2 weeks, 10 people coming to see the rooms (and us), some easy, some hard decisions.
In the end, we had 3 people we really would have wanted to be our new flatmate, and also had a ranking. According to this ranking, Werner made the phone calls. If number 1 would not take the room, he would call number 2, and if number 2 wouldn’t take it, number 3 would be lucky.
But – lucky for us – number 1 did agree, so our new flatmate is: Martin!
Let’s see what happens next 😉
I just re-discovered the song text my dad’s friends wrote for his birthday.
This is the original song:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWreLLHMquQ]
And here are some nice parts of the “new” (sorry, but only german) text:
Franz rück die Kohle raus, wir wollen’s heute krachen lassen,
dich ganz groß zu feiern, das ist heute unser Ziel.
Bekommst du die Rechnung, wird dir richtig übel,
doch das ist uns scheißegal,
denn deinen Fünfziger, den gibt es nur ein Mal.Komm hol die Brettln raus, wir fahren wieder auf den Gletscher,
ob Pflug oder in Hocke, du schaust immer super aus.
Lass uns im Tiefschnee die Spuren ziehen
genieße jede coole Fahrt.
Komm hol die Brettln raus, wie schon die letzten Jahr’.Franz hol die Flaschen raus, wir wollen’s heute krachen lassen,
dich ganz groß zu feiern, das ist heute unser Ziel.
Hast dich gut gehalten, hast Freude am Leben,
wünschen dir, dass es so bleibt.
Komm schenk die Gläser ein und stoße mit uns an!
These are three variations of the chorus. Throughout most of the verses, it’s about my dad working a lot, not taking enough time for himself, and, most of all, being a very good friend and an important part (not only because of his duties, but also being very active) in our ski club.
At the lines “Franz rück die Kohle raus”, everybody would wave a 50 Euro bill they printed themselves, and at “Franz hol die Flaschen raus”, they produced champagne glasses (made of plastic) out of various shirt and skirt pockets and my mom, me and my brother presented some bottles of prosecco for him to pour.
Everybody was really enjoying that song, and not only my dad had some tears in his eyes.
If any of the partaking people is reading this (thanks to facebook): Thanks again, it was great.
It can be incredibly funny to be responsible for Customer Relations. Though sometimes, you can’t help but think “WTF” pretty loudly:
Whi can not download aplication that do not cost anything
. Although i have a password and email contract for Blackbarry. Error number that appers is: 30601 with the massage ” unable to validate the email address and the password combination.
Now, what in the seven hells could be the problem?
Vienna Calling did not only mean having a good time to many Couchsurfers all over Austria. It also inspired them to creating and organising their own, usually slightly smaller, international Couchsurfing meetings.
One of them is SOS (Sounds of Salzburg). First edition took place last year in September. Georg and I did not have much time to spend there, because we already had accepted an invitation for a housewarming party in Innsbruck. Still, we spend one evening with the group, went for dinner and afterwards for some drinks with them. We did not couchsurf, but stayed at a friend’s place in the surroundings of the city.
SOS will happen again this weekend, so September 2nd – 4th. Our plan, as we did not succeed in finding a host by writing requests, was to just go there and wear a sign saying “I need a couch”. And then, all of a sudden, I received a message of a girl from Salzburg saying she’d like to host people during the weekend, and if I would like to stay at her place. She already asked another couchsurfer if she still needed a couch, so together with Georg we will be 4 people, and it might be a bit cosy, but who cares! It’s a CS event – sleeping is overestimated!
Another update concerning who will be doing what I am doing now, when I am gone:
There was another job interview on Friday. Claudia thinks the girl fits the job, so she should start working on Thursday.
This is going to be fun 🙂
After meeting for the first time one year ago, and meeting many times since, Kerstin has become a dear friend of mine. She is, obviously, a Couchsurfer, and is one of the most active members of the Graz community.
When she left to spend the whole summer, nearly 4 months, to tour through North America, Georg and I of course came to say good-bye. It was a great weekend, ending in an amazing, unexpected (at least by Kerstin) farewell-scene at Graz airport.
And when Kerstin sent a message saying she was planning a welcome home party in Carinthia, we of course made all arrangements necessary to go there!
So again, we spent the last weekend in Carinthia, this time at Falkertsee, in a lovely little house, talking, laughing, relaxing. We walked around Falkertsee, we played Minigolf and Pit-Pat, we had a delicious Brettljause, chocolate cake, Linzer Torte, Limoncello, Weißwurstfrühstück, and – in my opinion best of all – home made Zirbenschnaps. Together with 10 others – family and friends, people we already knew and people we did not meet before – we had a great time.
Thanks a lot again for the invitation, Kersy, and see you at Sturm Graz 🙂
Monday afternoon, I received a last-minute request for Monday night only. The message was really nice, and the profile looked fine, too. Bjarte seemed to be a good surfer and host so far, so I accepted his request.
In the early evening, after work, he met me and some fellow Couchsurfers at Rathausplatz. It is a great place to be, as there is always something going on: Film Festivals, Food Festivals, Sports Events, …
At the moment, there is a Film Festival with lots of Food Stands of different restaurants. They are open already from 11 a.m., so you can have your lunch there.
After having some great food, Bjarte headed back to his car to pick up his stuff. He had a GPS with him, so he would find our place without problems. It took him some time, though, to arrive, as he arranged some more things concerning his car and so on.
We went to Kino am Dach with some friends that night. In Summer, Vienna is full with open air cinemas. Kino am Dach is one of them, situated atop the main library of the city of Vienna. We watched “True Romance” and afterwards went for a beer.
The next day, after some sightseeing with Georg, he went on to Bratislava and then to Budapest. A short stay it was, but I enjoyed it very much and we had a good time 🙂
I know, it is still some time to go, but: For my first semester break in February 2012, I already have made plans and booked a flight.
It’s an enormously cheap offer by Austrian Airlines: Vienna – New York for less than 390 Euros!
I will stay in the US for 2 weeks, with short trips to Boston, Philadelphia and Washington. I already spent 4 days in New York some years ago, and I guess, I’ll have about one week this time 🙂
By the way, the offer by Austrian Airlines is only valid for the rest of today. There are also cheap flights to Toronto (around 450 Euros) and Washington (around 500 Euros).
a flatmate. Actually, two flatmates. One has already left the flat, the other still has to pass one final exam in October, so the second room will be available as of October.
Still, we are already looking for new flatmates now, as we want to get this done. One new flatmate is already pretty much fixed – and that’s, interestingly, for the room being vacant as of October. For the other one, we already had some more people over, but we’re not 100% convinced yet.
We will see.
One week after sending the “We would like to have you working with us”-message, we still have not heard of my successor, so the spot is vacant again. Anybody looking for a job like mine?