This is Cali

I never got the chance to show you how the Californian landscape looks like. I wanna get rid of this matter just now. It's an amazing nature out there. San Jose is surrounded by hills that look like as they would have been covered with cotton. You literally wanna jump in. The hills are bright yellow in summer and turn into green in winter by the time when the rain season starts. I never really appreciated that before I actually came to Australia and experienced one of the most contradictory nature in the world. Oz is still my favorite but Cali does not need to hide itself, it has its own charisma. The pictures actually ain't mine, a friend took them (Thx Ben).

Snowboarding @ Lake Tahoe

So here I go as promised in my latter post to report a bit about my first experiences into the field of snowboarding. We started on Friday after work. We picked up our rental snowboard gear consisting of snowboard, shoes and bindings for around 45 bucks for the whole weekend. That's a really nice offer and regarding to all the other prices around here a real bargain. So we spent barely 5 hours on a couple of freeways while passing Sacramento, the home of our governor Arny, until we finally reached South Lake Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is an amazing region lying directly on the border of California to Nevada. So in order to do some gambling we just had to walk over the stateline to Nevada which goes straight through the city. Once crossed the street you were able to find huge hotels, casinos and people drinking on the street since it is allowed in Nevada, same applies for gambling. But that's not what we were craving for. The lake is surrounded by huge mountains, it is one of the most famous ski regions in America. We rented a room in a motel, motel 6 in particular. The same one that saved me and Arielle's life during our road trip. Next day we started early in the morning, well depends if you consider 8am as early enough, in order to grab some coffee and breakfast. I don't know if you guys have a picture of how such a mountain town looks like. It's way too neat and everything looks like it is 100 years old. I really dig that style. Anyway, I was visiting a ski exhibition almost 3 weeks ago where I gained a free lift pass for Heavenly, one of the biggest ski resorts around lake Tahoe. So I used it and saved 61$ for a current ticket. It's so expensive but worth every penny. We were lifted up to barely 10000ft (3000m), an 20 minutes ride with lake Tahoe in the background. It was so beautiful. Once arrived on top my knees started getting weak. I was really scared. I never stood on a board before and since it is really early in the season only a couple of trails, 5 to be precise, were open. All of them were category blue which means "more difficult trails". This is one below the black trails. I guess I don't need to explain what that means. Actually I didn't have any time to think about anything since I was pushed out the lift right onto the track. Oh my gosh, the track was going straight downhill. I was just about sh**ing my pents :) I never fell that much in my life, kinda a miracle that I didn't break anything. I always had Falk's broken leg in mind which wasn't really beneficial. But in the end it was the best thing for me to be thrown into action like this cuz I learned how to brake and steer of necessity. I had stunts where I jumped, or let me better say I flew a couple of meters, face first of course, right into the snow. But somehow I must love this sport since I kept going, even the next day and I made it. The first day I was able to go down smoothly with everything that belongs to but the right turns. But I got rid of that matter next day. Eventually I was just running down the trail, left , right, a little jump in between and of course some crashes. It's so much fun once you figured things out for yourself. I love snowboarding and I will definitely go for my own board since the next trip is already planned. I have a lot of gorgeous pictures and a video of me going down made by a friend. I will put it up asap so you guys have something to laugh as well. It was such a successful weekend besides the 40 bucks I lost again in the casino....I guess it is not my thing, at least not roulette. But hey, the dude next to me was betting 100 bucks onto black since there were 8 reds in a row before (well math guys would know that every next color has the same probability of less than 50%... superstition says hello). In the end he lost 500 bucks because of sticking to black...poor chap. So if it's about me I just enjoyed my new fervor for snowboarding and of course for the next trip to Tahoe.

Thanksgiving '06

This thanksgiving was supposed to be be the first one for me so far. Since thanksgiving is a big deal over here IBM was kind enough to give 2 days off work. So I purchased a flight to Indiana which was barely 3 times that much as usual, a quite pricey situation. Anyway it was worth since I got the chance to experience an original American feast. I left San Jose on Wednesday for Chicago where Arielle welcomed me with her sister. I was so happy to see her again plus to enjoy some good old turkey, baked beans, pumpkin pie (only god knows what the Americans like about that thing), garlic mashed potato and of course a lot of ice cream with whipped cream. I was so stuffed. It was kinda fun to hang out with her family and I am not underestimating if I say the house was packed. Moreover I brought some "Warsteiner" for Arielle's step-dad since he just drinks that low-carb beer thangy which actually does not taste that bad. Well, he pretty much liked it bc he finished 2 beers right after each other. Anyway I figured out that they sell Warsteiner in the closest Wal Mart as an import beer. Well done Marcus. Never mind, the effort counts. So it was a nice time. Unfortunately I started smoking again. It came quite sneakily :) But hey, thats only an exception. I guess someone just wanna check on me and thats a kinda test I have to pass. Hey and at least I need something for new years eve to take up. So I returned Monday morning in order to work 'cause there are a lot of bills waiting for me. My car needs a repair, supposedly more than a grand, Christmas is coming where I plan to travel to Hawaii or Mexico, not quite sure yet, both seem to be very pricey regarding the delayed point of booking. Oh I forgot, there will be a snowboard trip to the mountains of lake Tahoe next week. A beautiful area as you may know from movies. Damn, I need to increase my insurance if I wanna keep up to that trip :). Frankly I never stood on a snowboard or skateboard so far and that doesn't really let me look forward to it at all. Another event will be the going away party of some coops, mostly Germans, who are leaving San Jose for Germany at all since their internship finally ended. They are going to have a blast in two weeks. The last moving out and house warming party was a disaster cuz I embarrassed myself having a complete black-out. Well it just can get better

Between Mystery Spot & Salsa

Hey, somehow my camera broke so I couldn't provide any pictures of the Oktoberfest yet but I will resume asap. Besides that Arielle came over again last weekend to make my weekend. Well I assume things getting serious once you take dancing lessons with your girlfriend...and so did I :) My office mate Henning from Germany is quite into Salsa dancing with his girlfriend, so they invited us over to our first steps in this unknown field of impassioned and pulsative motion.

Actually it is my former office mate since we moved to a new building where I luckily have my own office with Zeus (a cool guy from Mexico), right across from a whole bunch of managers who supposedly placed us in reaching area intentionally to supervise us better. Even our foosball table moved with us and we are already well known throughout the DB2/XML team for having constant battles.

Anyway, back to Salsa, as mentioned we checked out a salsa party somewhere downtown. We started quite successfully as rookies, we even performed some twists. It is really fun and as soon as you know how to dance properly, girls will be at your feet.

And Sunday we finally took the chance to visit the -Mystery Spot- somewhere near Santa Cruz, apparently a place with distorted gravity and physics. Frankly I don't believe in this stuff but it is all about fun, so just pretend being a believer.
According to the guide, this place lies directly on a longitude. One theory says that flying saucer have secretly brought cones of metal here and buried into our earth as a sorta guidance. An other theory says the spot includes carbon dioxide seeping out of earth , the "highest dielectric biocosmic radiation" known anywhere in the world. Well that sounds kinda utopian but I better don't say a word anymore and just let the pictures speak.



Arielle totally believed in it, but me, Henning and Jasmin were constantly questioning and investigating the scenery. Hilarious. Anyway it was a welcomed weekend. Here are some pictures of me and Arielle, they originally weren't intended to be shown on this blog but I wanna keep precious memories as well, simply for myself :)

The BEERend

Hey guys, it has been a long time since I wrote my last words in here and it isn't even easy right now since I have the worst hangover ever. It started all with a steady and decent beer on friday. The two Sebastians and Frank made a kinda going away party at their house. Sebastian Schaer is from Dresden as well, he was literally responsible for me coming over here. His forward of my request was caught by Susan, my manager, which in the end led me to California. He became a regular but somehow they screwed up his H1 visa application so he is forced to go back. As well as the other seb whose time has simply expired. Frank is an American, really friendly and quiet, but so not on Friday :) I went to this party around 10pm with 2 cases of beer that I still owed these guys. It originated from the world cup game where I, like always, couldn't shut my mouth and claimed the english team to loose. Apparently they turned the game in the last 5 minutes, can't remember precisely. So arrived there, the house was already crowded and people quite tipsy. After making some Caipirinhas for the girls I was finally able to enjoy my first beer...Tecate, kinda mexican beer and extremly nice to drink. We played a couple of drinking games like beer bong...easy job. Once you grew up in Cottbus with oettinger and sternburg, no beer in the world could ever threaten you again. Some time later I switched to some hard vodka like in good study times (cheers Falk). Well I woke up around 11am next morning and was still drunk. So why did I wake up that early. Suprisingly Stefan called me to tell me he is gonna pick me up for the Oktoberfest in San Francisco in around 20 minutes. Right...more beer. Awesome. Somehow I was still capable to prepare myself in record time....means brushing teeth, taking a shower, swallow 2 pills of vitamin C, one Aspirin fizzy tablet, one coffee plus 3 McChicken at McDonals and one Red Bull and was ready for the next. I felt so bad. We arrived in SF around 1pm, the hall of the oktoberfest in the bay was right between the Golden Gate Bridge and Fisherman's Wharf (famous for fishy shopping). It was already crowded and poeple enjoyed the first pitchers of good old German beer. They even sold Budweiser in pitchers, but hey, who's gonna drink that water once you have original Oktoberfest beer. By the way, I was equipped with an "Deutschland" shirt which my parents sent me for my birthday. Honestly, I had a lot of fun cuz people were watching and starting talk with everytime. The more pitchers I drank the better I could talk. It was so packed and people, no matter where they came from, were toasting and singing to german folks songs. "Hey baaaaAAAaaabbbby, I wanna know..." ok, thats not german, anyway. And a sweet and wet "sigge sagge oi oi oi" damn...these americans, I guess they tried to say "Zicke Zacke..." Well let the kids play if they wanna. It was a lot of fun. I could even see the "Preussen" flag somewhere among all the other country flags of Germany. So far away from home I was able to catch up a little bit of German athmosphere which made me feel kinda home. Thanks Oktoberfest.

It Never Rains In Southern California....

WRONG! It did. I was never craving for rain as much as I did over here. It is barely 4 month ago since I set over and it literally never rained. But that also means the summer is finally over and the winter starts threatening. We are still talking about 60F which is much better than any other German winter, especially the last one. Nevertheless, I am also looking forward to winter sports like snowboarding in the mountains of lake tahoe, a really nice place near the border to nevada (gambling oje oje). Guess it is time to take off another week. Ok guys just wanted to let you know the latest breaking news.

Lovefest meets Loveparade

There we go...my weekend did start kinda more spontanious than expected. In short, I decided to join the Massive Attack concert in Berkley just on this Friday. Berkley is barely 40 miles nothern of San Jose on the other side of the bay area and moreover the home of the Berkley University, another famous College besides Stanford. That probably has been the reason why the concert was held in the Berkley Greek Theatre. As you may assume it was a huge arc-shaped arena with an amazing acoustic. So Duncan from Newzealand, Markus, Martin and me made our way up to Berkley through the obligatory fridays traffic jam. Once arrived we barely missed the quite famous pre-act, who was nobody else than DJ Shadow. Well, he used to make good house music before he ran over to Hip Hop. Never mind, it was quite ok. But then finally Massive Attack started their performance with one of my favourite songs "Risingson". Their show and music was quite powerful and melancholic at the same time, I really liked it. It is that kind of creativity in music that you painfully miss in today's songs. Thus the music was not primarily about singing, it was more the interaction of all the instruments in an harmonic manner. But I don't tell you new things if you know Massive Attack. At the end I felt good about the invested 60 bucks :) But that wasn't my entire weekend. Next day, around 11 in the morning ;), we went to San Francisco again for the famous Loveparade alias Lovefest. It is an imitation of the Loveparade in Berlin. San Francisco is said to be one of the most fashioned city in the world. So where else except here should be held another Loveparade? Basically it is the same but kinda more familiar and more intense. The floats are going along Market Street which is right in the center. That means narrow and dense packed streets. The floats themselves are smaller than the German ones and accordingly they deliver less music power but they achieve the same goal anyhow...they make people dance. One time I even heard a remix of the "fantastischen vier" with "troy" as a house version or I saw even German flags...quite understandable since the idol is the German Loveparade. I felt kinda proud of my country *cough*. So what about the people....well they are crazy, even more crazy than their German representatives. Sometimes I couldn't get rid of my big grin while being confronted which so many colors and exotic people, where some of them were even walking around naked. GROSS!! But thats San Francisco. At the end all floats were gathered at the central market place. And thats were the party continued till the early evening. Me, Duncan and Alla picked some nice floats and started dancing. That was real fun. Honestly, if you ask me I would prefer the Lovefest since 2 Million people in Berlin is definitely too much for any kind of enjoy. Moreover dancing through the streets of San Francisco has something exciting and delightful. Next time I will go again but more freaked out...I felt way to normal.