SPRING HAS FINALLY ARRIVED!

As I sit here, I am proud to report the return of nice weather. After changing our clocks on Saturday, Mother Nature has also decided to cooperate with the new sense of action, and provide temperatures of up to 60°F (15°C) today, with only slight cloud cover. It certainly makes for more interesting things to do outside besides avoiding ice and falling from my bike. Though, since my semester has not started yet and will not finish until the middle of July, I cannot say how happy I will be about sitting in class during a gorgeous summer day. I guess free education does indeed have its price.....

So, to recap to all those people that are now making a comeback into my life, my last post featured a photo with my parents and I and Daniela (yes Daisy my lovely girlfriend!), in front of the White House in Washington. You see, Daniela and I decided to go to the USA for our holidays in February and March, and said hello to the old parents, museum people, friends and we tried with George W., but I am afraid that we were not graced with his company. Though we did not see our fair president, we did see just about everything possible in just under a month. Coming to my house, we did the tour of St. Charles, went into Chicago for day trips four times, went to St. Louis for Mardi Gras which was a very interesting experience, and a week long road trip with the parents to Virginia and D.C. All in all it was a great time, but we were so busy the whole time, I really did need a vacation from our vacation.

Though, I did not grant myself such leisure, and was soon back in a plane within a week. Three students and friends of mine from my program Zhu from China, Irina from Ukraine and Sam from Holland were given awards from UNESCO to do research in China, Scotland and India, respectively, and I decided to attend the ceremony in Paris. I also took this opportunity to have a meeting with a gentleman from UNESCO for a possible internship there this summer, which went OK, actually not too bad considering the fact that I was wholly unprepared. Anyway, I also got to go to Normandy and visit Guillaume and Emilie which was excellent.

Right, so there you go, a brief update of what transpired in my life recently. Nothing too much to report now, except that Daniela and I will move in together this weekend (I guess that is actually pretty big news) and I have a paper due this week from the previous semester, not too bad, huh? That is all for now.....

RETURN FROM AMERICA

After a hiatus of rather a long time, I have decided to once again update you on what I happen to be doing in my fair little city. After going home for a month, I have once again return to Cottbus (not without a little side journey in there to Paris and Caen) and am awaiting the start to the Summer Semester. I am really excited to start now, and am completely bored out of my mind as to what to do now. I will unfortunately be unable to write much today, since the weather is gorgeous and I have no desire to sit around here for another half an hour. Instead, I will slowly tempt you with this photo and provide details later...