Monday, July 14, 2008

Berlin tour

Since not everyone have seen Berlin I’ve decided to show you at least part of it. First of course the most popular and famous: Brandenburg Gate:

It is located in a city center, as you could probably guess, and it’s nice, monumental for someone probably breath taking
The second famous thing in Berlin is Berlin Wall:

Now you can see only small parts of it, but Marta says you can still see the delicate differences between two parts of Berlin which used to be separated by the Wall.
We also met few artists who decided to create a huge puppet and walk with it through city centre:

Quite nice initiative don’t you think?

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Guy in a tram

One day in Berlin we decided to see Postdam. It’s like a suburb of Berlin with huge palace and even bigger garden. The weather was perfect for our trip. We bought tickets and got into the tram. Me and Mark were glued to the window, admiring passing by views. Each time when there was something really nice we were jumping a bit on our sits and Marta, who accompanied us, was not giving away that she is bored sightseeing the same for the fourth time. The journey was quite long, so after a while we decided to read the guide. I was studying carefully Pascal’s edition of what to see in Berlin and suddenly I felt something has touched top of my head. I thought that some water drop is simply soaking in my freshly washed hair. I moved my hand to touch it and I felt something like a bug. Brrr.... I started to shake my head in panic screaming aaaa!!!!
Suddenly, there was no boredom in a tram. Everyone seemed to be interested in my bug incident. Of course my scream and shaking drew everyone’s attention so no one could tell me where the huge bug (at least in my head it was huge ) went. I knew it wasn’t on my head any more, so I tried to come back to Pascal’s guide. But the mysterious disappearance of bug frustrated me a little, so with one eye on the tram and the other on the guide I started next part of our journey. Then some guy opposite me said: ‘It’s under your shirt’. I panicked even more and almost jumped up to throw it out, when I saw his huge smile. He said: ‘no no I was just joking.’ I said: ‘It wasn’t funny!’. But for everyone else who didn’t felt the bug it was hilarious of course....

Saturday, July 12, 2008

The luggage - in photos

These are pictures of me doing our small repack on the street next to Mailboxes in Berlin. That was fun!

1st one:

and 2nd one:

Thursday, July 10, 2008

The luggage

Last few days we were in Berlin. Marta thanks for everything!

The weather was great, sunny and almost no rain In other words I had my 4 days of summer. We have visited all the places that you have to see when you are in Berlin. Marta was speeding up our walk so probably we saw more then we would see going there on our own.
But the most important thing was our UPS package. About month ago I realized I won’t be able to pack our closet in 2 check in bags and 2 cabin baggages. It is physically impossible. So I had bulb lighting above my head, like Freak usually has, and it occurred to me that we can send some stuff by UPS. I checked UPS prices and such parcel from UK costs £500 hahahha. Perfect don’t you think?
It was time for plan B. We took 2 checked in luggages to Berlin, then we could send them by UPS from there. It costs 87euro to do that, so it was worth it!
Problem seemed to be solved. We were relaxing, sightseeing, eating great food and the day before going back we wanted to send it. Then the problems started… First we couldn’t find card boxes, then we couldn’t find the shop with materials for house (like IKEA). Next we wanted to order UPS so we didn’t have to carry heavy bags to UPS office and it turns out that the shop called Domeane was 20 min drive from place we were staying, however UPS had to know the size of the package before we could order it. Thus we couldn’t do much before we bought the card boxes and it was 8pm already, so time when all the shops are closing yuuupi! This meant we would be able to order UPS next day in the afternoon and UPS policy says that they are coming at 6pm the same day. Since we couldn’t be at home at 6pm we had to drag the luggage through all city to mailboxes and send them from the office. Of course dragging the luggage would be far more difficult if we had two huge card boxes full of our stuff. Thus we took card boxes and our bags and went to Mailboxes. We looked like those people who sell things on markets After about an hour of struggle we arrived to the UPS Office. I asked if we can repack everything inside and they told me I will be charged for this, so I thought no way! And we were repacking our clothes and shoes on the street
But the funniest part was that we forgot to take money from home. So I stayed like homeless person with two huge boxes and my boyfriend went home for money.
By the time he got back I managed to meet all the people living on this street, then I won with myself in Tetris (which is called Russia on my mobile...) and I survived two 20 minute rains. But it was worth it we sent everything to Poland and now we will be able to come back with the rest of our stuff.

You can learn from my experience that leaving things to the last moment gives you more adrenalin

Thursday, July 03, 2008

AIDS advert

I found on the internet quite interesting AIDS advert. It convinces you to protect yourself against AIDS. I think it’s really good and I like the way it was made. You can view it here:

and while doing it think about the faces of all Polish Radio Maria fans seeing it This would be fun!

The online calendar

I am responsible for administration, accommodation, IT and also for managing Web Developer. The guy is working from abroad (clever chap!). I bet he knew that if he stayed, then he would be too much bothered by everyone within the company, so he started to travel. Lately he added a new facility to our online system, the online calendar. Since he is away I am the one to be asked about the new facilities and each time Freak finds some bugs he runs to my desk and describes what was going on and what he did and how the system was reacting. I must mention that he is afraid of computers and he shuts down every application before doing something new, because he is afraid of causing some damage to what he had done so far
Anyway, the day zero came. Online calendar started to work. Everyone began to use it and I thought I will upload all my laptop’s calendar events to it. These events were just for me to remind me some key day to day issues. Next day I came to work. Sun was shining, I did my day exercises by riding a bike to work I sat next to my laptop, opened emails and there it was! bunch of emails form Freak. He tends to send loads of emails during evening and early morning. I started to read what he wrote and I couldn’t believe it. He asked me to name my events properly because they are ambiguous and there is no description written, so he doesn’t know what is it about. Hahahaha it was like saying: ‘start describing what you are doing otherwise it is harder to invigilate you’. I wanted to say that he is not a participant so it’s non of his business, but of course there is no nice way to say such thing so I left it and fortunately he didn’t mention it to me yet.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Meet the Freak

Beginning of the week ehhh. The only good thing that comes to my mind on Tuesdays’ mornings is: ‘it’s not Monday!’ You know how people talk about their jobs and how much they hate them and how much they can’t stand their bosses? Well, surprisingly I became one of these persons. About 6 months ago I started to consider moving to UK. My boyfriend was already studying in UK and I thought it might be a good idea to do something exciting. After few conversations with my friends and a lot of thinking I decided to go. I was enthusiastic and happy about my decision. Thus at the end of January I actually moved to Oxford. Everything seemed to be great I was there with my boyfriend in a nice apartment. I even managed to find a great job which started on 1st February. Could you want more?
I turns out you could. The fairy tale bubble blew up after first month of my job. The company was nice, but the work load was horribly huge. One of my tasks was to organize administration processes within the company, but each time when I was asking questions no one could answer them. How can I create any processes if even boss doesn’t know who is doing what. Honestly I have no idea how this business could work for such a long time. Anyway the worst was coming…
By the worst I mean my boss. At the beginning he was so charming and nice, but after a while he started to show his other face. He is a real freak!
Few days ago he asked me to arrange electrician to fix his lights. I did it and he agreed that Friday will be the fixing day. Next day I changed bulbs to stronger ones in my room, because it was too dark in there. The result was amazing. The room is so much brighter now. But freak still didn’t have proper light, since it was only Wednesday, so he freaked out He came to me and asked when he will have his lights repaired. I told him that he agreed to have them repaired in Friday. This answer kept him silent but only for 2h. After 2h he came back to my desk and frowning said: ‘You know it is so dark in my room. I have to have proper light.’ I repeated my sentence: ‘You agreed to have it fixed on Friday’. He frowned even more and went away, but hahah imagine! there was another but… After 2h I received an email. I couldn’t believe it, but there it was an email saying: ‘I also need light like you do! My eyes are tired. Please make sure electrician will fix everything on Friday.’ What can you reply to such thing? I repeated my sentence like mantra. Only this time through an email and happily the end of working day arrived.
The other day freak was planning to organize stationery. It was always lying upstairs behind ugly green curtain. I arranged someone to make shelves and cupboards, so that green curtain went away and this was my mistake. The freak saw so many stationery thing lying there on shelves. Instantly he started to have so many ideas regarding them. I imagine he looked like one of these cartoon guys with bulbs above their heads. The next step of course was to visit me and ask me to make his ideas come true.
I was downstairs going through my emails sorting out hundreds of ad hoc problems and then he arrived. I saw his smile and though Ohhh noo!! another idea! He started: ‘You know there is so many stationery upstairs. I don’t know how much of envelopes or paper is everyone using. It is so important to know and also I can’t even track how many of them are there because there are no labels on boxes.’ I said: ‘I am looking at it from time to time and it never happened that someone didn’t have stationary supplies’. (It’s worth mentioning that company has only 9 employees.) This sentence made him angry his eyes narrowed and he said: ‘No we have to have labels on each box and a list of every item otherwise we will loose track of it. You should prepare it and also this stationery has to be locked. What if someone from outside will take it?’. He finished this sentence and drilled me with his piggy eyes. I thought dear God there were so many people going through that place for at least couple of years and no one took anything, but now suddenly all thieves from neighbourhood will come to steal his envelopes. Of course I couldn’t said that so I said:’Ok. I will do it’. This made him happy and he left me alone.
You are probably thinking now great why is she moaning if he left her alone and went to his office. Ha there is something else. Freak loves to hear and know everything, so he is always listening when you are talking to someone in person or through the phone. I even bet he is pressing his ear to the wall to hear every word. Actually I saw him couple of times standing closely to the room entrance listening peoples conversation. He is not even hiding it. The best part however is that if he hears something that is wrong in his mind he starts to run through the room to his victim’s room and screams that it’s not like that. Poor victim has no idea what he is screaming and to which word of his conversation he is referring to, but it doesn’t matter to freak. He always knows best. On the other hand if you are not the victim it’s quite funny to see how he suddenly runs with piggy eyes screaming ‘no no no it’s not like that!’.
I think this gave you a bit wider picture of my freak. Now I have couple more weeks till the end of my job and a lot of other freak stories, which will appear here soon.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

How it all began

It all started a month ago, when one of my friends asked me if I have a blog. I said no and thought: ‘Ohh dear. Of course I don’t have a blog! Blogs are like virtual diaries for people who have nothing else to do, than writing about their, probably in most cases, imaginary life.’ But he said it would be nice to read what is happening with me, since it’s hard to meet on MSN or chat through emails. Which by the way after whole working day, behind mailbox, are the least desired thing to be seen.
Anyway, I started to think about my blog and here I am writing ‘my virtual diary’. After all I have quite interesting life, so let’s start…