New Year's Appendix

... on december 28th I flew to Barcelona, to meet with friends from my PhD in Dortmund. Except for Joaquin and Raul, who rented themselves a little "love shack", we stayed at Ester's place, more or less, right in the heart of Barcelona.
This city is really amazing ... so lively, so many small pubs, bars, clubs, on the mediterranian coast ... what else could you wish for? You can go barhopping until sunrise, no problem at all.
So on friday we all went out, had pinchos, which is kind of like tapas, with wine and ended up in a club that played ... 80's music. Brrrr ...
Saturday was the big shopping day for New Year's Eve (sunday), so most of us went to 'la Boqueria', an old, traditional market hall, located just of 'las Ramblas'. It is a pretty amazing place, with veggies, spices, fruit, seafood etc. just piling up on the different stands. If you like cooking/shopping, this is definitely the place to see in BCN. Exhausted from the shopping trip and trying to recharge for the 'big night out' on sunday we just went out for dinner that night.

Bunches of chili in 'la Boqueria'.

A truckload of gambas, crabs, etc.

Pitahayas ...

Frank makes Mousse au Chocolat (well, he supervises his minions ^^).

Sunday was spent with cooking and preparing for the evening ... then we all had a big meal at Ester's place, waited for 12 o'clock and went out to party. It all started off at a small private party, were we only stayed for one drink and then around 2 am moved on to the Razzmatazz, a big multi-level, multi-dancefloor club situated in an old industrial building. While it could have been really cool, it was just a bit too packed for my taste. Always, somebody was bumping into you, you were bumping into somebody, etc. Anyway, around 6 am we had been bumped around enough and decided to call it a day ...
While all the others left on january 1st already, I stayed until the 3rd and the flew back to Germany, were I learned that since the 2nd friends of mine were parents. On the 5th, I barely just caught the plane from Frankfurt to Cincinnati, from where I travelled on the Madison and after enjoying another full 24h hours of travelling, finally fell into my bed a slept like a stone.

Ester's Schokoladenseite (Parc Güell).

... christmas back home meant too much food and visiting friends (good) and relatives (boring most of the time). All in all it wasn't too exiting, you get the picture ...
On january 28th I flew to Barcelona, though, to meet up with mostly spanish friends for New Year's. More as soon as I uploaded the pics.

We have a winner!

Me!
My team the "Vilas Wienerschnitzel" won the Raines Lab Fantasy Football League with a 148-119 over "The Worriers" (Rebecca).
Guess I should retire now ... at least until next FF-season ;)

A Flight and a Crash

Yay, went home from christmas! Hurray for home-made cookies and my Mum's cooking!
But no pain, no gain ... first I had to travel from Madison to Konstanz (approx. 8000 km).
Here's how it goes:
thanks to Jeet, I DID call Delta Airlines just to check, whether my iternary had changed. It DID have changed and they DID NOT tell me by themselves. Instead of 12 o'clock noon, my flight to Atlanta now departed at 6.50 am. I decided to stay up all night in an attempt to change my sleeping rhythm already before arriving to Germany.
So I got on the plane and kind of dozed away, when the pilot announced we were redirected to Cincinnatti because the planes anti-freezing system didn't function properly. Better save than sorry ...
After about 1.5 h in Cincinnatti we got onto another plan, that got us to Atlanta. There my waiting time for the connecting flight to Frankfurt was now only 2.5h, which I was not unhappy about.
Of course the plane to Frankfurt was completely booked out and OF COURSE I had a family with 2 small kids sitting behind me. The 3 year old daughter in the seat directly behind my was either on amphetamines or had drunk a whole can of coffee just before boarding. In any case, she was bouncing up an down on her seat, holding on to my backrest and also kicking the back of my seat. Her father contributed to the noise level by constantly trying to calm her down, but failing miserably. Sleeping? No way! ... and "yes", they were german ... snotnosed brat!
After about 4h (including the "meal" and the movie "Little Miss Sunshine", which I absolutely recommend to everybody!), the little monster behind me, must have been either comatose by the overdose of whatever or just totally exhausted and must have stopped trashing around, cause I fell asleep and only woke up, when the Stewardess (german: Saftschubse) literally stuck a croissesant into my face, asking whether I would like breakfast. After feasting on the rubbery croissesant, frozen butter and the unavoidable strawberry jam, we were about to land in Frankfurt.
Despite being redirected and the usual christmas chaos, my suitcase arrived there as well, magically. So I jumped onto a train, heading south and, cutting a long story short, arrived in Konstanz around noon. Thank god, my mum picked me up at the station. From door to door it takes about 24h ...
After having lunch, I tried to stay awake but finally crashed on the couch, slept from 4-6 pm, had more food, watched boring TV and went sleeping again.
It was December 22nd ...