To the unknown reader.

Hello dear reader.

Yes, today I am talking to you. I don't know who you are but obviously you know me and for some reason are interested in some way in me and my life. That's amazing, as it is not very special or exciting. But nevertheless, you come here regularly and I don't know who exactly you are. It's a pity because if you read my blog carefully you would know I like to meet new people, so why don't you say "hi" to me? The other day Jelle said to me he heard from someone at work (and I didn't bother to ask, I don't know why) that I had written something on my blog about my parents. That of course started me thinking who in the world you could be. Obviously you speak more to my boyfriend at work than to me and still my life seems interesting enough for you to follow it here on my blog. I think it's a bit sad that you do not approach me directly, if you are interested in me. Or am I not interesting enough for that? But then again, why bother following my blog? Oh well, I may never find out who you are and I can live with it. After all, it's a public blog and I have to take such things into account. But still I would be happy if you leave a mark here, ask me if you have a question. If I can, I'll answer it.

Besides all that, thank you for your interest and enjoy your stay here. ;-)

Project Grandpa, continued.

Alright, so you may have seen these photos before ;-) But that's simply because they are not mine but I have 'borrowed' them from my lilbro's flickr stream. I especially like the second one, by the way.

So, what's this post about? Simply put, the makeover of yours truly. :-P Yes, I am still busy to get a little more modern look and I gladly use the help of my beloved lilbro. So during the weekend break of my training at Zurich I went down to Madrid to visit Dani and Sera. We again had a great weekend and as you may have read in his post as well we did some shopping. Unfortunately, time was very limited but Dani nevertheless tried to squeeze in as many shopping opportunities as possible in such short time. And as you can see, we were successful! Don't you like my more modern look now? I do in any case, I really feel much better (in german they say "Kleider machen Leute") and it was much fun to do the shopping with him. I look forward to continue that as this seems to be a long term project... Also Jelle likes the new look of his boyfriend. ;-) Dani had sent him the pictures before I returned home and Jelle could have a look personally last weekend when I first wore the "new look"- items for our visit to the cinema. It's amazing, a "little" change (it seems) to your clothing and you feel better, more self assured maybe. At least it felt comfortable. So, during the next weeks I will have to add more items to my wardrobe and I can't wait to go shopping with Dani again, a whole afternoon (don't you dare to plan anything else in between... hahahaha).

I really regretted that Dani wasn't in Zurich the last evening I walked through the lovely shopping streets together with my colleague Gaby because we came across a great shoe shop, they had lots and lots of great and cool sneakers and I really wondered which one Dani would have chosen for me... ;-) You all may think it seems crazy that I do not choose my own clothing. But I like to rely on Dani's advice as in my eyes he has a good taste and knows what suits his bigbro. Those who know me personally have seen the result when I choose my own and as a result I rely on lilbro's advice now... hahahaha. Honestly, if you let me choose my own stuff, I go for the "safe" but boring style. I guess I simply don't have that gay fashion gene... :-)

Besides our shopping it was a great though short weekend. We went to two family birthdays which I both enjoyed, we met our wonderful friend Alex for a drink in Callao and we had a nice dinner on friday and a just as nice lunch on sunday!

I definitely always eat too much when I'm with Dani and Sera, you guys simply know to enjoy life ;-) Besides of the good food, Dani also spoiled me with a movie of 'Sex and the City' and the first season of 'LOST', YES!!! I was speechless, he always surprises me with such things though it's not necessary at all. The greatest gift to me simply is his friendship. Thank you so much lilbro for everything, I truly enjoy all your gifts but remember they are not necessary ;-)

Before we headed to the airport on sunday because I had to return to Zurich to attend the second half of my training there, we visited Jose and Miguel who were receiving their first visit of family at their new house. It was my first look at their lovely new house too and I really enjoyed the visit too (even though we were not really able to communicate as my spanish is very very very very modest, to say the least...). :-)

Anyway, at the airport Dani dropped me off and we parted after another great weekend. Thanks again, lilbro for the fabulous time I had once again, kisses to you and Sera. Looking forward to see ya again soon! :-)

P.S.: If any of you has suggestions for my "Project Grandpa", feel free to drop me a line ;-)

A grandpa-ish hug to ya'll (no worries, it's definitely not contagious...sigh) ;-)

Training at Zurich.

I have been quiet for the last weeks. But that had a reason: I was away for two weeks. My company had sent me to Zurich in Switzerland to undergo a training. Why? Because since the 15th of November we are handling the ticketing for Swiss Air Lines and they work with a completely different computer system than the one we have at our airline. So all our ticketing staff have to be trained for that. So, together with my colleague Gaby I went to Zurich. I had a great time I must say! It was really a lot of fun with Gaby and we enjoyed the training and having the possibility to learn something new! We were really lucky with our hotel which was brand new and after a fabulous breakfast every morning (with real good fresh bread, soooo good!) we felt prepared for a long day of training ;-) Swiss had a great training facility and the course was really interesting (though I must say that we felt like going back in time, their system feels so outdated and complicated and way too lengthy). What I always like about these trainings is the international atmosphere. This time, we met colleagues from Yaoundé, London, Florence, Montreal, Copenhagen, Zurich (but native japanese), Auckland, Nairobi and New York! I really enjoy this every time I attend a training. Beginning of next year our own facility will reopen (after some years of rebuilding) in Seeheim in Germany (close to Frankfurt, our main hub) and everybody is already looking forward to the new trainings there! ;-) We ended our training with a test, luckily though we were allowed to use all our materials so it was not that difficult. But still I managed to make a slight mistake in something (that's at least one thing I know for sure already) and I am really mad at me since I had all the time in the world to check it or avoid it but unfortunately I didn't realize it... oh well, I hope I still passed... :-D

Besides the trainings 

we did not have much time to do anything in Zurich. In the first week Jelle visited us and together with him and Gaby we had a great dinner in the city center. During the weekend break (in 

which 

we could fly home) I opted for a short visit to Madrid to my lilbro Dani but I will tell you later in a dedicated post about it. At 

the end of the second week Gaby and I decided to "celebrate" the end of our training with a nice dinner in town (all other nights we ate in or close to the hotel in the airport's food court or at the staff 

cantine). It was a great evening out and a good end to our two weeks. It truly was a pleasure to have had the possibility to attend the training together with Gaby, a first for me to go on a training together with a colleague. It was so much more fun and you also had the possibility to exchange your thoughts and worries about the system and problems. I would not call it a vacation as some colleagues but still it was a great experience and I enjoyed it. ;-)

Thanks Gaby for the great time together, I enjoyed your company a lot!

Size does matter!

I came across this amazing advertisment the other day: famous Dr. Ruth Westheimer is admitting "I collect"... First of all, I do too.  ;-) Second, my collection is that of m...odels (of airplanes I flew with) and I think Ruth is right: after all, size does matter! :-P

What a funny advertisement, I just love it. LOL :-)

(seen in: Airways magazine, p.81, issue Nov.08)

A huge hug.

Quantum of Solace

Saturday night, Jelle and I went to see the new James Bond movie "Quantum of Solace". I didn't like it too much. I mean, it was entertaining, I didn't get bored but I didn't like it as much as the "first" new Bond with Daniel Craig. His acting was good, I still like him as new Bond actor. But the movie itself was less attractive.

There was some resemblance with the "classic" bond movies, like beautiful people in beautiful and famous places (e.g. Siena), a few trials to make a joke, a hint to Bond's drink (but neither shaken nor stirred), no real bad jerks like a Goldfinger or such..., no fabulous gadgets... it more felt like a "standard" action movie, all the ingredients that used to make out a Bond movie were missing in my eyes. Though the previous Bond to this one did also away with many of these items it still felt like a Bond movie - this one didn't. I didn't like the many but average action scenes combined with fast scene cuts, shaky camera shots that obviously were ment to give it more rhythm. A few things exploded but I actually don't know why other than for the effect of it... The movie started with a lengthy action scene and at the end of it presented a "bad" guy. This bad guy later appeared again during the movie (why? I didn't understand how and why he escaped alive from the begin scene) but wasn't at all the one that the movie was all about - so a lot of fuzz for nothing... It was an entertaining movie but definitely not a good Bond movie in my eyes.

Interestingly, though the movie started in Holland already on th 6th of November the cinema yesterday was full (well, okay it was saturday...but still). We had purchased tickets online and came to the cinema late and were confronted with long lines in front of the box office, the ticket machines and the bar... sigh... since we "only" needed to pickup our tickets (I still don't understand why I have to exchange my confirmation with barcode into a ticket... why can't they simply scan the code at the entrance?) Jelle queued at the machines and I at the bar to purchase our cola and fanta and M&M's and chips (I hate popcorn). The machines didn't work so Jelle later joined me in my queue and after about almost twenty minutes wait we finally received our tickets at the bar and our refreshments. During the wait I had noticed that our movie in the meantime had sold out! But not only our show, there was also another cinema showing the movie, at the same time, next to us, which was also sold out and the later shows were also sold out. That movieplex alone had about 25 showings of the movie on saturday, amazing! So when we entered the cinema, of course it was full and we didn't find seats next to each other anymore (why the hell with all these electronics and stuff can't they assign seats for popular movies? Ridiculous!). So we had to sit behind each other and Jelle wasn't too amused about that and almost wanted to go home... oh well, we stayed and watched. ;-) Jelle said he never experienced a sold out movie theater before. I am sure I have but can't remember which movies it was...

Anyway, it was an interesting experience and for sure we will never go on a saturday night to an obviously popular movie... :-)

A hug.