Chicago, here I come!

The last week has been a bit crazy and slightly stressful, but who cares? I am going to go visit my girlfriend - finally! We had a few plans to meet, which unfortunately fell through, but now we managed to work something out. It's not perfect, but who wants perfection? Certainly not me. I just want her.

Okay, I'll be less cheesy now. Since I'll already leave Wednesday (Oh. My. God. Right?), the blog will unfortunately be slightly deserted again for a while. I still have so much stuff to do, but I hope to post once or twice before I leave, and maybe once from Chicago.

Anyways, today I took the toefl test and it went okay. I'm not perfectly content with my performance, but it should be good enough. This is just one more step to me being able to study in The United States of Awesomeness. Too much? A little? Hm....

Berlin highlights

I'm back from Berlin! It was freezing cold, but we still did some sightseeing. Once I'm ready, I'll probably write a real post about the trip, but until then, just some of the highlights from Berlin. (Yeah, no weekend crush this past weekend, because I had no inspiration whatsoever. Sorry.)

Brandenburger Tor

Gedächtniskirche

Reichstag

A bear for Bearlin

Looking at former West-Berlin, through two walls

Unplugged - Berlin edition

In about half an hour, I'll be leaving for Berlin. With the two friends who I felt didn't care about me. We talked a few days before Christmas and I told them what I felt like and they admitted that they didn't really have enough time. I didn't get a real apology, which bugged me a bit, but at least they were able to see my side of the friendship struggle that I've been going through. For them, the fact that we weren't talking often (more like every 2-3 weeks) did not mean that we weren't as good friends anymore and they didn't think that I would have trust issues just because of that. Well, I do, that's just how I am and has a lot to do with my past experiences with friendships. So we are going to use this trip as a way to reconnect and I think that I'll have fun.

I haven't really been posting much in the last few days, mainly because of the holidays and because I was constantly on the phone with this one very special person in my life. I know that I'll miss hearing her voice for 4-5 days, but I'll survive. It's my own damn fault, so I have to suck it up and try to still have fun even though I'll miss her.

I don't have any posts written/scheduled, so I'll probably update either on the 2nd or the 3rd of January again. Expect lots of pictures of Berlin and New Year's Eve.

I wish you guys a Happy New Year and we'll 'see' each other in 2009!

Being touristy in my home country

Artificial lake in the salt mine - they pump

water into the Mountain to extract the salt,

which creates lakes and caves.

I had a very exciting, exhausting and interesting weekend!! Last Wednesday, I met Miss J to dinner. Miss J and I met at the Zurich AE meet-up and had a lot of fun and when she told me that she is traveling through Europe right now and would be heading to Austria soon, I told her to give me a call when she arrived in Austria and I'd show her around a bit. So I kept my promise and showed her parts of Salzburg this weekend. We did all the touristy things - Mozart museum, Getreidegasse, 'Sound of Music'-tour, salt mines tour with a stop in Berchtesgaden (Bavaria, for the non-Austrians/non-Germans among you) - but I also showed her Salzburg from an Austrian point of view - or at least tried to. We had a lot of fun, great, really amazing, really interesting conversations and now I'm sad that she lives in London. That's not fair!

Berchtesgaden

I'll write more about my great weekend once I don't feel like a whining, little child anymore.

Zurich pictures

Zurich waterfront

They have those cute balcony-thingies, no idea what they are called.

a park I discovered in the middle of the old-town

STARBUCKS! My financial ruin - if they had one here

a beautiful old building that houses a school

AE meet-up in Zurich

The AfterEllen meet-up in Zurich was so much fun, just that evening was worth the whole trip. But I’ll start at the beginning: When Bridget and Karman first came in, seeing them was really surreal. It didn’t seem to me that that was finally happening. They shook hands with everybody and we sat in a big circle and talked. Later, even more people showed up and then we split the circle up, with various groups talking. Karman and a few of us talked about the vlogs and she said that she thinks Sarah (Warn, for the non-AE regulars) created a lesbian TV-channel without even aiming for that. Mainly because there’s just no lesbian content on TV and she wanted to create something that she was missing. I think it’s pretty amazing that she just thought “I would like to read/see this or that” and then created it. We also talked about pride parades and the LGBT offers in various European countries and it seems that there’s a very common theme: There are nearly no lesbian offers, but loads of clubs, parties and meetings for gay men, which honestly, sucks! But that’s just the same in Austria. Karman said that she thinks once advertisers realize that lesbians do have some money too things will change, also for AfterEllen. Let’s just hope that that day will come sooner than later.

I also had the chance to talk to Bridget alone for a while, which was amazing!! We talked about chocolate (I brought them Austrian chocolate), my dreams to move to the states and the fact that she was Hottie No. 4 on AE’s Hot 100. Her comment: That is ridiculous. My comment: I voted for you, you’re beautiful.

They had to leave after two hours to meet with their tour guide but some other girls/women stayed longer and I had some very interesting conversations with some of the ladies. I met two Vicki’s from California and their partners/wives Alex/Alexis, which was fun. Both couples met in California and moved to Switzerland and there are a few more parallels between them, which is really interesting because they share names. There was some joking going on that there might actually only be one Alex/Alexis because all four had never met or that the world would implode when they finally met (It didn’t, just in case you were wondering). I also had a very interesting conversation with Julianne (I hope that’s how she spells her name) from Australia, who might come to Austria in a week or two.

Anyways, I had so much fun and if you like AfterEllen and have the chance to go to one of those meet-ups, I can only recommend it. Should there be another one in Europe I will try everything to go. Bridget and Karman were very nice, sweet and inclusive, they talked to everybody and it was a really great experience. I have to admit that I’m biased, because I love AE so much and they are like TV-stars to me, but still. I’m not going to post all the pictures I took because some people don’t want their photos to be on lesbian websites, which I understand. Someone took a great picture of me and Bridget that I hope will show up on AE, or else I’ll try to get into contact with her so that she can send it to me. For now, those two will have to do. (They probably do for you anyways.). I’ll post some pictures of Zurich later on in a separate post.

AfterEllen meet-up in Zurich, Part I

In last week's Best.Lesbian.Week.Ever., the AE staff announced that Karman and Bridget were planning an AE meet-up in Zurich on Friday, September 26th and ever since I've been trying to not get too exited about this. Yet. Because if for some reason or another this meet-up doesn't work out, I don't want to be too disappointed. Obviously, I'm hoping that the meet-up will take place, since I will be able to go to Zurich!!

I've already found out that it's a little less than a four hour train ride to Zurich, they accept Euros and they speak German. My dad said that it's a nice city so I'll use the opportunity to do a bit of sightseeing and at least stay for one night. I haven't started looking for a cheap hotel room because I'm waiting to hear more from AfterEllen and I should actually be mentally focusing on the accountancy exam I'm writing on Tuesday. But I'm already thinking about what to wear and what to do with my hair and *important* stuff like that. I'm rolling my eyes at myself right now. ;-)

So, if any of you, my dear readers, are planning on going to Zurich as well, pretty please leave a comment! Right now I don't know anyone yet who will go to that meet-up and it would be nice to get to know someone beforehand.