Einträge von florian

We had both fallen asleep when Fabian came back. He wanted to pick us up to go to some place in Jersey. One of the other BMW interns was having a farewell party in a sushi place called ZEN and so Bjou got to know how much he likes raw fish. Yummy! We had plenty and were pretty stuffed when we loaded the car and drove back to Manhatten. Our agenda brought us down to West Chelsea into Cain, a pretty trendy and packed club on 27th with nice details here and there, luckily we knew the bouncers and so got in very quickly. The crowd was wild, the music was nice and so we won the party staying past four. All clubs here seem to close at four. We walked a couple of blocks and got ourselves a solid and (so I was told) typical breakast: eggs, potatoes and a reanimating glass of orange juice.

The next day of course we didn't get up early, too. Actually Bjou got up first and became more and more nervous as he did not dare walking Fabian up to ask for the WPA key to his wireless connection. The poor boy was sitting on the toilett with his notebook not even having internet. The only real thing we had to do was drop Fabi's new MacBook pro off at TekServe, which didn't take us very long. Afterwards I got introduced to American pizza and the fact that Bjou can refuse to eat. At night we met some of the inters in the 5 Ninth, aber bar in the famous Meatpacking district, later headed up the Gansevoort Hotel to see another roof top bar. Wasn't as good as the first one, but still nice. We had lost most of our party during the process: who wears advertising t-shirts going out in Manhatten, huh? This sounds rough, but then again I've got to say that NY bouncers in general seem to have certain rules but aren't very picky besides. I liked it. Finally we stumbled into the Cain club, to let the night end.

We came home very late and where just about to go to bed (Bjou made it!), when Fabian and I figured that we should reconsider joing the BMW posers for the Hamptons-trip as we would not go to sleep for three hours only. So we didn't. Go to sleep, I mean. We kicked Bjou out of the bed, picked up the car and off we drove. It was about two hours later when we were laying on the beach. I had already fallen asleep during the ride. Twice. And in the warm sun with the sound of the ocean the others couldn't resist either. A couple of hours later we all had nice sunburns, though we needed a picture to convince Bjou that he had been striked the worst.

Another few hours later, we enjoyed the time on the beach, the otheres finally arrived. I am so glad we had a tomtom in the car thinking about the trip they had had and all the time we spent chlling out. After burgers on the beach (and even in the sand, haha) we started the ride home. The traffic within Manhatten was dense by now and so it took as a bit longer. Fabian and I kept each other awake and he really deserves my props for driving us home safely! Choice! What happend afterwards is just grey memories and sleep.

During the week that was about to begin, Fabian would have to work again. So Bjou and I checked out the city: we took some photos of the hotel where Bjou had stayed earlier and of a house which somehow matters to the genealogical research my parents do, we went to the central park, saw the Rockefeller Plaza, walked down to the Flat Iron, walked the Brooklyn Bridge catched a train to central station, saw Metlife, the Waldorf and surroundings, tried different fast food and chilled on Fabi's rooftop on Monday.

On Tuesday we climbed ...

It was last thursday around 5pm when Bjou and I landed at JFK. The entry went smooth for the two of us, though Bjou was told that it might lead to a problem that he only wanted to leave the US to Mexico. Fabian had finished work early and was picking us up right in front of the terminal. In his new, huge and actually pretty cool Toyota SUV we cruised towards the skyline and entered Manhatten. Fabian lives on West 50th Street, right in hells kitchen, and so we got a good impression of what was waiting in NY when we started with a cold beer on the roof of his house.



Of course we strolled into the Big Apple that same night. Us freshmen were really tired, but after a Burrito right in front of the Worldwide Plaza we found enought energy to climb up the 230 Fifth, one of Fabian's favourite roof top bars. Actually I didn't even think it was very touristy and we had a great view of the skyline. Loved it, though the beer was pretty damn expensive. This must have been where I started just handing over my credit card ... After a very long day we had a very long night.

Around noon the next day Bjou and I hit the city. We started walking south on 8th, Hudson Street and West Broadway and ended up at Ground Zero. I must say that I expected something else. It is a very huge building site with very huge fences around it. What ever is being built is not very well documented for visitors. And when you start thinking about what happend there six years ago it is simply hard to imagine. Still you could feel that most people there had similar thoughts and there was some deliberation in the air.

We went on to Battery Park and watched the Statue of Liberty. As we both had been there we didn't catch a ferry and just hung out on a bench for some time. In general this city does not freak me as it did once. Maybe it's because we have seen some skylines by now, maybe because it's that we don't get overwhelmed that easy anymore in general. But on the other hand this comes with new opportunities like experiencing the feeling to chill in a city like this. Pretty cool. However, we went on to the financial district, the Hanover Sq., watched Wallstreet and Wallstreet people, trinity church, City Hall, more sky scrapers, Ground Zero (from the other side), ... and heaps more. We started walking up and strolled a little through Soho but were way to tired to enjoy the diverse mix of restaurants and shops. Finally we tried NY's underground and went back to our basecamp.

I'm sitting in Fabian's appartment in NYC. I'm not even tired anymore and already had a small bite of the big apple. The aircon is running, after a couple of days without checking mail I fired up the laptop. Finally this is gonna be a relaxing day, I guess ...

So let me tell you what happend beginning with Tuesday morning. Bjou and I got up really early and had to go to Weissach, the Porsche research site, as the uni organised that we could take our last oral exam there. Otherwise it would have been postponed until next friday which obviously would have been too late. However, I thought this would be fun as the lecturer, director of one developement branch, seemed to be a pretty cool guy during the semester. But he really gave us a hard time and in the end I was relieved that it still went smooth. It was around 11.30am when we made it back to Karlsruhe. At that time I had not even started to pack up my room! But before the agenda forced us to go to the cafeteria and we had lunch with the usual suspects.

In our basement I had found some of the boxes I used to store my stuff when I was down under and so I expected to make considerable progress during the afternoon. But I also knew that packing things is just not my thing. I hate my life in boxes and in addition to that I always find stuff I haven't seen in a while. Everything has to be tried, played with and usually I try to sort things in a very special and even for myself complicated system that works so bad that I always stay with a box for everything that just did not find a spot. Even though I try to throw heaps of things out.

In between I went shopping with Bjou. We got quite some beer and food for the party that was supposed to take place at Labi's that night. When I left the pink appartment around 8pm I was late and frustrated because I was way behind my schedule and my room did not even look as if I was planning to leave. Luckily many really cool people showed up for our farewell so all hard feelings were forgotten around 9.30pm, as was my plan to get up early the next day. Well, at least I could have cared a lot more for my own condition but if you have such cool friends you simply can't! We laughed, talked, drank and partied till around 5am on Wednesday and so I didn't get much sleep. Still ... I felt the urge to hit the cafeteria again.

Actually I had told a lot of people that we wouldn't have to say goodbye for I would see them again anyway. Around 12am I took a quick shower and ran off, just to find out that everybody felt as hungover as I did. But it was sooo cool that we got a bunch of 14 (!!!) to occupy a table with us. For the protocoll: I had Spätzle with vegetarian Bolognese and some Kroketten (we had to wait, fight and cheer for).

The afternoon felt really bad. I wanted to make it quick and actually made progress for some hours. But finally my fatigue hit about half way through. It became a marathon which forced me to take some shortcuts. I.e. I have no idea what stuff I brought here, I just piled up at random. I also took another longish break around 5pm (I had told the driver that we would wanna leave around 6pm) to meet up with a friend for the traditional study-afternoon-coffee and to say goodbye once more.

It was 8.30pm when I had my gear in the trunk. The boys were cooking at our place, they wished me a lot of fun once more and then Lorant and I took off to Frankfurt where I wanted to meet my sister and brother for that night. The ride went smooth, we stopped for food and it turned 10.30pm when Lorant was playing with my sister's dog in her appartment, talking with my brother about bikes. I was freaking tired but didn't make it to the couch until 4h later. I had to organise train ticktes (Bjou doesn't know the difference between FFM airport station and FFM central station) and do some bank stuff, take photocopies of important documents and wait for the tumble-dryer and some cloth I took out of the washer in Ka before leaving. Slept like a baby, but only for five hours.

My brother gave me a ride to the airport - not for a flight but a train to Duesseldorf. Luckily it wasn't that crowded and after one more goodbye I sank into the seat Bjou had found me on the ICE. We had some time until the flight so it was cool to take another train from D main station to the airport. The hardest part was filling out another round of documents for LTU and convincing them that Bjou really wanted to leave the US again. He managed that and some security checks (and another round of random "explosives and drugs"-testing) later the only things left to do were some phone calls, as I haven't seen my parents in weeks. LTU messed up with some containers, so we took of 45mins late, it was 2.15pm, September 20th. NYC here we come.

First: it would have been a ten count, if I postet this a couple of minutes earlier. However, since my last entry a couple of things became clear. The last (important) exam is behind me, I got my flights and it turned out that I will really be sitting next to bjou on my way to NY. How cool is that?

Last Wednesday I visited the US Consulate in Frankfurt. Wasn't too easy to get all the documents needed for my interview beforehands and it didn't feel easy on site either. Luckily I met some other students in the queue ("Termine spielen keine Rolle, bitte stellen Sie sich an") in front of the heavily armored door to the consulate and so it was quite funny listening to their problems which sounded just like mine. One of them will be studying at UCLA and we're already discussing where to meet up for beer. The interview went really smooth and I was told that my visa was granted right away. Yeeha! Still, I wasn't really relived until I found it in the mailbox two days later. Isn't it strange they send all these important documents by plain mail? No signatures needed? My visa being in front of the house for hours? Reachable for every 4-year-old?

A few minutes ago I booked my flight vom JFK to LAX. It is so cheap to travel within the US. The distance is about 2700 miles and still the flight was not even $170. What else might be in range then? How far away is Hawaii from Los Angeles?

Well, until then there are a lot of things to come. For now, I start counting. Nine, ...

Tata! Some of you might not even remember this blog exists. Well, even I might have forgotten, but as my plans to leave this nice country again matured during the last weeks it popped back into my head. What plans? This is the question I've been waiting for. From October on I gonna work as a research scholar at the University of Southern California. Yup, once again a sunny place. So if you want to crash on the couch I will hopefully have, sign up soon as I am already getting requests (same qualifications provided women will be preferred).

The masterplan takes me and my buddy bjou to New York "Fucking" City in a couple of weeks where we will hang out with Fabian (my former flatmate) for a couple of days before I actually catch a flight to Los Angeles, my new home. Fabian has an appartment in Manhatten and I am sooo looking forward to going there.

So, keep your fingers crossed for my visit to the US embassy as I don't have a visa yet. I've you like visit this site from time to time now, as I will try to keep you up to date with what's happening.

Can't hold it anymore: Worldcup is sooo awesome. Unfortunately there are two days without a single match at the moment but at least this allows the time to write this! For those of you I still haven't told: last Saturday was the best day in my football-fan-life so far. We had tickets for the match agains Sweden and although I really like those northern people it was just too much fun watching them preparing for the trip home. Well, there were 66k people in the new Fifa Stadium Munich aka Allianz Arena which looks like a UFO that came to show the world what's important these days, and afterwards there were tons more on every single street. Still a bit freaked out! "Die Welt zu Gast bei Freunden?" - "Die Zeit der Freundschaftsspiele ist vorbei!". Some pictures can bee seen at Bjou's. Thanks for the ticket mate, you're a golden god. ... Euer Lukaaaaaaaaaaaas

For a couple of weeks now some of the people living in our house (one in particular) go really nuts about our (to be fair) very pretty backyard. As this can get very ugly escpecially because of having them sitting under my window for hours nearly every day we decided to test out their limits: As I have been away for quite a while a little palm plant originally standing in my room died and therefore had to stand on the balcony until a few mins ago. We relocated it right into the middle of the biggest pride of all, the very shiny and just so new bed next to the house. So, how long will it be standing there? How crazy can neighbours get about our little attempt? The official story might be that we still believe in its recovery (which is very very unlikely) and will certainly lead to some conversations about male students running their appartement. But who the hell cares? Feel free to drop a line to this articles comments, just a wild guess how long we can play this game. Already thinking about the winners trophy here ...

UPDATE: While still sitting here on the balcony blogging Fabian set up a tag for our baby! This is gonna be fun!

For month we planned to go geohunting by the time Fabian and I were both back in Karlsruhe again. So, during the last couple of days, we finally set things up, checked out some GPS receivers and got one from a big only auction house. Ladies and getlemen, I am proud to announce the retrival of our first geo cache. It was spotted today, Friday 16th, at 3:04am. We didn't find it directly although we had the right idea. But luckily enough we gave it a thorough second attempt and so after a total of maybe ten mins of watching around (and being disturbed by the nightwatch) we finally held it in our hands. Felt good! Of course it's back now, but I can tell you it's not the last one we were after.

As I got asked quite often what you could do with these graphs I keep thinking about I have to post something I read the other day: Graphs visualising the structure of a website might be quite useful to understand the complexity or beauty of certain layouts. Thy are produced from the structure of the html code underneath the site you see, each tag forms a node and gets a link to it's father entity as well as to all subelements. Looks cool. This data then is thrown into a simple spring embedder (the visualisation part) and shown to you. Tata!
I like it. Play around and find some really sparse (mostly css driven) but interesting websites. Complex ones are everywhere and therfore boring though more colourful!

Guess who's back! Three weeks in good old Germany, they were busy, full of uni and partys, with a tight schedule and a lack of sleep I still try to catch up with. Not only to finally see my family again but also to find shelter from that rhythm I made it to Hannover yesterday. I missed the shire.
I also consider this the last training camp before the worldcup as the last test for the German team is tonight. Watch out Colombia!
Of course it's weird being back, but there's not much time to think about it. And having said that... I gotta run off. At least now there's enough room for other posts again.