Category Archives: London

Winter mayhem, Code, Climbing, Solitude

Posted by on January 9, 2010 3 comments

Whoa, time flies when you’re busy, right? I am quite busy, actually 😉

So what has happened since my last post? Ah right, a new year started! Unfortunately, I could not attend the cool party I was invited to due to feeling sick for three days… But fortunately, I was invited to another party at my hometown so I decided to fill myself up with Aspirin and go there to meet lots of friends – of whom I’ve known some for almost 18 years already – at 11 p.m. :mrgreen:

The following days were very calm and peaceful: Just stayed at home, had great food and slept a lot. That’s always a good thing to do when you have the chance to! But on January 5th, I finally emerged from my laziness and hopped over to England where I rejoined the coding team of Booka. Ever since then, I barely left the house because I basically do nothing but working here 😎

England… It’s so funny! We got a little bit of snow here and the whole country descends into pure mayhem… Seriously – in many parts of Germany these amounts of snow are just normal and the same procedure as every year! But because the snow clearing services are not that good (or, seem not to be existing) here, it takes days or even weeks until several roads are clear again. Combined with the fact that snow tires are almost unknown here… Well, you can imagine what’s going on! 😉 All airports face severe problems, too!  So I can call myself lucky that I came home on December 24th without bigger delays… But the view I get to see is great:

Alright, back to my topic-checklist: climbing! Yes, climbing! Even though my skin has not yet recovered from my first attempts in December, I couldn’t resist going bouldering together with the other guys 😀 and now my hands are wrecked again… But it’s fun and I’ll just continue until my skin turns into leather :mrgreen:

Next topic? Ah yes, solitude. Solitude? You ask? Well, it seems we’re having some kind of epidemic here: Adrian’s sick, Booka’s sick, Miri doesn’t feel so well… So therefore I’m sitting at my desk all alone 🙁

Tons of code and witches

Posted by on December 23, 2009 3 comments

Phew… Have been working a lot lately. The project in London is really great and interesting but also very demanding. And due to the fact that I barely left the house except for destoying my fingers, I did not catch up on Christmas mood and all that stuff at all (luckily, I say :o) ) Anyways, Adrian and me had our free day today so after being lazy – and also unable to find a good sauna place, we went to London 🙂 We did a short visit to the British Museum just to find out that they were closing already (dammit). After having had dinner, we watched the Musical Wicked and it was a blast. Folks, if you happen to be in London during the next few weeks, make sure to watch it!!

My workplace

Posted by on December 13, 2009 6 comments

No comment :mrgreen:

Booka's and my workplace

Cereals’n’Java

Posted by on December 7, 2009 6 comments

Hello, world! I’ve been quite busy working here in England at a 14/6 pace and just didn’t find the time for blogging… Ok, that sounds worse than it actually is:

  • I’m coding together with my cousin Booka which is always fun
  • The project is really interesting and challenging
  • I finally get to use Java and not just study it in theory
  • We go climbing every now and then
  • We live in this fancy palace-like house
  • Everything’s taken care of: cooking, laundry, shopping, etc.

To be honest, it’s really cool here. I like working together with Bookie in this environment where everything’s tuned for maximum efficiency and creativity at the same time. The only problem is: We have three four-hour slots of work per day which drives your feeling of time totally bananas. At the end of one day, events from the very same day’s morning feel like as if they’ve happened two or three days in the past because one’s usually not adjusted to three half work days per day 🙂

But because it’s the Booka and he’s the biggest climbing-nerd I know, we often go bouldering or climbing and it’s awesome! Finally, I get to train that crap properly 😀 My very personal problem is: I’m too heavy for my forearms! Damn, gotta slim…

Alright, gotta start working. Here are two random pics:

To the UK!

Posted by on November 30, 2009 5 comments

Alright. I’m packing my stuff right now and will fly to England in a few hours. To all the people whom I didn’t manage to see before my trip: Sorry! Will catch up with you next year, promised! 🙂

London – A first summary

Posted by on November 20, 2009 6 comments

Hey! I’ve been here for a few days already and still no post? Sorry ’bout that, but I’ve just been busy coding with Booka! 😉 And even though this post and the one mentioning my flight here are called something with “London” I am not in London, actually… The house we’re living in is in a relatively small village near Sutton and it’s a blast! Huge rooms, too many bathrooms, extremely quiet etc. so we really can focus on the programming we’re supposed to do here.

Today finally, we had some free time and Booka, Wolle and me could stroll around in London, take some pictures and have a good time, of course :mrgreen: We rode the train to Victoria station (yeah, that’s the one that’s to be seen in almost every Harry Potter movie as “King’s Cross” because Mrs. Rowling mistook it for the latter, by the way) and took a walk from there. We passed by Buckingham Palace where by coincidence some ceremony was going on and we were forced to wait until it’s over 😉 After that, we crossed Green Park and finally arrived at Picadilly Circus. Haaah, finally. I’ve been here before and even though it’s like one of the no. 1 tourist-spots in the city, it’s actually quite lame and cool at the same time 😀 It feels like a tiny version of the Shibuya crossing, doesn’t it? Anyways, we had lunch and continued our trip in the direction to Trafalgar square and Chinatown and finally headed down to the Thames where we “met” Downing Street, Big Ben and The Eye.

After that we entered The Tube at Waterloo station and went to Tottenham Court Road where we took a long walk down Oxford Street, had some Starbuck’s coffee (which sucked, by the way) and went back to Leicester Square to have dinner. Eventually, Miri joined us and after having drinks at a nice bar, we finally cruised back home. And London traffic is hell – seriously. 9:30 p.m. and all roads are still packed with cars? Seriously folks, where do you all wanna go? Why don’t you ride your beloved Tube? :mrgreen:

Update: I just had to step up to that DDR machine… Just like the good ol’ times with my English class from school when we were in London back then! 😀