Detox

Since there are no pictures to show, I had to dig a bit in the past and found this one with me on a Rodel with Dolly, Mom's cousin's (now ex-) wife who emmigrated to Namibia.

I am back home from home. Time went by very quickly, and yet I am glad to be back in our apartment, where I decide what's for dinner and what is on TV. Martin is still with his parents, enjoying the snow and the sunshine. Of course, it snowed two days before I left and the sun came out on the day that I spent on the train. It was a beautiful train ride and I very much enjoy sitting on a train and looking out to winter wonderland. Martin is on the glacier today, making the most of his brand new snowboarding equipment, while I am sitting at home, and doing a full blown detox programme. Which means that I just got done decluttering my desk, organising bills and documents and drinking Oma's hand picked nettle tea. Nothing will wash the bad stuff out of you like that nettle tea.

I am also back on my extreme diet scheme for this week, which means only lean meats, fish, eggs and vegetables for me until Martin's return. There won't be sugar in any form (including fruits), no noodles, bread or rice and no fat. Dad kept on telling me that Christmas was made for sinning, so now I am paying the price for that. But I like this kind of food and I know it is good for me.

Christmas was wonderful, although we all agreed that we won't be doing the gifts thing again. Mom and Das really spoilt us on the food and drink side, Dad even made a whole turkey with his homemade stuffing for us and Mom made all the trimmings. We had lots of home made cookies from Sarah (she is a crazy cookie maker, this year she carried 11 kg/~23 lbs of them to her Mom's house) and tons of Mexican food, my father is the only one who knows how to make it properly.

New Year's Eve was a bit lame, since we had too much to eat (can you see a pattern?). We had fondue at Sarah's house, where David and Martin saved us from a house fire, since none of us girls noticed that the hot oil was already smoking... We hung around at home, had a couple of drinks, watched the fireworks and hit the sack at 1:30 am. LAME!

I still have another week of holidays which I plan to spend on working at home for my second degree. There will be a few hours tomorrow where I need to go to town to return some gifts and check out the winter sale. Other than that, I am planning to put the yoga mat I got for Christmas in use and to get this household in order. Talking about lame... I just hope a few of my friends are in town already to get out in the evenings.

Off tomorrow

The first real snow in Vienna, just in time before the Christmas holidays.

The Christmas Tree at Schönbrunn Palace last Sunday.

We are off tomorrow, everything is packed and the suitcases are standing attention next to the door and we are watching The Holiday.
Martin will stay there until January 9 or 10, but I will be back right after New Year, trying to get some writing done. One of my wishes... :)

Anyway, talk to you all next year! Take care. K&M

(Thanks Sarah, for taking this photo!)

Watch my boss explain what we do!

Some of you have asked me what it is that I do, so here is my boss explaining it. My job was to keep her schedule in order, to man our exhibition stand (at times), take care of speaker presentations at our side events, protocol internal meetings, make sure that all bookings were right and help anybody who needed me.

Home in Christmas Mayhem

You can put a suit on a hippie, but you can't make him stop sitting on the floor.
(As seen at the Copenhagen Climate Conference, Dec 2009)

On the day we went to Copenhagen, I was close to a fever, had a horribel flu and had to get up at 4 am to go to the airport. The good part: we had a limousine service provided by our company. I glided elegantly to the airport on a BMW leather seat cloud, clutching my sage tea. By the time I got through Check In, I thought to myself that it wasn't so bad to handle two suitcases and a hand bag. And then, I noticed that I had never had two suitcases on me, because I had forgotten the one with the laptop, the important contracts and so pretty much all the documents all of our team in Copenhagen needed - at home. Thank God for my wonderful, loving boyfriend who then jumped out of bed, grabbed a cab, paid the guy 33 Euro to get to the airport to bring me the damn thing at 6 a.m. on his day off. Needless to say, I was close to tears and somewhere in this mess I lost my leather gloves I got for Christmas last year.

I was in a coma on the plane, and when all six of us finally arrived at the hotel, my room was the only one that wasn't ready. So I took a seat in the lobby to wait the 1.5 hours until we had set up a meeting time and felt miserable. Things got better then, once Monday was over, because Monday still had a 45 minute hike to McDonald's and a 2 hour wait in the cold to get registered to the conference in store. Plus, a horrible but expensive dinner since, frankly, Danish food is just atrocious!

Tuesday was busy but interesting, we had Italian for dinner and I had lots of fun with my colleagues. On Wednesday we had a big event at the Carlsberg Brewery which ended in my losing my voice and being unable to speak all Thursday. I was extremely glad to go back home on Friday, although I found it really interesting being there and made tons of new friends. The event at the brewery was a success and everybody had a great time that night. We ended up going to a pizzeria afterward with the core group (not that we could be proud of being great party people, since we all were in bed at midnight) and had some good laughs.

On Saturday I was flat out, it was the first day that I didn't take any medicine, so I was in bed all day. When I came home the previous night, Martin had given me his birthday present: a freshly painted kitchen that him, David and Sarah did all week while I was gone. He really is the best.

Now I am back at the office and spending every free minute searching for Christmas presents, either in real stores or online. In exactly one week, we're headed home and I am really looking forward to being there for a while.

Away and Away

Last week was nuts!

We had a wonderful weekend in London. On our way there Martin said to me, "London's not really my city. I don't think I can live here. Paris, yes. London, no." On the second day there he was already checking out the For Rent signs. Ha!

This was the first time we used a website that offered rooms in private homes, on a B&B basis and I have to admit that it made me a bit nervous. But the minute we arrived I was charmed by the home, the sweet and polite English host (he is an architect, just like Martin) and the neighborhood. For London standards it was very affordable and we staid just a couple of minutes off Oxford Circus.

London is a lot more Christmassy than Vienna, but this past week Vienna played up its game with all the decorations and markets. The first night we came out of the subway and stood right below the lights of the gorgeous decorations on Oxford street. On the second day, we met our friends from England and spent the afternoon with them, including a visit to Hamley's toy store. It was so cute with their girl in the store and when we came out, they had artificial snow coming of their roof.

We were in lots of little designer stores, food stores and pubs. We were on a small church market with fabulous coffee, at the tower for over four hours and we walked in the rain. It was truly a perfect weekend, including a dinner in China Town, where I shared my duck noodle soup with a nice guy from Scotland (whose wife wouldn't let him show us what they bought in the SoHo sex store).

Then I worked and worked and worked, we had our very early Christmas party on Friday, a traditional hangover yesterday and tomorrow I am flying to Copenhagen to take part in the World Climate Summit. My camera is charged and ready!

Martin's first bite of fried sea-weed.


Dinner in China Town, taken by the nice Scottish lady.

Meeting our friends in London, who keep on promising they will come to Vienna.


Little Lily in the toy store.

A king's bedchamber in the London Tower.

Having early morning tea at our 'home' in London, watching the news and planning the day.


Our fabulous, home-made breakfast, brought to our room every morning.

Me, giving my best at 'In the Street Where You Live', check out my expression.

Hmmmmmmm... home made, gorgeous and tasty!

A vertical and a horizontal Mary-Go-Round.

Admiring amazing baker art

My fantastic single macchiatto from the coffee truck in the background.

Stealing

Sarah and Martin at a café.

It is 7:45 pm and I should be in the shower to get ready for a night out with our friends. Instead, I just woke up from a light sleep and am just not fit enough to do the whole dressing and styling thing. So I decided before I head for the water and the make up, I'll steal Nicole's Friday fill in list, do it on a Saturday and so win some time to wake up again.

Here goes:

1. We need to be out the door in fifteen minutes and I am still in my sweat pants
2. I got a call today from Sarah, who was standing in a dressing room, unsure which coat to buy and it made me smile.
3. If you want to get rid of your back ache, try sucking in your tummy all the time.
4. I fell asleep because we went on a 4 hour walk today.
5. Massachusetts has a proposed 5% sales tax on elective cosmetic surgery; I think silly Americans!
6. Happy kids make me smile.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm going to be at a couple of bars and clubs, tomorrow my plans include nursing a hangover and Sunday, I will be maybe scrubbing the refridgerator.

In Real Life

Sarah keeps on bugging me that I should really update my blog. I had to yield to her constant reprimands and here we go... a new post from this nearly deserted spot in the world wide web. I know, writing that there have been so many things going on lately isn't going to sound genuine anymore, since a) I write that all the time and b) everybody else writes that all the time.

So, let's get straight to the point. Martin and I just watched Twilight on DVD - sigh... I really have a crush on Edward Cullen. And Martin says that Bella "has something about her", but I know that's just his way of admitting his crush on her! Hehe.

But that was not that important... hmmm... what could it be?

Maybe that we finally went back to the restaurant who did a horrible job last year on my birthday dinner? And yet, we did go there yesterday and had a voucher for € 75 euro and had a good time with good food service.

But this is the real big deal: Last week we got to meet our friends Viki & Trey from Chicago IN REAL LIFE. It is amazing to meet someone for the first time but simultaneously, you know so much about them already. We met them on Sunday for a couple of glasses of wine and a short dinner and then again on Thursday for dinner and a beer. It was so much fun and it was a bit sad to say good bye again. They are really cool to hang out with and we have to meet again one day! Plus, they brought us masses of Reese's cups, Twinkies, Zingers and some other stuff. We don't know how we are ever going to finish that all but we're doing our best. :) Thank You!!!

Who's up next?

And here some pictures to prove it:

Viki at the restaurant.

Trey waiting for the food.

At Maschu, best falafel in town.

At the Bierkanzlei, drinking beer from Vorarlberg.

A group shot at the Weinorgel, on the first evening.

Last but not least, this cute little pumpkin muffin I had last Saturday, at Café Freiraum.