ZMP = Sehr Gut

It's only 13:05 on Friday afternoon and I already had two highlights of the day:

1) I've passed the Zentralemittelstufenprufung (ZMP) with the mark "Sehr gut" - ie. very good. Yey! Very happy! Now after we come back from Spain I'll get the certificate and will be able to apply to uni.

2) This guy's name must be one of the best I've seen in a while - Hubertus Primus. He's one of the CEO's of a company we're making a website for :)

NB: tomorrow we're flying to Spain for a bit of sunshine and culture and relaxation - Madrid and Barcelona!

"Spain: A whale stranded upon the coast of Europe." ~Edmund Burke~

Hurrraaa - Dad's here!

Yep - my Dad came to visit for a couple of days. Actually they flew in together with Gleb, who spent a total of 8 hours in Berlin on his way to Australia - all by himself. My goodness - how quickly time flies. My brother is crossing the globe all on his own. :) And Dad was here from Thursday until today.

It was incredibly wonderful to have him here and to talk and argue (Russian domestic policy, of course) and just be together. We visited the Bode museum for the first time and also the French Impressionists who are here from the Metropolitan Museum NY. Both times very well spent. Jack also took a day off last Thursday and the two of them went for a nice walk around town while I was at work and in my German class. And yesterday Dad and I went to Potsdam. It was tough having to say goodbye today - I really wish our family was geographically closer. But I'll try not to dwell on the sadness of departure, but rather reminisce about the joy of the meeting :)

What to do?

What does one do when the worlds a topsy turvy place? Always changing always throwing curve balls, never how one needs it to be?

Relax, have a drink, watch the world go by ...


Cheers folks, here's to you.

Ye Olde London Towne

Pussy cats, pussy cats,
Where have you been?
We've been to London to visit the Witchy.
Pussy cats, pussy cats,
What did you do there?

Well we arrived finally, over an hour late again - thanks to easyJet. They seem to be missing about 10min per flight per day, so if you get an evening flight the series of delays pretty much just gets dumped on you. Our flight home was over an hour late as well :-(
It almost seems worth buying real tickets with a real airline so that you fly on time, get fed and watered not to mention arrive at a decent airport.

Julia was nice enough to meet us at the bus stop, which seemed a lot further away from her place than it used to be. But we had a couple of drinks and played with the killer-remote-controlled-self-inflating-my-god-its-HUGE-airbed before crashing for the evening.

On Saturday morning (just) we decided to be highly civilised and after a brunch of crêpes we went for a wander in the park (Hampstead Heath):

Enjoyed a couple (or four) cleansing ales over a spot of chess and a quick round of pool:

Then it was off to our main reason for being in London this time round: Witchy's 25th Birthday - again ;-) Complete with the drinking, the stumbling home and the rowdy 3am singing:


Our hung over selves needed a slight culture fix so we went to check out Shakespeare's Othello at the Globe. This was pretty cool - though the skinny wooden seats do lend themselves to a brisk cushion hire business.

Sunday afternoon and Monday we hung around with Cat, Clive and Zoya. We also got to meet Clive's Dad Noel while we were there as he is visiting from South Africa.


A note from the wife's corner:
* Road rage (def.) - happens when a bunch of soon-to-be-more-drunken-louts cross a quiet little street in West Hamstead, and right at that moment some silly man in a 4WD does a right hand turn in their direction without giving way. This is followed by a number of loud and needless to say Umgangssprache (ie. common speech) remarks and some slapping of the above mentioned vehicle. At which point to everyone's surprise the driver stops the engine, rushes out of the car and proceeds to kick and hit our "vikingly" males (no names will be mentioned, but YOU know who you are). Of course our males "не дали себя в обиду" (ie. didn't let the little man show them who was going to be on top) and retaliated. All of this provided much amusement and education for both parties :) Ahh... boys will be boys.

A clarifying note from the husband's corner:
* Silly Twat (def.) - some fool who didn't even bother to get his license from a Fruit Loops box, cuts off a bus and so as to not get run down by said bus (as they are a bit biggish in London) goes for what he thinks is the soft option and nearly runs down some pedestrians in this silly little people mover otherwise known as a "girl's car". He didn't manage to hit anyone, and the only reason he managed to kick anyone was that some woman (no names will be mentioned, but YOU know who you are) grabbed onto some man's arm so that said man couldn't grab said twat by the not yet said foot and land him on his silly fat arse. Hopefully the silly twat has still learned that pedestrians, even in West Hampstead, are not the soft option ;-)

"There are only 3 real sports: bull-fighting, car racing and mountain climbing. All the others are mere games." — Hemingway

So what's the story? Well we've gotten ourselves a new hobby... or something like that anyway... yep, it's rock-climbing. We've already been .... wait for it.... TWICE! Yup... it's an indoor climbing gym, at Sonnenallee. That's about 30 mins away from our place on public transport. Not exactly close by I suppose, but it's good anyway. Located in a dodgy enough Turkish area with blood stains on the foot walk... perfect place for an adventure!

At first we did a Einweisungskurs "Lizenz zum Sichern" - which basically taught us how to belay the other person and the basic knots. Jack already knows all of this from SES, so I had the advantage of two teachers. And then we climbed. I am still quite scared up the top, but Anya says that it goes away after a while. It is a great workout though and a good feeling. I also really enjoy abseiling down :)

We also paid a visit to Globetrotter on Wednesday night and bought some gear - two harnesses, two pairs of climbing shoes, a chalk baggie, .5kg of chalk, two carabiners, and one figure 8! We're all set for our next climb next week.

Off to London town tonight for Julia's birthday and to visit all of our wonderful friends and family - this quote would seem appropriate... "The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world." Oscar Wilde

Some more cartoons:

Life's tough when you're a chewy rodent

A German bricklayer, who accused his girlfriend of liking her pet guinea pig more than him, killed the pet and turned it into a "romantic" dinner for two. The 23-year-old only found out what had happened when she went to feed her beloved pet Rudi after the candle-lit meal.