Another week with the hospital-prescribed diet that lacks all forms of substance, as well as vitamins. Now I really am very hungry... But I guess it is all for a greater good!
Well, that is what I thought anyway. Last Friday i was gonna hear the results, to see whether there really was any point to this diet. Unfortunately, after waiting for 3 hours, the doctor told me that he would not have any time for me that day. wtf?
Today, I did manage to see him and he informed me that, unfortunately, they didnt really find anything in particular, apart from the inflammation in the esophagus, for which they have no real explanation. Oh, and the diet: he doesnt really care, so "why dont you just continue the diet for another three or four WEEKS, and then start relaxing it a little". four weeks???? Are u insane? (oh yeah, those weeks would also include our holiday in Italy where I definitely will not be able to eat ANYTHING). I think I may have to have my own variation of the doctor's rules...
Oh well, on to happier topics: I did practically nothing at work last week, being mostly preoccupied with food. But during the weekend, on Saturday, we managed to go to Tristan und Isolde by Wagner, which was playing in the State Opera House. While it was enjoyable, I must admit it was also a little long: 5.5 hours of opera is a bit much... Afterwards, my friend Nicole who had joined us at the opera came to our place and we drank and chatted merrily until 4am. Well, lets put it this way: we chatted merrily and Fedor and Nicole drank merrily... *sigh*
On Sunday, then, we cycled to Spandau, which was supposed to be quite a pleasant suburb. While it was good to have seen it, we were not particularly impressed. The Citadel is not all that, the old town is kinda small (it really is only one street) and the medieval part of the city consists of one building and a piece of wall. And the way there is basically one big industrial zone, so it was not particularly impressive. But at least we have done it, on our last free Sunday before winter!
Oh wait, no, winter already started. At least that is what it seemd like last night, while I was sitting there in my warmest biggest jumper and still being cold... tomorrow's forecast says 31 degrees again though, so I guess Winter is on hold again!
Tschuessi!
OJ
PS Fedor had a job interview! And it went well...
Monday, August 31, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
German hospitals...
...are really not bad! Possibly tainted by my experience with an Italian hospital before (real story: I came out of surgery and was told: "it is very important to drink a lot of water, and you can buy water from the machine in the hallway"), but I must say that it was not too bad at all, overall. Of course I had the bad luck of being in the hospital on the hottest day of the year, so it was bloody hot, but you really cannot blame the hospital for that! The food was kinda crappy, but that was more due to the compulsory rice-potatoes-water diet than to anything else!
Oh yeah, regarding conclusions: we'll get back to you about that. They found a few other things, which they think may be correlated to the allergy/infection, but I have to wait until Friday to get the final results for that. Anyway, I will leave out the unpleasant details, I guess. One little interesting fact is that, at least until Friday, I will be on a rather strict diet. No fun things for me! Such as fruits, fish, nuts, alcohol, most dairy, sweets, spices, tomatoes, etc, etc, etc. Oh well, at least I am home!
During my 4 days in the hospital, Fedor was joined by his mother and her boyfriend, so he was not entirely lonely. I also saw them in the hospital on Wednesday, but on Thursday they returned to the Netherlands. I came home on Friday, in time for the arrival of Joost and Kim from the Netherlands in the evening. We had a great weekend together, although it probably would have been slightly more enjoyable had I been able to fully participate (very depressing to go to a Biergarten and drink water. Seriously. Or to go to a breakfast buffet with lots of lovely foods and only being able to eat bread, cucumbur and salt), and we had some lovely weather for it. Sunday afternoon, they left again (photos will follow later, I guess), and Fedor and I FINALLY managed to go and see the latest Harry Potter movie. It was pretty good!
Today, I was back at work again, going through administrative stuff that had piled up in my absence and designing a flyer for my work project. Our team assistant is totally convinced I should have gone into designing instead of economics... :-) Oh well, maybe I'll do that in my next life!!!
Tschüßi,
OJ
Oh yeah, regarding conclusions: we'll get back to you about that. They found a few other things, which they think may be correlated to the allergy/infection, but I have to wait until Friday to get the final results for that. Anyway, I will leave out the unpleasant details, I guess. One little interesting fact is that, at least until Friday, I will be on a rather strict diet. No fun things for me! Such as fruits, fish, nuts, alcohol, most dairy, sweets, spices, tomatoes, etc, etc, etc. Oh well, at least I am home!
During my 4 days in the hospital, Fedor was joined by his mother and her boyfriend, so he was not entirely lonely. I also saw them in the hospital on Wednesday, but on Thursday they returned to the Netherlands. I came home on Friday, in time for the arrival of Joost and Kim from the Netherlands in the evening. We had a great weekend together, although it probably would have been slightly more enjoyable had I been able to fully participate (very depressing to go to a Biergarten and drink water. Seriously. Or to go to a breakfast buffet with lots of lovely foods and only being able to eat bread, cucumbur and salt), and we had some lovely weather for it. Sunday afternoon, they left again (photos will follow later, I guess), and Fedor and I FINALLY managed to go and see the latest Harry Potter movie. It was pretty good!
Today, I was back at work again, going through administrative stuff that had piled up in my absence and designing a flyer for my work project. Our team assistant is totally convinced I should have gone into designing instead of economics... :-) Oh well, maybe I'll do that in my next life!!!
Tschüßi,
OJ
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Hospital!
A week of relatively low-key visitors. That is, after my brother and family, fedor's father arrived with his girlfriend but they were staying on a camping ground in Potsdam, so we didnt see them too much... They did of course come to Berlin a few times, and we went to see them in Potsdam on Saturday (nice bike ride, but 35 kms at 10am, with a mild hangover is not fun!), which is an absolutely gorgeous city btw...
Tomorrow our next guests arrive: Fedors Mum and her boyfriend. They stay until Thursday, then from Friday to Sunday we have friends of mine and from Monday til Thursday we have friends of Fedor again. Hotel Fe&OJ is in business!
However, this is all slightly interrupted by the fact that I will be taken to hospital tomorrow. The allergy-thing is not going quite perfectly and I visited the emergency ward last week. Now I will be admitted tomorrow so they can start testing what is actually wrong. I should (hopefully) be out before the weekend, so dont worry about me! It will give me time to read some books that I have been wanting to read for a long time... That is worth something, no?
Tschüßi,
OJ
Tomorrow our next guests arrive: Fedors Mum and her boyfriend. They stay until Thursday, then from Friday to Sunday we have friends of mine and from Monday til Thursday we have friends of Fedor again. Hotel Fe&OJ is in business!
However, this is all slightly interrupted by the fact that I will be taken to hospital tomorrow. The allergy-thing is not going quite perfectly and I visited the emergency ward last week. Now I will be admitted tomorrow so they can start testing what is actually wrong. I should (hopefully) be out before the weekend, so dont worry about me! It will give me time to read some books that I have been wanting to read for a long time... That is worth something, no?
Tschüßi,
OJ
Monday, August 10, 2009
just a few pictures
Well, here are just a few pictures of things. This is our Friends wall in the hallway, with the pictures hanging of a Fishnet.
And here are some pictures of the awesome visit of my brother and the family!!!
Tschüßi,OJ
And here are some pictures of the awesome visit of my brother and the family!!!
Tschüßi,OJ
Sunday, August 09, 2009
Okay, tired now
Well, well, well. As I wrote previously, the visitors' Circus has started. Fedor's Mum stazed with us for a few days. We drank a lot, we visited the Pergamon Museum (a first for me) and ate lots of good food (I have favourite dishes at all 10 restaurants within a 50 meter vicinity of our house now). Of course, I also had to work in the meantime, but at least during the weekend we were able to hang out with all of us together. She stayed until Tuesday afternoon, partly overlapping with Maartje, who arrived on Tuesday Morning.
With her we continued drinking more cocktails, and I went out for lunch with her on the day that Fedor had his first Job (well, he entertained an old guy for 2 hours, kind of practicing english with him). She only stayed til Thursday, when she left at an ungodly hour.
The next day, my friend Idil from arrived from Milano. It was great to see her and to catch up on all the gossip! We ate a lot (again), and enjoyed a lovely day out on Saturday at Schloss Charlottenburg.
It was another site I hadnt seen (well, at least not in the past 15 years), and it was great to be there. The gardens in particular, are AMAZING. On Monday and Tuesday, Idil had to kind of entertain herself, which was made easier by the fact taht Summer finally started in Berlin!!! The weather was simply stunning, and Idil had a good time seeing the city. Tuesday evening, she departed.
On Wednesday, my brother, his wife and their two daughters arrived. They were staying until this morning and it was absolutely great to have them over! The kiddos are absolutely gorgeous (hopefully there will be some photos later, once my sister-in-law has sent them to me), and good times were definitely had. Again, I didnt participate in the day programmes, but one of the highlights was apparently the fountain on Museeninsel, as it was actually visited twice! In the evenings, we drank. And ate. This was made more convenient by the IKEA visit we made on Thursday where we also bought a monitor (baby-alarm-system; babyfoon), so we could sit in a restaurant nearby (finally got to try the Chinese across the street) and still be in touch with the kids! we also played many games.
On Saturday, after a plentiful breakfast around the corner, the parents went into town and we had the kids for the afternoon. Afterwards, we went to the Berlin Beer Festival (with 2.2km of beergarten: the biggest in the world!) on Karl Marx Allee. It was fantastic, but of course we could not stay long because the kids had to go to bed. Next year, my brother and his wife are planning to come over again for the Festival, but without their children...
This morning, they managed (with difficulty) to pack everything back into the car and set off for the Netherlands. We then cleaned the whole house and finished constructing the last of the new IKEA furniture. Our hallway is finally finished!!! I am so happy... We have two little pieces of furniture with shelves, for footwear and bags etc, and a gorgeous courtain kind of construction in front of what we refer to as our basement. Very, very, VERY satisfied!
On the health front, doing pretty ok. The belly inspection found a small infection, but nothing a bunch of pills won't cure. The allergy (we still assume it is that) on the other hand shows no signs of abating. I have an appointment for an inspection at the Academic Hospital in November. However, my doctor says I cannot continue taking the current medication until then, so he has tried to arrange something for me at a different hospital. The solution of which is that, apparently, I will have to actually go to the Emergency Ward.... Strange, strange German system (what the heck are they doing with the 500€ a month that I am paying in!), but I guess that for hospitals, the saying holds: when in Berlin, act as the Berliners...
Tschüßi,OJ
With her we continued drinking more cocktails, and I went out for lunch with her on the day that Fedor had his first Job (well, he entertained an old guy for 2 hours, kind of practicing english with him). She only stayed til Thursday, when she left at an ungodly hour.
The next day, my friend Idil from arrived from Milano. It was great to see her and to catch up on all the gossip! We ate a lot (again), and enjoyed a lovely day out on Saturday at Schloss Charlottenburg.
It was another site I hadnt seen (well, at least not in the past 15 years), and it was great to be there. The gardens in particular, are AMAZING. On Monday and Tuesday, Idil had to kind of entertain herself, which was made easier by the fact taht Summer finally started in Berlin!!! The weather was simply stunning, and Idil had a good time seeing the city. Tuesday evening, she departed.
On Wednesday, my brother, his wife and their two daughters arrived. They were staying until this morning and it was absolutely great to have them over! The kiddos are absolutely gorgeous (hopefully there will be some photos later, once my sister-in-law has sent them to me), and good times were definitely had. Again, I didnt participate in the day programmes, but one of the highlights was apparently the fountain on Museeninsel, as it was actually visited twice! In the evenings, we drank. And ate. This was made more convenient by the IKEA visit we made on Thursday where we also bought a monitor (baby-alarm-system; babyfoon), so we could sit in a restaurant nearby (finally got to try the Chinese across the street) and still be in touch with the kids! we also played many games.
On Saturday, after a plentiful breakfast around the corner, the parents went into town and we had the kids for the afternoon. Afterwards, we went to the Berlin Beer Festival (with 2.2km of beergarten: the biggest in the world!) on Karl Marx Allee. It was fantastic, but of course we could not stay long because the kids had to go to bed. Next year, my brother and his wife are planning to come over again for the Festival, but without their children...
This morning, they managed (with difficulty) to pack everything back into the car and set off for the Netherlands. We then cleaned the whole house and finished constructing the last of the new IKEA furniture. Our hallway is finally finished!!! I am so happy... We have two little pieces of furniture with shelves, for footwear and bags etc, and a gorgeous courtain kind of construction in front of what we refer to as our basement. Very, very, VERY satisfied!
On the health front, doing pretty ok. The belly inspection found a small infection, but nothing a bunch of pills won't cure. The allergy (we still assume it is that) on the other hand shows no signs of abating. I have an appointment for an inspection at the Academic Hospital in November. However, my doctor says I cannot continue taking the current medication until then, so he has tried to arrange something for me at a different hospital. The solution of which is that, apparently, I will have to actually go to the Emergency Ward.... Strange, strange German system (what the heck are they doing with the 500€ a month that I am paying in!), but I guess that for hospitals, the saying holds: when in Berlin, act as the Berliners...
Tschüßi,OJ
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