Today, I saw sunshine in Hamburg for the first time. As I finished my job early today, I could catch some more Hamburg impressions. The church around the corner from work reminds me of Uppsala cathedral - or am I just "homesick"? I also like the water, especially the Alster, that I see everyday. Now my first weekend in Hamburg has arrived and I am going to spend it with some sightseeing and looking into my textbooks.

Find some more Hamburg impressions on my flickr-page.

On my way from work I pass several media companies. One of these is "Verlagsgruppe Milchstraße", a publishing company I know from my traineeship in Kempen. I like it because it reminds me of good times and till now I am looking forward to my job every morning. :)

Step by step, I am getting used to my work. Today I searched a lot of book covers for the literature news and of course also prepared the texts. We will publish them successively in the next days. The birthday portrait for a German actress that I wrote yesterday was quite good and will be published next week. I start to be able to work on myself - and I really like that. :-)

As there was not so much going on today, I finished work early and took a little walk through the city. I had left the map home, so I just followed some streets which looked nice. I found a big Thalia bookshop and discovered that I am currently quite keen on books. Okay, not so much on my textbooks. ;-) I would also like to see a lot of films which I missed in Sweden but I wonder how I shall find the time.

This morning started a little stressful - I missed my train because the ticket machine didn't want the way I wanted. However, I arrived on the job in time and had a nice start. My boss showed me all around, from the fabulous news desk of Germany's biggest news agency to the cafeteria. My colleagues seem to be quite friendly, and the job seems to be fun although the first day with all its new stuff was of course a bit hard to take. But what do I do there? I edit agency texts so that they can be used for different webplatforms. More or less every text gets a picture to make it ready to use for the customers. That's what I know so far and what I can tell you.

After having left Viersen rainy in the morning, Hamburg welcomed me with snow. Although the sky was cloudy, it looked quite beautiful. My room and my bike still looked like I had left them ten days ago. Now I've filled my little doghouse with things which are still searching for their right place and I've managed to get an internet-connection. :-) In the late afternoon, I went to town by train to find out where I have to go tomorrow. Unfortunately, it started to rain and the water is freezing now so I prefer to go by train instead of falling with my bike when I start to work tomorrow. However, I'm looking forward to tomorrow and hope it will become a positively exciting day. Wish you all a nice week!

Do you know what's worst about going away? Packing suitcases. I have to make so many decisions what to take and what to leave. Each decision makes me more aware of that I am leaving and how much I will miss in the next weeks.

This morning was full of nice surprises. First, I got up early. That's quite good because I have to learn a lot for my exams in March. Second, I went to the hairdresser. Now I look like a human being again and my head feels much lighter. Third, there is snow falling, and it is still there. :) All in all, everything looks nice again. Of course, my hair was totally wet after I had returned from town and my new hairdress was destroyed but the snow makes everything look brighter. Guess that will last maybe till the late afternoon. Snow in our region usually does not stay for more than some hours.

Some things have happened in the last few days. First, I got to know my Hamburg-doghouse for the next months. ;-) It is a room in a studenthostel, 10 sqm, kitchen and bathroom on the corridor - more than 300 Euros! At least, it is clean and my flat mates seem to be okay. Compared to Stockholm, Hamburg seems very big to me. There are 1.7 million people living in the city, so Hamburg is the biggest city I've ever lived in. I've taken my bike with me so that I still can go by bike to work - one way might take about 20 minutes. I am looking forward to see Hamburg from its sunny side as it has always been cold and foggy when I was there. In a week, I will be there again and tell you more about my Hanseatic experiences.
On Friday, I had an expensive evening but thanks to Jens and his mum I didn't have to pay. We went to Mongo's, a wok restaurant in Düsseldorf's media harbour. Afterwards, we had some exorbitant expensive cocktails and finally saw The pursuit of happiness on the screen. The film was sad and beautiful at the same time. It reminded me in a way of "generation internship", as we in Germany call my generation, although Chris' situation is of course extraordinary. The son was portrayed excellently. He was so funny and brought some sunshine into the film.
Today is my youngest brother's 18th birthday. He's lucky that he is already allowed to drive alone, and he seems to be quite proud. Funny that he is already an adult now. I am going to fill 25 in March - what a huge and symbolic number. :( And I'll have to pay my own health insurance then. Such a mess... But now I'm going to enjoy some delicious cake.

Der Zwiebelfisch-Newsletter hat mich heute eiskalt erwischt - aber mit einem Lachen im Gesicht. Endlich hat sich Bastian Sick eines schwerwiegenden Problems aus dem Trierer Studenten-Alltag angenommen. Wer nicht in Trier oder im Saarland aufgewachsen ist, kann ein Liedchen von den Kommunikationsproblemen mit den Ureinwohnern singen, denn der Trierer an sich kennt offenbar das schöne Wort "nehmen" nicht. Zum Beispiel meine Vermieterin, die "immer Meister Proper zum Putzen holt". Leider bin ich Meister Proper noch nicht persönlich begegnet, auch nicht im Auto meiner Vermieter, aber ich vermute auch stark, dass sie den berühmten Putzgeist nur zum Putzen nimmt. Mehr lustige Beispiele gibt es hier. Also, Wahltrierer, verzweifelt nicht sondern lehnt Euch entspannt bei der Lektüre zurück! Und hinterlasst mir mal nen Gruß in den Kommentaren. :) Viel Spaß morgen bei der Mewinale - ich bin dann in Hamburg!

Feeling uncomfortable in German? Sorry for that. It was just one of these inner-German-language-problems. ;-)