South Africa

In April my boyfriend and I made a little travel dream come true and flew to South Africa. Our plan was to travel the country by hire car driving from Cape Town to Johanneburg ("Jo'burg"). We decided for South Africa as we heard/saw on pictures that it had a beautiful, varied countryside with a veery long coast (I/we love to be by the sea) and an enormous and multifaceted cultural heritage as well as an interesting and complex history. Our expectations were not only met, but exceeded. We experienced welcoming people, nice hostels and restaurants at good value for money and got many wonderful unforgettable impressions and memories. Here YOU can get an impression:

Ah yes, I almost forget to tell you about the little tohubohu at the end of our trip. When leaving the next to last stop of our journey, the beautiful coffee bay a place almost completely isolated from modern telecommunication we got to know that a vulcano erruption in Europe might prevent us from flying back to Germany. First we didn't understand what was going on as we couldn't imagine a vulcano erruption in Germany or the bordering countries, but with every new piece of information we could gather (thanks to our wonderful couch surfing hosts at Pietermaritzburg) it became more likely that we really wouldn't be able to fly back as planned. When we got to know that we could either come to Joburg airport every day to be put on a waiting list to take cancelled places on the fully booked planes the days after our flight was cancelled or rebook for the next date where thereare secure places (which was 10 days later) we decided for the last option and spontaneously booked a flight to Namibia where my good friend Anne was working at an development aid project. So we celebrated my birthday with her in Namibia and got some more great impressions and experiences from another beautiful African country.

Culture and time in Tampere

In January I went on a field trip to Tampere, Finland together with the 24 other students from my Master Programme in "Intercultural communication". We were to conduct research about "concepts of time" in Finland. My research group studied cultural particularities in spending and managing work and spare time. We conducted interviews with Finnish university students and used psychological questionnaires to messure attitudes towards time management (polychronicity/monochronicity) and to assess other cultural dimensions. It was very interesting to try out some of the methods we had learned about in theory before.
We had a lot of fun while doing research ans also in our spare time. We went for a long walk on one of the big lakes near Tampere and even went to the oldest sauna of Finland on our last evening. And the -15°C at day and night time you almost get used to. ;-)

Zeit und Kultur in Tampere

2009...

Long time no write, I know. 2009 was again very eventful, many things happened since my last blog entry. A lot of travelling included. Just a short summary:

In March, I visited my friend Doga in Turkey and discovered Istanbul.

After that trip I started an internship in a Cross-cultural consulting company, which was very interesting. During that time, two good friends visited me in Passau: Anna in April and Oscar in May.

In April, I had the pleasure of attending a German-Sicilian wedding on Sicily together with my boyfriend.In July, after my internship and before finishing my last exams and writing my Bachelor thesis, it was time for a very nice short trip to Croatia.

Since August, I'm travelling regularly to the Netherlands as my boyfriend got a job over there. And with every new bite of Dutch culture I get to know I like this country more!

In Octobre, I finished my studies in Passau and moved to Chemnitz, half an hour from my home town Lengenfeld, to start my Master's in Intercultural Communication and Psychology.

In Decembre, I celebrated Christmas at home and with my boyfriend's family in Cologne. A trip to Paris to celebrate New Year's eve together with good friends, made 2009 perfect. Not to mention all the time I spent with my friends partying, studying and making plans for our future and visiting my family back home!

Besides many worries concerning future directions and a lot of stress at university I had a very happy and fulfilling year 2009. I hope the New Year will bring even more hapiness and I wish you all the best, too!