Map of visitors

Hello Everyone!

It has been yet another long time I did not make any posts on my blog. But this is due to the reason that the life have been quite calm here in Fulda and I have not experienced or learnt something new which I would like to share with you.
Nevertheless, I "pimped" my blog and added a cool map of visitors to it. To all those of you, who have a blog, I would recommend visiting this page and register your blogs. The idea of the map is really appealing and puts you and your friends under a pressure of checking your blog :-). At least, you can monitor, who has been keen on hearing from you.
The latest news from Fulda is a HonkyTonk Kneipen Festival in Fulda held last Friday. Almost all major entertainment places, Kneipen of Fulda were participating in it, and had live music played. It costed 10 euros and one could visit all of them and listen and dance to the music played by various bands, Rocknroll, 60s, 70s, 80s music and etc. The entrance costs were a bit high, which I guess me, Michael and some others managed to compensate by collecting some Pfandflaschen around :D. I know it sounds quite pathetic and gross. But c'est l'avi, students can never reject going out, even when the costs are so biteful. All in all it was a good evening.

Success to all with your theses and see you soon!

Who do you look like?

Hahaha! A friend of mine, a lazy guy like me sent this cool link, I tried it for myself, and here are the results. :D You can also try it (I had only a photo with my glasses on), it is quite hilarious.

No internet at home

Hello everyone!
I have been struck by "sloth totale", and was not posting anything on my blog. The main reason though is that i dont have any internet connection at home. I will write soon something for the blog. But this time i just wanted to congratulate everyone on the new year and wish all the best in academic, professional and personal life. Let this year bring a lot of good surprises, more success, love and happiness!
Cheerio!

Firdavs

Sad

Hello there!

A couple of weeks ago UNHCR has published a magazine on refugees, the victims of intolerance. Magazine is full of dicturbing pictures and articles not only about people fleeing from persecution in their homecountry, but also suffering from persecution in the countries, where they received asylum seeker's status. Stories are from all over the world, many countries and regions. I just mention one of the random articles.It is a story of asylum seeking family from Turkmenistan in the city of Leeds, who were hospitalized after some local person unleashed his three dogs shouting "Go, go,go". The child injured was ten years old. A photo that is very disturbing is that of an African would be migrant or refugee lying dead on a beach while there are people sunbathing, watching and not stirring a finger to help. To my very big surprise last week there was an article on the CNN, which friend Veronica forwarded to me, telling about Angelina Jolie's comments on that same photo. (What a coincidence!:-) Everyone knows she is a goodwill ambassador of the UNHCR, UN agency for refugees, and that same photo caused anger of hers.
So i just thought, why not to publish that photo, as long as i have the magazine with me and all of us were so much interested in the European issues in the course of our studies.

Please "enjoy".

Firdavs

I should check my liver...some day

Hello Everyone!
First written 10 days ago:
Just another short note of what I was doing lately. Last week was the last one for Rosa Alba, an intern from Italy I was working with in the same room. So, to show respect (cause she is from Sicily:-), we went out to Maria Roses, a small disco-bar with a good music. Because me and Veronica, a good friend from the US doing internship at the UN and simply a smart one, sat longer in the UN bar sipping cheap white wine and beer, we got to the place a bit later. We were a bit drunk, as usual, and forgot about the paper with directions and phone numbers on it, so, it took us a good one hour walk to join the others. The funniest thing was to ask for wrong directions from a taxi-driver, who got us home on the previous weekend. Vienna could not be that small! Eventually, after Veronica took over the lead, and went into Marriott hotel, where she used her women tricks and charms and got a whole map with the exact location of the bar, we soon joined other interns and got a round of tequila from our flatmate and a nice guy, Nicolas. Apparently, the drink I should not have drunk. It is a drink I have very bad relations with. Then, we danced in the basement, where actual disco is located, and I almost got my eyebrows burnt. I was at the bar, and the barmen were whistling like mad, and making gestures as if saying - Get the hell outta here! - how could I have known that they are trying to set a fire on the bar? Good that I was pulled back at the very last moment. Otherwise, the bar could have had a free kebab party that night. And a half-naked girl that came later on the bar could be dancing vicious cannibal dances around a good cooked Firdavs meat. Anyway, I liked the bar very much. It has a good music and atmosphere, good expensive drinks and cocktails. Another hint from me.
And on Sunday, me, Nicolas, and Veronica went to Schoenbruen Palace after being almost two months in Vienna. It is one of those big tourist attraction sites, one has to visit while in Vienna. For its beautiful 1441 rooms, a museum, gardens and the zoo. The Kaiser tried to build a "modest one" palace that would look like the one in Versailles. He did a good job. It is indeed magnificient, especially the gardens. I also liked feeding squirrels in the park. These squirrels are not afraid of people, cause people keep on feeding them with nuts, which is then eventually stolen by evil crows.

Last week's adventures:
Last week on Friday I went to the UN bar with all the other interns, as it is a normal thing to do for us, that is assemble, socialize and drink cheap drinks. I don't usually go to the UN bar during the week, because I am always tired and then I have my Arabic courses I am doing for fun (It is indeed fun to go to these courses, first-because they are for free, second-because it gave me more self-esteem after I was put into the Group 7, which is the highest they have to offer (though for me to start speaking Arabic I need to go through 3 more groups at least :- )). Anyway, back to the UN bar. I was supposed to have a couple of drinks, then to go for the dinner with some Japanese interns, unfortunately i was late by 15 minutes, and they were gone already, I wonder if they were fasting, not to be able to wait 15 minutes. What-What? It is mere 15 minutes people! So after waiting for 30 minutes at the place, I went to join the other interns for clubbing. Of course, I had nothing to eat, and then we went to the famous second ring, where you have a lot of disco-bars under the bridge where actually the underground trains run. We did 5 discos in one night! Soft rock, Hard Rock, chicka-por-favor-kind-one, techno and then i-dont-remember-anymore one. Closer to morning we decided to take a taxi back home. I wish we just waited 15 minutes till the first U--bahn. When the timer in the taxi started showing more than 30 euros, Veronica and Nicholas got furious, and asked for the taxi-driver to stop immediately, saying he is cheating and then Veronica refused to pay any money. Taxi-driver started kinda shouting at her, she started shouting at him using nice f-words. Damn, i should have noted some of them down for future uses. I think she wanted him to beat her or something, because I was sure she was keen on having a big issue next day in the newspapers. I stayed rather calm...mine small fish. So, I simply followed our superpower Veronica, for another mile followed by the taxi. In the end that what was supposed to happen happened. Three police cars came in 10 minutes. Six policemen surrounded us. It was like in Hollywood films, but worse and real. I will be writing for my blog from the police cell, I was gonna say, but they turned out to be noisier than really tough. To be precise they even called for another taxi for us. Btw, I noticed how they changed when we started speaking English, smart of us. Though, I wish something really nasty would happen. Headlines: UN working American and her companions from African Golden Ghana and Muslim Communist Uzbekistan refused to pay for a cab or this kind of stuff (if you have better sounding headlines, plz, do leave in the comments :-). Next day was horrible, because I woke up around one o'clock and remembered that I have not been eating for 24 hours and only drinking. I was sick, my hands were shaking. I was simply done. It is the only time you wish you were dead and did not suffer. Even a glass fell off my hands and broke in IKEA families-only-cafeteria, causing me a big embarrassment in front of a bunch of kids, who made the look I will never forget. Bloody adults...
After all that, the conclusions and decisions made were: not to go to the UN bar anymore, as its cheap prices are the source of all troubles. Not to go out at all. The Finnish do drink a lot. Hard rock discos are not for me. Avoid expensive Viennese taxis. Dont go to IKEA cafeteria. And in the light of the same conclusions made last week, TO KEEP STRONGLY IN LINE WITH THEM!
So that is all I wanted to report to you.

See you soon in Fulda!

Firdavs.

PS: Does anyone know a good room in Fulda? I just realized I don't have a room in Fulda anymore.

It is photo time...

Hello everybody!

Some photos from Vienna! If you read previous posts you will know why I chose these photos.
A good friend Veronica from Syracouse, US, my co-workers, Nicholas, and some other photos i found interesting and beautiful. Enjoy!











For some reason I cant post many photos, and it is playing on my nerves...There are some more photos I will post later, as i gave up already struggling with my own blog.

Peace!

Firdavs

What sucks in Vienna.

Hello Everyone!

I know a long time without any news, despite promising to update my blog soon. Good news is that I have internet at home again, as well as a room where to stay in October. Bad news is that I might have to pay a lot for my internet, due to limewire.
I should also mention that I, finally, tried kangaroo strips in cafeteria, I am sure it was hoping a day before with its baby inside. But I can tell, it found its rest on my plate, and eventually, in my stomach, which I very much enjoyed. Oh, I almost forgot that I also got my supervisor buy me cigarettes from duty free shop. I was spending a lot of money on that. So, now I will spend less money and more health as they cost me 4 times less than normally!!! But I beg you guys not to leave comments saying I have to quit it. If you want to know I am fine with my smoking, I feel to be like the last of Mohicans :-). Smokers are being discriminated lately. The public picture is being portrayed in such a bad image that smokers are worse than, say, gays (Easy? I am very well aware of my making a political statement here, you like it or not). By the way, I should also inform you that I went to Baden. It is a small town/village near Vienna, and it has 14 natural springs, where the Romans and Kaisers would chill out and rest. Of course, I did that too, though without a cigarette and wine glass in hand, despite much desired. After that I went to rock a party with old people in front of Council house, where Austrian traditional music was played by an orchestra, which in case of emergency, could easily change the beat of music to the funeral one, due to the age of listeners present. With due respect to all of them. Anyway, I found what I was searching for and tasted some kind of wine hybrid, called Sturm. This homemade substance is a sort of an under-fermented wine, which though, can still give some effect to feel dizzy, if consumed in larger amounts. I mixed it with some more beer, I bought on the way back to Vienna and might have even misbehaved in public. Don’t know how it started, but at some point I realized that I was with some other interns in front of Opera house, standing in a perfect line and doing what one usually does after beer and trying to decide, which opera we should go to the next day. I guess this is how Mozarts, Beethovens and others got their inspiration in arts and music returning from the warm springs in Baden. At least, I did receive my inspiration. I even listened to violin some girl was playing on the street and did charity; despite my situation did not much differ from the girl’s. Ironical was to see the advert of Federal Chancellor Schüssel next to her, saying HE CAN. I guess, whatever he can does not consider poor students of arts and music. I did not tell you, Austria has elections. I don’t know who is going to win, but my favourite candidate is Westenhaler. His banners are always easy to understand, for example: Sozial Staat statt Zuwanderung, Österreich statt Schüssel und Brüssel, Daham statt Islam, Deutsch statt Ich nix verstehn and etc. He is good looking and always smiling to you from the banners. But to be serious it is actually sad, as much as those populous leaders in some countries making so much fuss about Pope’s speech and intention.
Oh, and I should tell you about going to bars on the Danube. It is very beautiful there, and cocktails are half a price. So, despite the fact that usually I am tired to death after work, and the only thing I want, is to eat and to sleep, I drop by to those Danube bars to try some cocktails, and perhaps increase my knowledge in them.
And last weekend, I also did some institutional going-out, that is I went to Best Wine Cellar in Vienna, took part in Oktoberfest Party in Bermuda triangle, and went to Flex, one of the best (and expensive) European discos. There are many cultural and night activities in Vienna that everytime one has to choose one and give up many others. And this is the only thing here, which sucks!

So, this is all I wanted to report, so far.
Peace!

Firdavs

PS: I dont understand why I can't upload photos to my blog. I will try it tomorrow from the office.