Quick Hello from Edinburgh

Yesterday the european heatwave reached Scotland at last. On my first day in Edinburgh it was 30 C and I was exploring the city on foot. Sweating and getting sunburnt! In Scotland! Who would have thought… And I DID use sunscreen, just apparently forgot some parts of my neck when I applied it again after lunch.
But enough complaining about the weather, because it has been great so far. Except for a bit of rain on the first morning of the Highland tour we had the perfect weather. 22 – 24 C, sunny, a few clouds now and then and lots of wind at the coast. I absolutely loved the Highlands. Loved, loved LOVED it. There was so many different landscapes to see and they all were magnificent.
I wasn’t aware that we spent so much time on the road (stupid me, I should have realized it before *g*) but I didn’t really minded it that much. I was just surprised, that’s all. I was the only person travelling on my own in the travel group, the rest were couples or groups of friends or family, but that was ok. More about the trip when I’m back home, because right now I’m unable to put it all into just a few words. And my internet time doesn’t allow for more than a few words :-)

Hello From Sunny Scotland

This entry is brought to you with courtesy of the Belgrave Hotel, Glasgow, which provides computers and free internet access in every room. At least I think it’s in every room. There is one in my room anyway. But its keyboard is a nuisance, because some keys have to be pressed very firmly, which slows down typing quite a bit. I decided to try an update anyway as long as I have internet so easy available.

The trip by train to London last Friday didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped, but for once this was no fault of German Rail, but due to some track problems in Belgium. I freaked out a bit, when it was clear, that I’d miss the EuroStar train I was booked for. But it was no problem at all to take the next one, and I wasn’t the only passenger headed to London on the delayed train. So I got there an hour later as planned, but I got there after all :-)
And my first thing was to buy an Oyster Card for the tube and busses. Whoever invented that thing should get a medal, because it’s so much easier to use than the Travelcard. My hotel wasn’t close to the city center, which I didn’t mind. What I did mind, that I happen to get a room on the groundfloor, next to the 24 hour reception and on a rather loud street. Even with earplugs I obviously didn’t sleep too well, because I was pretty exhausted after four nights. Thank God this hotel in Glasgow is located in a rather quiet neighbourhood.

Signing Off For A While…

Everything’s packed, the apartement is cleaned, the mail is taken care of… Now I just have to sign off the blogosphere. I’ll be away on vacation (finally!) in London, Glasgow, the Highlands and Edinburgh until Monday, July 6th. I might drop by once or twice to give you an update, but I can’t promise anything.

I think after a short withdrawel I will enjoy the time offline without blogs and journals and news and gossip sites and even (or maybe especially) without the distracting twitterverse :-) As much fun as it is, it sometimes also can be stressful. Or maybe I’m just using twitter in a stressful way ? Anyway, I’ve got a little over two weeks to ponder about that… See you on July 7th.

Happy Moments (Week 24/2009)

Without further ado…

Monday
My local Greens finally found a candidate for each electorial district of the local elections

Tuesday
The Blue October CDs were already in my mail

Wednesday
“Die Ärzte” Party at the Matrix (former Rockpalast) in Bochum-Langendreer

Thursday
Getting back home from my mom before the rain started again

Friday
Browsing through Scotland travel books while taking a “Candy Mountain” bath

Saturday
Unexpectedly having a great time at an event I expected to be dull and boring

Sunday
Being on twitter with other Paddy fan-girls, watching the 24h of LeMans and Paddy finishing the race. What a great debut for TeamSeattle

Project365, Week 10: Close-ups

Another load of project365 photos. Another load which I have mixed feelings about. Some ideas seem so cool in my head but turn out to look dull once I shot them. Anyway… Here is week 10: Close-ups…

What I’ve Been Up To…

The last few weeks proved that twitter has definitely changed my way of blogging. Before I started to use twitter I posted much more, because whenever I had to get some of the mundane, ordinary stuff off my chest, I sat down and wrote a blog post about it. Twitter gets things off my chest and thoughts out of my mind so much quicker and easier than a blog post. But add busy days and weeks into the mix and a lot of stories I usually would have written about remain untold, because I don’t find the time or am too tired to write a post about it. I don’t know yet how I feel about that development.

+ + + + + + + +

I was – once again – pretty busy with work this week, but at least everything I had to work on or had to deal with, went well so far. My local Greens finally have a candidate for each electorial district, which wasn’t easy to accomplish and which actually troubled me a lot a few weeks ago. So this load is definitely off my mind. During the last couple of days I even managed to start working on the school assignment I have to repeat. I have to return some of the books soon, because they’d be due during my vacation, so I have to at least skim through them and copy relevent parts.

Happy Moments (Week 23/2009)

It’s already Tuesday and I haven’t posted my list of the happy moments of last week. Shame on me. But I’ve been busy with elections stuff on Sunday and we went to a pub in the evening to celebrate. Yesterday was packed as well and today wasn’t much better. I’m in need of a vacation! I have no idea how I will be able to get ready for my trip (do the usual shopping, sorting through my clothes to decide which to pack, organize stuff that has to be done, while I’m gone…) until next Friday. When I thought about it this afternoon I had a minor freakout. Thank god it’s another long weekend (Thursday’s a public holiday in my part of Germany and I’ve got Friday off anyway).

Monday
Enjoying the public holiday and the sun, reading outside on my patio under the finally fixed sunshades

Tuesday
Discovering “Calling You” by Blue October while I’m enjoying the evening outside on my patio, listening to a great song collection on my personal last.fm station

Wednesday
No suspicious moles or skin abnormalities anywhere at the dermatologist’s checkup

Thursday
Realizing that the fear of embarrasment was – once again – totally unnecessary

Friday
When Bro3 agreed to pick me up by car half way on my way home from work.

Saturday
A trip down memory lane

Sunday
Celebrating the good results for the Greens at the Election of the European Parliament

Various Stuff From This Week…

There are so many different blog posts in my head, but I just never got around to write them this week. Or I didn’t feel like writing or I didn’t know how to put my thoughts into words. And I’m not even talking about the idea for a post I had even two weeks ago and still haven’t written yet. This will be one of these posts with various topics. They also might seem rather random…

We had an eventful week at work. Not a lot of big events took place, but some bigger issues were solved. For the better I hope. I still feel bad about some things, I neglected to do or forgot about. Maybe I need some re-organisation of my field and schedules as well. And I definitely need to keep better track of assignments and to-do-lists and such. Yeah, I still feel bad. And then I’m annoyed that I feel that bad, because in my mind these mishaps always are bigger and I messed up much worse than I actually did. My screwed up mind and low self-esteem just like to make me feel worse than I actually have to. On the other hand, it’s a good thing that I at least catch my mind playing these dirty tricks on me and I can take a step back and re-evaluate and in most cases realize that it’s not all that bad. I don’t know… I just spend quite some time thinking about these things this week and how I can change my way of thinking and feeling.

I also spent a lot of time listening to a song I heard for the first time on Tuesday. Well, according to last.fm I have listened to it four times during the last three years, but I honestly don’t remember. on Tuesday evening though I was enjoying the sunny weather outside on my patio, I had just painted my toe nails (because it’s freaking summer, even though it doesn’t feel like it since Wednesday) and was listening to a really great song collection on my personal last.fm station on my wireless headphones. Life was good.
Suddenly there was this new song, which I liked from the start and during the second verse I was totally hooked. The song is “Calling You” by Blue October. [follow the link to listen to the complete song on last.fm]. And it was one of these moments you can’t explain, at least I always have a hard time explaining why I’m crazy about a song. It might be the lyrics or the music or the voice or a combination of all of it. I can’t say. Maybe I was and still am just in the right mood to like a song about being madly in love. Which I am not at the moment, so maybe the song should rather make me depressed. But it doesn’t. Not at all. I just love it.

Project365, Week 09: Politics

This week’s photos of my project365. The theme was “Politics”, because of this week’s election of the European Parliament. No idea what next week’s photos will be about…

Happy Moments (Week 22/2009)

Yesterday I forgot to post my week’s happy moments. So here they are

Monday
A new chapter of “Love in the Time of Science”

Tuesday
My local Greens were able to overcome a huge roadblock on our way to election, which means working on the election campaign might be fun again.

Wednesday
Tax refund – Not as much as in recent years, but as I actually thought I might might have to repay some money, which I didn’t have to after all…

Thursday
All the tiny happy moments throughout the day

Friday
Found a new (and not too expensive) fixture for my sunshade, which means I can fully enjoy my patio again

Saturday
Knowing that me and my family and friends are safe and healthy and happy (after reading about some tragedies some place else)

Sunday
Lunch at the lake