What has happend in the past two months?

Hello,

I know I didn’t send very many emails in the past two month because I was very busy… so I figured I would give you a short summary of what has happened…

September:

Well, I quit my job at Hundert Grad, the advertising agency I had worked for since October 2006. I really had a good time and lots of fun working there; my colleagues were great and I really miss them already. However, the last few months I worked at Hundert Grad were especially stressful since we had to get everything done for the Frankfurt Internationl Motor Show which was in September. It wasn’t always easy to get everything organised but in the end everything went well and I had a chance to go see what I worked for… more about the Motor show later…

 

So yeah, I left Hundert Grad. It wasn’t easy and everybody that knows me knows how hard good-byes are for me and that I sure had enough of them in the past year, but it was a great good-bye. I got a university starter kit of books and a “Schültüte” (large cornet of cardboard filled with sweets and little presents given to children in Germany on their first day of school) in which I found an IPod nano with a collection of songs my colleagues put on it. A few of my colleagues had to leave early, some stayed ‘till late at night and we partied a bit and played foosball.

 

Even though I stopped working at Hundert Grad on a Friday, I had some tickets for the International Motor Show for the weekend as well as Monday. So Saturday my best friend Sandra and I went and Sunday I took my brother. It was pretty funny to see what Sandra and I liked about cars and what my brother’s preferences consisted of. Sandra and I looked at a car and when it didn’t look nice, we didn’t like it. My brother stood in front of the ugliest car ever and was like “wow, that’s awesome”. Apparently that car had some huge engine, great tires, whatever, I have no clue! It was fun though and we had a good weekend. The following Monday I went to the Motor Show again (yes, I can pretty much say I’ve seen it all!), this time with my colleague Stefan, who I have worked with in the production department since June. It was nice to spend a day at the Motor Show during the week because there were much less visitors than the days before. Most fun was the test track. Big cars as well as a lot of SUV models had to go through obstacles. It was great even though it was a little scary and I was so sure that our car would tip over… but it didn’t. Since I was at the Motor Show for three days, I did that test track a few times: Sandra and I took the Suzuki Jimny, Yannik and I took the Suzuki Grand Vitara, and Stafan and I took the course on a few times in various vehicles, including a Hummer ride.

However, most interesting to me was Suzuki’s exhibition since I had worked a lot on their products and dealt with their presentation at the Motor show for a few months. It was great for me to see all the things I had produced for Suzuki in the past year and how the International Motor Show visitors reacted to the different products. I am still very proud of my little rubber ducks – the cutest ones in the world!

 

Once the job was done, I really needed to go on vacation. I had worked a lot and was confronted with very many changes in my life that I hadn’t really dealt with and I wanted to spend time on my own; get my thoughts off things and think about very many things in my life. How to do that best? I accomplished a childhoods dream: I went to Iceland. I have always dreamt of Iceland since I was a kid, ever since I saw the movie Nonni and Manni that is. Here you can see the trailer and a few impressions of the movie which was shot in a place very close to where I stayed so that you can get an idea of how the landscape looked like.

 

 

 

But I didn’t only go to Iceland for sightseeing, I also went horseback riding for a week all by myself. Spending time on a horse’s back, being physically active all day, being surrounded by Iceland’s beautiful landscape and nature was so much fun and a great change. So when I left to go to Iceland, I left Frankfurt once again not really knowing where I would end up; I guess by now I got used to that and I love it! I flew to Reykjavik where I stayed in a little private bed & breakfast place. At night I had a chance to walk around Reykjavik a little and do some sightseeing. It’s a real nice place and such a weird feeling to know it’s a capital city and still so small. Sure, Ottawa isn’t big either but there are still bigger cities all over Canada. Knowing you’re in a capital city (and the biggest city of that country) and still having the feeling you’re in a large village is weird at the beginning. The next morning I took a bus that took me to Varmahild, which is a village (well, to me it was a few houses build fairly close to each other but they call it a village) in northern Iceland. It was a long bus ride but a great way to see Iceland’s beautiful landscape.

 

After arriving at the Lýtingsstaðir farm (another 30 min ride over a non paved road), we had lunch and started our first excursion with the horses – it was my first time riding tolt, a gait most horses can’t do but that most Icelandic horses can. It’s just as fast as the trot but much more comfortable for the rider, since the horse’s back barely moves. It was so cool going from riding western style to Icelandic horses and it was such a change, but it’s great and I love it! The horses have a beautiful character, are very sociable and so safe to be on. So we went horseback riding every day and did some sightseeing. We went to a Hot Pot and went to an old sheepcote which is considered a heritage structure since it is so old and traditional. We also went to a museum, where we saw a church as well as the old Icelandic houses with grass on the roofs; just like in the movie Nonni and Manni. Oh yeah, Nonni and Manni: We watched that movie one night! It was pretty funny since I was the only one wanting to watch it and everybody else in the group made fun of me. “It’s a kids movie” even though they’d never seen it. We watched part 1 of the movie that night. The next day I was sick and couldn’t go out riding and was sleeping all day. When I woke up in the evening I went downstairs and what did I see? The rest of the group was sitting in front of the TV watching part 2 of Nonni and Manni. They liked that movie too. The farm had a white horse like Nonni does in the movie (check the trailer and you’ll see it). Nonni’s horse was named Grani, which was also the name of the white horse on our farm. Next time that I’ll go back, I’ll take him out for a ride.

 

Another reason that I went to Iceland for was to participate in bringing a herd of about 700 horses down from the mountain’s pastures. It was an amazing experience to herd the wild horses with another 200 (mostly drunk) people to a valley in which the horses were then separated and brought to the farms that they belonged to. It was a big folk festival and it was amazing to see how so many people were drunk and couldn’t drive anymore but still hopped on their hoses and somehow made it home.

 

The week went by fast and on our last day we went for one last ride and had a little adventure: we had to cross a deep river. Röckvi, the horse I rode for a few days already turned into a real seahorse and brought us safely to the other shore. However, Svenni, the farmer, thought he’d be funny and pushed us so that Röckvi and I got caught up in the current. We drifted off, but got out of the water about 50 meters further down stream. It was so much fun crossing the river that I made my horse cross it a few more times. I am not sure how much Röckvi liked it but he swam through it as often as I wanted him to.

 

 

That night we were brought back to the bus and we went on our last long trip : back home. It was a great vacation and I am sure I’ll go back to Iceland sometime!

 

October:

 

Back home I had promised to call my ex-colleague Claudia (who’s only called Stolli because of her last name), since she didn’t work at Hundert Grad anymore and started a new job at a new advertisement agency. She said that she probably had a new job for me. I called her and not even an hour later I had my job interview with my new boss Fabian. So thanks to Stolli, I got a new job within 2 weeks. I am doing Point-of-Sale things right now, which is mostly finding ways of graphically presenting ideas to our customers so that they can imagine how the presented stuff would look like, I also brief visual display advisor. It’s fun since I get along with the people I work with and I can be creative too. Our customers are Disney, Benjamin Blümchen (a talking elephant, a character I loved when I was a kid), Die 3 ??? (3 detectives from Rocky Beach, audio-stories for kids but lots of adults still love them, so do I, I think I have pretty much all of them, some still on cassettes) and Barbie. Last week I only worked on a project for Barbie, which is pretty funny since I never liked Barbie when I was a kid, and I never played with her (I admit, I had two, but only because I got two horses with them!). So that’s what I do to earn some money… but what keeps me busy since 2 weeks:

 

I study online-journalism at a university of applied sciences in Dieburg. I have classes that deal with “what is journalism?”, media law, production techniques, writing skills, social software, etc. This is where this whole Blog idea comes from: The Social software class (thought by Gerrit van Aaken, van Aaken’s Blog). We need to deal with topics like social networking, podcasts, platforms such as myspace and facebook, blogs, etc. Up to now I really like going to university. I have made new friends and met great people. I am really looking forward to study for quite a while, even though it seems like I’ll be confronted with a huge workload soon; but for now I am motivated.

 

So, that is pretty much what happened in the last two month in my life – busy as always. This whole update got a little longer than I thought that it would and I am really happy if you made it all the way to the end and that you’re still willing to read my next postings…

 

Have a great Sunday and a good week!

 

Johanna