Boys, Professional Life, Travel

Back from Vegas

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OK so I’m long back from Vegas and of course I haven’t had the time (or didn’t want to take the time) to update my little diary here.
Vegas started out with a very stressful day here at work but oh well. Had to pick up some last minute things from a big home-improvement store local to the area so by the time I got back home I had to drive to the airport instead of waiting or a cab. It’s a good thing I only live 15 minutes away from it. In fact that is sooooooo convenient, it almost feels like going to the train station in Germany. The flight was good and after checking into the hotel I met with my two co-workers and one of them was nice enough to walk the strip with me since I didn’t feel like standing around a casino. We walked all the way to the Mandalay Bay from the Imperial Palace and back (must have been like 6km in total). So nice! I was very impressed with all the nice hotels in Vegas!
The trade show was fantastic, too. I had such a good time talking to people and explaining our product to them. I love love love my job. I helped generating a lot of leads and it was just a very nice experience. The best thing though was all the good food. My colleagues must think I’m some sort of crazy person as I kept talking about food and demanded to eat all the time. We ate at the Venetian twice, then at Caesar’s Palace, and at the buffets at Paris and the Bellagio. Soooo yummy. I think I gained about 10pounds ;-). Luckily I did a lot of walking around though so that got it down to like 9 ;-).
I also really enjoyed all the free entertainment like the fountains in front of the Bellagio or the volcano at The Mirage but the best were all the nice hotels. Yeah, of course everything in Vegas is fake but I expected it and the only things that bugged me were the guys handing out all these cards for call girls and the fact that you had to walk through the casinos all the time to get to your hotel room, which made my eyes water. Though the newer hotels were much better with their air filtration.
The flight back was good and somewhat short and once I got back here I headed straight to Chadi’s birthday party. Great food at Luce’s and then a night of fun at HOM until 3:30. Afterwards 4 of us went back to my place for some wine and loads of laughter and at 6 I finally went to bed. What a fun party.
In the afternoon we went to brunch and then just hung out at Chadi’s and chilled, ate some cake and watched the superbowl. I was so happy that the Giants won. Yay!
The week so far has been really busy, too. Loads of stuff to do at work. I stayed until 8pm the other day because I had to finish something but luckily I love love love my job. I feel really quesy about the new visa. Ugh. Not good. I am just sooo worried because I sooooo love my job and Charlotte and I can’t picture myself in a German company where everyone is like Herr Mueller, Frau Meyer…. Yikes!
So Monday I was over at Vanessa’s place and she cooked the best risotto ever. Soooo good! Tuesday I cooked, which in itself is worth mentioning in my blog as I rarely do that…, not sure what I did yesterday, prolly just relaxing, and then today I had sushi with a nice guy. Tomorrow is dinner with Stefan and let’s see whatelse the weekend will bring. I feel like I have a cold coming on – yikes!

Night night people! I miss y’all!

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Friends, Internet, USA

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Just a quick entry before I’m leaving for Las Vegas tomorrow. I’m actually sitting on the patio of Starbucks here because my connection at home is non-existent and I figured my family would go crazy again if they don’t hear any updates. So I emailed. I’m so bad with keeping in touch without internet and phone at home. It really sucks! I feel bad! Und hallo Jenny, sorry Dir muss ich auch unbedingt schreiben und zwar in Deutsch!

So this weekend was really nice again. Actually this whole week. Let me make a list to manage to do that…..

oh funny, there’s a guy speaking German on his cell at the table next to mine. will have to talk with him….

A while ago some other guy stopped at my table and asked for my number and he was half German, too. small world…

– Monday Chadi and I killed more than a bottle of wine and ate chocolate a la Bridget Jones cause he was sad. Too much wine. Enough said.

– Wednesday I had dinner with a new German in Charlotte who doesn’t know any people yet. I know how that feels (hallo Ireland) and so we had a good time eating pizza and chatting. Afterwards I spent at least 2 hours at Target… hmmmm.. fun shopping!

– Thursday I had a business dinner with someone from a trade magazine. Good times and I got a lot of marketing advice so that was awesome!

– Friday night I hosted a little cheese and wine soiree and I went to ALDI and Trader Joe’s. I LOOOVE that store! Totally cool food for such little money. I was so happy. The party was great. I think we were about 15-20 people and the men weren’t even there. Good to finally see most of them again in one place.

– Saturday I watched Fun with Dick and Jane and that movie was sooo funny. Loved it! Watch it! Also did laundry and read a lot and then at night my neighbor Ash took me along to some Led Zeppelin cover band concert. totally not my type of music but it was so so so funny to see these guys dressed up like a 80s band. Scary really with the woman pants and the curly long hair not to mention all the fans. Teeheeeeeee!

So yeah tomorrow I’m flying to Las Vegas for that trade show and I’ll be back Satuday night so be good!

Sorry for not checking many blogs out lately, it just doesn’t quite work with the shitty internet connection and the busy life here. Miss you guys!

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USA

Elections

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Interesting test even though of course I don’t get to vote…
85% Hillary Clinton
85% Barack Obama
84% John Edwards
81% Chris Dodd
75% Joe Biden
72% Bill Richardson
63% Mike Gravel
62% Dennis Kucinich
52% Rudy Giuliani
52% John McCain
44% Mitt Romney
38% Mike Huckabee
37% Tom Tancredo
29% Fred Thompson
8% Ron Paul

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

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Culture, Friends, Professional Life, USA, Visitors, Weather

Snow!

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Yes that’s right, we got some snow this week! It only lasted 15 hours but it was fun while it lasted. I hope that was all of winter for me this year but I think the forecast said snow for tomorrow and temperatures on Sunday from -10 – 2C. Fun – NOT! I can’t quite believe that it’ll be that cold but we’ll see.

So anyway, Rich and I had a great weekend here in the Queen City. After a yummy dinner with Stefan at Fiamma’s (service took forever but the food was good) I picked Rich up at the airport and we spend the night chatting and catching up. Good times! To make his trip worth wile, we did a touristy thing on Saturday and checked out Historic Latta Plantation. It was actually really nice with a civil war winter camp enactment and we enjoyed the sunshine out at their lake (yes it was still nice and warm then). A huge pasta lunch warmed us up at home again and then we relaxed some before it was time to head out again. We took the light rail (so cool) to uptown and watched the Bobcats lose against the Detroit Pistons. The game was well worth the 15$ tickets we got but unfortunately the cats lost in the very last minute. :(. But we had fun and continued to Fuel Pizza for dinner and then met up with Giorgio and some other people at Feast and then went to HOM where we danced the night away. Max was in town and he was super nice and dropped us off at home after closing time.
Sunday we strolled through my neighborhood for a long time with quick stops to grocery shop and grad a coffee. It felt so European to haul around groceries and walk around on side walks. Haha. At home we watched The Man of Aran, which our tour guide on the Aran Islands had talked about in Ireland. Interesting movie… Sushi at Ru Sans was a nice grand finale for a great weekend and it was sad to drop of Richie at the airport on Monday.

This week has been good so far. Cooked and watched National Treasure with Giorgio and then went to P.F. Chang’s with Vanessa and there should be more fun coming my way this weekend.

Work is going well. I love the combination of all that creative marketing stuff with the technical machine stuff and I’m learning so much. And good news, my boss wants me to stick around after my internship (yay)so it’s back to working on visa crap. Yugh! So seeing that I might be here for a few more years (let’s hope) I did some credit history building today and opened a savings account as well as applied for a credit card. Not too sure that they’ll give it to me but the lady insisted that we try that first before getting a secured credit card. OK then. What with my student ID good until March that might actually work. We’ll see.

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