until the end. In the end we were quite a lot of people who came to Brescia. Therefore, in principle, the reunion started already here in Aken two weeks ago, when Ward, Anne and Christian came. But Anne could not join to Italy and Ward left for a short stop in Spain before going to Italy. While he enjoyed already sunny weather, Christian and I spent some days in Aken. We went to the cinema, some pubs. The usual things. At half past 2 at night on the 11th of September, we had to stand up in order to catch our direct train from Aken to Cologne airport. I like those journeys. If you have to get up early for going in holidays, it feels like a little adventure. Maybe because ...

These weeks are busy. Work is a mess of new requirements, but since there is a lot to do, there is a lot that can be solved, therefor motivation remains. But Friday evening my head still running on work-level. All the time I was looking for logic challenges, like I have to solve all the time at work. For getting rid of a busy head you can either relax and hope you come to rest... or you seek nice challenges. So I decided spontanuously to go to Dutch Friesland and Roden last weekend. The trip was not as easy as I thought in first place. First the car of my parents seemed to have some serious problems with one of the wheels. Therefore instead of being on my way to a Dutch tea with Stroopwafels I was hanging around in two car workshops. They could not find anything, but after they attached the wheels again, the problem was gone. Well, at least it was cheap. But I was already one hour later than I planned. Because I needed to go to Aken for dropping some stuff and picking some up, my time ...

More than a week has passed, since I left Sweden. It seems much longer. After I had arrived in Germany I traveled immidiately half way to Aachen. The night I stayed at a friends place (thanks Michael!!!), just for handing in my thesis on the next morning. While I was in Sweden, I was not happy for not being at home on my first night home. But in the end, it was good, I think, not to have time to think too much about where I have been just one day before. And the following days stayed interesting. Maybe because I was prepared for going home since a long time, but until now, I do not miss Sundsvall too much. But maybe it only comes later. The people I miss, but I have the feeling I would see them again, soon. But still. On Thursday morning, when I waited at university, counting the time had changed. Before I left Sundsvall, I was counting backwards (7 days left, 6 days left) and until Wednesday I counted forward. 24 hours ago, I had breakfast in Nacksta. Thoughts like this arose several ...