Introducing...

I've been missing our kittens a lot recently and decided to bring them closer... from now on they'll be employed as critics and commentators of various posts :)

Also, I've been updating the template of the blog, so if you come along to read something and the page is totally out of order - no fear, it's all under control!

Something amusing too... got a bell at the door yesterday... picked up the receiver on the intercom:

Some Woman (sw): excuse me, do you speak French?
me: ummm... no
sw: oh... does anyone in your household speak French?
me: ummm... no
sw: I'm looking for a French tutor... do you know anyone in your block of flats who speaks French?
me: ummm... no, sorry
sw: ok, have a lovely weekend!
me: you too!

I suppose that's one way to look for something you need - just go door-to-door.


Marvin: "Whoa... first time in cyberspace ... this is exciting... I better go scratch something!"







Unix: "*yawn* so am I going to get extra patting for being on this thing?"

Berlin Marathon 2007

"In my end is my beginning." ~Jean de la Fontaine~

Yesterday I had my last day at work for this year. My team gave me a going-away present (pic), which was incredibly sweet. A book (in German), a Moleskin notebook and a "school sock" (apparently some traditional German thing that gets given to kids on their first day of school) with various sweets and nuts. I also brought in a cake, which ended up being too huge (almost half left over). It was a mixed fruit cake, sadly no photo... but it was quite tasty and one guy even had four slices (mainly 'cos there was so much left). Yesterday night we also went to Columbiahalle to see John Butler Trio. The concert was great, but the amount of people smoking and pushing annoyed us a bit... regardless, the boys put on a good show and some of their new stuff is also pretty spiffy!

Today enjoying my temporary before-uni-starts freedom I ventured to the Turkish market at Kottbusser Tor (aka. Kotti) to see what they have in terms of "sewing stuff". Man, have a look at what I picked up for less than 30 EURs :) I'm very happy. Got 6 different types of fabric (total of 8 meters), two sets of different sized machine needles, white and black thread, pins, marking soap, ribbon (for next week's Oktoberfest), three spools and a pair of fabric scissors, which are actually quite good. Very happy :)

Star Trekking... cont.

Speaking of Star Trekking, here's the original 1986 Video :)



And Tanya - this is the MP3 :)

best friends come in pairs

I've had my favourite green boots for a year now - given to me by my wonderful Jack for my 25th birthday. At their most recent therapy session they told me that they were suffering from extreme depression caused by loneliness, which we decided to fix with the new groundbreaking shopping therapy. As of the weekend they have a pair of best friends :) mmmm I love my boots!

T-Mobile and the fun of voice recognition software*

* warning - rant

A couple of months ago our lovely DSL provider Alice has advertised a new "mobile option", which included free calls Alice to Alice. Being practical people we decided to switch carriers, 'cos most calls we do are to each other. However at that stage you were only able to get one SIM card per DSL account and only recently they increased it, so we were able to get a second one. Now came the very easy (in theory) and difficult (in reality) thing called 'mobile number portability' - since everyone already knows our numbers we decided not to cause any unnecessary confusion and keep the old ones from T-Mobile. This involved writing a cancellation letter to T-Mobile (even though we're on prepaid, but in Germany you have to write official letters to every man and his cat). Then we had to fill in another form with Alice to get them to put our old numbers (from T-Mobile) onto our new numbers (from Alice). This was done 3 weeks ago to give Alice enough time to get the numbers accross. As of yesterday T-Mobile cancelled our numbers (as we asked), but Alice failed to transfer the numbers (as we didn't ask). So we were stuck with our new numbers, which noone (including us) knew. Three phone-calls (at .14c a minute - thanks work!) and two emails later we worked out that due to "technical difficulties" it may take up to a MONTH!!! Farken. They suggested that we call T-Mobile back and beg them on our hands and knees to reactivate our accounts for this time. So here I was... calling the largest telephony provider in Germany... and you know what - it was exactly like calling Telstra... and I don't mean no Indian people, I mean they had voice recognition software... in German. I think that instead of all these silly German exams for foreigners they need to simplify it and make it like this - if you can get through to an operator talking to T-Mobile, you've passed. Because even after you're stuck for hours listening to the possible options and talking to a female voice (why is it always female??) which doesn't understand you, and finally it tells you that if you say 'persönlicher Berater' you get connected to an operator. BUT even before you get connected you have to agree (or disagree) to your calls being "recorded for coaching and training purposes". Finally you get to being on hold for another good couple of mins, but at that stage it's like music to your ears (literally). Phewww...

finaly!

I've been missing my old Aussie sewing machine for a long, long time, and finally as of last week I went out and bought one. Even got a little red cover bag for it. I had to wipe some of the oil off the 'Garnrolle' (spool), but after that it sew like a dream. I already made the necessary modifications for my 'Dirndl' (that's an Oktoberfest peasant girl's outfit for those who don't know), and it's ready to be worn to the beer tent next week!

btw - if anyone ever needed sewing machine ringtones, for whatever strange reason, you can download them here. My favourite is this one.

TA DAAAA!

Investing into Real Estate in Germany - the SAGA*

*warning - contains long German words

As many of you will already know we have been looking at buying an apartment here in Berlin for some time (just under a year), so I thought it might be about time to give an account of our trials and tribulations. Around May we found our "dream home" (pics here). It was a lovely Dachgeschoss (rooftop) 94sqm Wohnung (apartment) with a big terrace and open plan kitchen. Right when we went to see it we knew it was the one, and told the seller (Herr F.) that we want to buy it - on the spot. Herr F. had lots of interested parties and hence decided to wait until he got all the offers. We ended up being the highest bidders (giving him the asked price), and then all the fun began.

I actually started writing up a drawn-out very long account of what happened, but decided to scrap that and give a short summary...

1) there were problems with the flat: zweiter Rettungsweg (fire escape), Wärmedämmung (insulation) of the roof and the terrace
2) there were VERY MANY PROBLEMS with the Wohngemeinschaft (body corporate equiv.) - actually with them, and also with the fact that they were doing lots of dodgy accounting documented in the last couple Eigentumsversammlungsprotokollen (minutes of the meetings of the community of flats)
3) the Teilugserklärung (partition deed - how the flats are divided in the house) didn't reflect in a lot of ways how the flat was _actually_ layed out
4) there were documents missing (eventually restored though): staatliche Bauabnahme (acceptance of construction work)
5) right in the end (last Tuesday) when were were at the Notar (notary), Herr F. refused to guarantee that the flat is actually his - in a legal sense that he didn't steal any area from any of his neighbours when it was built in 1994.

At that point (at the notary) we decided there was WAAAAY too much risk involved, and didn't sign the Kaufvertrag (deed of purchase). And now 4 months, two drawn-up and then again revoked Darlehen (mortgage), about 1500EURs in legal costs (final bill still coming), three quarters of two heads combined of grey hair, about a million broken nerves later we're still looking for a place to buy :) In essence we're happy that we didn't end up buying something very crappy with lots of problems, and now we know pretty much everything there is to know about property buying in Germany, thanks to our wonderful lawyer (if anyone needs one in Berlin, give us a bell). So we're not completely sour. We actually found some good options this last weekend - 1) a new set of flats that are being built (only ready Oct 2008 though) with really well layed-out rooms and two big terraces, and 2) a Dachgeschoss which is reasonably priced, but needs some work done (taking out a couple of walls to make one big lounge room). Thus there are options on the table and Maklers (real estate agents) running around finding out the information we requested.

TBC...

blog update - woo hoo!

Yep - it's my last week at work with hardly anything to do. And I mean I've done all of the documentation and minor changes to the existing projects, wrote up my Arbeitszeugnis (account of work done), searched for dirndls with Julia on eBay, searched for laptops... and frankly then I was spent.

Here are some random pics from the last couple of weeks:

• flowers from Jack
• Sunday lunch put together by Jack
• Jack with attachment :) (thanks for the pic Danny)
  

I am a student again!!!

Yey! I passed my exam - got the best mark even... which is DSH-3, or 89% (see pic 1), so I'm very very very very VERY happy! I also managed to enrol today and paid my student fees in the amount of 242 EURs, which includes a semester ticket on all public transport - pretty bloody good value if you ask me (see pic 2). Right now I can't use it though - it's a temporary one that starts only on the 1st of October... but the proper one should arrive in the mail sometime soon. I have the Student Handbook and generally was beaming the whole day.

On Tuesday night after we found out about the exam (at that stage I just passed the written one, and only today did the oral one) Jack and I went to celebrate a bit with a nice dinner, followed by a 20 y.o. port with a nice cuban cigar :) ahhhh yes... that's the student life!

Tagging game, eh?

From Eugene...

In the 8 facts about [name], you share 8 things that your readers don't know about you. At the end, you tag 8 other bloggers to keep the fun going. Each blogger must post these rules first. Each blogger starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves. At the end of the post, a blogger needs to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

Fact 1: I really like Granny Smith apples and ice-cream (pretty much any flavour)
Fact 2: I feel small dealing with authority figures (always was - must be smth about growing up in a commie state), but I'm getting better... slowly
Fact 3: I did an acting course at the National Theatre in StKilda... failing miserably
Fact 4: I attempted at writing songs and actually tried to join a rock-band
Fact 5: I snore when I'm pissed or have a cold
Fact 6: I have size 40-42 feet (depending on which brand of shoes/country they come from)
Fact 7: in Germany at least 95% of all my clothes are made of cotton
Fact 8: I bite my lower lip a lot when I'm stressed or thinking

umm... I think Jack - you're next. and then Olchik, and I think the other ppl were already tagged by Eugene?? :)

Go Xavier!

Daniel from London and Baiba from Riga are here and this Friday night all four of us went to a Xavier Rudd concert. This was our fourth... and second here in Berlin. It was great - much better than the last one. Columbiahalle was packed with just as many locals, as aussies. He played for at least two hours and his new stuff is just as good (if not more dancy) as the previous songs. Jack was jumping up and down the whole night and has been complaining that his ankle muscles are sore the whole weekend :) We has heaps of fun and here are a couple of poor mobile phone camera snaps.

On the way back at the metro station we got the attention of some local dude, who apparently has a fascination with tourists and started photographing Jack... who after a while took some pictures of him with our phone (last photo). Those weird, weird Germans!

Alcoholfree Beer = Energy Drink?!

For real! For a limited time only (aka about 2 weeks) we've had the TV inside (normally it's parked in our gimp room) - "to help" me study for the exam... hearing more German, etc. Thus of course we were subjected to German advertising. One of these ads was rather amuzing. Here's the scenario:

Two muscly, sporty guys are running up the hill... with a beautiful mounaneous/sea backdrop. As they're getting closer to the top, they both are completely drenched in sweat. One of them stops for a second, takes out an Erdinger Alkoholfrei (alco-free) Beer ... takes a good swig ... smiles at his "boyfriend" and .. they keep running after that refreshing sip. The slogan afterwards was "Komm ins Team" (come into the team)... check out the website, too - hilarious!

That's what they need to do back at home - "For a hard earned thirst (after a 26 mile marathon) the best cold beer is Vic Alcoholfree Bitter!", or smth similar anyway :)

Star Wrecking

Today's theme is:

Star Trekking, across the universe
On the Starship Enterprise, under Captain Kirk
Star Trekking, across the universe
Boldly going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse

Lt. Uhura, report

There's Klingons on the starboard bow
Starboard bow, starboard bow
There's Klingons on the starboard bow
Starboard bow, Jim

Analysis, Mr. Spock

It's life, Jim, but not as we know it
Not as we know it, not as we know it
It's life, Jim, but not as we know it
Not as we know it, Captain

There's Klingons on the starboard bow
Starboard bow, starboard bow
There's Klingons on the starboard bow
Starboard bow, Jim

Star Trekking, across the universe
On the Starship Enterprise, under Captain Kirk
Star Trekking, across the universe
Boldly going forward, still can't find reverse

Medical update, Doctor McCoy!

It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim
Dead, Jim. Dead, Jim
It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim
Dead, Jim, Dead

It's life, Jim, but not as we know it
Not as we know it, not as we know it
It's life, Jim, but not as we know it
Not as we know it, Captain

There's Klingons on the starboard bow
Starboard bow, starboard bow
There's Klingons on the starboard bow
Starboard bow, Jim

Starship Captain, James T. Kirk

Ha-ha! We come in peace, shoot to kill
Shoot to kill, shoot to kill
We come in peace, shoot to kill
shoot to kill, men

It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim
Dead, Jim. Dead, Jim
It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim
Dead, Jim, Dead

Well it's life, Jim, but not as we know it
Not as we know it, not as we know it
It's life, Jim, but not as we know it
Not as we know it, Captain

There's Klingons on the starboard bow
Starboard bow, starboard bow
There's Klingons on the starboard bow
Scrape 'em off Jim

Star Trekking, across the universe
On the Starship Enterprise, under Captain Kirk
Star Trekking, across the universe
Boldly going forward, and things are getting worse

Engine room, Mister Scott

Ye canna change the laws of physics
Laws of physics, laws of physics
Ye canna change the laws of physics
Laws of physics, Jim

We come in peace, shoot to kill
Shoot to kill, shoot to kill
We come in peace, shoot to kill
Scotty beam me up

It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim
Dead, Jim. Dead, Jim
It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim
Dead, Jim, Dead

Well it's life, Jim, but not as we know it
Not as we know it, not as we know it
It's life, Jim, but not as we know it
Not as we know it, Captain

There's Klingons on the starboard bow
Starboard bow, starboard bow
There's Klingons on the starboard bow
Starboard bow Jim

Ye canny change the scourge jim oh see you jimmy
Bridge to engine room, warp factor nine
If I give her anymore she'll blow

Star Trekking, across the universe
On the Starship Enterprise, under Captain Kirk
Star Trekking, across the universe
Boldly going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse
Star Trekking, across the universe
On the Starship Enterprise, under Captain Kirk
Star Trekking, across the universe
Boldly going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse

DSH = haha

or does it?

It's 15:06 and I'm already out of the DSH exam... already being after about 5 hours. Not sure if I passed - two parts were ok, but the third I might've farked up, so who knows. Results are out on Wednesday, in the meantime leaving me to my worried devices. Half of the exam room was full with ruskies (or at least russkogovoryashih). Those poor supervisors - they must've had a hartattack trying to prevent so many cheeky ppl from talking to each other, cheating, and doing all sorts of other illegal, yet very helpful things. I managed to (accidentally) sit next to three of them - a girl from Tadjikistan, a guy from Ukraine and another guy (originally) from Kazakhstan... kinda makes you appreciate that russian is also a multi-country language and at least sometimes has it's uses :)

And just 'cos meeting so many countrymen/women wasn't funny enough, yesterday I got an email from tickets.de - this is like an equivalent of Ticketmaster... the subject of which was 'haha' and inside had details for this Friday night's Xavier Rudd's concert (which we have tickets for). I didn't make much of it, and just thought it was a bit unprofessional. BUT today I got the following email... I like the way "technical fault" is used in the same way as Aeroflot always uses it for any late departures where the pilot just went to have another shot of vodka :)

"

Dear Tickets.de user,

due to a technical fault we have sent you an email with the subject "haha". We would like to apologise for this.

The concert will of course take place and your tickets are still valid.

Enjoy the concert!

Best regards

Tina Hartmann

MCT Agentur GmbH

http://www.tickets.de

Email: hartmann@tickets.de
"

Now comes the real question... how did it really happen? Humour me and take a poll:

An apple a day...

After hours of studying and even more hours of stressing about studying we decided it was time to come out of our lair and wonder towards some drinking establishment - after all, it was Saturday night (or afternoon at that stage). Following a quick detour past Humboldt Uni, where I wanted to check the room for the exam, and a purchase of a book - "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" we stumbled upon a lovely apple tree just outside of Gorki Theatre. Said apple tree was covered with apples, which just needed to be collected. Without further ado Jack climbed the tree to the amuzement of passers-by and cultured guests of the above-mentioned theatre. He collected four apples which actually tasted somewhat floury but reminded me of the apples from my great aunt's country house just outside of St Pete.

Evening followed by the consumption of beverages... Tangent: why do I always feel the compulsion to pick the foulest looking drinks??? This time it was the Cool Cat - which came out from the bar looking (and tasting) like this cat was given birth to by a dishwashing detergent... AAAnyway. We relaxed to some shisha and then I decided that I was in desperate need of a haircut, but no matter how many places we went past, every hairdressers was closed. In Prenzlauer Berg?! On a Sat night?! unheard of!!! Ah well - now I'm again unsure of whether I should really cut my hair.

And just 'cos it is 9/11 here's something profound from George W's mummy:

"War is not nice." ~ Barbara Bush ~

... and that's life on this Tuesday in the cloudy autumny German capital.

Would WWIII look something like this?!

No! It's just me studying for the German exam. I think my brain is going to start melting and run out of my ears. And just in case you thought getting your tenses right was hard in English, try 11 different tenses in German. AND just in case you were wondering whether it was possible to make 5(five!) verbs out of 1(one!) - yes it is possible, as I found out today...

A simple: Er kauft das Auto. (He buys a car)

in Futur 2 Passiv becomes: Das Auto wird von ihm haben gekauft werden können. (ummmm.... The car will from him have bought will may)

I will certainly be proud if I pass this bloody exam. And if I don't pass, I'll still feel proud that I got defeated by this old, magnificent and farken difficult language!

The joys of going to weddings

Last weekend we caught a train to Marburg, because Philipp (Jack's co-worker) was getting married and we got invited. He was getting married on Saturday, so Friday evening we spent with auntie Marlies in the Diakonissenhaus (kind of like a convent for Evangelists) - she's a nun. We even managed to fix some of her computer problems and went for a short walk in the forest.


The next day it was the wedding. And it was wonderful. The church service was nice and the priest was very funny at times. Ourselves - we even discovered that we can sing - well that was mainly Jack. ;-P After the service we got driven in a big bus to a barn where dinner and the rest of celebrations were to take place. It is a custom here in Germany to beep the horn in the wedding procession, so the bus driver was overly excited and must've deafened the local villagers.

The night was heaps of fun and lots of alcohol and yummy food. Also nothing beats dancing to 60s-80s music. Philipp and Li were also kind enough to organise a hotel for us... and this is where the real "fun" began...



As it was after 2:30am we were the only ones going to that hotel, so we caught a cab. As we got there we rang the door bell thinking warm happy thoughts and anticipating a nice warm bed. No-one answered. So we rang again... no-one. After about ten minutes of constant ringing our vision of a warm comfy bed somewhat faded and a new vision of a cold dark German country town approached. After waiting some more we realised that we probably won't find another hotel in that village and decided to catch a cab back to Marburg. As we were waiting for this second cab to arrive, the only seats available were at a nearby bus-stop. So we scored a few weird glances from the passing by cars. Yes - we were waiting for a bus at 3am in the morning - that's probably what they were thinking.

Back in Marburg the only available hotel there had only a suite left, and for 7 hours of sleep paying 148 EURs seemed a bit obscene. The concierge at the hotel suggested the only late night establishment just up the road, but as we approached this pub, the number of drunken bikers stumbling inside made us less keen to spend the night in their company, so we opted for sleeping in the train station and catching the first train back to Berlin. Although here we came accross the highlight of the night - finding a huge string of balloons :)

The station was of course closed but a bar across the street had some tables and chairs outside, which enabled us to play a round or two of cards - attracting the attention of the local youth who were very keen to join us or at least score a ciggy. A couple of hours later the station opened to it's first customers at about 4:50am and we crawled inside from the quickly approaching freezing morning. We decided not to share the only bench with a homeless dude and upon finding and ripping up some train magazines found a more or less warm corner on the stone floor, and spent the rest of the time there.

Finally we got onto our 6:41AM train, which at that time of the day actually came and left on time (unlike most other trains run by Deutsche Bahn - see numerous previous posts of swearing and whinging). Then after an hour of waiting for our connection at Kassel and having a bit of a run-in with a mean black guy (who sat next to us in a cafe and started smoking and initiating rude conversation) we decided not to commit murder and waited the rest of the hour on the platform. At 11:24 on Sunday we arrived in the noble German capital... squinting from the blinding light we dashed for the subway and then into bed. There's truly no place like home!

The Moral of the Story: even tiny German towns need to invest into 24 hour McDonalds damnit!

PS: here's a photo of an altered 'Ford' logo, that the father of the bride proudly altered to spell out his name :)
PPS: the second photo is of a dedicated establishment for smokers - outside the barn where the wedding action took place.

"Families are like fudge - mostly sweet with a few nuts." :-D

A couple of days after Olchik left we had our last summer visitors - Mum and Glebka. Mum arrived first after doing a week long bus tour of Italy. And Gleb arrived some days later from Melbourne. Mum spent a huge amount of time in museums and together we visited the Decorative Arts Museum, which surprisingly was very interesting. Btw, for all those thinking of coming our way, an entry ticket to one of the museums in the Kulturforum gives you entry into all the other ones.

Gleb mainly stayed at home and read books or downloaded mods on the computer. I think mods are these things that make computer games more interesting? ;/ The only game I play atm is Tetris on my Palm, which does not require mods I think... :) or does it?



A couple of nights were occupied playing '12' - a card game where you get 12 cards and have to put them out with a minimum of 40 points - the ruskies will know what I'm talking about. For this sole purpose Jack emptied our loose change box, and fished out all of the 1c pieces. He was also the winner that night with an incredible 200 coins, making him a proud owner of 2 whole euros!

We also ventured out to Ming D (chinese restaurant) for dinner on Saturday night. As we sat outside overlooking the Spree and munching on our dumplings and duck, the evening passed by while we spent time talking about their plans for next year and remembering some good times. It was very good to see them.

Olchik

A total of about 100kgs has arrived from London on the 6th of August. Out of that I think half was luggage :) Yes Olchik does not travel lightly... but she is away for almost two months and she brought presents and a pair of bunnie ears which seemed like a good use for all the space in her bag.


In between work and sleep we managed a night in Chagal (a cool russian cafe that does amazing soups and huge hot chocolates), followed by drinking in Prenzlauerbergian beer gardens. We also had a good time sitting and drinking on our balcony. Throughout her stay she spoiled us with chocolates, tea and biscuits (a huge box of which is still almost full - who knows, it might even last 'till New Year!). It was great to see her and of course makes me wish that we were closer. I think it's time we did a Russian Club reunion... ???!!!

Venice

After seeing it for the first time last year we knew that we had to come back. It is such a beautiful and amazing place. I definitely want to retire there, buy a motorboat, a little house and just enjoy the weather, the people and of course the beautiful language. Before then I'll have to learn it of course.

We were there a total of 7 days and 6 nights. We stayed right next to Accademia - this is so to speak 'old masters' gallery. From our window, which was covered in vines we could see the Grand Canale and the Accademia bridge. Every day we spent outside seeing things, walking the windy narrow walkways and sipping great coffee. One has to say that Venice is nicer in the off-season, because in summer there are just simply too many tourists and it almost loses some of its charm.

Upon arrival we bought two Venice Cards. They give you free transport (which naturally only includes waterboats), and also entry to the major museums and numerous (something like 16) churches. All in all it was definitely worthwhile, because we managed a trip to Murano (a nearby island where they make amazing glass), and Burano (also a nearbly island where they make lace, which also has incredibly bright coloured houses - see pic.). Also seeing Venice from the water gives you a different perspective... kind of makes you appreciate in a sense how fragile it really is being built on wooden stumps.

Of course Venice wouldn't be what it is without the numerous churches and palazzo's (in all of which you have to behave very _decently_ - see pic.). Even some of the older churches have beautiful renaissance (or pre-renaissance) frescoe's, painings and murals. It's not unusual to stumble upon a work of Rubens, Titian or Tintoretto. It is at these times that I really miss my Mum, because she'd be able to tell so much about each one of those and the experience would be a lot more enriching.


It is in Venice that we celebrated our four years of marriage. Together we have been through a lot - changing jobs, changing cities, changing countries, parents leaving, parents coming back, friends moving away, friends moving closer. And of course we have changed in a lot of ways - some for the better, some for the worst. But all in all love prevails and makes us happier.

Also in Venice we celebrated my birthday. Thank you very much to everyone who called, sms'ed, emailed or otherwise congratulated me. I have decided that wherever we are next year I want to spend my birthday with family or friends. Somehow being away made me incredibly sad. Thankfully Jack put up with all of my whinging and whining, and even offered to buy me 350 Euro boots, which I refused (I can just see Yulchik thinking "you silly woman!"). In the evening though we had a very nice dinner overlooking the sunset over the channel. It was beautiful.

Venice for me is always associated with this feeling of something eternal and incredibly beautiful. It has been through wars and catastrophies, it's been sinking almost ever since it's been built, and yet it's there - to entice us and show that life is amazing. If Venice was a person I think she'd be Audrey Hepburn.

Random photos (check out how colour coordinated the locals are - especially with their surroundings - ie. the bench):

Weiterbildung = Blog Update

At work we have this task in the booking system called 'Weiterbildung', which literally translates as 'continuing education'. Today was a relaxing day and not having much work to do I could've actually spent the time progressing in the Frontend development career... or I could've answered some emails and updated the blog. Guess which one I chose? :)