Where are Dublin's Garas?

I am sitting in a corporate office already for three hours today when I decide to have a sneak to nomadlife.org It seems the bloggers are sort of getting bored and want to find new ways of blogging and discussing around different topics.

I see a comment left by Tom Gara. Tom and I sat pretty much on the same desk for a decent amount of months. And as I remember him in Rotterdam in total agony caused by the Dutch rain wearing A trash bag, I can also remember him in total happiness and harmony in Egypt while we were eating amazing and super cheap Egyptian food somewhere in Cairo.

Point being: It doesn’t matter if living in a country that could allow all room to an uneventful life or in a noisy place like Cairo, Tom Gara’s blog is always full of Tom-ness. I guess it is a mix of eloquence and wittiness together with an amazing ability to find unusual events what makes this man one of the best story tellers ever.

And the thing is… now I am sitting 9 to 5 in a corporate office in Dublin (also once Gara’s home) which totally lacks excitement while Tom is driving on the dessert in UAE; but not that long ago, being located in the same uneventful point of the world Tom’s comments conducted us to interesting conversations around topics like the subjective perception we have of time, to what is the sexiest language in the world, and many others.

I wonder where all the great Garas have hidden in Dublin. They simply bring so much more to life than what it regularly is…

Yes, it is missing the ER dudes, but it is missing that non classical sharpness you got to know in your group of friends, knowing then you were probably spending time with the greatest minds you will get to know in your lifetime.

A weekend to believe again

It is such a long time since I had so much fun.

I mean honestly, I think the days of random party are over to be substituted by something else.
And what is nicer than meeting someone with whom you can talk about the topics you are most interested in?

So the weekend was a surprise. Starting as always with no plans it ended up in real tons of fun (I am even writing without cynicism again).

So the surprises started on Friday evening. A night that promised to be uneventful in the club I always go to finished in a crazy party until 7am as I met one of the coolest people ever. A whole new circle of lives.

A weekend with a person with whom you truly have an intellectual and physical connexion is absolutely priceless. Conversations around music, different shapes of art, what made us what we are, the people around us… Honest confessions of our weakness. Of what made us cry.

It is truly fate. I would have never imagined such a thing a month ago, when I saw the world around me collapsing. It would be hard for me to believe that such things happen if it wasn’t because they do.

That one who doesn’t risk, doesn’t achieve.

Was it in Rotterdam? No! It was in Dublin

Braserie 66 was packed when Gee and I arrived to have dinner there. When the hostess told us we could wait for two hours we decided to head to somewhere else. After a long walk given the "deep" knowledge I have of the city, we ended up walking by Stephen's Green and we landed in Friday's. Once we sat, we were given the menus to order and then after a few minutes of U2, a familiar sone started... "It could be Rotterdam or anywhere...". I started laughing and made Gee aware of the coincidence of me hearing this song in Dublin while I was having dinner with him. Yes, it could be anywhere hahahaha After a good dinner that finalized in a chocolate fest, we have headed back home to watch movies and series... tomorrow, finally weekend and time to discover more of Dublin with a good friend.

Yes, the times of working till 2am are past... wooohoooo!!!!!

Awesome Rotterdam Time

I have finalized all AI stuff. Backed up 20 gigs of stuff generated this year and cleaned up my HD. I am an alumna and it feels good :) More space for music and pics :)))

So I forgot my camera, which leaves this posting with no pictures. So what is to say? I just had an amazing couple of days in Rotterdam. What?! Yes, after AI I found a good reason to go back to the city of the Erasmus bridge (Nathan), actually see it and enjoy it.

So finally free of all things that made my life miserable in the past and with my biorythm back to its natural course (going to bed at 6am and waking up at 2pm) I went to Rotterdam and spent some time with some of my friends from the AI team and Nathan, as he had some days off from work.

1. We visited the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. Surprisingly, not being close to Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, this museum has a pretty ok collection of master pieces. Some Picasso, Dali, Reubens, Rembrandt and Van Gogh, among many many all-times Dutch unknown painters and a bunch of modern art that in my taste scratches too much on every day modern life design (Ikea look).

2. Went to Rink's party. A young new buddy I have made. This super young dude pulled a good party with good electronic music and lots of other stuff close to our old transition house. Started at 2am and finished at 6am. Rink has genious potential as an artist and musician. Plus Nathan, Mick and I had good fun. Lenka joined us later. She is a really cool chick as well as Mick and I hope we stay in touch when Nate leaves R'dam for good.

3. Strobel was playing at the bar with his band and was better that ever. He is always a good artist to see on stage and listen live, but with his band he went beyond. He is expecting a baby and is super excited about it, and the people in his band are pretty cool dudes as well. Spent a while speaking German with them all after a high amount of Baileys. Probably we were all pretty wasted (they were drinking through all their performance) because they said my German is perfect. Which is not, and we may meet next month in Stuttgart.

4. Good late hours in the De Witte Aap as it is becoming a tradition of the gang. Good conversations with good people.

5. Had a really amazing convo with Jeanne and Kiko. We were remembering some people in our term, and creted a whole new theory on self awareness and love. Interesting good stuff. Went to the depths of our sould to go beyond the banana.

6. Played pool with Nate, Mick and Dave. Funny, bold boys :)

7. We went for dinner to my favourite italian restaurant in town, La Borsa. The carbonara rocked as always and Nate was quite happy with the Mascarpone and the fresh italian bread.

8. We went to the movies and watched ZODIAC. We recommend you to wait for the DVD and watch it home on a rainy day.

9. Spent time with Nate. SUPER!!! As always... there is not much more to say. I love spending time with him and have fun, we catch up and deep convos over a smoke... will meet soon again. Feel in so much peace, freedom and balance. He is not only cute, but his thoughts simply wow me. He also drinks Coke from a can and well... I have only good things to say :)

I am happy... really. After so much crap this year, everything seems to be turning around :)

Will spend the weekend preparing for interviews in London on Monday (Yeay! Finally!).

Tuesday I am off again to R'dam :) Will meet up with some of Nathan's friends from back home and will have some good times. Hopefully the weather will be on our side and we will go to the beach.

Friday I will finally meet Zsolti in BPland. Ildi and Ryan will be there too. Yeapeee!!!! Cannot wait for the hungarian food and the good parties. So many friends to meet in few days.

AI 06/07 - Nothing like You and I

For my teammates. For some more than others. For our highs and lows, when our alumni life is starting and some of us are looking for a job and having not much better to do than remembering and reflecting on the past year. I miss you guys.

There is nothing like you and I - The Perishers (Quick Time)
Lyrics

Switching gears

As transition in the AI office has started the switch of gears on my team has become notorious. For some weeks now, the future has become a recurrent topic in all our discussions, and yes, we can feel the certainty... in two months it will be over.

Not only our AIESEC time will be over (and after almost 7 years of AIESEC in my case it is a tremendous change in life) but we know we won't be able to be together again in a long time...

As the new team is having a "take off" weekend and you can sense the huge amount of energy they have, we had a "landing" night, consisting of cheesy songs, drinking games and copious amounts of alcohol that culminated in a visit asking us not to sing so loud.

Some of our teammates are in the new team, some of us had to leave (as my personal life kept calling my moobile for me to stop running away from it and finally sort it out) and others stayed till the end.

I have come with some big decisions. And in these two months I want to spend the most I can with my friends, as Ryan said himself "my family".

One year later...

You have a zillion movies that at some point present you a short blck screen shot with white text in the middle reding "One year later", and then you will see the same characters that appeared in the scene before the black screen in a similar or diferent situation.

One year ago, Rafael and I were sitting on the Elisebrunen park, in the center of Aachen, after I had come back from Mexico. I told him the stories of my family, or my recent election to AIESEC International, my moving to Rotterdam, and my sentenced to end relationship with my long term boyfriend, while I was spending most of the time since I came back, sitting at home and getting pleasure and entertainment from Stumble, while chatting long hours with my new teammates, sometimes untill very late at night. On the other hand, Rafi had just come back from Poland, he was complaining bitterly about university and of missing his girlfriend. Together we were wondering what would happen to us next, where would we be one year from then.

So today, one year later aproximately we sat again on a sunny spring day on the Elisebrunenpark and life is very different and very much the same at the same time. We wonder why somethings never change and why others have changed so much and so fast.

This is the last weekend Rafael will be in Aachen. Yesterday he turned in his thesis, and he has got an internship in Bonn where his girlfriend also will work, their long distance tragedy is over to bring them new and interesting life situations. The tables have turned when he is the one with the stable life and my life is absolutely gone from stable to... I don't even know how to call the situation in which you have absolutely no clue of where you will be in the next few months and barely can tell who I can trust and who after one entire year actually got to know me, who has changed me profoundly... I guess that happens when you cut the strings that attached you to the last stable relationship I had in my life one year ago. One thing has not changed... we both are broke, despite the interesting presumptions of some people saying my dad provides meof an endless budget.

Zsolti will be in Budapest and Rafi in Bonn, no idea where I will be, but in any case I guess too far from them.

Found this in internet. Pretty summarizes many thoughts of the year...

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive. It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!” It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Dinner, Jazz and Chat

It had been a heavy day at work, but Bryan came from Hungary for his first round of transition, and of course we had to do something nice. After work we have planned to meet, and after dropping his stuff at my place we went for dinner. Originally we had planned to go to Lulu, but as we were meeting in the end with more people, we decided to go for another place by the Old Harbor after making some reservations.

Chicken Schnitzel with red pesto and fries... yummy! Of course Bryan started with biers, while I kept on drinking Coke and we had the chance to catch up in all what happened in this looooong two weeks since we met last. It was really nice and eventually the rest of friends arrived there. It was nice to see some people I had not met for a while making a bit of fun of Dutch culture being Dutch themselves. They were quite amazed on the improvement there is on my Dutch :)

I also really enjoy spending time with Bryan, because we can laugh a lot together about each other, telling some stuff in Hungarian, and just making fun of each other's reputation or actions in the past such as him on the last night of the conference, drinking enough to end up dancing in the middle of two lines of roll call dancing AIESEC members and not remembering it, or me, dancing and getting close with... yeah, it was nice to dance, I remember.

Jorien joined us after a chain of SMS in order to arrange our meeting, and after sharing a couple of stories about guys we decided to take off. But what to do in a random Wednesday night? Let's go to Rotown!- We thought, as anyways the pie there is as delicious as it is in Dudok and it was surely open.

Arriving to Rotown we got a nice suprise as there was a performance going on and it sounded jazzy and amazing. They call it the "Vocal Night", and of course everything was about beautiful voices singing, r&b, jazz, soul, funk and pop. Of course they had a good DJ putting on the music and mixing really nicely, and well, in the Rotown atmosphere, it was simply nice. I guess the singers were Dutch artists singing basically in English, and together with the pie and the drinks the night was crowned.

Tomorrow there is a big party going on in Tilburg... to go or not to go... that is the question. What definetely will not be a question is the Monday of Pinkpop this year.

Leaving Hungary...

I am about to take the metro to leave Budapest. I feel nostalgic. I feel the nosalgia you feel when you leave home... This city is full of memories and discoveries... of challenges and the windows towards the future. Will write more later... but I am already missing it.

I enjoy coming to Hungary very much, not only because of the beauty of the country and its people, but because each time I come to Hungary I learn a lot about myself and those I care about in a way or another. Every time I leave Budapest I become someone new.

It has been a couple of weeks of intense work, of meeting lots of people that know me somehow, or know people I know; Of sharing stories, finding out who we are and maybe have fun together.

I love the people I worked with. The commitment of the MC towards the development of the conference; the passion and experience with which facilitators are doing their best with each single session. It doesn’t matter if they are LCPs, OCPs or new MC they merge into an amazing energy that sparks laughter… I feel like someone really small orchestrating the efforts of this wonderful people that through their actions teach me more about who I am and who I can be.

I had the chance to catch up with Zsolt with a delightful meal. We shared how his life is shaping, how he is achieving success and realization, and the point is… I am so happy for him. He is one of the people whose smile and happiness will produce an enormous satisfaction and fulfillment in my heart, and who I know genuinely wishes only very good things for me, and whose heart really hurts because mine was.

Other small stories in this lovely hungarian trip:

• Being lmost ripped off by controllers but getting away from it cleverly enough.
• Broke a table dancing with KiZsééé.
• Eating at Menza in Liszt Ferenc Ter. Hungarian Food... amazing. Intended for a meal became almost a daily. The interior is awesome, it is like being trapped in a retro box.
  
• Rom Kert was burned down to ruins (but will be fixed real soon).
• Staying at the Gellert hills, and looking down at the beautiful city each night.
  
• Incognito concert in A38.
• Going to an openning party of classy Club Non Sense with Zsolti and the dudes.
• Playing pool with Kéner, and losing but everytime less ridiculously.
• Nagy pancakes :))))
• Boat race + global village + normally cheap drinks = Lots of fun and random moments with friends.
• Amazing conversations with Eszter, Petra and Csenge.
• Long cool discussions with KiZsééé and let's not forget the jokes and non stopping laughter :)
• Met Zsolt's brother. Tamás is hilarious!
• Celebrated Easter the Hungarian way with the Kéners, nowhere else it would have been nicer :)
  
• Bryan and I insulting eachother in Hungarian for entertainment of all the present Hungrians.
  
• My openning speach in Hungarian!!!
  
• Trip with Tram 2.... a dream! You can see the houses of parlament and the chain bridge with an easy walk to Deak Ferenc Ter.
  
• Meeting tons of people from BCE who are super fun and cool.
• Shopping :)
• Going to the Opera and enjoying Puccini.
  
• Oh! And the really long hours of work every day between meetings and work that gave me a productive feeling.
• Ch*t! F*er! N*szi! and B*ch!
• What a dinner in Spoon with the wonderful view of the Danube, nothing was missing. No one was either :) More romantic than this you cannot have :)
  
• And probybly many more to come to my mind hahaha

Here some pics from my phone as the beautiful ones are to come

Lieber Rafi

Lieber Rafi,

Ich bin zu Hause gekommen und du warst nicht da. Ich denke dass vielleicht du bist nach Polen gefahrem, weil ich habe dir auch nicht on-line für ein paar Tage gesehen. Es ist kommisch dass ich dich nicht über die ganze Woche erzählt habe. Normalesweiser erzählen wir uns alle so schnell wie möglich, manchmals auch während alles passiert. Ich habe gedacht in einem Post zu schreiben da ich weiß daß du mir immer ließt. Ich hoffe dass alles in Polen gut ist.

Es gibt nicht viel zu sagen über diese Woche, ich hatte es super beschäftigt, und ich hatte nicht viel Zeit um nach zu denken. Im Anfang der Woche hatte ich viel zu tun, und die Woche lang habe ich nur wie verrückte gearbeitet aber die Liste ist noch nicht kleiner, deswegen arbeite ich auch dieset Wochenende, auch wenn es gegen meine Regeln geht. Machmals man muß es tun... ich habe meinen Job selber gewählt. Leider ich hatte keine Zeit um Ungarisch zu lernen, und obwohl ich hatte viel Lust zum Zeichnen, konnte ich das auch nicht. Ich hatte aun keine Zeit um zum Gym zu gehen. Ich bin immer noch zu weiß und zu dick.

Nächste Woche ist noch schlimmer, in vier Länder in vier Tage, und noch die ganze Kram zu schaffen. Ich denke daß Ende dieser Woche ich werde nicht nur alter sein, aber ich werde mich viel alter fühlen. Aber dass bringt mir zu meiner Geburtstag... Ich hoffe dass du kommen kannst. Der plan schaut sich sehr gut an, ein Freund aus Kanada wird zufällig für ein Meeting in Rotterdam sein, und ich habe auch ein paar Freunde die in Amsterdam wohnen eingeladet. Du kannst am Freitag vorbei kommen und bei uns übernachten.

So sieht es aus... Bis morgen Deutschland... Morgen abend Belgien... Dienstag Frankreich... Mittwoch nacht zurrück in die Niederlande... Freitag Geburtstag und Samstag nach Spanien.

Ich bin sehr froh wieder nach Spanien fahren zu können. Ich fühle mich dort zu Hause. Ich habe ein paar Freunde schon angerufen um dort auszugehen, und ich wil auch ein bisschen shoppen und der Moderne Kust Museum besuchen... Naja... mal sehem ob es Zeit gibt.

Ich vermisse dich sehr hier in Deutschland. Ruf mir an wenn du zurrück bist... lieber schik mir ein SMS da ich habe keine Ahnung wo ich sein wird.

Alles Liebe,

Mo

Your friend gettin' wasted with you in the good times and bad times... priceless

Chilling weekend... sharing stories... sharing time... happy memories... sad memories... looking to the future... the nostalgia of the past... party together... priceless...

P-I-N-A-R

At some point, as Directors came back from country visits, I realized that dispite six months in the same team, I haven't managed to get all of them so much.

As yesterday Pinar came to my place to join the team dinner, I noticed she was in this group of less known people around me, and if we had a couple of interesting chats, we had never hung out. Pinar looked fresh and alive last night, and I realized she has a very fresh and peaceful nature. Probably we didn't spend much time together because so far she had been more quiet, and I tend to go along with the louder people around and a couple of others. This had to change, and we started with a cup of tea...

It was such a refreshing and nice evenning in which we got to know eachother better, as well as our current life situation, and the future. It has been such a refreshing evenning... It is nice to find people with Pinar's nature... I hope we will be hanging out more often in the coming months.

Relationships Evolve

It was October 22^nd, 2005 when sitting alone on a train in the middle of the night I was thinking “It is time for the relationship between me and you to evolve”. I remember the date because it was my mother’s birthday and I remember I wondered if this was not a superficial phrase.

Relationships as pretty much anything in life change. The closer they are, the bigger impact they have on you, and from each one of them you learn something. They teach you about yourself, about how much you worth, about how lucky you are if someone loves you, about what you deserve, about who you want to be, or who you don’t want to be, about what you look for in a friend or partner, or what you don’t… For some of them you will fight, others you will only let die, while others you will kill…

Other relationships, the very special ones evolve, they change and adapt to the different situations of those involved, they nurture themselves in different ways, sometimes the change is easy, others it is rough, and sometimes they will not resist and others will be life long…

Today I am a witness of the evolution of one of my relationships to a very special person, because I recovered my friend. Today it is the 5^th of January and I am also sitting alone on a train.

A year for wise investments

After the entire night out celebrating the start of a new year we started going back home. It had been a fun and regardless night, and then I realized I had some messages (others I texted with no response, Helene and I had to laugh about this situation) from friends that had sent me regards and good wishes hours ago, and I had left these messages unnoticed as the party and the fireworks became a priority. Then I decided to call them even in different countries (sometimes feelings overcome price), initially they didn't pick up, maybe they were still in the party or maybe they were off for the night, it was after all really "early".

And after a while I got a call back from Helene and from Kiko.

Kiko is kind of a silent person and yet lately with all the new IS developments I came to know him better, and I came to think of him as one of the kindest persons in the world not to mention one of the smartest AI members regarding what to do with his money.

After we talked some minutes about our respective parties, families, friends and missed ones, Kiko reaffirmed sweetly his love for his girlfriend, and his happiness for her arrival in Europe not long from now anymore; "I am so in love! We have been speaking every day in the holidays..." He said. It is nice to see people that love each other. Some of them call each other despite long distances and others dance close together all night long, like Rafael and Ola (Rafi is dancing in the clouds since she arrived).

And now the other part I admire of Kiko. His investment management. Kiko has not only savings, but he has even a financial advisor that helps him to chose which funds are worth of his investment. "I made my first four Euro" he said not long ago in the office. Me... I used my savings in the hospital som months ago, and since I have been just using my money on enjoying life and fixing my soul... Recepe for financial dissaster... But going a bit deeper into it, the thing is that Kiko has been a wise investor in different parts of his life, which makes me think of what can I do with my different resources next year.

Not speaking only about financial resorces aka. money, but also time, feelings, energy, etc. What will be the achievements to close 2007? I mean, at least I don't want to lose in any of the fields... Yet, playing poker some days ago Rafael made an interesting remark "Maria, if you don't risk you won't win!". But which investments worth the risk? Which are safe invesments and which ones are designated from failure from the beginning? That is the questions. It is true that some times you win and others you lose, but it is true that at least you make your best not to lose... which brings you to another interesting economic concept: Cost vs. Investment. Costs are resources used from which you will get nothing back as investments if risky may lead to earnings...

So, time to think of cost cutting...

Back in time with Helene

It is already more than two years ago since I moved to Bonn. Back then I was already complaining about how hard it was to keep life balance. It was a wonderful time I shared with many people from all over the world thanks to AIESEC, but not with it as its main goal. It is different. In this time I met Helene.

I hadn't met with Helene for almost a year, and yesterday as I was in a party, chatting with André, when I received an SMS from her. She was in town!

During our time in Bonn, Helene and I were stuck to the hip. We would share all our secrets, love, friends and enemies as the Coordinators in DHL and Deutsche Telecom (you can read some of our adventures here, as it was back then that I started writing in a blog).

Today as we shared delicious cheese cake, we remembered how I was always saying she was complaining too often, what she used to call a German custom (for my AI team mates comments, I've made my own and I made a NY resolution to reduce). We remember how we were walking back home for more than an hour after parties by the freezing Rhine, remembered those two German guys that we used to like so much (one each) and how once she said "Maria, you are becoming German! One day you will wake up and you will be German!" seconds after the guy that I had such a crush on said "Yes Bella, maybe you marry a German man" he winked and I blushed so much! As a response I said she didn't look German she was maybe Chinese.

I also remember now how she got our Turkish roommate in her pocket and as she decided he was too possessive he started going crazy, complaining about every thing in the house, until I asked him why he didn't fix his room first. Emre stopped talking to us then. We changed him for Robert and Tim and we had wonderful times in Hausbar :) Those were times! When we would take a car and travel half Germany just to meet some cool people to get lost in the way back. Who needs a map?

I love Helene dearly. After she left Bonn it simply was not the same. I enjoyed my time with other people but somehow it never was the same. I've never had such a close (girl)friend since I live in Europe (considering that Karen and I have never shared a room ever since the US) and now, with her finally graduated and living in Hanover and me being a sick workaholic in Rotterdam it is nearly impossible to meet. But what can I say? It is true that real friends remain despite time and distance. It is magical today as we were wondering in the city, it simply seemed that time hasn't passed when I meet her! Little sister, I miss you still...

And now another thing I haven't done for long: Community service. I will go and speak to young illegal immigrants about why it is nice to speak German and all the things you can do once you managed to learn the language even if it seems easier not to learn it at all. This will be funny, coming from a person that starts forgetting it. It is time to wake a bit earlier and be useful :)

Lücke

"Eine Lücke ist eine Stelle an der etwas fehlt, das dort sein sollte" Langenscheidt Deutsch Großwörterbuch

Eine Lücke ist die Art und Weise dass ich nutze um zu beschreiben was ich fühle heute wenn ich versuche zu schätzen wo du bist, mit wem du bist und was du gerade machst: Du fehlst mir.