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!

snowed in london town!

last weekend my team partner sophia and i went to london to visit my roomie from SF who is her good friend from school. nadia is originally from the hamburg school.  after 2 hours of trying to get in touch with nadia once we landed, our first stop was the hostel. after we dropped our stuff off, we went to the camedon flea market, which is only open on saturdays. it is the most amazing flea market i've been to in my life. being there made me want to move to london immediately! here is a picture of sophia, nadia and i at the market:

the next day, we got up early and went to do some of the typical touristy things. we went to see big ben, the eye of london, buckingham palace, national portrait gallery, try some pubs, have an english tea time, and get fish and chips. i didn't eat the fish and chips because they had the skin on them, but i took a bite of sophias, yuck! we were really lucky because that night there was a chinese new years celebration in china town. so lucky to see this! here are some pictures from sunday:

this made for a great day, but the night got even more entertaining... it started snowing. it hasn't snowed in london in 18 years. i feel so lucky that i got to be there for that. the tube, trains, bus's, taxi's, and airports all shut down. we were supposed to catch a flight at 6 am the next day, needless to say we didn't make it. our flight was cancelled and the earliest they could get us out was wednesday morning. so we got an extra 3 days out of london! we couldn't do a whole lot of touristy things because most of the transportation was shut down the next few days but we did catch regence park at night (in the beautiful snow), a great pub with an amazing menu, and the saatchi art gallery. here are some pics from that:

in addition to all the excitement from the snow, i did something BIG. i tried a muscle. not just one muscle but 3 different muscles. i liked the green thai muscle best but i also had a classic white wine, and tomato muscles too. here is a pic of me before i tried the thai one. i was pleasantly surprised, they didn't taste fishy at all. in fact they just tasted like the sauces they were cooked in. the texture wasn't bad either. they weren't chewy at all! i think i got lucky, they were really great! not that i'll be ordering them for myself anytime soon though. ha ha!

 

everything is really backwards in europe!

after living in germany for a few weeks now i've come to notice a few cultural differences. the first one being that married people wear their rings on their right hand. we have london driving on the opposite side of the road and germany wearing their rings on the opposite hand. i just thought it was interesting. 

another thing i've noticed is that people put cucumbers on everything here. the other day i was walking to the subway station and saw a guy eating a sausage in a bun with cucumbers on top. strange. also, i saw probably a 70 year old man on a razor scooter in the subway. he was just scooting along waiting for the train to come. so funny!

probably the hardest thing that i've had to get used to is the toilets. this may sound strange but the first time i went to the bathroom i had a heart attack. the toilets here don't have much water in them. in fact there is only a small hole in the front which actually has water. use your imagination and this photo to get what i mean :) notice there is no water in the bottom of the toilet. AHHHHH!

i've also learned to understand the europeans a little better. i totally get why they don't shave, they need all the extra body heat they can get in the winter! ha ha. not quite sure what their excuse is in the summer.

my first morgen!

in my second week in hamburg, i was walking downstairs in a huge rush. i was late for a meeting with my team partners. this cute little old man was mopping the stairs. when i got near him he said "morgen" which means morning in german. i couldn't help but smile because it felt like he was personally greeting me. i felt like i was in a movie. for the first time in hamburg i stopped for a moment and just smiled.

A lovely weekend

so i have to start of by saying that these last few posts happened in my first weeks in hamburg. i'm just now getting around to writing about them, sorry! 

about 3 weeks ago i had a wonderful weekend. i'm finally getting adjusted to the city and my roomie markus, invited me to brunch on sunday with some of his friends. 

on friday night i opted to stay in instead of going out with the girls from school. there is this small flea market that is only open saturday mornings and after 2 weeks in a row of being too tired to wake up in time to see it i decided i HAD to go. no excuses. 

i woke up early saturday morning (early meaning 9:30, ha ha!) and took the subway to feldstrasse. its about 16 minutes from my station, hauptbanhoff. i have to say i was a little unimpressed with the market. it was very small and not as cool as i thought. the best part of the market was this little old woman who hand knit hats! they were 32 euro each so i didn't get one. my team partner sophia told me that she has 3 of the ladies hat's and that she gets a deal from her. i'm hoping to go back and get one with sophia so that i don't have to pay full price. they're really nice and very unique. its cool to know that some people still make things by hand :)

sunday morning i woke up and went to brunch with markus, his friend from MASe, his girlfriend, and her mom, cousin, and friend. it was really nice. the girlfriend and company didn't speak much english but it was really nice to do something outside of school. we went to this super cute cafe right around the corner from our apartment. they had an amazing menu and tons of great home-made coffee cakes and pastries. 

after our 4 hour brunch, we took a walk around the alsta, which is a beautiful body of water, 2 blocks from my place. it takes 1.5 hours to walk around it. we just walked 30 minutes. but it was great to share a lazy sunday with new friends. here is a picture of us at the alsta and then a few more :)

Bowling

a few of us went out to a night bowling club. ioana and i were the only ones of the group who actually bowled. we joined some MASe alum in their game. it was only 2.5o euro to play a whole gam! here are some pictures :)

Impressions of the Hamburg School

this is my school for the quarter

i have to admit that i am a little disappointed with the school in hamburg. i have been told by everyone that if you want to get your ass kicked, be overwhelmed with work, and be pushed like you've never been pushed, then go to hamburg. so far, i find this completely wrong. the only thing that has impressed me is the level of design at the school. most students study graphic design for 3 years before they come to MASe (miami ad school europe). 

overall there is a huge lack of concept at this school. people want to execute their first ideas. which is very frustrating for me. i also have to say that it is really hard to brainstorm with someone who's native language isn't the same as yours. i've learned that there is such a finesse with words that just gets lost in translation. i have great team partners who want to work but it is sometimes hard to push our ideas because of the language barrier. 

all in all, i'm going to try to make the most of the quarter and explore all this city has to offer. unfortunately, according to all the students here, hamburg is the least german city of them all :(

my team partners

my team partners and i at school. the one in the pic with me is sophia and nina is the one below us! both of them are from germany. sophia is from the south of germany in a town called Ulm and nina is from frankfurt. 

seattle found me in hamburg!

thats right! seattle represent, what?!?! ha ha! i found this sticker on the bathroom stall door my first night out in hamburg. i miss you guys!

my new apartment!

so the title of this blog is a little lame, i felt like it was fitting though! i do love a good pun and it just so happens that my name, spelled with an -e- instead of an -a- means morning in german. i find it pretty ironic that my mother gave me a name which means morning, and there is nothing i hate more in this world than the morning! ha ha!

sorry i have taken so long to fill you all in on my life in germany! the night i arrived i was completely exhausted. who knew traveling from SF to seattle to orlando to chicago and then to germany would be so exhausting, ha ha! so after arriving 3 hours late due to a light dusting of snow in frankfurt, i arrived just in time to miss all of my meetings for school. after waiting 30 min for the taxi driver to get to my school, i was off to see my new apartment. 

i arrived only to find out there was no elevator in my building. my new roommate markus helped me carry my luggage up the 5 flights of stairs to our apartment. now 5 flights doesn't sound like much, but these are european flights. there are 102 stairs i have to climb to get to my apartment everyday, sound familiar? i think rome has this apartment beat by 10 stairs but still, what is up with europe?!?! maybe now i know why americans are seen as fat and lazy. ha ha! i still pant every time i walk up the stairs. hopefully at the end of 11 weeks i'll be in great shape. right now i hate myself every time i make the trek to and from my apartment! 

here are some pictures of my super cute new place! the bathroom has a chandelier, its such a perfect bathroom for a bubble bath and some candles and wine :) the other 3 pics are of my bedroom, small but its more than perfect for 11 weeks! 

i live in a really cool area of town. its at the hauptbanhoff which is the main subway station here in hamburg. i live in the gay district and there are tons of cool shops and cafes around.

i live right next to this beautiful church, i couldn't be happier with my apartment besides the pigeons and elephant i live with. yep, elephant, ha ha! my roomie blows his nose so loud. the first few times it happened i jumped out of my bed i was so frightened. i'm getting more and more used to it now but he really sounds like an elephant! and the pigeons like to perch right outside of my window. the first week i was here i had no idea what this strange purring sound was. i thought the building made weird noises or something. turns out its just the pigeons.

this is a picture i took my first week of my street. this is the church i was talking about. its blurry because i wanted to show hamburg through my eyes the first week i was there. i was so jet lagged, tired, confused, and constantly getting lost. i really like this pic though!

thats all for this post. i'll be sure to keep the updates coming!