-my blog is on hold-

What I miss about Vienna...

I miss:

- the Prater
- a game of poker with the Ziehrer Creek
- a good sunday lunch at my mother's place
- the Iranian restaurant Pars
- the smell of the U1
- stuyding philosophy at the Hautpuni
- a good Kebap at Schwedensplatz
- a good round of Werwolf
- a game's night
- playing PES/Fifa
- crazy Aiesec-nights at QOI
- chilling in the MQ
- being everywhere in Vienna in approx. 30-45 minutes
- making fun about the Wiener Linien
- going jogging around the Schönbrunn-Castle
- driving the Skoda through the city
- special offers at Hofer
- the smell of the DickMacks
- a great reggae night @Volksgarten
- the Wiener dialect (only partly)
- the "Krügerl"
- Dosenbier
- good internet connection
- understanding every statement during a discussion (languagewise - not the content ;))
- the best drinking water in the world
- the Austrian charme
- a hangover lunch at "zum Sternzeichen"
- winning at Super Mario Kart N64
- the bamboo's
- the Donauinselfest
- and much more other things that I cant think about right now...

What would you do?

What would you do when...

- you are buying a water bottle before entering the train, you put the water bottle on the small table next to the window in the train, you have a long trip ahead of you so you close your eyes trying to sleep, half an hour later you open your eyes and see that the girl, which sits opposite of you (her boyfriend sits next to her, and her mother next to you) is trying to open your bottle with her teeths and starts drinking from it? What would you do?


- you go out in the city, you get drunk, you flirt with a girl in a pub, you finally take all your courage and kiss the girl and as lucky as you are, she kisses you back, a few minutes later you suddenly get water shot at you from the barkeeper and the whole bar is looking at you kissing the girl singing a random song of which you dont understand the lyrics? What would you do?

- you are invited to a party with the theme "24 - but still drama like in high school" and you have to dress according to the theme? What would you do?

Me & Giuseppe at the Aiesec reception weekend on the island "Ameland"

My lamest blog post ever..

Well.. long time since I last wrote something in my blog. Not that I really forgot my blog, but I just had so many ideas in the last weeks that I couldn't decide what to write..
So instead of writing nothing, I just make a short summary of the last days and those that are coming...

Not too many spectacular things have happened, I had two calm weekends in Groningen, one time having had great visitors from Eastern Europe here :)
To get a little more pep (dunno if you can say that in Englisch), it seems that I will go to Amerland (an island in the North of the Netherlands) the following weekend. The theme will be: "If you are not invited, you just invite yourself" ;)

Besides that, tomorrow I will start dancing Salsa..haha.. or I will at least try it - I guess thats one of the few things I would never do in Vienna, but well - when you are abroad, you just do more "stupid" things... ;) It's anyway jsut a try-session, so let's see...

I also started to watch 13h - it's awesome, but of course it can not compete with Dawsons Creek!!! Still thanks Hanna for recommending it to me. Speaking about Hanna, only a little bit more than a month until I get my next visitors from Vienna.. :) Zoo in Emmen + my birthday will be the programm for this July-weekend.

Well... moreover I am glad that the world is still standing, for some hours I thought the crazy American who said the world would end, two weekend ago was right..but no he was not :) Still, as I was almost facing death, I decided I have to enjoy my life as much as possible.. So I wanna go Indoor skydiving: http://www.indoorskydive.com/ in June and maybe one day paragliding.. must be awesome - flying like a bird...

Last week I also participated first time in a pub quiz.. well we sucked, haha.. but nevermind, there will be more pub quizes to come... time for revenge..

Thursday I will run 14km at the Nacht von Groningen. yaaay..

oke, this really is the lamest post I ever made (NOT EVEN A PICTURE), if I made you smile one time - I am already surprised :)

x Darius

Batavarienrace 2011 - and this time I really met the love of my life :D

And again.. another weekend not at home, travelling through the Netherlands, using my second last Kruidvat-train-ticket on the way back home on Sunday, but well yeah.. maybe I better start my blog with Friday :)

Friday night after work I left for Nijmegen where the Batavierenrace began. Just a short explanation: The Batavierenrace is a running-competition. It is a relay where every team consists of 25 people. The race starts at midnight with a night-Group (approx. 8 runners) then a morning group (also 8 runners) and a day group (also 8 runners - I know its only 24, but no idea which group consists of 9 people ;)).

 Start at Nijmegen

There are always 2 people of the team on the track, one is running and one is accompaning on the bike. The distances are varying (from 3 km to 11 km) and in total its about 160 km from Nijmegen to Enschede.
So the run started in the night from Friday to Saturday and I was in the morning group which gave me approx. 3 hours sleep at the Aiesec office in Nijmegen before we (the morning group) had to leave to our starting point in Ulft.
As I was one of the last runners in my group I started at ca. 10am my run for 7.8 km. As the sun was really burning like hell, one of my teammembers already got kind of a sun-collapse just before me and I wanted to enjoy the party later on, I tried to not over do my running (otherwise I would have been much, much faster ;P). So it took me 41:05 minutes for the distance, which is quite okay, but I would have liked to be under 40 minutes.

The afternoon I spend with building up the Party-tent, which at the end turned out to become my sleeping place - haha - and with getting at least one hour of sleep back.

my awesome bed :)

Oh yeah btw.. just to explain: the finish of the race was in Enschede at the University Campus... the campus was also used as a camp-site. Although I almost never go to any music festivals, I guess it was kind of the same atmosphere there ^^
In the evening there was a really awesome barbecue, organised by the Aiesecers of Enschede, directly in one of the studenthouses at the Campus in front of a nice "lake". It was so nice chilling there, having good food and beer and talking with all different kind of Aiesecers :)
From the barbecue we (well there were about 50 Aiesecers, I would say) which split up in several groups (.. I would have liked to take a group picture, but well..was not possible to gather all the people ;)) went to the Batavarien-Party, which is supposed to be the biggest student-party in Europe (dont know if thats true?).
Party was nice and better then expected (some people from my student house warned me that there would only be ugly guys.. that would be because Enschede is famous for the Technical University, so there are a lot of nerds there ;)), but that was not really the case..

party @ the Batavierenfeestje

Anyway, party was nice and ... yeah... as I stated in the headline of the blog: I met the love of my life:

A little bit annoyed of the music ("..das ist prima, prima Colognia, wir lieben die Liebe, das Leben und die Lust... lala") I went outside of one of the party tents where I met an Aiesecer from Nijmegen. We were talking for 2 minutes until he asked me if I would go back with him to the tent. I - a little bit drunk and emotional - said that I would wait here outside on the side of the curbstone for 3 minutes and if a girl comes and talks to me, she is the love of my life! :)
So guess what? Exactly after 2:59 (oke, thats not totally proven) a girl came and said "hello" - Wow, there she was, the future Ms. Djabbari, approx. 1,67 tall, brown hair and a quite lovely smile. Unfortunately she could not handle the pressure of being my love of the life (I told her that she would be, in the 2nd sentence or so ;)- good pick-up line? I am not sure :D), so I just found out that her name is Anna and she probably also told me what she is studying (DrunkenDadj forgot :/). After 3 minutes the conversation ended as her friends went somewhere else, and with a nice smile and the knowledge that we just missed out our soulmates both of us just walked in different directions.. what a sad story :(

Sunday I went back from Enschede Drienerio via Hengelo, Deventer, Zwolle, Assen to Groningen: Yes, I had to switch train/bus 4 (!!) times - well Dutch trainsystem :P

Right now, I am really looking forward to calm next weekend in Groningen, just a little bit shopping, hairdresser and going out in the city, but not travelling around :)

Roadtrip 2k11 pt. 3/3: Amsterdam - the place where I met Wukki! :)

Friday, a headache and an invitation for breakfast (it kinda became a bulgarian/romanian-brunch) woke us up quite early so that the roadtrip-gang arrived in Amsterdam at ~2pm. After the just mentioned brunch, we went with our awesome hosts for a boadtrip through the city :)
Boattrip was fun, eventhough we were 12 people on a boat designed for 6, which made it almost impossible to stand up without make at least one person on the other side of the boat wet (okay - that's a little bit exaggerating ;)) anyway.. the trip lasted a little bit long (~4 hours) - I guess half of the time would have been enough to see the Grachten and to get pleasent anticipation for the Queensday.

The highlights: Seeing the first Coffee-Shop ever build, illegally deboarding at the Hardrock-Cafe and Paul's new green pants which became dirty at least 5 times with different materials xD.

great picture in one of the canals in Amsterdam

On the way back to our house (for changing and preparing for going out) we - at least in my opinion - had the best dinner this week: turkisch food at a Restaurant, quite similar to Iranian stuff actually. The downside: at latest after eating, we all felt the lack of energy due to the last nights.
Anyhow, this did of course not stop us from going out another night, as the calendar said: It's Queensnight! We entered the city at approx 00.30 and the atmosphere at Leidseplein was already kind of aggressive, people were very drunk shouting and screaming. So also our party at "Dansen bij Jansen" (the music their did not improve our mood) turned out to be not that successful as some of ous were just too tired, some of us were on other levels and some of us had other priorities that night - to put it in a delicat way ;)

The Roadtrip Crew -> dansen bij jansen ;)

The less energy-level of the last day continued at the beginning of the next day: Saturday - Queensday! All kind of crazy plans came up (Waterpark@Den Haag, Queensday@Groningen, Chilling@Home), until I decided (yeah, I know - I am sooo Alpha! :)) that we have to go to the city - I am in Netherlands for 1 year, so I can not miss out Queensday, especially not now, that I am in Amsterdam :)
So quite late, at approximately 4 pm we finally reached the Wertheimpark, hoping to have some chilled afternoon in a park with some Live-Music... well.. we had to change our plans after seeing the Queue at the entrance :/ Even more frustrated, we at least got some coffee at a Snack-Bar next to the zoo to gather some new ideas.

Despite all instinct, the decision we made there was probably the best one we could have made: We went to the Museumsplein. In the next 1-2 hours walking through the city, we really saw what Queensday means. Orange people on the street and especially on boats in the canals, singing, dancing, screaming and partying - all in a very positive atmosphere. Although it of course was quite crowded I never felt that there are too many people.. Also at the Museumsplein, of course there will loads of people, but as we had enough space to dance and we only needed 5 minutes to go to the toilet or for buying beer - we enjoyed it there :)
There I also accidentally (I know that is almost impossible) met Giuseppe - another trainee from Groningen - and Jenny (oke this was on purpose) - another trainee from London :)

One of us, even sat half-naked on the shoulders of somebody else (crazy guy..^^), so the mood had definetly improved (maybe also due to the beers in the afternoon :))

Queensday in Amsterdam :)

As the stages closed (approx. 9pm, after a performance of the most or second-most expensive DJ of the world - still dont know his name) the group split up and a crazy night began :)
My personal highlight of the whole roadtrip was chilling with Sevi & Martin at a canal drinking 12 beer and philosophizing about life before entering the city: Direction -> Heinekenplein.

At Heinekenplein, it finally was the moment of love... I met Wukki! She was lying at a couch in a small Pub... all by herself, scared and afraid - but we took care of her and made her have the best day of her life :)

Me & Wukki

Wukki was drinking sooo much

Well, so Wukki was all the night along with us, when we scared strangers (or Snack-Bar owners ^^) and ran through the city to rejoin with the rest of the group until we went in Rock-Pub to have a nice last night.

Sunday it was time to say good-bye, as my friends left for Vienna, while I took a train back home to Groningen (with Wukki! btw. she is already a good friend of Franky, who also joined me now here in Groningen - I guess I will write an own blog about Franky one day.. ^^).

All in all:
It was a great week; seeing my best friends definetly gave me new energy and also made me realize that I have to enjoy my time here in Groningen as much as possible, as time flies by so fast (already 4 months since I arrived..).
Hereby also thanks to everybody who hosted us and who we met during this week :)

Roadtrip 2k11 pt. 2/3: Utrecht - I never ever had a party like that, or had I ? ;)

...after awesome Hamburgers on Wed. noon, for me, the real roadtrip started, although you can not really count a 2h hours ride to Utrecht as a roadtrip, can you? ^^

In Utrecht, our awesome host Martin guided us around through a park in the suburbs of the city. During this walk we used all our psychological finesse to convince padraig jumping over a approx 3 m long stream:

Padraig estimating if he can jump or not

As one of our (not public) videos proves, he did of course not manage and so was then wet prisoned on the other side - haha, so typical! :D
After getting his stuff dry and arranging everything for the evening we finally watched El Classico (a little bit disapointed that Barcelona was provocating all the time, that during the game we kind of switched from beeing pro-Barca to pro-Madrid) before going out to the city. At the Pakhuis we (at least some of us) were partying til early. Thanks Larissa for giving us a place to sleep direct in the city centre and for introducing "the world's best Club-Sandwich" to us the next day for lunch :)

Thursday we were busy with shopping (finally new flipflops and new pursue - only sunglasses still needed, any recommendations?? :)) and congratulating Martin to finishing the first part of his studies. It was an awesome graduation party at 4pm together with the families of the other graduates x) Some Fifa-games later, at night we finally had a reunion with Mathijs and Famke, two companions from our roadtrip in Spain.

It was great seeing you again: Mathijs & Famke! :)

We again had awesome Hamburgers (you cant eat them often enough - right?) and played some rounds of Kings Cup (better ending than in Spain ;)) and Pyramide to get the evening started. But, most awesome was definetly our last drinking game: "I never ever" where we found out, who of us has never taken any drugs, who had sex in a train yet, how you can make a girl squirt and much more nasty things ^^

Thursday was also the, as we all decided, best party night of the roadtrip at the Tivoli in Utrecht. Atmosphere, people and especially the music there was awesome and I think every 10 minutes one of us came with a tray of 8 new beers :)

That night Paul again fall in love with bicycling (you can see from his new profile pic ^^) and we finally managed to have some unnecessary drunken drama when going home, thanks to some stupid idiots screaming stupid things (not like me.. I was only shouting how awesome Vienna is..haha.. this video also stays private ;))

Getting home totally wasted at 5am was the perfect preperation for the Queens Night the following night, which turned out to be kind of a flop (especially compared to the Tivoli) but read more about that in part 3 :)

Roadtrip 2k11 pt. 1/3: Groningen is just not Somo...

Wow... it's been 7 days, or approx. 182 hours since my phone rang: "Bojan" it said on the display and so I knew in 30 minutes the roadtrip would start :)

After taking a shower and getting ready, I finally saw my friends when I was staring down from my window and immediately ran downstairs to welcome them. The bad thing about that: the moment the door of my floor closed, I knew: shiiiit, I forgot my keys and just locked ourselves out :-D what a crazy start for a roadtrip;)

 starting the roadtrip

So after calling and wakening 4 people on my floor, we finally got in and had an awesome breakfast.
The rest of the monday, we spent with sightseeing in Groningen, chilling at the Noorderplantsoen, visiting my company, playing poker at the student house and having a great wok for dinner. At night, we could finally open the first Captain Morgans for playing some rounds of Kings Cup before the first drunken people started to strip on a table in the middle of the room.
It was a nice party - I just hope that my collegues from my studenthouse will still talk with me after this night x)
Anyway - I then of course took my friends to the city so that they could see the Groningen-Party-life (I told them that you can party everynight in Groningen, and there is always party and that the city is not know for any particular sights but that it really is a student- and therefore also a party city) ... well, not on Easter-Monday xD

Ghost-town: Groningen

Although a lot of clubs were closed or totally empty, we still just went from the few crowded pubs or clubs to the next and made our own party.. Paul almost bought a bike for 7 euros, but in the end he was scared of doing something illegal - i guess ;)

partying in Groningen

The 2nd day in Groningen started with lekker scrumbled eggs, before we had a chilled tour through the city again, with the highlight of beeing on top of the Netherlands (well I guess we were just 250 meters shy of the country's highest point :D) at the Springs-lounge at Grote Market: Great view - a nice place to drink a beer! :)

After some basketball session in the evening (this was the most sport we have done this week, besides Padraig who had kind of a long-jump-competition later on in Utrecht... you will read about this in Roadtrip 2k11 pt 2/3 ;)) we were chilling in the living room of the studenthouse again. First motivated to go out but later totally fine just with relaxing and talking until late night (btw. at that point we already had 400 pictures! x))

So, summarizing the first two nights we had and comparing them with the roadtrip in Spain: Groningen was awesome, but Somo was even better - but honestly: is there any place in the world that can beat Somo anyway?? ;)

tbc...

Dadj is in love with a Dutch girl !

Well yeah,
In the last weeks I have fallen in love with a dutch girl.. you will found out about her a little bit later as I first wanna share some other thoughts ^^

Last week I watched two nice movies: die Welle (the book is better, and I still think the whole story is too exaggerated) and 500 days of Summer (nice movie, very lovely - made me think about kharma, destiny, love@first sight and such nonsense, in the end I realized: of course there is always kind of luck, destiny, kharma or whatever that makes it possible that 2 people meet each other.. and when you  are in a relationship you can definetly say: "oh it was destiny that we met each other" "It was such an accident, that I was exactly at that place, that day, when you also where there" etc.. blabla.. that might be true.. but there you forget how often you have taken steps and made decision within this relationship. Somebody has to call the other person to ask for a date, somebody has to accept the invitation, and somebody has to do the first kiss... well... on the other hand, maybe it was meant to be.. because if you would not have kissed this time, she would have kissed you the next time, and there is just no way that the two of you would not have gotten together ;))

Sunday I was running 17km, with quite some alcohol in my blood. As we all know that when you are drunk you rarely feel any pain (besides extremely strong heart-pain cuz you are super-emotional ;)), it might therefore be a good idea to always go running after going out the night before. At least with me it had a good impact.

Oke, now the great news: I have fallen in love with a dutch girl. She is called Klaaver Jassen :) She is my triumph and the last days I almost met her every day. Sometimes she likes me - sometimes she doesnt :) I am excited to see, when I will get annoyed by her and stop meeting her... tihiii ^^

Alright - I guess that's it for the week, I am going to meet my darling now :)

Btw it's only 4 more days til my guys start their "Roadtrip to Dadj/Dasch/Dutch" - so much looking forward to it, and I guess (unless I write another post this weekend), my next post will be much more exciting, telling you some cleaned (not the xxx-rated ones) stories of our tour through the Netherlands :)

Love Dadj

I am not writing about Justin Bieber ;(

Hoi everybody !

As I actually wanted to discuss about Justin Bieber in this weeks blog, I am disappointed that I have to write about something different. Unfortunately the Justin Bieber movie is scheduled only in the afternoon (as it is for kids;)), when I have to work. Maybe I will watch it in the weekend - some girls from Vienna told me, the movie is really fun to see, btw. its 3D!! x)

Sooo.. just a very short blog about the fun of sports.. especially jogging, or hardloping (running hard) as it is called in dutch. Jogging is especially fun, if you have somebody to talk to (like Arni was my running-bro in Vienna) or at least if you have some music to listen to (somehow, my ipod shuffles Pink very often - and it really is great to listen to, when running). By the way: After the first two times, when I was running and the alarm of the train always started it has not happened ever again - you wanna know why? Because now i have the ipod, so if the alarm would start I would not be scared anyway, as the music is too loud ;) Well... karma is smart :)
Anyway its a great feeling achieving something, and with sports its a easy way to do so, as you can set small goals, and for running the combination of moving fast, feeling the air in your face, listening to great music, being in the nature and have an awesome view makes the fun! :)

Dont know if for you this picture at this spot makes sense, but standing at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris at night, with this great view and the wind blowing in my face - somehow gave me a similar feeling to jogging :)

.

My running goals for next half year (now that I write it public I have to stick to it, in order to not loose my face ;)):
6.8 km @ Batavierenrace 6th of May
14 km @ Nacht van Groningen 2nd of June
21 km @ Marathon in Amsterdam 16th of October

For the last two events I am not subscribed yet, but I will do so;)

Besides that, concerning sports, in particular soccer: It's sad that Austria lost against Belgium & Turkey and therefore would now have to beat Germany to keep chances for reaching the European Championship 2012. It is funny what is happening at Rapid Vienna & Red Bull Salzburg in the last weeks with all the trainer & manager changes, and it's great that Sturm Graz will be Austrian Champion this year :)

Speaking of sports, I was the Fifa-King this weekend in Utrecht and just now tried playing ProEvoSoccer on a Samsung pad. This pads are really awesome and probably worth the 700Euro? Allthough it may be more attractive when you dont have it, but as soon as you have it, I can imagine that the idea of going to a park lying in the sun and just playing a game on the ipad is not that appealing anymore?!

Anyway, Champions League starts in a few minutes, so lets hope Manchester United beats Chelsea :)

Daaaadj!

oh..and if you wanna see new pictures of my time in Groningen, check out my facebook-album: https://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=1144811054&aid=197834

Recipe: Kebab (Iranian Food) for 13 persons

This weeks highlight was definetly cooking for 13 people from my student house some typical Iranian food: Kebab.
Below you can find the recipe which I used ;). Usually I really dont mind cooking on my own but for this amount of people I am really thankful that I had 4 helping hands, so probably you shouldnt try this at home on your own ^^


Kebab:
2500 gramm minced meat (Faschiertes/Hackfleisch) (I usually use mixed meat, but you can also only take pork, beef, or even lamb/veal)
2 bunches of parsley
3 onion
3 tomates
paprika spice
pepper
salt
oliveoil

Cut the onions as fine as possible and chop the parsley. Take a big bowl and mix the meat with the cut onions and the choped parsley. Use some paprika spice, pepper, salt and approx. 2 soup spoon oliveoil to mix it with the meat in the bowl as well. When everything is mixed up, put the mixed meat on baking plates.On the baking plates the meat should be approximately 1,5cm high. Make the whole baking plate full and then seperate the meat with a knife (or so) so that you get kebab-slices that are approx 2 fingers broad. For this amount you will approximately need 5 baking plates and most likely 2 ovens ;) But you can also put the 2nd round in the oven, while you are already eating the first round.
Put the meat in the oven for approx 40 minutes with 180°, but this is also depending on how done you want your meat to be.
Cut the tomates into sixth and put them on the baking plates directly on top of the meat after ~15 minutes.

Rice:
approx. 1500 gramm Basmati-rice
2,7 liter water
safran
salt

Put all the rice in a pot and wash it three times (I think 3times is just an iranian superstition, but it does not really matter, does it? ;)). Then put approximately double the amount of water in the pot. Before boiling the water put a lot of salt and safran in the pot and make sure that the water takes over the colour of the safran, so the rice will become orange/yellow. Start cooking the rice on the highest level, but as soon as the water is boiling turn it back to one of the lowest levels and let it just cook. It should also take approx. 40 minutes.

Tsaziki:
1 kg yoghurt
2 cucumbers
5 garlic cloves
mixed herbs (parsley, basilicum, dille, tymian, rosmarin, chive etc.)
pepper
salt

Seperate the yoghurt to several small bowls and grate (raspeln) the cucumbers equally to the several bowls. Also apportion the garlic equally to all the bowls. Finish the Tsaziki by adding mixed italian herbs, pepper and salt.

Salad
2 iceberg salads
7 tomatoes
1,5 cucumbers
2,5 red onions
2 lemons
basilicum or oregano
olive oil
pepper
salt

Cut the salad, tomatoes, cucumbers and red onions in bite-sized pieces. Portion the vegetables to equal portions to approx. 3 big bowls. For the marinade the following order is important (5 element kitchen):
2 lemons, basilicum (or oregano), approx. 5 soup spoons oliveoil, pepper and salt. Sometimes a little bit of water can help to make it become a perfect salad dressing.

Lavash, herb plate and Sumach [Somak]:
To have the perfect Iranian dish you should put some additional stuff on the table. Lavash is an Iranian bread, but if you can not find it you can also use some turkish bread, pitta breat, Fladenbrot, etc.. and just put it on the table so that everybody can have some. Also make a plate with herbs (as a whole) like parsley, mint red onions (paled and cut in half), radish and sliced lemons.
As a speciality try to organise Sumach, which is a Iranian herb that you can just put on top of your plate.

Put everything (kebab,grilled tomatoes,  rice, salad, Tzaziki, lavash, herbplate and Sumach) on the table. Everybody just helps himself.

Unfortunately I could not make a picture of our awesome table (as the battery in my camera was empty) but in the end it it should look like this:

Enjoy your meal! :)

Paris - the City of Love!

Woow.. what a great weekend that is just over (oke, now that I will publish the post, "just" is probably the wrong word" ;)) - let me start my summary by telling the probably most funny story:

Today (29.3) in the morning on the way back home from Amsterdam to Groningen, I took the Metro to Amsterdam Zuid. As I am well-raised I of course bought a ticket (€ 2,30) for only 5 metro-stations. When I arrived at Amsterdam Zuid, I could not get out of the train station, as the barriers did not open somehow.. there I also realized that my ticket stated: 28th of March ? So I got a little paniced, went up to the platform again, looked for another automat (wanted to buy one more ticket, to get somehow out of the station) but there was no automat (of course.. because if you would enter the platform at this station, you would have bought it already before, outstide the barriers, so no need for a automat).. so I was then desperately asking a guy with this yellow neon-coats, to realize that they do not working for the metro, but that he is just a cleaning guy. Okay, now I was really desperate (I had only 10 more minutes, until my train to Groningen would leave), as I was prisoned in the Amsterdamer Metro-Station. Next try was pressing the "I-wanna-talk-with-the-information-desk"-button directly in front of the barriers.. after a minute of loud noise finally a guy responded.. I explained in englisch to him my situation.. and he responed: "okay you can go!" - aha.. where should I go when the barrieres are still closed? haha, I tried the card again.. no change: red light.. soo.. enough of this stupid games.. I just waited until the next person went in, and just ran through the barriere and escaped xD - nice :)

Okey, but now chronologically: Friday, after work, I went to Amsterdam, watched the disappointing loss against Belgium and then went to a "kill all Hippsters"-Party, that did not cost much entry but a lot of money for the cab go there and going home afterwards... Coming home, we had some pasta and approx. 30 minutes of sleep before we left again for the Eurolines-bus heading to Paris.

Going out in Amsterdam

I really felt multiculturally as I as an Half-Iranian-Half-Austrian sit in a bus from Netherlands via Belgium to France, together with a Romanian girl, a Bulgarian girl and a guy from South Africa. That's a nice lifestyle especially if the people are so cool, as my companions :)

Iran/Austria - Bulgaria - Romania - Sout Africa

 

2 days in Paris were definetly too short.. the consequence was that our sightseeing-programm was really bloody( lol - only 2 people will understand this joke ;))-sharp planned and exhausting in order to do everything during the weekend. But we did awesome and saw: Eifel Tower, Sacre-coer, Montmartre, Notre Dame, Seine, Jardin du Luxembourg, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, Louvre and some other places I already forgot.. :) On the otherside it was so exhausting that we did not manage to go out in Paris (unless you count a pizzeria)..

Some facts about Paris/France:
- dont drive a car in paris at abt. 5-7 o'clock in the afternoon - too many other ppl have the some idea
- french people can not speak englisch, because at school every subject gets multiplied by a coefficient: important courses like Maths/French are multiplied by x15, where as englisch is x2.. therefore ppl can never repeat the year because of a bad mark in englisch, and so nobody cares about that..
- there are a lot of stairs in Paris
- the city is quite dirty
- a lot of immigrants life there
- I realize that concerning getting around, I have already fallen in love with Groningen, because ppl waste so much time with metro's and trains.. fietsing is in!
- it is not a city I must necessarily visit again.. kinda like Rome..
- the highlight was definetely being on top of the Arc de Triomphe (this is free like the Louvre for people <25), where you have an amazing view over Paris!!

Anyway, besides Paris I also got a roundtrip through Brussels with the bus, where I almost took a picture of the Atomium - unfortunately the bus was too fast :/

Monday, just before midnight we got back to Amsterdam, perfectly in time to go to the regularly monday-drinking-hot-spot for exchange students - so that I went out two times this weekend in Amsterdam but not even once in Paris ;).. yeah after some hours of sleep, you already know the story about my metro-ticket on Tuesday morning :D, I came back to Groningen Tue. at noon and directly biked to my office, to work half a day.

Okay, last but not least thanks a lot to Raluca and Diana, for hosting me 2 nights in Amsterdam - and to Julia for hosting us in her appartment-building in Paris as well as for showing us around :)

Dadj

BTW: I learned that there is a differnence between "smashed potatoes" and "mashed potatoes" as well as between "chimneys" and "kidneys" ;)

railroad crossings, friendships, worldwide Sales and a crazy world

Hoiii!
Just a short (oke it became longer than expected) update from my life...starting with a "funny" story: For people who havent been in Groningen, there are several railroad crossings in the city, and every day, on my way to work and back I pass by one when riding my bike. And I have always wondered when will be the first time, that I am exactly on the rails when the "alarm/signal", that warns for a train, starts. Well, in 2.5 months it has never happened to me when riding the bike, but has happened as well last week when I was jogging as well as today. Exactly when I was running over the rail, the alarm started xD. People that know me better (eg. Bojan ;)) know that I can be very easy scared/affrighted, and therefore I immediately started sprinting away from the railroad crossing :D

Besides that, today is a wonderful day, sun is shining, I am wearing shorts for the first time this year.
Here in Groningen I am starting to miss my friends from Vienna, especially for spending some time on the weekend, going out or just hanging around. I am realizing, also when I chose the pictures for my picture wall, that, well my best friends, are of course not people I know only for a few months. Most of the people I either already know for years or I have spend a lot of time with them during the last years (like my Fh-crew). Allthough there are so many cool people here in Groningen, it is just not that easy to replace such friendships, as I had probably expected when I came here - Well I am just a little bit impatient I guess.

Two pictures from my photo wall:

Spring Jam 2010:

Schneeberg 2009 (?)

 btw: why do Dutch people not want to take group pictures?? xD

Anyway, if I take a look at the current newspages, I guess there are much more horrible things going on in this crazy world...
- thousands of people died or are dying in Japan due to a (impossible to avoid?) natural disaster
- some thousands might follow due to a possible (avoidable) nuclear catastrophe (btw: I heard that Austria is one of the few countries in Europe that do not have any nuclear power stations, I thought most of European countries were smart enough to do so...)
- people will die in Libya due to (a probably avoidable) war that just started
- a crazy Austrian politician demanded 100.000 Euro per year for lobbying in the EU parlament and has unbelievable lame excusses afterwards - lol stupid idiot
- etc...


Next week I am going to Amsterdam and Paris, so probably my next blog will be written in French... haha.. NOT

k&h Dadj

BTW: I wish all of you a great start to/in (?) Spring and also a happy New Year (Iranian calendar) tomorrow :)

Girls in Netherlands

Alright, I am now following a special request from some friends and focus on Dutch girls in this blog... But I have to state right from the beginning, that as some Dutch girls might read this, I wont go very much in detail here.. ;) My comments will stay very superficial.. Some people from Vienna already got some insight information via Skype, so if you are interested in details, you can demand them via a private-facebook msg, and you will see if you are elected to get more information ^^

So what to say besides the obvious? Dutch girls are blonder than Austrians and definetly taller. As they are very blond I would say that they are at least as beautiful as girls from Austria probably even more beautiful... but thats very difficult to judge.
By now, I have not met my soulmate here in Netherlands, but for 2 months that would be really really demanding. It seems like the girls here are not very open for flirts. I have more the impression that they are superficially interested in talking but that it's more difficult to get closer to them. This can of course very much be influenced by my lack of Dutch skills (although I already added it to my facebook-languages ;)). Before I came to Netherlands, I also heard that Dutch girls are very direct and straight-forward. I have to say that I have not realized this attitude until today, but probably I just use too little gel in my hair to attract any of the girls here :D (I forgot to mention that almost every Dutch guy uses a lot of hair-gel/spray/wax, when I talked about some stereotypes in Netherlands ... some posts earlier)

Together with a friend from my floor in the student house, I calculated the following:
if I would have one girl every night I stay here (approx. 365),
with approx. 50.000 students in the city,
~ 25.000 female students,
~ 12.500 single female students
~365 girls that I hook up with
this would be 2.92%.
So imagine, lining up all the single student girls in Groningen, only every 34th girl would have to kiss me, to make that happen. This would be comparable to a school class in a only-single-girls-school, and I would have to get one girl per class (yes of course they would be too young for me, I just state that as an comparison - dont get nervous... ;))
Please take in consideration that there are of course taken-student-girls in Groningen, that would might be willing to kiss me as well, changing the ratio probably to something like: every 36th girl! (In "The Game" Neil Strauss even mentions that it is probably easier to pick up taken-girls, so the ratio could be even higher ;) )

Anyway, I am afraid I wont make this happen anymore, there were too many days so far without any girl, and I am not interested in kissing 15 girls a day to make up this deficit...

As a final statement concerning girls in Netherland write now, I will just enter "most famous supermodel Netherlands" in Google pictures and add it to this post:

haha it would be a picture of Vogue-Korea, so let's try something different xD

Supermodels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dutch_people#Supermodels)

• Azra Akın, (born 1981)
• Wilhelmina Cooper (1940–1980)
• Daniella van Graas, (born 1975)
• Rianne ten Haken, (born 1986)
• Querelle Jansen, (born 1985)
• Doutzen Kroes, (born 1985)
• Karen Mulder, (born 1970)
• Marcus Schenkenberg, (born 1968)
• Lara Stone, (born 1983)
• Yfke Sturm, (born 1981)
• Mark Vanderloo, (born 1968)
• Frederique van der Wal, (born 1967)

So here is a picture of Rianne ten Haken. Why her? Because she is only one year older than me ;)

So, to also tell you something interesting that does not stay in context with any girls: Sunday I was jogging for abt. 50 minutes, and now I consider participating at the "Nacht von Groningen" on the 2nd June for 7 or 14 kms :)

Xx (as they do it here in Netherlands) Dadj


Oh yeah.. and btw: Netherlands, you better watch out 24th -30th of April some really crazy Austrians will rock the country x)

the latest fairy tale: "Prince Dadjaddin" :)

Prince Dadjaddin

Once upon a time there was a little prince called "Dadjaddin". The young men was living in a tiny little city called Greeningen somewhere close to the smurfs. On a weekend he decided to make a trip with some friends to the South to the crazy city Maastrichter. To get there the little prince had to take a train and on the way to the train he had to make his first difficult decision. As he had too much stuff to carry he left his best campanion "Daschella" at home.
In the train he met the giant Harming, whose name does not reflect his nature, as with his silent attitude he can not harm a fly. Already in the train, the prince had this strange feeling, he felt that something was changing within his body, something was becoming different. During the long trip through a whole country prince Dadjaddin met two more companions: Evy the fairy and Davide the magician who was still drunk from his magic potion from the night before. When prince Dadjaddin realized the alcohol level of his friend he got envy... the prince had not drunken alcohol for more than a week - was this the reason why something changed in his body - why his legs were becoming green? Was this a punishment of god Heneken for not drinking alcohol?? 
When they arrived Maastrichter, the group also meet their other friends: Pepsi the king,  Marja the queen, Mirel the duchess, Marlies the beauty, Samantha the mermaid and Nils Holgerson.
But prince Dadjaddin could not really spend time with his friends as he had other problems: The green legs were not the only thing that transformed. Just a few minutes after he arrived in Maastrichter he totally turned green, the eyes increased and he started only jumping around.. suddenly he knew: Prince Dadjaddin was becoming a Frog!!!!!!!!!! God Heneken has punished him.

- Prince Dadjaddin during the process of transformation -

All of his companions were trying to help him, trying to wipe off the green colour in his face, but unfortunately this had the wrong effect: all of his friends were turning into frogs as well...
The drama was complete.. the friends were mad about Dadjaddin, only because he hadn't had alcohol for some time, god Heneken punished him and thereby also them. Dadjaddin was desperate and looking for a solution, and then he saw it.. he saw a lovely little pub at the side of the street waiting for him with the sign: "free beer". It didnt take him long to figure out a plan, luckily he could convince his frog-friends to follow him, and start drinking beer. In the pub there were so many other people, that also got transformed in the strangest animals or humans... But the next problem was just about to come. Suddenly there were so loud music in the pub that everybody had to run outside in the city, within this process Dadjaddin lost his friends, only Samantha was with him and a lot of strange other creatures..The new formed group didnt believe that alcohol would be the solution to transform back, people tried other approaches, like hugging policemen, swimming in the maast, eating mayo with fries, carrying old ladies over the street or even lying on the ground. Luckily Prince Dadjaddin was able to convince the people about the beer-necessity and after a certain period all the pubs were visited. 
During the night a lot of beer was drunk and Dadjaddin also most his companions from Greeningen again.

- Dadjaddin and his friends from Greeningen trying to get retransformed -

They were not mad with Dadjaddin anymore as they started feeling better. Also the prince started to feeling cured as well, especially after beating King Pepsi several times in rock-paper-scissors. The highlight was when a hot blonde swedisch princess, looking very much like Heidi Klum, came to the prince and kissed him shortly. Obviously she thought she could transform him this way...
The next day Dadjaddin was cured,the green colour was gone and all of his friends were feeling fine again and started their way back home to Greeningen and they all lived happily ever after...


Btw. the moral of the story: If you feel bad or feel like transforming in to something else, you can solve it by drinking alcohol, not by kissing a girl, even if she is a hot swedisch princess ;)

101 places to see before you die!

101 places to see before you die!

A statement that does now decorate my room. The walls here were quite awful so I am trying to cover as much as possible with posters and pictures.. Two posters from Vienna, 1 picture + the Austrian flag are already there; a picture wall is planned and now this poster as well.

Checking all the recommended places, I wonder if it is sad that I can only cross out 8 out of 100 places (not sure if moon really counts^^), giving me 8% I have done already. Bearing in mind that I am 23 years old, and the expectancy of life for men is 76,17 years in Austria (btw: 76,37 in Netherlands and 80,61 (!!!!) in Andorra - I have to move to Andorra!) I allready reached 30 % of my life. So in the final 70 % i have to make up 92 %, even tough I am not really happy with the idea of visiting Island for example ;)
The first step of broadening my horizont has been done already this week, as I bought 8 traintickets (there are only 7 left - you're welcome, Raluca! ;)) at the low-price-special-offer-i-dont-know-what-they-actually-really-sell-shop "Kruidvat". Buying them was quite funny as the first store did not have them anymore and therefore the sales person explained the way to the next shop to me... I had no idea about how to get there but luckily another customer a beautiful ~30yr old woman asked me outside the shop if she should get me by car to the store. After first being a little bit afraid of getting in a car with a stranger (my mum always told me not to do so, unless they offer sweets to me xD), and then hoping this might turn into an erotic adventure, 10 minutes later, I stepped out of the car and reached the Kruidvat where I got the tickets. (13 € for driving around 24 hours through the Netherlands).

So my next trips:
today: Haren
tomorrow meeting Ben in Rotterdam;
5-6 March:  Aisesc Party in Maastricht
26-28 March: Paris ft. Amsterdam (oke Kruidvat wont help me much with this)
2 April: Bremen - who wanna join me there?

Utrecht, Amsterdam, Den Hague, London are on the waiting list where no date is fixed yet and Vienna could become a trip for late October :)
Any other suggestions where to go?
New York would enable me to cross out 3 more spots on the poster.. I mean I have to think efficient - right? :)

Besides that I am really feeling fine here. I got used to the daily life, used to working, used to riding the bicycle.
But still of course I am missing my friends and therefore looking forward to the last April week when the Zierer-Creek (as it seems) will become reunited.
Also looking forward to all the other people (FH-Roadtrip???) that plan to visit me so that they can cross out 1 of the 102 places (Groningen incl.) they have to see before they die ;)

Dadj

A first recap: You know that you are in Groningen, when...

4 more hours - then its 6 weeks that I 've been in Groningen; time to make a first recap. Trying to do this funny - sorry if it is not and sorry to all the Dutch people that might be offended by my following statements ;) dont worry, I am really exaggerating - I love being here! ^^

You know that you are in Groningen, when...

...you never ever need more then 10 minutes to go somewhere within the city by bike
...you have not one "Netherland Idol" but 4 similar shows on TV
...people are interested in different cultures
...a big beer means 0.33
...going out means: vorglühen starting at 11pm and leaving the house at 2 am
...you can party every day of the week
...some people get drunk at noon
...some people get drunk in order to study better the next day
...some people play games that were cool 10 years ago
...you can almost not dance in a club because the clubs are too small
...all the girls are tall, and when you look at their shoes, they were sneakers and no high-heels
...you always meet somebody you know accidentally when you go out (this also already counts for me!!! :))
...students have an own cinema-room within their studenthouse
...people stay approximately 7 years or longer in the same studenthouse (some even until they are 42 ;) )
...26 people can live in the same floor and still like each other
...you dont get tomato+salade in a quarter pounder because that would be too healthy
...there is always mayo on the eating table
...you always eat sandwichs at lunch
...you never have to eat dinner alone, unless you want to
...people understand and speak englisch, even the old lady at the cashier
...there never is an old lady at the cashier but only young people
...people give their keys to the cashier in the supermarket
...the cashier is friendly and polite
...people make more fun of people from Friesland than Germans
...the official language is actually copied from German but with a very weird dialect (eg. pronouncing the "g" very strong), so that you only understand half of what the people are saying.. x) .. well or German is copied from Dutch ;)

Pictures of Groningen can be found on my facebook (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=1144811054&aid=197834).

Below: me & Promo Bear ;)

Is Valentine's Day stupid?

14.2.2011

For a sentimental and emotional person like me, Valentine's Day is perfect! Especially now, as a single its ideal to lie in the bed and cry tears - In particular when you are stupid enough to watch pictures of the past, of the person that you spend the last three Valentine's Days with. But being stupid, is apparently something I should get used to, as being stupid also brought me to my single-life and therewith to lying in the bed right now alone. Being stupid, also something, referring to the last weekend, when a friend of Austria, who is studying in Utrecht visited me in Groningen. Not that his visit was stupid (thanks Martin, it was really cool!), more my alcohol consumation stays in connection to stupidity. And this after writing last week about alcohol and destroying health? just stupid..

Anyway Valentine's Day: Is it stupid that mankind need a particular day where you honour the one's you love? Shouldn't you be capable of doing this anytime you just want? But are people so self-responsible that they would do so? And what about days like birthdays and christmas then? Why do we need these days to give gifts to somebody, instead of doing it just whenever we want to? I dont care much about my birthday anyway - as in summer people always forget you...

A final note to the concept of Valentine's Day, or love - or in this case actually: Sex. As Sevi told me, it is not possible to send porn-links via a private message on facebook (I havent checked yet) anymore, I want to mention that he will probably start a campaign to allow this possibility again on facebook. If you want to support him or not, is your decision.
It's your choice to say: is this stupid?

Martin and me celebrating this weekend @Pakhuis (or is this La Kastel?). I purposely took a picture where he has alcohol in his hand, and I dont xD

..no chance for daily routine..

Not sure, if this week's headline actually is something positive or negative, but anyway: it is definetly true for me. 2 weeks ago I got the feeling that somehow a routine appears here during my internship in Groningen, but as I had my troubles last week with my laptop, I got sick this week - so daily routine: keep patient, not yet!

being sick sucks, and why do we actually get sick ?
From Wednesday onwards I had heavy muscle pain and throat sore, had bad nights and was sweating a lot..Actually, if every week would be like this, I should have better stayed in Vienna. Being sick is much more fun when mummy and your family doctor are close :)
It seems my body showed me a sign.. immune system got weak in the last days, due to stress ? too little sleep? I would love to be healthy... I mean like really healthy, not having any problems with my body at all .. I know sooner or later there will be some serious issues.. everybody gets them I guess - but why? Incorrect usage of our body?
like Professional sports: overpracticing and taking huge risks... how much compassion should I actually have when I read about Hans Grugger almost dying, read about Rubert Kubica's accident or happenings during the Rally Dakar? Just a very few examples.. While professional sportsmen probably die when doing what they love most and by being aware of the risks they take, others somewhere in the world do not have any chance to decide how to die. Every death of a human is a tragedy - I am the last one, who does not take this serious - and I do not wanna compare the accident of a professional sportsmen with a child dying of poverty in Africa... just some thoughts..I dont judge - I dont rate...
like alcohol & drugs: As I am not experienced about drugs, I can only talk about the consumption of alcohol and immediately start wondering why people drink alcohol? I have no idea.. there are only a few drinks, that really taste good (Malibuuu or Amaretto :)) like some cocktails maybe.. But what about beer? Sure, some of you will say beer tastes good.. yeah..Idk.. remember the first time you tried.. you liked it? I didnt :D It is not that I dislike drinking beer.. I got used to it and its nice... but stil
back to the topic: Why do we drink? (I mean like the going-out-drinking; not having a nice class wine accompanied to your dinner): Do you wanna escape.. ? Do you dont want to behave tonight?, Wanna do things, you probably wouldnt do otherwise? Want the evil side in yourself to take over (btw. I saw black swan this week: niiice!), Wanna be more funny? Want to be more selfconfident when talking with girls? Wanna just let your self go? If these are not the reasons.. I am really curious what are your reasons? You can post them anonymous as a comment ^^
The conclusion for me: people are cowards, afraid of beeing who they would like to be and therefore need alcohol to become the person.. by that just destroy their bodies along the way...I am not an exception

Highlight of the week: collected my 50th poke/anstupser
Well..some of you were victims within an interesting experiment I made the last months.. since ~ October. I tried to poke/anstupsen (facebook) approximately 1 person a day :)
As most of you know, or can probably imagine: I am a huge fan of social media! I <3 facebook, I (h) Skype and I love online communication in general. It's an easy and convenient way of communication. I can easily chat with many friends the same time.. I like social activity more then just watching tv at home, if this social activity is not possible, it always is possible online.
So I used poking as a way of keeping "friendships" alive.. people I hadent spoken with for a few days/weeks/months.. I poked them (Its more fun poking with girls.. dont know why.. I guess its just a psychological issue :D) . Reactions were really suprisingly great, I did not carry out a study or something, but I have the feeling, that approx.
- 80% poked me back
- 20% (of everyone I poked) responded in a certain way besides poking back, meaning: starting a chat with me in the fb-chat, writing a fb-message or at least (just a personal feeling) comment and like my posts more regularly.
Poking is great! It is not the god of communication and the best way for establishing a friendship. But we all know there are some times when we are busy, and would really like to meet somebody, but we just dont find the time for this. Why not just poke? It shows the other person, you think about him - so let him know! Anyway, be aware I will continue poking around.. :)
"1 poke a day, keeps the death of your friendship away"

new spy mission
As my poking-experiment is over, I am already planning on a new mission here in my studenthouse. Unfortunately I can not give you any details, as sooner or later people involved in the experiment could read this too ;) I just hope Daan de Vries (btw. he did not receive any friendship invitations on facebook despite last weeks post in my blog; here is his link: http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1765042949 - he would love to become your friend :)) and some other guys from my floor will be motivated to wear ninja suits with me :D haha

good night reading
Paul Watzlawicks "Anleitung zum Unglücklichsein" was complemented by "The Playbook" from Barney Stinson... my 2 books for the next weeks..  

only pictures of the books thisweek.. but next week I plan on making a first summary and recap of my first month in Groningen, so there will be several pictures be included :)
k&h Dadj

Instructions: How to repair your laptop (for amateurs) !

In order to give my post a little more structure I will use bold headlines this time: nice, he? :)

Dadj vs. Laptop
Well.. the last week was a huge fight between me and my laptop. I bought this Sony-Stuff almost exactly 3 years ago and after 1 year Sony already repaired it for me because I always got blue screens... If I remember correct it was something with the 3D card at that time.. and it is the same right now.

It started one day during the last week when playing bubble Island on facebook (I love this game, thx Hanna for introducing it to me ^^,  - but I hate what it did to my laptop :( ) and suddenly my screen got black. Windows told me something about "Anzeigefehler"..

Well so I tried to solve the problem - and this may also be a useful instructions guide for you too:

1. re-start, re-start, re-start
Just try restarting the laptop as often as possible, a few times you probably just can enter windows accidently and it works (at least for a few minutes) - use these minutes wisely: you dont know when you can access windows the next time!

2. Make use of the Windows-Starthilfe (starting help?),
When the laptop does not allow you to enter windows, it sometimes offers you to use the Starthilfe, there the laptop checks your system and tries to repair it.
Once again: if he is able to repair the system: be thankful and use the time you have, you never know when the next crash comes..

3.Tell everybody about your problems
A collegue at work explained this strategy to me: Instead of trying to figure out problems on your own..just tell everybody about your problems.. there always is somebody who can give you serious advice (besides the typical suggestions like: "Did you try to restart it?" or "Buy a new one!", bla bla
As a personal tipp: Crying and looking really desperate might help you ! Girls could also probably just wear a top with a big cleavage?!

4. Figure out what the problem is
This step goes hand in hand with step3, as you tell everybody about your laptop-problem in order to figure out what the problem is. In the ideal case: just hand your laptop over to this person and ask him to repair it for you. If you dont want to come across to rude offer something in exchange: eg. people like to eat, so cook something (only if you can cook!!!!)

5. Shout and Scream
Shout and Scream towards your laptop.. even a slight hit on the keyboard can help - not to rescue the laptop but to get ride of aggressions. Please be aware, that if you are too rude, this could already be the last step for you and you do not need to continue reading this instructions.

6.Trial & Error
6.1.Advanced options

If not even the Starthilfe can help you anymore, go to the "advanced options" that are offered to you, when the Starthilfe tells you "We couldnt repair your laptop: do you want to send a message to the Windows headquarter to avoid such situations in future?" (HaHa, this is btw the best part: How can I send a notification to the Windows headquarter?? I dont have internet - I can not even access Windows..haha.. this option is really hilarious! :)). Anyway in the advanced options just try everything to rescue the laptop. Even if you figured out your 3D graphics card is damaged, just try to repair your hard discs. It can (like in my case) give you 2 extra days of laptop usage! Again my advice: use the time your windows is working as good as possible, you never know when he crashes again!

6.2. Safety-Mode Reparation
In some cases even though your laptop does not allow you to enter Windows, you probably can acces the Safety-Mode. If you can, try to repair everything you can. If your 3D graphic card is damaged just deactivate it, and try how far you can go without it.
*This is the step where I am right now, so far (oke it's only been 1,5 hours) Facebook, Skype, Itunes, Youtube + Ally McBeal is working - I dont need more right now. So thats fine even if the graphics are not perfect :)

6.3 go back to 1.re-start, re-start, re-start
Luckily I am not here yet. But if there will be problems again even with the deactivated card, I will just start all over again trying to repair everything


6.4 Living in Safety-Mode
Just live here and try if this is sufficent. Btw: of course its not!

7. Steal somebodys laptop
The headline says everything, try not to get caught..

8. buy a new laptop
Either from friends, from a dutch Media-markt or go to Bremen and buy one with a german keyboard there.

I hope this instructions will help you the next time you have problems with your laptop. If not you can of course always ask me for help - haha !

Going out in Groningen:
The first two real party-nights in Groningen are over... One night with some studenthouse-collegues going to Backhuis, a really really nice alternative-rock disco. The Killers, The Hives, Mgmt, Kings of Leons, Gossip, hard-fi, etc etc were just desytroyed but a little bit too much of 70ies-disco-stuff; but yeah nice night! I didnt drink too much, because I was afraid of riding the bicycle home. :)

"Alleen n klein biertje" was responisble for a long Monday-Night with some Aiesecers at the Rumbar. Proving my dutch skills was nice, but I hope this wont make every monday night that long - more self discipline is necessary! :) The Club was not that awesome btw. A little bit too much people for too less space. This time I was a bit drunk, and still I was able to ride the bicycle home - yesssaa.. so this won't stop me in future :)

Yesterday I was first time eye witness at the Powerhour. 2 Guys from my studenthouse, one of them was Daan de Vries (he wanted to be mentioned in my blog :D he would also be pleased if you add him on facebook - haha; btw: did you know that: "de Vries" is the 2nd most common surname in the Netherlands after Jansen (Jensen?)) were drinking for 1 hour every minute one shot of beer! Ziehrer Creek: we have to adopt this drinking game, in 2012 :). Yesterday, the funny thing about it was that they went to bed short afterwards as they had to study the next day ^^

Aiesec-Livestream
Last but not least a few words about the Rewards & Recognition Award on Thursday, where Aiesec Vienna honoured some people for their performance during the last term. I won the matching competition award, for having been the person that first found an internship in this term. During the ceremony in Vienna, we had a short livestream-skype talk (luckily my laptop worked that night :D). As a price I will get an Ipod-shuffle - yippieyippie, so thanks to everybody who made this possible and who supported me while I was searching for an intership. No names here, people that helped me, know it anyway... :)

Allright.. looking forward to next week! : )
Dadj

How to name my bike?

Well the main issue for this week's blog entry is to find a name for my new bike! :)
But before that, lets "shortly" summarize what has happened during the last week... okay if you are too curious about how my bikes look like, just scroll to the end of the post ^^

Weekend was funy, after going to the Noorderslag-Festival (The next day, I found out that Ginga had played on the day I was there, but I didnt see them - daaaaaamn) on Friday, I had dinner at a Mexican restaurant on Saturday with my Aiesec Family.. after that I explained some of the guys how to play "Waterfall".... well and then I was forced to demonstrate it x). Btw this is my 2nd culture shock here in the Netherlands: You only get 0,25 beers in a Pub!!! That's perfect for Boat race but not for partying :/ and you pay ~ 2,50 for them.. wtf.. I want my Krügerl !! :(

During the weekdays, besides working (I still really enjoy it going to work every day, and now by having a bike, getting up at ~ 8.15 is not akward at all!) the main focus was to manage all the administrative stuff. Here is a short extract from my conversation at telfort (mobile phone provider like telering, etc...). In order to make it as funny as possible, probably not everything was said with exactly these words ;):

sales man (S): Hi, how can I help you?
Darius (D): Hi I am from Austria and I need a mobile phone here in the Netherlands.
S: Do you want prepaid or a contract?
D: I think I take a contract, prepaid cards are only for pussys.. I dont want people to laugh about me ;)
S: Okay, *explanation of the product..blabla*. In order to check if your bank account is valid and active, we have to charge 0,01€ right now on your bank account.
D: Oh, I just opened a bank account. Here is the contract, but I dont have a bank card yet.
S: Oh sorry, we need a bank card, otherwise its not proven that this is your active account.
D: But, here is the contract with my name and my account number, is this no proove ?
S: No sorry.
D: Well they will only send the card within the next 1-2 weeks, there is no chance I can get a contract now?
S: *asks for the store manager - he explains the same lame stuff to me*. But what I could offer you is that you take a prepaid card now and as soon as you have your bank card we can change it to a contract and  you can keep the number.
D: How much would this cost?
S: 7,75 for the sim card and then it depends on how much you use your telephone.
D: How much is calling for 1 minute?
S: 0,35
D: wow thats expensive! *I asked several more questions, about how to check my balance, what the minimum amount is, costs for keeping the number, which numbers are available at the moment and blaaa blaa...After beeing in the store for ~20 minutes I was finally convinced that I would take the sim card now, and change it to a contract in 1-2 weeks*
Okay I take it..
S: So this would be 17,75. 10€ for your prepaid card + the simcard
D: Alright. *taking out my purse, looking for 20€*
S: Oh sorry, you can not pay cash here!
D:I can not pay cash here?
S: No, sorry
D: Can I pay with mastercard?
S: No sorry, only with a dutch bank card!

HAHAHAHHAHAHA - most stupid sales man ever - I left the shop and will start a contract when I have my bank card!! :D so I am still waiting for the card and my dutch mobile phone number... But I already have an Albert Heijn bonus card - I think this was most important to me.

Yes, I also registered here in Groningen, I realized that I dont have an health insurance yet and I filled in the form for registering at Fit4Free (not registered but almost ;), I signed my contract in the student house, I watched a lot of TV with my awesome student house collegues (greetings to all of them that are reading this ;)) and I started watching the 2nd season of Ally McBeal.. Thanks Sevi :)

On Monday I also attended the LCmeeting of Groningen. I got to know the whole LC and the LCP who seems like a really cool guy. I had a short presentation about myself, Austria and Vienna.. Although, the OPS seminar at "future" in November was useful, I didn't use any of the information from there ^^.. I more provided some funny facts about Austria/Vienna.. there is one I dont wanne keep from you:
At the cemetery of Vienna there are 2.5 million tombs! As the population is ~ 1.8 mio people, there are more dead people then people alive in Vienna.. quite scary actually xD

Oh yeaah and my dutch is really improving.. A PONS audio-cd+book for Beginners really was a great investment.. I guess the people here are a little bit annoyed when I am always telling them how late it is.. but I am really good in telling the time in Dutch :)

I dont have any philosophical thoughts this time... I will try to think about something for my next entry, if you miss this input..

This weekend, is not so much of a party weekend, unfortunately most of the students here are totally busy with studying so I will have to wait until approx. February to introduce DrunkenDadj to them :)

Oh well yeah and I had 2 blue screens on my laptop while writing this post.. I am afraid he wont last for long anymore :(

So that's it for this week

<3 Darius

just joking ;) ...here is the long desired bike-story: On tuesday I went with two friends to Damsterdiep, a street somewhere at the other side of Groningen.. It was a 40 minutes walk (but my last walk!!) from my studenthouse. When we came there a sympathic guy, that reminded me of "Baloo the bear", called Hank brought us to his private garage where he keeps his bikes... well, in the end I got this cool bike you can see below and so far it really is working fine. I just realized that gloves are totally necesarry!!
Sooo please everybody, help me find a name for my bike:
By now I have 3 ideas for a name:
Hanky (because of the seller), Gazelle (as thats the brand of the bike) or Gisela (as that almost sounds like the bike's brand).. please like the names on my fb status or provide other ideas... the name with the most likes will be chosen (unless the name is too akward for me xD) :)