Sunday, March 27, 2011

Spring is here!

... well, not really. It was about -6 last night, but it is sunny and when you are covered from the wind, the temperature is absolutely bearable!!!

Anyway, work has been terrible, but the worst part is coming to an end soon: next week is our big press conference and policy workshop, which is going to mean an end to most of the stress. Of course, the other stress is the job-hunt, which is not going particularly well, mainly because I dont have time to look for interesting jobs... Oh well, now that spring is sort-of-arriving, I really don't mind being here!

By the way, while I write that, I just realise that in three days, it will be my 2-year anniversary of living in Berlin. Reason for a party?

Since Manchester, we've been entertaining guests and doing fun things with friends: it's been pretty good actually! And I spent a week in Montreal. A beautiful city if there ever was one... It was fantastic to be able to meet up with people from the field, but even better to meet up with Nissrine, who came up from Toronto and whom I hadnt seen for about 3 years. And I also met up with Simon and his bf, who showed me some parts of Montreal that I didnt get a chance to see yet...

Here are a few photos to get an impression of my trip:





Finally, and I have done this before, but the song continues to be incredibly appropriate for the time of year:


Tschüßi,
OJ

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Manchester

We spent the weekend in Manchester, in order to meet up with my old friend Matt. Manchester is quite a cool place: interesting modern architecture and a lot of old buildings... And of course: the nightlife... After a little foray into a Lesbian club (oopsy, wrong club), we found the right place to be. Fun times in Manchester! We stayed at an alcohol- and TV-free muslem-run hotel, which was quite lovely, right off the Curry Mile...




Anyway, it was a lovely weekend. This week is another week of plentiful work (I lost 1.3 trillion $ of my estimate for the costs of conflict today due to a data construction error... oopsy again!). The coming weekend is going to be about Italian visitors, with Jen, Massi and Kate coming to visit. I cannot wait! And then afterwards, I'm off to Montreal for 5 days: enjoying the cold and the snow (apparently).

Tschüßi,
OJ

PS And I managed to make Fedor happy: I'm going to Greece for a conference in May and he is coming with, so he can finally see Athens! Hope it's in a better state than last time I was there.... (2002-03)