Happy holidays...

Dear friends & family,

I wish you all Merry Christmas, Frohe Weihnachten, Frohi Wiehnachte, Happy New Year and of course Happy Muharram (محرم ), a peaceful time with your families and beloved! I know, my wishes come early but it might be my last internet acces for some time: today was the last day at university and the plan is to leave for Tallin on Monday!
Christmas athmosphere in Питер:

Well, you can imagine that this kind of x-mas decoration has not stimulated my Christmas mood yet ;-) Still I think we start decorating our flat a little bit tonight (thanks for the first contributions like the cute santa clause) and get a little x-mas tree tomorrow. Tomorrow a Swiss/French expat CHEESE fondue plausch is planned and on Sunday the lost souls of the exchange student group will have dinner together.

The past weeks since I have come back from Moscow were kind of busy due to university: fucking statistix (again!) a and consulting project for METRO Cash & Carry in Russia. Ok I do not want to complain too much as I had time for visiting Tsarskoye Selo(Царское Село)(finally!!!), some nice dinners and of course a party here and there.

It was also the time of saying good-bye: some students have left Russia before the holidays as they won't do any exams here (cheers to Agnes & Radek, it was a pleasure...). So we decided to do the "notorious last party in Nico & Thomas place": last Friday we had a good party with a great mix of people. Fortunately it did not turn out to be the worst case scenario but still involved some cleaning. Anyway, it was great fun, thanx to our wonderful guests.

Enough for now! Although Christmas is not the time I hang out with my friends these coming days will make me miss you and of course all my family too: Schmatz as Mami, Papi und mis Brüderhärzli!

Zurich meets Moscow

After two of the ZH boys left Pieter, Jens and me got ready for our "business" trip to Moscow. But first we had a lunch with the Swiss council to discuss the business development of a swiss company in Pieter. Lunch was great but took forever so we nearly missed the train to Moscow... 4pm we finally catch the train and have a nap after lack of sleep over the whole weekend!
Monday, 27th of November, 9.30pm: we arrive in Moscow! A little dream becomes true... we have been talking so much about a trip to the capital of the Russian Federation and now we are here! The next three days Jens spends having meetings all over the city and I do hardcore sightseeing, the highlights are:

Tuesday:
In the morning I join Jens to see the only drug rehabilitation clinic in Moscow, a very strange experience as our translator is one of the patients. In the afternoon: Red Square and Kremlin from the outside... there I also have the funniest story with the Russian police so far: because I do not have my train ticket with me (that would prove my arrival in Moscow, as I have to register in all Russian cities after 3 business days) I am supposed to pay a fine of at least 1000 Rubel! But Andreij, the police officer, does not want to steal my rare time for sightseeing. Therefor I get a "student discount" of 50% and the fine goes directly in his pocket ;-) For dinner first time Uzbek food, delicious!

Wednesday:
Mainly dedicated to my visit to the Kremlin. Entering this place you can really feel the power that is located there! Impressive is the atmosphere in the evening while standing on one of the bridges over the Moskva: all the traffic is stucked as car column after car column (with flashing blue light of course) rushes out of the Kremlin to bring the important people home. For dinner first time Ukrainian food, very heavy!

Thursday:
In the morning an audience with the Swiss ambassador and the head of the Swiss economic mission, Jens has his business chat, I can make a good contact for my Master thesis (that should be started soon!!!). Afternoon: sculptures parc ("The Graveyard to Fallen Monuments") and the New Tretyakov Gallery (fantastic pop and pop-sovjet art). By night we tried Moscow nightlife: we started with an Indian dinner @ Tandoor, fantastic as we also had the whole place for ourselves! We continued the bar hopping and clubbing according to the recommendations of a Dutch expat but were a little disappointed... we expected that the weekend would start in 12 Mio. citizens city on a Thursday but most places were empty. We ended up in Propaganda what was cool but not overwhelming... may be we are just a little bit spoiled ;-)

Moscow we will be back!

Zurich meets Pieter

Thursday night, November 30. Jens and Nico arrive in Pieter... the next the day another ZH-boy: Philipp. I had many expectations to fulfill but I think we had unforgetable what we call "buebeferie" that can be translated as "boys-nights-out"... Thursday night a warm welcome the Russian way: blini, red caviar and of course vodka. Nightlife in Metro and Gribodoeva. Friday a proper decadent dinner in the house of architects where we had a fantastic Russian meal in a very Russian environment. Saturday a first attempt for sightseeing: we did a 1,5h walk around the city so the boys could see the main sights at least from the outside. Dinner in a hunter restaurant with Dawina and Ludwig... again a proper Russian experience including wasted guys dancing, free wine to the whole restaurant (offered by one of the drunken guys dancing )and finally crashing the entrance door's windows with the fist ;-) also first time bear and elk meat for me, can not recommend it! Party @ Decadence. Sunday dedicated to some more culture: we saw the Don Quichote ballet @ the Marinskij. A very nice & relaxing end of the weekend.


Thank you for coming boys! And of course thank you for the whiskey & the chocolate...