One week in Reutlingen

This past week (24.07. - 28.07.2006) has been rather interesting and fun. I spent the whole week in Reutlingen and met lots of new people from campus.
Before I go on, I am going to Toronto on the 8th of August to visit my friends and going to the wedding of one of my best and closest friends: Andrew Robinson
He is getting married to a lovely Chinese girl called Ada. Unfortunately I haven't met her yet, but there should be enough time.
Well, because I will be gone for two weeks, my people at work expect me to come every day in order to make up for my absence, which I find pretty reasonable.

So, Monday was an ok day, went to work (9am - 3pm), did my thing, went swimming, went home and cooked and went to bed early (i.e, 11pm is early for me).

Tuesday was a touch different. After work I went back home and met with my neighbors Sophia (she lives in room 213, I live in room 214) and Wiebke (she lives on the 3rd floor, room unknown) in the back yard of our building (which is called "Wurmhaus" and you can find it at Pestalozzi Str. 35, 72762 Reutlingen).


(Pic: Wiebke, Héctor, Sophia)
We sat there for like 2 hours doing nothing but talking and then Sophia and I had the idea of playing with "Wasserbomben" (waterbaloons). So most of the day passed by and I still managed to go for a one hour swim at the Freibad (public swimming pool). Came back home and cooked a delicious dinner with another roomie called Bayo (from Nigeria). 11.30 pm and my day was done.

Wednesday was slightly different. Work was the same, but this time at home I ate pretty early. The thing is, Sophia and Wiebke invited me to go with them to their Faculty Summer Party (they study "Sonder Pädagogik" or in "Special pedagogy"). So around 7pm we head out to their building (which is a 3 min walk) and had an awesome time there. There was live music, a student concert much alike to STOMP, lots of booze and bbq, and of course, lots of students. I have no idea how many people I met that night. Let me give it a shot: Sarah Jane, Annika, Frauke, Mimi, Silke, Lisa, Teresa, Nadja, Bene, Bety, Eva, Valerie, Tina, Anika, and that's about what I remember. As you can see, most of them were girls...my guess is that 80% of the students from SP are woman! Poor guys that study with them...
In any case, it was loads of fun to meet all these new people and their way of seeing things (much different to us peeps from Marketing, Management, and all that BS). 4 am was the time I hit the blankets...and I had to wake up at 7.30am. Damn!! Did I mention that I didn't go to swim?

(Pic: Sarah Jane & Héctor)

Then Thursday morning came along around 8.20am!! I woke up late and I had to catch the bus at 8:25am!!!!! Besides that, at work we were gonna have some guests from another company at 9am so I HAD to be at work pretty early. So, I pretty much dashed out of my bed, got my clothes on (forgot to put on my belt) and ran to get the bus. Got to work, made some coffee, got glasses, coffee mugs and juices out (apple and orange) and then chilled out. The visitors we very punctual and the meeting went quite well (I took part of it as an observer, which was pretty cool). After the meeting we went to a Willy Betz warehouse that has space for 13'000 pallets. This is considered to be a small warehouse...there was another nearby that is 8 times bigger! DAMN! Over 100'000 pallets.
Anyway, after work I went home, had something little to eat and went swimming. I got back home around 8pm and met with Bayo, Sophia and Olga. Olga is a Russian woman from Moscow that came to visit us for only 4 days. She had an interview because she's applying for a MBA programm at our university. So this night was her last night in Germany before flying back to Moscow. So we had a little celebration with her, drank some wine, had a nice chat and then she played the guitar for us. That was just sweet!

Of course, we didn't understand a word she said 'cuz it was all in Russian, but it was very nice. We tried to sing some stuff from the Beatles, but that was a touch too complicated for her. Nevertheless, we had a great time that night. We are wishing her lots of luck for being accepted in the programm.

(Pic: Sophia, Bayo & Olga)



Friday morning was the most interesting of the whole week I must say: woke up at 5am, took a shower and took the train to Frankfurt. Why? I had to go and get a new passport.
I arrived at 9am with the ICE (the fastest train in Germany) and went to meet Nina. She had a paper I would later on need during the day. So, I saw her for a few minutes and took off because I wanted to get this done asap.
So around 9.45 I was at the General Consulate of Mexico in Frankfurt. I filled out a form, payed 66.07 € for the new passport and by 11am it was all set. Before I got my passport (around 10.30am) I went to bank (Commerzbank) in the northside of the city (Bornheim). There I gave the paper that Nina gave me earlier. So that took me exactly 30 min to get done. So I was back at the consulate at 11am and got right on time my new passport. In my humble opinion, I think it looks like crap (compared to the older one). You tell me!

(Pic: My passport...)

Anyway...after getting those two things done, I visited my old friend Irina Klyuba (better known as Ira) at her place. I had never visited her at her place, so that was cool. We talked for like 40 min and then I head back to the "Hauptbahnhof" (main train station) and took the 12:50 train back to Reutlingen. I made it just in time to film Haseeb's baptism (Haseeb is the guardian/keeper of our 2nd floor at Wurmhaus). Well, it wasn't a religous or cult thing this baptism. It had more to do that his semester had finally completed their studies (I still don't know what they studied). So it was loads of fun because they got baptised in downtown Reutlingen at a water fountain!
I filmed a great part of the baptism and got myself quite soaked! Oh well...

(Pic: At the fountain)

After that whole guacamole of people in a fountain, I head my way for some groceries and then went home. Since I hadn't had time to clean up a little bit, I took my time getting my stuff in place. So I broomed, swapped and whatsoever. The best/worst part was rearranging my shelves with my folders, cds, and tequila bottles. I can only say that at the very top shelf I had my tequila bottles with the tequila shot glasses...well, somehow, that all came down crashing on my head! You guys can't imagine the mess I had after that! Luckily, none of my fine tequilas broke, but I lost 5 shot glasses and a beer mug that my bro Sheldon (american/german dude that I met back in 2003 that now lives again in the US). Besides that, I also got a nice lump on my head and a cut on my foot for stepping on glass. So that was just a wonderful thing to happen.

So, having no other option, I took care of the mess and then got the "§!#=*" shelves back in line. There is definitely no greater pleasure than getting things fixed (and not falling on your head)! So this enchilada was cooked and ready to go.
I went to the kitchen to get something to eat, but met Mathilde (roomie from room 210 I believe). We talked about the shit that just happened to me and then she asked me: "Did you already check your grade for the last exam that you wrote?"
Believe me, I was shocked to have forgotten such a thing! We are talking about a course called "Exportmanagement" which should actually be easy, but the prof. can be a pain in the...you know what I mean. So I head back to my room, got the machine online and tried my luck (I was scared shitless, I admit...if I failed this exam, then all my efforts were kissed good bye; btw, I had failed this course last semester, there the reason for being afraid).
RESULT: 3,3 (1,0 is the best, 5,0 is failed).

¡¡¡¡I ROCKED!!!!

Thank God that I passed! So fortunately, the only thing I have to worry about now is my master thesis. Now that I think about it, I actually beat my buddies Phillip Prott and Christian Quade!! Ok, now I feel better! ;)

So that's all for now folks! Sorry for keeping this post so long! I believe many things happened to me for a reason (man, but why did the beer mug and the shot glasses had to die, why??????).
Hopefully next week will be as interesting as this one! I can only say I've had loads of fun.
Take care girls and boys and keep the good times rollin'!

(Pic: This is my room on Friday morning)