boulder here i come!

so i just found out that i'm going to boulder, colorado next quarter. i'm going to be an intern at crispin porter + bogusky, one of the best agencies in the US!

an amazing weekend followed by a week of sickness :(

last friday i found out that on of my friends from the account planning class was coming to visit. she is originally from vienna but came to SF last quarter to do the program with another one of our friends, thorben. thorben lives in hamburg in a really fun area called sternshanze. its becoming more of a posh area as thorben says but its got a lot of great restaurants and shops. 

so friday night we met up for a few drinks which turned into a few too many. saturday morning i had class which was a little bit of a bummer with the hangover. thank goodness it was a great class. the excitement of learning new things distracted me from my hangover :)

saturday night i took it easy, just stayed in and rested. markus invited me to breakfast in the morning with his girlfriend. he was trying a new recipe in his yoga cookbook that he bought. it was a saffron and pistachio rice porridge. it sounds weird but it was actually pretty good, and REALLY filling!

after breakfast i met up with thorben and nina and did a harbor boat trip. the harbor is what makes hamburg famous and is something every tourist should do. it was thorbens first time doing one and he's lived in hamburg most his life! it was really fun for all of us. 

after the tour we walked around the city a bit. went through the portuguese district and then to this beautiful church, st. michaelis. unfortunately, the interior was being renovated and you couldn't see any of the beautiful architecture. i saw pictures and man was i bummed. apparently, this church is the "eiffel tower" of hamburg. you can climb the 20 stories of stairs to the top and see the most amazing view of the city! it was really windy at the top. i realized i was in such a rush to meet up with thorben and nina that i forgot to put my pants on... all i had were my long underwear and a long t-shirt and sweater. normally you wouldn't be able to tell but because it was so windy, i exposed my pantless self to all of hamburg, ha ha! thorben joked that i was the modern version of marilyn at the top of st. michaelis. here is my debut photo:

after climbing all those stairs, we deserved a little treat. we walked to this little creperie called ti breizh. it was amazing! i had a sour cherry and vanilla ice cream crepe, yum! we walked around the really expensive area of hamburg after this and looked in the windows of all the closed shops. the one annoying thing about being in europe is that EVERYTHING closes on sunday. it was a really nice street to walk around. on our way back to sternshanze we walked through a really nice canal area. the buildings there are more traditional german and they're so old that they're being held up by metal poles in-between the buildings. see how slanted the building is? CRAZY!

for dinner, thorben took us to this "greasy but really good" greek restaurant. it was exactly as he promised. i had lamb skewers and taziki with fries and a salad, nina wasn't feeling well so she just had a salad, and thorben had puten (female turkey) with a feta cheese sauce. that sauce was amazing. 

overall, it was so great to spend the weekend with my friends from school who aren't in school. i got to see some really great things in the city and had an amazing tour guide and company to do it with :) 

on monday night i woke up with a migraine. i went to the doctor on tuesday and found out i have a sever sinusitis and bronchial pneumonia, UGH! will i ever be healthy in this city?!?! i really felt like things were starting to change and get great in hamburg. i've spent the past week lying in bed in pain. i'm on antibiotics and just waiting for them to take affect. hopefully soon i'll be feeling like a more normal human being. 

love you all and miss you! 3.5 more weeks and i'm home. i can't believe it!

 

saturday class

we had class this saturday at 11 am. it was a wacom training. for those non-ad students out there, it's the digital drawing board we use to design. i was interested to see what the class would be about since the wacom tablets just work like a sensitive mouse and mouse pad. turns out the class should have been called illustrator and photoshop training. i was really pleased with the class. i feel like i learned some really cool tricks in the program. these are the types of things i thought i'd learn coming here. if we could have 10 more of those classes and some typography classes i would be in HEAVEN!

i've been thinking a lot about what i've said in earlier posts about the school here. while i'm still disappointed, i feel like i've been more critical than usual when it comes to analyzing the school. i think because i was told such AMAZING things, i had really high expectations. if i were to have come here without those expectations i don't think i'd be as disappointed. while i do still find that students want to execute their first ideas, it doesn't mean i don't think they're talented. i just think they need to push themselves further in concepting since their design is so great. we all need to do this as students!  its easy to get excited about an idea and just rush to execute it. it takes time to make a good idea great. this doesn't mean i think i'm so much better of a student than they are either. it just means we all need to push ourselves harder and further so that we can grow as advertisers. 

i'm going to IRELAND!!!!

i was really excited and wanted to see on a map everywhere i've been in europe, here it is! i'm a lucky girl :)

valentines day dinner!

my roomie martin invited me to cook dinner with him and his two friends. since i couldn't be with matt this was the next best thing :)

it was SO nice to spend the evening with non-students. martin's friend lisa actually graduated from MASe 3 years ago. she is the same age as me, crazy! for dinner we made a brandy peppercorn sauce for filet mignon and potatoes au gratin. we also had some really nice wine. 

as requested, my roomies!

martin is on the left and markus is on the right

the first day of sunshine and sausage bread

two days ago we had the first day of sunshine since i've been here. it was amazing. it reminded me of the first day of sunshine in seattle. suddenly, everyone realizes how amazing the bright blue sky is. it was refreshing to say the least, however, its been grey and snowing ever since. ha ha! i guess its the small moments which make you really appreciate life. 

on another note, i went with my team partner to get a quick lunch/dinner before class. she recommended this sausage bread with cheese and tomato sauce. basically its like german pizza, ha ha! it was DISGUSTING! imagine a hot dog (thats what it tasted like), on pizza but instead of dough, its a dinner roll. only in germany!