and the winter goes on...

When i came home from work last night there was just sleet...this rainlike snow...the rest of the night i stayed at home and talked to a friend in Antwerp, Belgium who told me it had snowed over there, but then i slept early and didn't think of what i was about to witness this morning, when i opened my blinds...everything (well, almost) covered in snow!!!

Sooooooooooooo NICE!!!

Wintertime...

Time runs so fast...it seems like yesterday that i was in costa rica, not able to board the plane...

And then? The months between march and november just passed by so fast, incredible...

One year ago i celebrated my birthday with maná and this year??? Well, it snowed yesterday...a day after my birthday, but still, pretty early for snow...

even though in my area there was not that much snow after all, i still think it's worth a short notice and a picture...

and by the way...

take a look at this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me-RRkQPTpM

es excelente!

So what happened???

Well...I guess some of those reading this, might have been asking themselves what happened to me in the past few weeks or better months...

Because even though I really was planning this "getting back in touch thing" after my exams in august, it obviously didn't work out...

August was a pretty busy month: 

I worked almost like everyday, because I knew I was going to move on the 1st of september...and while working and sleeping and eating and the horribly rainy summer I didn't have much time to do what I actually planned to do...to not disappear!!!

As we could see that plan didn't quite work out...and then I moved...

To my new home...to my new interless home!!!

Due to some problems with the internet companies we didn't have internet here...

(I'll explain why...so if you're not interested, just scroll down!!!)

The thing is that the cables belong to the German Telekom who had a monopoly on telecommunication until a few years ago and the other internet companies kinda rent them. So as the German Telekom still is the biggest company of all it takes advantage of the fact that the smaller (cheaper) companies depend on them...like in our case...

My roommates already had a contract with a smaller internet company, before they moved houses and took that with them...but now being in the new place, they needed new cables which the G.T. had to approve...so they just didn't...which seems to be a pretty normal procedure...they hazard the consequences of being sued by the smaller companies to get upset the customers (in that case us)...so it took more than two months, a lot of mails, calls and anger until today they finally send someone to do something with the telephone box thing...well and now we do have internet and i can surf, write and chat again...not that I'm like an addict or so, but once you don't have internet access anymore you realize how helpful it is and how it makes many things a lot easier!!!

(HERE I'm done explaining!!!)

Anyway...after all I'm fine, happy to have moved and living with nice people in a nice place...

But that I will save for the next time...

Semester is over...finally!!!

Well...i don't know if anyone is goin to read this, but i'll write it anyway:

Today i handed in this semester's last two thesis'!!! Yeah!

As you could all see and read (or better not read) i was really busy the last couple of months...readjusting to university life...studying and working and almost not having time for anything else...kinda weird...but i made it...finally...passed my exams and handed in the thesis'!!! there are still two exams coming up in september, but for now i have holidays...well...i still have to work...a lot...

And when i say a lot, i mean A LOT!!! the thing is that i've been living at home with my family after costa rica...so...i'll move out next month...my next "L'auberge espagnole" i'll share with one of my best friends, another friend and two co-workers...

Sooo...moving out...again...and eventhough i would prefer travelling - which i can't - i'm all excited!!!

Fotos de Cuuuuuuuuubaaaaaaa!!!

Y por fin unas fotos de Cuba...

just pictures...

And here a link to see my Guatemala pictures...

Voy pal norte sin pasaporte?

I didn't think it would ever be true that I would actually end up without a passport.

Well, to sum up Cuba as well - it was ok. Surely not great! Certainly not at all as "romantic" as I expected it to be and rather dissapointing. I'm quite sure that our experiences didn't really help with getting into the Cuba-mood...but the Cubans themselves didn't help either! The friendly Cubans that you know from pictures and documentaries? Where did they hide???

"It is difficult and you have to understand the context..."

Since the state owns all the shops and restaurants there's no competition between them, which causes that Cuba lacks of customer service. In restaurants for example you usually won't see a smile on the waiter's face. And if you're really unlucky he will give you the menu without even looking at you!!! In shops people will try to screw their customers, by either giving back wrong change or just making up prices to keep the money. (The minimal payment is 9 $)

Example: we went to buy a bottle of water and eventhough the price tag said 1 $, the saleswoman wanted 2 $ for it!!! She acted all weird when we asked her why she was charging us that much and told us that they had "an agreement with the company of their espresso machine"...such a "good" reason, which made us leave without buying it...

In another shop a bottle of water that was tagged 0,70 $...we wanted to buy two, and I paid with a 3 $ bill (yeah, they have that!), expecting to get 1,60 $ change. Instead the woman put the bottles into a plastic bag, pretended to write something down, looked around and obviously waited for us to leave. When I asked her for the change, she was all weird too and asked her co-worker "innocently": "Oh, did we already lower the prices for the water?" and he replied: "yes!" Then she apologized for it, but it was such a ridiculously obvious attempt to cheat us!!!

It is such a pity that it turned out all that bad. We even got robbed another time in one of the houses we stayed in, so even worse. Well, luckily I have a friend who's studying in a city close to Habana, because without her? I don't know, what we would've done!!!

Still I think in the end we made the best out of our situation. Went to the beach to enjoy the Caribbean Sea!!!

If a few weeks ago, I wrote I didn't like Costa Rica for several reasons, I have to withdraw my opinion!!! I really enjoyed travelling through all the countries, but I realized that I couldn't live there for a longer period. In contrary Costa Rica? There seem to be a lot of nice places that I haven't been to yet. Furthermore it's the only place I could imagine living for a longer period. So I was really, really happy to be back here. To see my friends and to know everything. It felt homy!!!

But everything has an end and friday the 14th I was supposed to leave for Germany...I had everything packed, said most of my goodbyes (not to everyone I would have liked to, since it IS just difficult, to meet everyone, if you only have a few days...) and even was at the check-in counter. But Martinair didn't let me board, because, since my passport got stolen in Cuba, I only have a temporary one right now and the USA wouldn't let me in without visa. Well they would, but Martinair would have to pay a huge fine, which they are not willing to do...

Anyways, a US visa costs about 150 $ (!!!) and the flight change another 340 $ (!!!), so I decided to buy another flight since due to the easter holidays Martinair is booked out till the 31st anyway...

The sooner i get to Germany, the sooner i can start working off my debts...

So I'll fly back with Air Caraibes next wednesday, but can't find reliable information about the luggage restriction. Going through the US I could take 46 kg (only good thing about it!!!) with Martinair...and now it will be only 25 kg according to their homepage and 20 kg according to the internet travel agency I booked the flight with...well I have 42 kg...so I will have to leave "some" things :-(

Luckily I have very good friends here too...so i'm living again with Karo, the girl with whom I've been staying after I moved out.

Cuba es algo especial...

Well...I already arrived in Cuba three days ago and I didn't manage to write a lot about my travels in Guatemala...so now???

To sum it up: Guatemala was great!!! Nice people, nice places...I just had a good time there...

But Cuba? I don't know yet...I had this romantic dream of how Cuba is...and what is one of the first things that I see here? Coca Cola, Sprite and Fanta...imported from Mexico...WTF!!!

Anyways...things are REAAAAAAAALLY strange here...waiters in restaurant are not at all friendly and there's this thing with two currencies...which is not really as I thought it was...last but not least Fidel resigned...

Forgot to mention that I got robbed yesterday...my bag got stolen, including my: Passport, visa, ipod, mobile, sunglasses and some money...as I said: WTF!!!

The worst thing about it is that I told the police where I stayed and it turned out not to be legal...difficult to explain...there are no hostels here and tourists can only stay with "licenced" landlords...and since my didn't have one, the police will (/%& her and her family!!! :-S

I'll see how it continues anyway...

Internet costs 6$/hour, so I'll keep this short!

Voy p'al norte sin pasaporte...

Sooooooooo...I decided to finally leave Antigua!!! (yeah, I am still here...)

Tomorrow I will go to Flores, which is a nice little town close to the Maya ruins of Tikal...since it is way north I will head south after that again to see Semuc Champey and Sayaxché (with the "world famous" Aguateca) to finally end up in Antigua again next weekend...

Eventhough this place definitely IS touristic and all, I just like staying here...So far Guatemala, eventhough I haven't seen that much and most probably not the REAL Guatemala (Land of the eternal spring) is a nice country ;-)

And on the 20th...well on the 20th I will finally head off for CUBA!!! CUBITA!!!

Will try to upload some pictures soon again...most probably AFTER my trip...

some nicaraguan pictures...

Well...if you go to this link, you'll see some of the pictures I took in Nicaragua, where I went with Annie!!! That's about it...next time I'll post something about Guatemala and will hopefully upload some pictures...

some additional thoughts on Nicaragua...and some on Guatemala...

Eventhough I left Nicaragua already a few days ago,I still feel the urge of writing a few words about it. Actually just about León, a city, colonial like Granada, but less touristic. Granada with its nicely painted houses, which look almost NEW, was nice and all, but far less authentic than León. It's not that I didn't like Granada, because I really did. But the lack of tourists and the buildings that DIDN'T look as nice as the once in Granada give the city a totally different charme. Why I write this? Because people (and tourist guides) compare those two cities and I don't really think that you can!!!

But what am I up to now? Well, currently I am in Antigua, Guatemala. Kind of stranded, since a friend cancelled on me and our trip to the Copán ruins in Honduras and a good friend of mine is living here. I was dissapointed in the beginning, but okay with the situation by now. Living with my friend and not in a hostel it is also pretty hard getting to know other travellers. Well, it's also not that I try really hard. But I just enjoy being in Antigua, which is another colonial, touristic and yet VERY nice city!!!

So I am not following my initial "plans", a bit distracted, but still not yet losing track...I went to see the Volcán Pacaya yesterday, to Lago de Atitlán this week and will head north to the Maya ruins of Tikal next week.

I also plan to upload some pictures these days...but it's not that easy with the internet connections, which are not the fastest...

Nica Noches...

As it seems that most of the friends visiting my blog are non German speakers, i decided to write at least my Nicaragua post in English ;-)

As many of you know i went to Nicaragua with my Swiss ex-roommate Annie. And as all the tourista coming from Costa Rica, we as well stopped in San Juan del Sur, which was supposed to be a nice beach...well it is nice...for surfing, but we didn´t...so...anyway...the thing is that compared to San Blas Islands in Panama all beaches SUCK!!!

Next stop was Isla de Ometepe, an island with two volcanoes in Lake Nicaragua, which at the end of the 19th century almost made it to be the Panama-, well Nicaragua Canal...but due to some guy favouring Panama, who sent postcards with Nicaraguan stamps showing an errupting volcano, we´re talking about the panama canal today...weird story? just do some research if you want to know the whole thing...

Anyways...Ometepe (Nahuatl: two mountains ) was NICE!!! tranquilo, but exactly that is the nice thing about this place...everything is rural...people are still friendly when seeing tourists...greeting them with an "Hola" or "Buenas"...whatelse do you want??? Nice nature maybe? Ometepe has it all...we did a muddy 8 hour hike up one of the volcanoes and my calves still hurt, even today!!!

Right now we´re in Granada, which is SUCH A NICE PLACE too!!! eventhough i would like not liking it, since everybody seems to do and it´s full of tourists...but yet i do!!!

The plan is to leave this great place for another great place called León tomorrow...

When I did some research (in my Lonely Planet) about León the first name that struck me was Rubén Darío and I remembered that I had to give a presentation about him and his works in my second semester...unfortunately I don´t remember that much about him, but hope to learn a lot, being there...according to the Nicaraguans he IS the greatest poet ever!!!

Anyways...this was just a short post to keep those reading this and not being in contact with me a bit informed...

I will try to write more, once everything is a bit more tranquilo! ;-)

Btw...there are no fotos this time, since I didn't take my camera cable with me...but maybe in Guatemala, Cuba or even only once I'm back in my querida Costa Rrrrica!!!

Last but not least to quote a very good friend of mine:
I know there are a lot of mistakes in this post (some of them even deliberately)

Und schließlich ist es soweit...

Nach genau vier Monaten bin ich heute nachmittag aus meinem ersten eigenen Apartment ausgezogen und wohne jetzt für die paar Tage, die mir noch in Costa Rica bleiben, bei Karo, einer Tica-Freundin, bevor ich für eine Woche nach Panama fahre...und danach nochmal ein paar Tage, bevor ich Costa Rica erstmal für längere Zeit Richtung Norden verlasse...

Der Anfang vom Ende...

Heute ist der 4. Januar 2008 und morgen vor vier Monaten bin ich in mein Haus hier in Sabanilla eingezogen. In der Zwischenzeit ist natürlich nicht wenig passiert: ich habe einiges erlebt, viele Freunde gefunden, sowohl hier im Haus, als auch außerhalb und ich hab einiges von Costa Rica gesehen, von dem mir manches gefiel, vieles aber auch nicht.

Die Stadt? San José hat seine schönen Seiten, wenn man lange genug sucht, und trotzdem hatte ich in den letzten Monaten immer das Gefühl, dass mir in dieser Stadt etwas fehlt. Denn obwohl es die Hauptstadt ist, hat sie keinen Charme, kein Flair, man spürt einfach nicht, dass diese Stadt lebt - vielleicht, weil sie es nicht tut???

Vielleicht lag es auch ein wenig an mir selbst? Ich bin mit bestimmten Vorstellungen nach Costa Rica gekommen und habe das, was ich suchte nicht so vorgefunden. Viele von denen, die ich hier in Costa Rica getroffen habe, sind begeistert von diesem Land; begeistert bin ich leider nicht...eine Hassliebe? noch nicht einmal das.

Trotz allem bin ich froh, hier gelebt zu haben. Wieso? Weil ich wie gesagt, Leute kennengelernt habe, die ich nicht missen möchte. Aber leider weiß ich, dass fast niemand von ihnen mehr hier sein wird, wenn ich das nächste Mal nach Costa Rica kommen sollte...

Meine Mitbewohner sind alle in den letzten Wochen ausgezogen, was nur noch Annie (die momentan auch nicht hier ist) und mich übriglässt. Zusammen mit meinen neuen "komischen" Mitbewohnern, die abends kuschelnd, im Dunkeln auf der Couch liegen und fernsehen ist das Haus fast leblos geworden - und die beiden sagen, dass SIE hier einen "schlechten vibe" spüren.

Die Ticos, die ich kennengelernt hab, sind mir natürlich auch sehr ans Herz gewachsen, aber da sie nunmal Kino machen wollen und hier in Costa Rica, die Industrie dafür fehlt, verlassen sie einer nach dem anderen das Land; Kuba, Argentinien, Spanien...


Und ihnen werde ich es wohl erstmal gleichtun...nicht, dass ich jetzt auch anfange Film zu studieren, vielmehr werde ich das machen, was mir am meisten Spaß macht und auf das ich mich schon die ganze Zeit freue: ausgiebig R E I S E N!!! Am Dienstag fahre ich erstmal für eine Woche nach Panama und danach Richtung Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala und C U B A!!!

Costa Rica? Ich werde bestimmt früher oder später nochmal zurückkommen, denke ich...aber es wird wohl eher später, als früher sein...