Jason's Daily Notes

Saturday, 11 May 2013
Went to the flea market with Francesco and Matze. It was too late, everything was closing down. We took the tram to the Arcade, where we bought posters at Media Markt, and then to Real, where we bought some food and a bottle of rum.
We played drinking games; specifically, the mustache game! While watching a game schow where a contestant goes head-to-head against Stefan Raab. Drunkenness yay.

Sunday, 12 May 2013
Relaxing day (because we have no choice).
I watched a lot of The Office. I'm almost done with the final season.
The internet in the apartment sucks.
Mike has an interview here on Wednesday! I'm really really excited just thinking about it. I miss him. (But I also have a fear that he would make new friends, do a better job than me, and move on. I know it's crazy, but I really am afraid of people changing. I want to always enjoy things as they are now.)

Monday, 13 May 2013
We launched the world trip giveaway on our Facebook. Exciting!

Tuesday, 14 May 2013
Work. More promotion of the world trip, and contacting potential networks to partner with.
The weather sucks, it's chilly and rainy.

Wednesday, 15 May 2013
I got up early, biked to the city office to pick up my visa.
Got to work. MIKE WAS ON HIS WAY!
I got to meet him at 10:30am just before he had his interview. He was nervous, and for once I felt more confident in him than in myself :) But I knew he was going to rock it - just from the way he handled himself, he already seemed more comfortable there than I do.
Had a meeting to introduce the new "dealform" which we're pushing forward.
After work, I picked up the keys to my new flat.

Thursday, 16 May 2013
Work is fine. Martin is out. I'm contacting a lot of websites. Apparently, there are several websites (bloggers) that I shouldn't be contacting. Oops. Now I have to run my list of contacts with the SEO department to avoid double contacts.

Friday, 17 May 2013
A quiet day - Thomas is gone (to Seattle) through the next week. Waldemar was also out. Most people left the office early, like 3pm. There was nothing to do, so I went home just before 5pm. I finished The Office and received a message from Francesco. They were still drinking in the office apparently, so I returned to join them. The Greek girls were there. Our whole flat was there. We played "touch cup" and I got properly tipsy (doing a helicopter before each drink). I biked home with Eliz. Passed out.

Saturday, 18 May 2013
I biked by myself to the flea market, where I bought some bed sheets (for my new flat). Stopped by the Arcaden, where I bought a polo shirt from H&M and a new pair of shoes (which was necessary considering the horrible state of my only pair of shoes).
Returned home. Francesco and Matze were just getting up. We had some food and then went out to buy food. The music shop was closed. We went to the Sri Lankan store and then to the big Asian supermarket (Ho's), where we got everything necessary to make sushi. Back home, we made sushi with (cooked) salmon, bacon, cucumber, paprika, and avocado.

We then started drinking. We had a bottle of rum, some sake, and a good amount of the disgusting Hungarian liquor that Danny had with him. We did the mustache game again. David joined us, with a lot of beers.  We were watching the Eurovision song contest. We wanted Greece to win.

Danny, David, Francesco, and I walked to Les Halles, where a lot of people from work apparently were. I don’t remember too much ;) but it was fun. I walked back home. I threw a pizza at Francesco. Apparently Danny was beyond gone, as he returned home with a girl and David.

Sunday, 19 May 2013
Detox day. But my hangover wasn’t so bad. I made eggs and (shitty) fries and then joined David and Francesco for a walk in the park, because it was the only sunny day for the whole week. We ended up walking to Grafenberg, where we climbed the forested hills and visited the Wildpark. We gawked at the animals (wild boars and deer) while discussing how delicious they were and their sex. Matze went to Cologne.

In the evening, we helped Eliz learn some Excel to prepare for a work presentation. Mom called; she was just about to leave for a cruise to Mexico and then will be flying to Seattle for the week after that. Too bad I can’t be there.

At least Monday is a holiday :).

Ok. I have stopped posting for the last week or two. A lot has happened, and I've been busy. And recently, my flatmates and I have come to realization that the last thing we want to do after work is stare at another screen in the evening!

But today is the big day: Mike is coming here for his interview!!! He's on the train now, I'll meet him in a few hours. I've been so excited for the last week or two just thinking about being reunited with Mike, it's going to be awesome.

Last night, I watched the season finale of HIMYM. They finally showed the face of the mother. Woot!

I have been getting more busy at work. Managing our ongoing Adwords campaign and continually reaching out to new potential partners. I'm itching to actually get some campaigns off the ground and running.

We launched our World Trip giveaway! It's exciting, and I've been gladly helping out (giving feedback, helping promote it on other websites, etc.). I learned that Americans are complaining that they won't have enough time to take off from work, and that they would have to pay tax. :/

Tonight I pick up the keys for my new flat. I think I'll have at least a week of overlap with my current flat (if possible).

[because I'm used to writing so many emails nowadays] Best,
Jason

This week was another holiday-interrupted week. I can't complain, except for the fact that everything is closed on these holidays, so there's absolutely nothing to do!

Monday, 6 May 2013
Work. Put the other GDN campaigns online. Learned to optimise them.

Tuesday, 7 May 2013
Work. Not much more to do.

Wednesday, 8 May 2013
With the holiday in the morning, everyone went out in the evening. Ratinger Straße gets full on an average Wednesday, and today it was the place to be. People just standing in the streets drinking. Katie was there with two friends who also went to Berkeley; we chatted. Then, we went to two clubs. At the first, I got a cowboy hat. Ran into Thomas, haha. Next, Matthias and Francesco branched off and I stuck with David to a second club. I suddenly felt tired and then pulled a "Polish goodbye," just leaving without saying bye. I walked home!

Thursday, 9 May 2013
Day off. I went into the city (Altstadt) with Matthias and Francesco. We got ice cream, sat on the stairs for a couple minutes, then ate Vietnamese/Chinese food of questionable quality.
Brian's birthday.
Spontaneously, I got a call from Martin. He and a friend (Clemens) had decided to go to a Pennywise concert. Ok, I'm in! We drove in Clemens' van to Cologne. The opening band - Old Man Markley - was unique and good. Stefano (and a couple others from work) were there! I got a black eye. My shoes were destroyed. It was awesome.

Friday, 10 May 2013
A Monday and Friday in one. Matze went straight home. I stayed a little after to drink, Francesco too. Met the Greek girls. Katie won in a captivating game of pool.

Saturday, 4 May 2013

Today was a good day. In fact, the last few days have been good days. Just not my birthday. My birthday wasn't "bad"; it just wasn't particularly special. And it was one of the least exciting birthdays I have had in the last 5 years.

After dropping off his dry cleaning and going to Lidl in the morning, Francesco and I went with Celine to Obi, to buy a grill for our barbecue tomorrow. We then had ice cream at the nearby McDonald's. Ce dropped us off in the city center, and F and I spent several hours wandering around from store to store. We were on a quest to properly stock up for the bbq. We specifically wanted chilis and spices, which were not easy to find. Even the Asian and Turkish stores didn't have them. We ended up going to like 10 different stores, including a Mexican restaurant. We found Real, which is the biggest store of them all, and it had almost everything (except cilantro, which I later found out is coriander).

Sunday, 5 May 2013

Cindo de Drinko! Well, not exactly. We had the barbecue on Celine's balcony. David, Monique and Lisa joined. The sun was shining, and everything felt good. We cooked a lot of meat, and it was great :) We even roasted some marshmallows afterwards. There was a lot to clean up afterwards, but no big worry.

In the evening, our new flatmate arrived: Matthias, from near Würzburg.

I'd like to say that things have gotten much busier at work, but they haven't really; I still needed to get set up with a Google Account to manage our campaigns.

Tuesday (30 April) was Queen's Day in the Netherlands. Many people from our office went there. I feel bad about not going.

Wednesday (1 May) was a day off. Everything in the city was closed. Danny returned home from Queen's day looking completely ragged. I went for a stroll through the park.

Thursday (2 May) was my birthday. Francesco took me out to lunch at a nice but affordable Portuguese place near work. In the evening, nothing was happening, so I sent out invites on CouchSurfing to meet up. I had a few small beers with Gilles (at Kurzes). I biked home, and the girls upstairs surprised me with mini muffins :)

Friday (3 May), I finally got my log in for the Google account, so I spent the day preparing a campaign to launch. I was busy and productive; awesome! Stayed for drinks a little bit after work.