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.

Tuesday, 23 April 2013
Work. We've got a "Round the World" challenge running on Facebook.


In the evening, instead of watching the Champions League match, I found the (German dubbed version of) Man vs. Food. God, I miss American big portion food. I have been missing a lot of things about home.

Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Work. I'm continuing contacting ad agencies. Cool!


Had a flat viewing in the evening, on Nordstraße. The flat isn't huge (i.e. there isn't much place to have guests sleep over), but the location is great. They just showed me the kitchen and the room I'd rent. Germans and their privacy. (Ok, actually just the guy - Silva - was German. Joana is Brazilian and Rana, whom I didn't meet, is Afghanistan).

I went to Woolworths and then was about to ride home when I got a missed call from Jon. Turns out there was a team event tonight, and I was neglected to be informed. The event? An Altbier Safari! Awesome. We (a big group of 20 people or so) went to 5 different breweries and tried many different beers. I met Helena from Britain, Patricia (Sunny?), spoke with Judy, etc. Jon and Katie got into an argument at the Schlüssel brewery. People were noticing. But it was all ok afterwards.


Thursday, 25 April 2013
Work. Had the Team USA meeting.

After work, I joined Alexa, Paola, Felix, Ioannis, and some others for beach volleyball. Felix drove. The court was where the 2012 Olympic mens gold medalists train. And one of them was at the court next to us! I didn't have a change of clothes, so I just simply played in my jeans. It was warm - 26° and somewhat humid. I rode back with Alexa and then biked home. Wow, was I exhausted after that! Slept really well.

Friday, 26 April 2013
Work. Thomas was in London. I still didn't get my access to GDN activated. I had a call with Amazon, handled it all by myself! Afterwards, I hung around and had some drinks at the office. The party wasn't as big as in previous weeks, though.

We (me, Danny, and the girls - Pear, Myrna, Jun, and Anja) went to Vapiano for dinner. It was nice, but I found it annoying how you had to carry around a card and then pay afterwards.

It was raining. I returned on my bike with Danny.

Saturday, 27 April 2013
I would have loved to just relaxed, as I usually do on Saturdays, but in Germany, you have to do all your weekend shopping on Saturday because EVERYTHING IS CLOSED ON SUNDAYS. In the morning, I biked to Aldi, where I loaded up on Groceries. I then spent some time cleaning the kitchen, which was in a disgusting state. I had to scoop out piles of rice from the dishwasher.

I then biked into the city, looking for a clothes shop. Since I didn't go to Belgium this weekend, I had to get some new clothes to wear during the workweek. I found Karstadt, which had a good selection. I was surprised to discover that underwear was, in many cases, more expensive than shirts. Wtf? I stayed shopping for over an hour, overwhelmed by the variety. I bought some shirts. I then hopped over to the sports section across the street and bought some socks. On the way home, I stopped at the Rewe across the train tracks and got milk.

We were having a party in the evening. Well, not really, just the "pre-drinks" before the triple birthday/leaving event at Les Halles. I cooked some tortelloni (undercooked) and then passed out on my bed as Tom and Francesco started drinking. My stomach was not ready for more beer. But I soon joined, as people started arriving. David from upstairs. Tom's rugby friends. Monique. Katie. The girls from upstairs.

We had plenty of beers. Then, we took taxis to the club. They wanted to charge us each €9 to enter, but eventually they talked them into letting all of us in free and with a free prosecco. Yes. It was chilly outside (wtf, spring?!). The club was 60% people from my company. The music was weird at first (many people were just standing around instead of dancing) but it picked up.

Dancing happened. My boss was there. I was pretty restrained, as I didn't really know most of my coworkers that well. And, after all, we were coworkers - I didn't want to have a regrettable impression. I was surprised at how many of my coworkers were coupled up. Hmm.

Around 4 (or 5) we taxied home. Baked some more stuffed hash brown thingies, which are delicious! Danny skyped his girlfriend.

Sunday, 28 April 2013
A slow day. Francesco was really badly hung over (he did have shots of tequila, after all - rarely a good idea). He, Danny, Celine, and I cleaned up together in the morning. It was pretty painless. The sun was warm through the window. There was a marathon going on outside, but we had no interest in seeing it.

We decided to order some pizza. It took a long time (over an hour) to arrive, thanks to the road closures from the marathon. We then watched some New Girl while waiting.

Later in the afternoon, I went for a walk. Clouds had rolled in. I walked around the Zoopark and then north and back. Listening to my iPhone. Was good.

Danny invited me to dinner - it was Tom's goodbye. I shared a taxi there with Tom and his girlfriend Hannah. They were nice but typically British, all small talk but not much of substance, sadly. Dinner was amazingly delicious, but I was sat in an awkward position - at the end, next to Mikkel, who was with his girlfriend Luisa. Tom and Hannah were sitting across from me. So I couldn't participate too much in the conversation. (What's wrong with me? Why am I being so socially awkward around coworkers?! I don't want to be that guy!)

Taxied back with Tom and Hannah. They were exhausted and occupied the bathtub. I went to bed.

Monday, 29 April 2013
It's a short week at work (we have Wednesday off as a holiday). There was a new batch of new people starting at the office today. One girl from Sweden started in SEM. For lunch, we all ordered Chinese food together. But it took a long time to arrive (like 2pm). My stomach was killing me from hunger! (And also maybe because I poured spoiled milk into my coffee in the morning!)

I finally got GDN access (after lots of confusing back-and-forth with the invitation). Soon I'll actually start doing stuff. Otherwise, it was a slow day - I really didn't have much to do.

I'm getting annoyed with Germans constant focus on following the rules. I now really appreciate Americans' attitude and focus on individualism - "just do what you want. don't let anyone get in your way." Whereas here, it's like an earth-shattering sin if you dare to even nudge someone out of your way. It makes it hard to have fun. Nobody appreciates my rule-breaking behavior. :/

Homesick, I spent a couple hours compiling amazing pictures of places in the USA off Reddit. Then watched some Weeds and blogged :)

Earth day. Matt's birthday.

I had a meeting with Rolf, one of the company bosses. The conference room was booked, so I waited for a bit and then just met him directly. We had a nice chat and he reassured me to just be myself and to be unafraid of making mistakes, so that I can learn along with the company overall.

My phone was vibrating several times throughout the meeting, but I didn't dare pick it up. Apparently, Jon, Lisa, Alexa, and Thomas were all looking for me, and it was urgent: The foreign registration office, which usually takes months to get an appointment at, had a free slot today for me, but I had to leave ASAP. By the time the meeting was over, it was too late. But not to worry - Lisa managed to reschedule the meeting for Wednesday! :)

Lunch with Waldemar - I Heart Döner. It was sunny but still cool. I'm still waiting for summer (or at least a decent spring). Martin was out (still in Malaga).

I started contacting lots of US ad agencies. Woot, business!

Cooked ghetto beef with broccoli for dinner. it wasn't too bad. Francesco was chatting with me, "what's your perfect girl?"
"The female version of my best friend."
I skyped with Mike. "Dude, if I were gay..." Haha - seriously, we have the same mind! He had fun in London at Jasper's wedding this weekend. I didn't tell him how jealous I was of his life.

Slept around midnight again.

Friday, 19 April
Work.  I joined Martin, Waldermar, and their colleague for lunch - we walked to a metzgerei/imbiss on Nordstraße, where I got schnitzel with curry sauce. We walked back to eat at the office (the cafe was completely full, and standing room only anyway). Along the way, Martin told me it was his birthday, and we had an awkward moment discussing Hitler's birthday. The food was really delicious.

The weekly "party" was cancelled because Rolf needed the conference room on Saturday morning. Thomas went home shortly after 3; I left around 5:30.

Victoria's last day in the office - she's back to Mallorca.

Saturday, 4/20
I pretty much stayed in. I went to Aldi on my bike (not taking my backpack) and then walked to Kaiser's. I stocked up on soy milk, got some beets, and found some cheese-stuffed hash browns at Aldi. Yum!

Nico texted me from their flat.

I watched some Parks & Rec and comedy (Russell Peters) with Francesco, who had just bought a new HTC phone and was really (really) enjoying it!

Sunday, 21 April
I called mom briefly (before she went to church).

Everything in Germany is closed on Sundays! I hate it!

I had a flat viewing in the afternoon (16:30) - it was in a sketchy neighborhood near the Hbf. The flatmates (Antoine, Elias, Katharina, and the girl from Sweden) were all really nice, but I couldn't find a place to park my bike, and I would have to buy a bed (mattress) and some other furniture. So I would turn them down. I started catching up with The Office.