New toilet!!!

The past weeks have flown by again. I have spent a lot of time finishing the toilet and now it looks absolutely amazing. Here are the pre- and post- pictures:

 

Doesnt it look absolutely amazing? I am so happy my brother was able to come and help a few weeks ago with the floors though, because I would so not have been able to do that myself....

Anyways, more pictures are available here

Last weekend, my highschool friend Bastiaan and his new girlfriend came to visit and we had an absolutely fabulous time! The weather could have been a bit better, but we managed to see some of Berlin and enjoy ourselves immensely with drinking, playing games and not getting enough sleep.

The visitors' season is now seriously starting, with Fedor's Mum arriving on Saturday and staying until Tuesday, after which another friend will be here from Tue until Thu and Idil will visit from Milan from Thu until Tue. After that, there are two days of rest and my oldest brother and his family will come over! I am really excited about having so many visitors, but it certainly is a good thing that Fedor still has not found a job yet!!!

On the health front, things are fluctuating a bit. I have several things, but it is an allergy that is bothering me most. When I first had it, the doctor gave me medication and I felt great again afterwards, but last week (culminating on Sunday night), it came back with a vengeance (in summary: completely swollen head, red spots everywhere, swollen limbs and terrible muscle aches). I have different medication now, but as we have no idea what I might be allergic to, these are also not working quite as well as they should. In addition to the allergy thing, I am having a belly inspection tomorrow for which I have been on a no-fiber or many other things diet for a week. Which is (1) inconvenient and (2) awfully depressing. Today is different though: today I am not allowed to eat anything at all...

Oh well, I am sure everything will be fine, and at least I am getting my money's worth out of the German Health System!

Tschüßi,OJ

Greece-visitors-cocktails, and all that...

Finally some time to write on the blog. In the past weeks, we have been further decorating the flat (not a lot of work on that account) and working (at least, I have been). I went to Thessaloniki, Greece, for a conference for some days, 2 weeks ago, together with my friend/colleague Cathérine. That was great: the weather was nice, the conference was interesting and the people were a lot of fun!

So that got me all charged up for returning to work with a vengeance afterwards. I have been trying to juggle a whole lot of things, research, proposals, etc etc. Unfortunately, my first proposal I wrote back in April was rejected :-(((( But hey, it was a learning experience!

In the meantime, we have also had our first real visitor coming to stay: our friend Tatiana. She wanted to visit the modern art museum, and therefore came to stay with us. It was nice to see her, but damned, I am NOT into modern art!!! It was pretty awful, in fact.... Oh well, it was a learning experience!

The last weekend, we went to see my brother and his family who are staying in a holidaypark about 75 km north of Berlin. It was nice to be out of the city and to play with the kids and all that. Two days ago, in return, they came to visit us in Berlin! This was great, because my brother, the Handyman he is, was able to help me with some flat reconstruction. in fact, the one thing that bothered me most about our flat was the toilet: it is small, dark and unpleasant. But thanks to my brother's efforts, it now has an absolutely amazing floor and a new toilet. Just wait until the weekend, when I will paint the walls etc, and it will be fantastic!!! I guess that is the positive part from the fact that our friends Jorryt and Lilian are not coming due to a medical emergency..... :´(((((((

Anyways, for the rest there isnt much to comment. Yesterday I taught a class on ethnolinguistic heterogeneity at the Humboldt University, which was actually quite enjoyable (yes, rather surprising indeed). And then we went to go to a Pub Quiz: I LOOOOOOVE pub quizzes!!! Unfortunately, and embarrassingly so, we actually were LAST! Oh well, shit happens. Today, I have been not so well, and have gone to see some doctors. Let's assume everything will be fine (I have 3 kinds of medication already!), I will inform you more about this, later.........

Tschüßi.OJ