ab voraussichtlich 7ten april wird meine lene auch ihr praktikum bei siemens corporate research in princeton absolvieren! gratulation! letzten dienstag kam die zusage und ich bin schon stolz dass sie dieses unternehmen wagt. natürlich würde ich sofort mit ihr tauschen, den je länger entfernt das praktikum bei mir ist, desto mehr vermisse ich die zeit drüben in den staaten.

immerhin kann ich so, wenn alles passt, im sommer für 1-2 wochen rüberfliegen, und mich endlich wieder an steaks, sushi und starbucks erfreuen :)
für lene stehen jetzt natürlich erstmal  die vielen vorbereitungen an, und ich werd ihr in der zeit bis april sicherheitshalber mal ein eigenes profil hier im blog einrichten, damit sie uns auch wieder die 5 monate auf dem laufenden halten kann.

take care all of you, austria – i’m coming home.

for those of you not aware of where Washington is located: it’s about 3.5h with the car from Princeton, direction southwest. so i packed my stuff (a very tiny bag) and left 9 Robert Drive at 10.00am. i didn’t do any research on what to visit or where to sleep in advance, but i was confident i’d do well down there.

4 hours later i arrived in Washington and asked my navigation system to guide me to the visitors information center. to my surprise the stupid device claimed “you’ve reached your destination” on the bridge between Washington and Arlington, which kind of brought me in an uncomfortable situation. so i took the next exit, named “Pentagon, Parking North” and wanted to have a look there what to do next. of course i was not able to park my car there (special permit required, although there would have been about 300 empty spots). quick picture, and driving back over the bridge directly to Washington downtown. after parking my car on Constitution Ave i grabbed my camera and ipod and headed to explore the city.

it seemed i’ve chosen the hottest day of the summer for my visit in DC, 38° and incredible high humidity made i nearly impossible to breath. nevertheless i walked around for hours, took pictures and went to the Washington Monument, the White House, the Capitol, the Reflecting Pool and had a look inside Natural History and Air & Space Museum. by the way, all museums in Washington are absolutely free to enter, isn’t that incredible?

well, time was flying by and so it was 6pm and i still had no idea where to sleep. this time, my beloved navigation system was able to help me out of my misery and found me the Quality Inn in Arlington, only 3 miles southwest of Washington’s center. the room as well as the price were ok, so i decided to spend the night there, took a shower and went to Chili’s for dinner.

the next day, i left DC at 10pm, heading to Baltimore (1 hour of driving). again, i was totally unprepared, but i heard from other interns before that the most interesting place to visit there is the inner harbor. now i can say, they were totally right: Baltimore is for sure a nice city, but besides the harbor area there’s nothing really going on down there. i took about 1.5hours to walk around, took again some shots and ate at a harbor restaurant. equipped with a large, hot beverage from Starbucks i finally started the trip home, but not without stopping at my pal Rocky in Philly (has been an incomplete task on my ToDo-list). glad i found time to do this as well, guess it was the last possibility.

to sum up, it was a great weekend, even though i had been there alone. i think i like this adventure-like experiences, and am glad i took the chance to visit these two cities in the south. as usual all the pictures can be found in the gallery.

god bless america, good night.

looking forward to the final days here now.
take care!

update
don’t want to go into details here, but just for general information: have to go there again, and this time there might be a date-problem coming up. nevermind, i’ll figure out a way to solve this too.

besides that work is getting into the final days, and there is still a lot to do. seems i finally recovered from my sickness last week (which was actually only a cough any more the last few days), and time is just flying by. i’m still trying to do as much as possible before i go back to austria which makes it even harder to post here regularly.

have a good night!

i’ll reply on monday, i promise.

update
the party in NYC was really nice, thanks to all the guys that joined. will keep good memories of that evening and all the best especially to gerardo, who ended his internship with last week.
have fun in puerto rico , *§”§$!

thanks for all the blessings via skype and mail.

…the story continues.  i really intended to just go there, say i’m guilty and leave after paying the fine. but the prosecutor destroyed this plan: when talking to her, i explained what happened in the bus (that i didn’t see it, didn’t give alcohol to them, and so on…). the ticket i got says “letting them drink..” as you know, which is just not correct. therefore she asked me “did you let them drink”, and i was honest/stupid and replied of course “no, i didn’t let them drink”.
before i could even react the took this as a “not guilty” and went on with the standard procedure, which is in this case reschedule for an appointment to trial. after that, when i was in front of the judge, he simply asked me if i know me rights (“yes, i do”), and if i claim guilty or not guilty (“not guilty of letting them drink”) … so on August 20th i have again to drive there, this time for a trial … and hopefully for the last time.

this really pisses me off, cause the prosecutor was just such an unfriendly b*tch, and didn’t help at all. i really just want this to be over, it’s not that i worry about the fine or anything else… it just makes me sleep bad.

the above statement is for all the guys asking me “how was it in camden” – i hate to repeat myself.

i have to be home early and sober, as tomorrow morning i have to go to court … you know.

at least SE get’s better jobs -.-

quiltySays:
August 6th, 2007 at 10:12 am since you didn’t come online yesterday I guess you took a big sip out of the beer lake.
[...]

well, that’s not completely wrong. saturday was a really great and sunny day, perfect for a picnic. we arrived at around 1pm there and i really had a lot of fun with the guys the whole day. we played beachvolley, went to the pool (directly afterwards :) ), played soccer and enjoyed the free food and drinks all the day long. … hm, all the day is not totally true, as to our all surprise the black bear lake area closes all it’s ‘attractions’ at 5pm (!).

therefore we went back to princeton, took a shower and changed cloths before we then met each other again at the washington road party. not many people made it there, but it was also nice sitting outside in the warm night and talking.

9am in the morning on sunday my phone was already ringing, and özgür asked if i’m still interested in going to woodburry outlet. they had a summer sale this weekend with additional 25% – 65% off. so i went out off bed (which was more painful than i expected .. too much sports it seems), picked up him, fabio (I) and bora(D) and we drove to the outlet. one of the main reasons why i went there was to buy a suit for the upcoming bachelor exam, and because my old one doesn’t fit that good anymore… unfortunately i couldn’t find the right one. i saw one really amazing at Armani, 50% off … but not in my size (*!”§$). so the search continues, hopefully i will be able to buy one here .. it’s so much cheaper than in austria. besides that i bought only few new cloths (some shirts, a short and flipflops), and came home very tired at 10pm.

so to sum up: my weekend was nice, but exhausting … the end spurt has begun. (don’t have pictures at all, simply had no time to take some, sorry).

good night.

nevertheless, there’s a BBQ-competition this weekend at the forestal village here in princeton, and i will go there even today or tomorrow (yummy). have a nice day, i’m back digging into my code.