Well this was certainly an eventful week. My boss actually ended up telling me on Monday that he wanted me to make some changes and do some extra things on both projects that were due last week, which meant that I didn't have time to get everything that was due this week done (another three projects) so he was upset about that on Thursday. I just kept thinking to myself that I can't help it if he won't accept the work I give him. The changes he asked for weren't simple to make... Anyway, so work still sucks. I can't wait for the internship to be done.
On Friday, I hopped a plane to Malaga in Spain. It's a city on the Mediterranean where Picasso lived. I stayed in a hostel for three nights and spent my days either shopping or on the beach. I managed to get very splotchy sun burns on my thighs and stomach, but other than that it was great. On the last night, I decided to go out for dinner and had a couple of beers, which made me tipsy. It's a testament to how little I've been able to afford to go out here that two beers got me all giggly. When I came back to the hostel, I ended up having a couple more beers with my three Dutch roommates and the two guys told a very funny story about getting strip searched by the Spanish police (no joke!). All in all, it was an excellent trip.
Now it's back to the grind...but only for two and a half days. On Thursday night I'm flying to Berlin for my birthday!
Monday, July 28, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Week Nine
So this week, I had two projects due (one was the big one I've been working for the past four weeks or so) on Thursday evening, which made for a very stressful week. It didn't help that my boss didn't mention that these projects were due until Monday. Argh. So I think everything came out fine, but there's still some work to be done. My boss decided to consult a few more colleagues about possible resources that I should check before turning this thing in. So I'm waiting to hear from him about that. Other than that, this week went pretty smoothly.
I also had a phone interview with the guy from my friend Sam's PR firm in Berlin. It went very well, and he seemed to really like me. However, it appears that the other candidates have a "more stable" status here in Germany than I do (translation: they already have work visas), so it doesn't look like I will be moving to Berlin any time soon. This is a bit of a relief, since the whole opportunity was very sudden and didn't give me much time to think about what I want. However, I'm definitely having trouble getting anyone in the U.S. to take me seriously as a candidate right now, since I'm so far away. That kind of sucks.
This weekend should be pretty good. Some other interns went to a club last night and invited me to join them, but I was pretty beat from this work week, so I took it easy at home instead. Tonight, however, there is a beer festival in Mainz! This should be really fun. That's probably the plan for the next couple of days.
In other news, next week's entry will probably be late, since I'm taking a short four-day vacation to Malaga in Spain!! I'm very excited. Not only is Malaga a beach-front city on the Mediterranean (where I've never been before), it is also the birthplace of Picasso! Which means I'll be doing some sight-seeing. As if that weren't enough to recommend it, it has a BCBG store (there are none anywhere in Germany! I was so sad) and also a little boutique for this cool new brand I'm getting into. Night life is also supposed to be pretty good. Here's hoping for a good relaxing week!
I also had a phone interview with the guy from my friend Sam's PR firm in Berlin. It went very well, and he seemed to really like me. However, it appears that the other candidates have a "more stable" status here in Germany than I do (translation: they already have work visas), so it doesn't look like I will be moving to Berlin any time soon. This is a bit of a relief, since the whole opportunity was very sudden and didn't give me much time to think about what I want. However, I'm definitely having trouble getting anyone in the U.S. to take me seriously as a candidate right now, since I'm so far away. That kind of sucks.
This weekend should be pretty good. Some other interns went to a club last night and invited me to join them, but I was pretty beat from this work week, so I took it easy at home instead. Tonight, however, there is a beer festival in Mainz! This should be really fun. That's probably the plan for the next couple of days.
In other news, next week's entry will probably be late, since I'm taking a short four-day vacation to Malaga in Spain!! I'm very excited. Not only is Malaga a beach-front city on the Mediterranean (where I've never been before), it is also the birthplace of Picasso! Which means I'll be doing some sight-seeing. As if that weren't enough to recommend it, it has a BCBG store (there are none anywhere in Germany! I was so sad) and also a little boutique for this cool new brand I'm getting into. Night life is also supposed to be pretty good. Here's hoping for a good relaxing week!
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Week Eight
Wow it's hard to believe that the time is going by so fast. I have a little over four weeks left here, and I'm really looking forward to coming home. Although, it may not be for long...more on that later. This week was really stressful. When I got the assignment for this online media research project at work, we set a tentative meeting to discuss my project on July 8, which was this past Tuesday. But Agnes was too busy while she was here, so she kept putting it off. Then she called me late Friday morning to say that Frank would meet with me that afternoon instead and to give me about six other things to do (while talking so fast that I couldn't understand him). So I really started freaking out about the meeting, but then Frank called to say that he had to put it off until Monday morning. I was kind of pissed at first (just get it over with already!), but now I'm glad. I've been able to make a list of all the questions I have and what I need to complete the project. This is good, since otherwise, I probably would've been too flustered to organize my thoughts.
In other news, I didn't do much this weekend. On Friday, I tried to get a bunch of the interns to come out for the evening, but pretty much everyone was either traveling or already had plans. So it ended up just being the American interns. The three of us had all had really stressful weeks, so instead of going out to party, which was the original plan, we decided to check out Taubertsbergbad - a local public pool. It was AMAZING! For 10 euro (yay student night!) we got access to every single pool and sauna for four hours. We spent the majority of our time in the Erlebnisbad, a very fancy heated pool with artificial currents and a swim through to an outdoor area, plus jacuzzis! However, we did try out both waterslides - very fun - and took a moment to go over to the Olympic sized Sportbad. There they had a separate diving well with 1 meter and 3 meter springboards, and a 5 meter platform. I only brought bikinis with me, so I stuck to the 1 meter, but after only three tries I nailed my front tuck dive. That felt good since it's been a long time since I've been anywhere near a real diving board.
Other than that, I've just been relaxing and doing a little online research. For one thing, my friend Sam, who I visited last week in Berlin, told me about an opening at her PR firm in Berlin, so I've applied to that. They want to do a phone interview with me tomorrow evening, so I'm trying to get as much information together about them as I can. If I got this job (it's a trainee position for a native English speaker), then I would move to Berlin permanently, or at least for a few years. That's a bit of a scary thought, but it would be a great opportunity...and I love Berlin! It's all very tentative though, because they've already done final interviews for two other candidates, but neither were as qualified as I am, so they still want to talk to me. I've also been applying like crazy to other jobs around DC. I'm really hoping to have this job thing sorted out before I come home.
I'm really looking forward to the next few weeks. Next weekend is a beer festival in Mainz, then the following week I'm going to the beach in Spain for four days (so excited!) and then the week after that, Agnes was talking about giving me another four day weekend to go to Berlin. That will be my birthday weekend! Awesome. Can't wait!
In other news, I didn't do much this weekend. On Friday, I tried to get a bunch of the interns to come out for the evening, but pretty much everyone was either traveling or already had plans. So it ended up just being the American interns. The three of us had all had really stressful weeks, so instead of going out to party, which was the original plan, we decided to check out Taubertsbergbad - a local public pool. It was AMAZING! For 10 euro (yay student night!) we got access to every single pool and sauna for four hours. We spent the majority of our time in the Erlebnisbad, a very fancy heated pool with artificial currents and a swim through to an outdoor area, plus jacuzzis! However, we did try out both waterslides - very fun - and took a moment to go over to the Olympic sized Sportbad. There they had a separate diving well with 1 meter and 3 meter springboards, and a 5 meter platform. I only brought bikinis with me, so I stuck to the 1 meter, but after only three tries I nailed my front tuck dive. That felt good since it's been a long time since I've been anywhere near a real diving board.
Other than that, I've just been relaxing and doing a little online research. For one thing, my friend Sam, who I visited last week in Berlin, told me about an opening at her PR firm in Berlin, so I've applied to that. They want to do a phone interview with me tomorrow evening, so I'm trying to get as much information together about them as I can. If I got this job (it's a trainee position for a native English speaker), then I would move to Berlin permanently, or at least for a few years. That's a bit of a scary thought, but it would be a great opportunity...and I love Berlin! It's all very tentative though, because they've already done final interviews for two other candidates, but neither were as qualified as I am, so they still want to talk to me. I've also been applying like crazy to other jobs around DC. I'm really hoping to have this job thing sorted out before I come home.
I'm really looking forward to the next few weeks. Next weekend is a beer festival in Mainz, then the following week I'm going to the beach in Spain for four days (so excited!) and then the week after that, Agnes was talking about giving me another four day weekend to go to Berlin. That will be my birthday weekend! Awesome. Can't wait!
Monday, July 7, 2008
Week Seven
Sorry this entry is a little late. I just returned from a weekend in my favorite city in the whole world - Berlin! But first things first. Work was pretty uneventful this week. I made progress on my project, although I still have a sinking feeling that I'm not doing it right/well. Also, a bunch of us girl interns have started eating lunch together regularly, which is pretty nice. Inevitably, we linger way over our 30 minutes, but no one seems to really mind. The intern happy hour started off a bit rough this week, because many of the interns I knew before have left, but then I got to know some new people, so that was fun.
Now the Berlin trip! I left work early on Friday and hopped a plane to the Hauptstadt. Upon my arrival, I took the S9 all the way to Warschauerstraße where I met Sam by her work. It reminded me of the times we used to get off there to walk to Friederichshain and go to hookah bars. =) Sam and I then traveled up to Wedding, where she just moved into a new apartment with her husband Felix. We wanted to go out for the fireworks (yes they had 4th of July fireworks, I think sponsored by the embassy) but the weather was really nasty, so instead we stayed in and played WiiFit. This was almost as good. I rock the ski jump game!
On Saturday, Sam and Felix went to their local Mieteverein to try to get some backing in a dispute with the company that owns their building. I made the trek across the city to Rathaus Steglitz and then to Brentanostraße where I surprised Günther! We both had really silly grins on our faces the entire time I was there. I ate bockwurst with kartoffelsalat and bought a Bild Zeitung for old times sake (there was no naked woman! I was so surprised! Has Axel Springer cleaned up his act?). Günther told me about his recent hospital visit, his new boat, and how there are fewer FU-BEST students coming to see him these days because the dollar is so weak. We visited for about two hours before I had to head back to Wedding to meet up with Sam and Felix to go to Amerikafest. He gave me a bag full of brötchen and a piece of cake to give to Sam and Felix for "putting up with me" haha. So we made our way to Friederichstraße (or Fred, as Sam likes to call it) and walked down Unter den Linden to Pariser Platz, where some good old-fashioned American fun was under way. This festival was to celebrate the opening of the new American Embassy on Pariser Platz, although no one is actually allowed into the embassy. The fest went all the way down Straße der 17 Juli, so it was pretty exciting. At night we went back to the apartment where Sam made lasagna.
On Sunday, I left the apartment for the last time (at least for this trip). I went to the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche on the Ku'damm, which is my favorite place to go in Berlin. I wish I'd had time to go on a day that wasn't Sunday, so I could've shopped, but oh well. You can't go into the Gedächtniskirche any more because it needs to be renovated, but they weren't able to get funding from the government, so they're trying to raise the funds privately or it will have to be torn down. =( I took lots of pictures in case that happens. Then I went to the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz, where I was seized by nostalgia. When I studied abroad, we used to hang out there a lot, because there was free wireless internet, an English movie theater, and fantastic ice cream. After that, I went back to Friederichstraße where I got some great Berliner döner (it really is the best in Germany) before hopping an S9 back to the airport.
I've always known how much I love Berlin, but being there again, the feeling was about ten times stronger. I was constantly reminded of the things I used to do when I lived there, and it made me want to drop everything and find a way to move back. I was never homesick in Berlin, because it was my home. It's just one of those places that you fall in love with. I wish my internship were there instead of in Mainz. It was very sad to leave the city that I love to go back to a place that I feel nothing for, but in another month, I'll be going back for my birthday. So I'm holding on to that. I may try to go back earlier, depending on money and time. After all, there are still many places I used to haunt that I didn't have time to go see!
Now the Berlin trip! I left work early on Friday and hopped a plane to the Hauptstadt. Upon my arrival, I took the S9 all the way to Warschauerstraße where I met Sam by her work. It reminded me of the times we used to get off there to walk to Friederichshain and go to hookah bars. =) Sam and I then traveled up to Wedding, where she just moved into a new apartment with her husband Felix. We wanted to go out for the fireworks (yes they had 4th of July fireworks, I think sponsored by the embassy) but the weather was really nasty, so instead we stayed in and played WiiFit. This was almost as good. I rock the ski jump game!
On Saturday, Sam and Felix went to their local Mieteverein to try to get some backing in a dispute with the company that owns their building. I made the trek across the city to Rathaus Steglitz and then to Brentanostraße where I surprised Günther! We both had really silly grins on our faces the entire time I was there. I ate bockwurst with kartoffelsalat and bought a Bild Zeitung for old times sake (there was no naked woman! I was so surprised! Has Axel Springer cleaned up his act?). Günther told me about his recent hospital visit, his new boat, and how there are fewer FU-BEST students coming to see him these days because the dollar is so weak. We visited for about two hours before I had to head back to Wedding to meet up with Sam and Felix to go to Amerikafest. He gave me a bag full of brötchen and a piece of cake to give to Sam and Felix for "putting up with me" haha. So we made our way to Friederichstraße (or Fred, as Sam likes to call it) and walked down Unter den Linden to Pariser Platz, where some good old-fashioned American fun was under way. This festival was to celebrate the opening of the new American Embassy on Pariser Platz, although no one is actually allowed into the embassy. The fest went all the way down Straße der 17 Juli, so it was pretty exciting. At night we went back to the apartment where Sam made lasagna.
On Sunday, I left the apartment for the last time (at least for this trip). I went to the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche on the Ku'damm, which is my favorite place to go in Berlin. I wish I'd had time to go on a day that wasn't Sunday, so I could've shopped, but oh well. You can't go into the Gedächtniskirche any more because it needs to be renovated, but they weren't able to get funding from the government, so they're trying to raise the funds privately or it will have to be torn down. =( I took lots of pictures in case that happens. Then I went to the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz, where I was seized by nostalgia. When I studied abroad, we used to hang out there a lot, because there was free wireless internet, an English movie theater, and fantastic ice cream. After that, I went back to Friederichstraße where I got some great Berliner döner (it really is the best in Germany) before hopping an S9 back to the airport.
I've always known how much I love Berlin, but being there again, the feeling was about ten times stronger. I was constantly reminded of the things I used to do when I lived there, and it made me want to drop everything and find a way to move back. I was never homesick in Berlin, because it was my home. It's just one of those places that you fall in love with. I wish my internship were there instead of in Mainz. It was very sad to leave the city that I love to go back to a place that I feel nothing for, but in another month, I'll be going back for my birthday. So I'm holding on to that. I may try to go back earlier, depending on money and time. After all, there are still many places I used to haunt that I didn't have time to go see!
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