Hmm, so far I'm over half way done with my time in Amsterdam, but only about a third of the way to hitting the minimum for getting some cash from my blog's ads. Guess I'm gonna have to start upping the posting rate these next 4 months, haha.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Back in Austria and London
The past two weeks have been pretty busy ones. Two weekends ago was our office ski trip, titled Sneeuwwitje (Snow White), in Fiss, Austria, rather close to where I skied last December. I think there were about 70 people from the office there, so quite a crowd. We started off after work on Friday by making the ~8 hour drive to Ulm, Germany and then continued on another ~2 hours to Fiss in the morning. When we got there it was snowing and foggy, so visibility was about 20 feet - trying to ski down the mountain was kind of surreal, basically just skiing into white nothing-ness. After an afternoon of that, we continued on to the apres ski, which was unlike anything I'd ever seen in the states. I know there's plenty of bars on the slopes where I've been before, but in Fiss, there is a full-blown club right on top of the ski rental place at the bottom of the mountain, and it's absolutely packed every day. The place was called Hexenalm, which I think means "witch" or something in German, and featured a DJ in a booth above the dance floor who would occasionally swing out over the crowd on a rope, jump up and start dancing on the railing, or hoist a beer up from the bar with a pulley system - quite interesting. People are in there dancing the night away in their ski boots. Ridiculous.
Actually, dancing the night away is a bit of an exaggeration because the place actually closes at 7pm and immediately turns into a quiet restaurant, kinda weird. Once that happened our group would go back to one of the large chalets for dinner together and then proceed on to another bar/club for the night called Hexen Keller (something like cursed basement - not sure what's up with the witchcraft theme...). This was pretty much how every day and night went - very fun but very tiring as well.
Luckily, after the first day, the weather was absolutely perfect for skiing - clear skies, temperature above freezing by a few degrees and some nice snow (higher on the mountain at least). It was awesome to see the great scenery, get some fresh air, get in some good skiing and see all of my coworkers out in a different setting on the mountain. Couldn't have asked for a better couple days in the snow.
The one bad part of the weekend was the huge drive to and from Fiss. After the very tiring weekend we had what ended up being a 13 hour ride back on Tuesday. About 9 hours of driving (including a stop and 120 euro fine in Austria for not having a driving vignette), plus 2 hours of being stuck in standstill traffic in Germany and another hour train ride since we had to return a colleague's car and take a train back to the city. Other than that though, really awesome.
Then, after another busy week at work, this last weekend was spent in London. Venkat, a friend and coworker from the Atlanta office who's starting a 4 month stint in Rome, was there, so me, him, Becky, Katie (another former BCG ATLer) and two of Venkat's friends all made it to dinner one night. We also managed to catch almost all of the March Madness games with a bunch of other Americans, which was great since I had to miss a lot of them the week before. Gotta love March Madness. Since that wasn't very London-y, we went to some good London restaurants and also went to The Boat Race - the annual rowing race on the Thames between Oxford and Cambridge. It was actually pretty crazy as hundreds of thousands of people show up to drink, socialize and watch the race. Pretty cool event.
As you can see not the greatest weather, but hey, it's London. It actually was really nice on Sunday though, which was a good way to cap off the weekend. Now it's been a new week starting to ramp up on a new case. It seems to be really cool content and there's a chance that I'll get to go to Hong Kong over the course of the next 7 weeks, so I'm pretty excited. Other than that I'm just enjoying the weather as it gets a little warmer, enjoying the sunlight as it's now bright much later, and trying to get some more travel plans finalized.
Til next time...
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| Apres ski #1 |
Actually, dancing the night away is a bit of an exaggeration because the place actually closes at 7pm and immediately turns into a quiet restaurant, kinda weird. Once that happened our group would go back to one of the large chalets for dinner together and then proceed on to another bar/club for the night called Hexen Keller (something like cursed basement - not sure what's up with the witchcraft theme...). This was pretty much how every day and night went - very fun but very tiring as well.
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| Apres ski #2 |
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| awesome. |
Then, after another busy week at work, this last weekend was spent in London. Venkat, a friend and coworker from the Atlanta office who's starting a 4 month stint in Rome, was there, so me, him, Becky, Katie (another former BCG ATLer) and two of Venkat's friends all made it to dinner one night. We also managed to catch almost all of the March Madness games with a bunch of other Americans, which was great since I had to miss a lot of them the week before. Gotta love March Madness. Since that wasn't very London-y, we went to some good London restaurants and also went to The Boat Race - the annual rowing race on the Thames between Oxford and Cambridge. It was actually pretty crazy as hundreds of thousands of people show up to drink, socialize and watch the race. Pretty cool event.
As you can see not the greatest weather, but hey, it's London. It actually was really nice on Sunday though, which was a good way to cap off the weekend. Now it's been a new week starting to ramp up on a new case. It seems to be really cool content and there's a chance that I'll get to go to Hong Kong over the course of the next 7 weeks, so I'm pretty excited. Other than that I'm just enjoying the weather as it gets a little warmer, enjoying the sunlight as it's now bright much later, and trying to get some more travel plans finalized.
Til next time...
Sunday, March 13, 2011
A busy two weeks
It's been a while since I've updated, but that's because I've been pretty busy with a broken hand, a trip to Boston, finishing a project at work and having Buddy, Grebs and Alex over for a week. But, now that I have some time, here's an update:
As I said last time, I broke my hand in Lisbon. After a week in a cast that covered all four of my fingers and my entire forearm I went back to the doc and was able to get a smaller cast. The doc actually thought that he might have noticed a 2nd fracture in the bone, which would have required surgery, but luckily a CT scan showed that there was only the one fracture (phew) and I would be out of the cast after 4 weeks. I'm scheduled to get the cast off this Tuesday, which I am incredibly excited about, and then our office ski trip is next weekend so hopefully I don't break it again... I'll definitely be taking it easy on the slopes.
A couple weekends ago and a couple weekends after I broke my hand I went to Boston for a long weekend. I spent Thursday and Friday going to HBS's admitted student weekend and Saturday and Sunday chilling with some old friends. The Harvard weekend was really cool and got me excited to be going there in the fall (despite the harsh reminder of Boston winter weather - we got some sun, some rain, plenty of wind and about 6 inches of snow while I was there). We got to see the housing options, check out some classes, hear a lot about the school from various people and, probably most importantly, meet all the people that I could be in school with in a few months. The rest of the weekend was spent visiting some old haunts like Buko's and Pour House and seeing some MIT friends, which was really fun. It was also nice just to be back in the States for a bit, it had been a while. Unfortunately On Sunday I took the red eye back to Amsterdam, landed around 7:30am and went straight to work for one of our more intense weeks on the project.
But, luckily, our project cooled down a bit the following week, just in time for Buddy, Grebs and Alex to get here. Again it was nice to have some Americans around, and we spent the week seeing the sights, eating, drinking and getting the Amsterdam experience. I had to work during the week, but I was able to make it back pretty early every day so I think that worked out well, except maybe for my lack of sleep. They also got pretty lucky with the weather as it was pretty clear (only rained one day!) and even warmed up a bit. Actually, the day after Alex and Grebs left it was even warm enough for a nice long bike ride, so I took advantage and took some photos of the city.
Well I think that's it for now. This week is the last week on my project, and after that I have no clue where I'll be. I do know, however, that this coming weekend I'll be on the slopes in Fiss, Austria, so I'm looking forward to that!
As I said last time, I broke my hand in Lisbon. After a week in a cast that covered all four of my fingers and my entire forearm I went back to the doc and was able to get a smaller cast. The doc actually thought that he might have noticed a 2nd fracture in the bone, which would have required surgery, but luckily a CT scan showed that there was only the one fracture (phew) and I would be out of the cast after 4 weeks. I'm scheduled to get the cast off this Tuesday, which I am incredibly excited about, and then our office ski trip is next weekend so hopefully I don't break it again... I'll definitely be taking it easy on the slopes.
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| smaller cast, but still quite annoying... |
But, luckily, our project cooled down a bit the following week, just in time for Buddy, Grebs and Alex to get here. Again it was nice to have some Americans around, and we spent the week seeing the sights, eating, drinking and getting the Amsterdam experience. I had to work during the week, but I was able to make it back pretty early every day so I think that worked out well, except maybe for my lack of sleep. They also got pretty lucky with the weather as it was pretty clear (only rained one day!) and even warmed up a bit. Actually, the day after Alex and Grebs left it was even warm enough for a nice long bike ride, so I took advantage and took some photos of the city.
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| Rijksmuseum and Iamsterdam sign |
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| Olympic Stadium (the 1928 Olympics) |
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| I've been to 6 cities that have been Olympic hosts since being over here (actually 7 if you include Atlanta) |
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| River lined completely with houseboats |
Well I think that's it for now. This week is the last week on my project, and after that I have no clue where I'll be. I do know, however, that this coming weekend I'll be on the slopes in Fiss, Austria, so I'm looking forward to that!
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