Home Sweet Home ... BUT

Finally I arrived at home yesterday after 5 weeks away. BUT it is only a short visit to see my lovely husband, do the washing and pack again. I am going to leave for Germany tomorrow. There will be a conference in Darmstadt from Friday to Sunday. After a stop over to see my family in Bochum on Monday and Tuesday I will head off for a campaign in Hong Kong on Wednesday for 3 weeks.

Oxbridge

Another tradition in Oxford is to play all kinds of sports against Cambridge. This happens on every level of the University and so there is a MBA competition as well. Every year one of the two schools hosts a whole day full of sport and party activities for the respective other school.

This year it was Cambridge to host us and they did a great job.

We left early on Saturday morning (5.30am) and sports started at 11.00. I participated in squash and ultimate frisbee. Whilst our victory in squash was by only one point, the triumph in ultimate frisbee was slightly clearer (17:2). The Oxford crew managed to win in more sports over all and was therefore declared the winner of the competition. Sports we won include touch rugby, 100m sprint, punting and basketball whilst we lost in football, table tennis and cricket.

--- part of the successful squash team ---

But sports were not the only important things during the day. Meeting with the people from Judge Business School and making new friends was at least as important as the rest. I found it very interesting to see how comparable and yet different the programs are. Overall I was impressed how friendly the atmosphere during the whole day was. Everyone was full of good sportsmanship and the competition was never too fierce. We were treated as welcome guests and got an amazing insight into some parts of Cambridge’s history as well.

--- fooling around in St. John's courtyard before the squash game ---

I hope our successors will host the Judge crew on the same high standard next year!

Stop Over in Singapore

With amazing sunshine but a bit sad I had to leave Melbourne after one month.

With nearly 4 hours delay and after the worst flight I had so far I arrived at 1 am local time on Saturday morning in Singapore where I am going to stay for the next 3 days.

30 degrees and 75% humidity.

A City From Above

Melbourne weather

I was really lucky the last week. It was sunny and we had around 25 degrees – amazing weather and I enjoyed it.

Tonight it started with a storm and rain – it is raining cats and dogs – unbelievable. The rain was so loud that I could hardly sleep.

Italy in Melbourne

I went for a coffee and with a good book to Lygon Street, yesterday after calling, which is only a 5 minute walk from my apartment. Italian feeling in the middle of Melbourne

Lygon Street is one of the great food precincts of Melbourne. It has its origins in the early immigration of Italian migrants to Melbourne and, in particular, to Carlton. It also owes much of its growth and popularity as a eating out destination to the students from Melbourne University, who frequented the street long before it became fashionable with business people.

Lygon Street has the biggest selection of Italian restaurants and cafes of anywhere in Australia, and was the first suburb in Melbourne to promote eating outdoors and tables and chairs on footpaths. Lygon Street is a great place to spend a warm summer's evening with a group of friends, especially if you're sitting in the garden cafe of one of the terraces that line the street. – It is also nice for a “single” person with a book ;)

Melbourne at night

After a daytrip to a National Park with Bianca and Kim I took the possibility to have a walk through the City of Melbourne at Night.

On the way to Paris

A group of round 150 of us met this morning at 5:00 to start our journey to Paris. Although it was pretty early and quite a number of us had a heavy workload over the last days to get assignments done before the tournament, it seemed as if everyone made it on the buses.

We are now on our way to Dover where we will enter the ferry. Our expected arrival time in Paris is 4 pm. I keep my fingers crossed we make it without major delays.

The weather in France is expected to be great and while I write this I recognize, that I forgot my sunglasses :-(

During the tournament I will compete in "Cross Country" and "Ultimate Frisbee".
Cross Country is basically a team marathon with teams of six running 7 km each. We have some pretty strong runners on the program and I'm curious what their times will be. I didn't have the chance to practice a lot for running, so I don't expect anything ;-)

Ultimate Frisbee is a teamsport and should be fun. We practiced regularly over the last weeks and I hope we can achieve a good placement in the end for all the hard work to pay off :-)

Maybe I have the chance to blog from France...

Mornington Peninsula and Philipp Island (2nd May)

I’ll break again a bit the chronology but I think that’s not so crucial.

Last Friday we went with 3 RBA project managers, John our boss and Verena who is our International Marketing Director on a daytrip to Mornington Peninsula and Philipp Island in the South of Melbourne (2h drive). We started with the visit of some wineries and some tastings before we went for lunch to a place called “Ten Minutes by tractor” – lovely food, amazing view and wonderful wine.

We finished our day a bit freezing at the beach of Philipp Island to see the smallest Penguins of the World coming home for the night. They are so cude – only 30 cm and the weight is 1kg. They come out of the sea to form an “army” on the beach before crossing to get to their nest for the night. We were not allowed to take pictures but I can tell you they are sweet.

Visitors from all over the world

Another thing I have to quickly share with you...

Isn't it amazing from which parts of the world the visitors of our blog come?!

Spring in Oxford

Given the great weather these days (21°) and the MBAT coming up very fast, I decided to swap future performance in my derivatives exam against enjoying a run in the afternoon sun. I hope Celine will understand that her cute french accent could not keep up with spending some time outside :-)

Sydney 24th – 26th April

I arrived on the 24th April at around 6.00am local time after a 22 hours flight in Sydney. My friend Dany who moved last August to Sydney picked me up from the airport. It was nice to have a bit of “Home” on the other side of the world. I stayed with Dany and her flat mates Jade and Evan for the next three days in Sydney. Their flat is at a river with an amazing view of the Skyline and Kurt Russel owns a flat on the other side of the road. My journey has begun grey not like you would expect a trip to Australia.

Dany had to work on this Thursday. Although it was in the middle of the night for my body clock I only went to bed for 2 hours to get directly in the correct bio rhythm – and it works. I had no problems with a Jetlag – my colleagues are still suffering from it after one week ;)

I went at around midday to the city to explore Sydney a bit on my own. And it was amazing. The Botanical Garden is in the middle of the city and it seems so unreal to see this in front of the skyline. In the Garden I met the first exotic animals: Spiders, Parrots and Bats (here I first thought these are some kind of fruits).

No Fruits but Bats

First I was a bit disappointed of the Opera house. I approached it from the backside and it looks really small when you have the pictures in your mind that you always can see on the postcards. I saw the Harbour Bridge and people climbing on it – like my father in law told me one day before I left the UK.

Sebastian and I discovered that the best way to start a tour in a new town is to have a sightseeing tour by bus to get a rough overview and then definitely by foot. I tool to bus tours since it was part time raining. One tour which covered the suburbs and beaches and one Inner-City tour. Sydney is a lovely town. And it is true that Australians are laid-back people – Nobody is in a hurry and everybody is friendly – great!

Bondi Beach

The day ended with some Caipirinah at Dany’s place and a Australian pub food.

Friday was Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand and a bank holiday. Anzac Day is commemorated by Australia and New Zealand on 25 April every year to honour members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who fought at Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I. We met at 10 am with Rouki one of Dany’s friends to go to the Blue Mountains National Park. It belongs to Sydney but is around 2 hours away – Nothing is close in Australia. It was a wonderful day and I was surprised how green this continent is. On a bank holiday in Europe and especially in Germany you will find all people travelling to one point and everything would be crowded but not here. At some points we were the only people and could enjoy the peace and harmony of this place.

Three Sisters

My stopover in Sydney ended with a lovely sunny day. Dany and I went to the harbour and the Rocks and enjoyed the sun, the people and the whole atmosphere. And we climbed the Sydney Tower to get an amazing overview of Sydney. At 7 pm my flight head of to Melbourne.

Sydney is a Major City with flair and a special atmosphere.

Following some more pictures – definitely not all ;)

CLICK HERE FOR MORE PICTURES

Melbourne College Boat Race

Hi Folks

I thought I would have some time to update the block on a regular basis but I discover everyday new possibilities to see and do things ;)

So I break now the chronology and write something about my yesterday’s event. At the weekend the training for the student started and we had some problems because on Sunday was the College boat race. Therefore we moved our training to midday. Everybody was so excited about this event that I was motivated to join in. All students from Trinity College met at 7.00 am at the Bul to go to the Yarra River in the middle of Melbourne city to support their Boat teams. Dressed in Christmas Colors I joined them. It was really exciting and fun.

Because of the fact that I joined the students nobody moaned that they are tired or have a hung over.

The atmosphere and the different College’s names reminded me of the UK.

This people are not from Germany - these are Queens College students