What's up

I know that it has been quite some time since I last wrote here. I seem to be running out of time everyday... I have been busy, as usual.. I have an English speaking knitting group here in Florence and we meet once a month. These meetings are the reason why I keep starting new knitting projects, at least one each month ;-) I made a nice hat for my daughter, started to make a shawl for myself but left it aside for now, because knitting mohair now is rather 'warm'. Right now I went back to crochet and started a blanket with granny squares. I want to use up the leftover yarn from my former projects. In these knitting group meetings I learned that there exist non-profit organizations that knit for charity, like KasCare's Knit a Square Project. Did you now about them? All you have to do is to knit 8 inch / 20 cm squares and send them. They will sew them together and make blankets for kids. If you like the idea, there is another non-profit organization, Lily - Love in the Language of Yarn, which accepts squares for blankets as well.

If you like the hat that I made for my daughter and want the same, I accept your orders. Just drop me a line in the comments.

I continue with my iPhone programming learning, although quite slowly.. I do have some projects that I would love to realize, but haven't had the time to sit down and start yet, because I started attending a course for the sailboat license. It keeps me quite busy, with one evening class every week and some practice hours on the boat whenever we get the chance. I would love to take my exam before the end of June, if possible.. It is so much fun!! But there is a lot to learn. Especially the terminology, in Italian, is killing me..

My stomach has created a lot of problems for me lately and I am on medication since many weeks. I have lost a couple of kilograms and hope to continue this way, not that I need to, but I want to. I try to keep fit with occasional runs, walks and cycling. I even attended the Guarda Firenze run/fitwalking on Mother's Day with my kids...

That's all for now. Let's see when I will manage to write next time :-)

Creative set of mind..

I am in a creative mood lately. I finished a pullover that I have been knitting for my daughter. I am nearly finishing a pullover & hat set for a newborn and am planning to sell it :-) I started and nearly finished a sleeveless sweater for my son and made even a hat with the yarn that was left over :-) I have already bought the yarn for making a baby blanket for the baby of a friend that will be born in February. Soon you will find here pictures and maybe also recipes for some of these projects.

On the sewing front: I have to make a dress for my daughter for their annual school theater performance. The paper model and the fabric is ready. I need to buy some ribbon only. There is also a nearly finished skirt for my daughter that is waiting for me to find some free time to do the hem.

But I have other ideas as well. I have a lot of felt at home. Yesterday I found a book that I had bought some time ago, on stuff made using felt. I think soon I will make some felt bags :-) If/when I do realize these projects, I will post here.

So: keep checking this blog for updates and new posts ;-)

PS: Did you notice that I have new pages now? Look up. There is a menu bar. It wasn't there yesterday ;-)

Octopus..

This week seems to be very promising on the 'work' front.. I was busy preparing the answers to the exercises that I will be doing with the engineering kids at the university next week when I found an email from my former boss asking whether I would be interested in something new and exciting. I would love that, but right now I cannot work full-time programming.. Especially writing programs in something that I don't really have a grip on. Yes, I can always sit down and get my hands dirty, but I am already doing that in a totally different area, for a totally different architecture. Namely I am learning iOS programming lately and I am really enjoying it. Plus I have the Matlab course at the university that I am assisting.. Plus I am organizing a knitting course.. On the top of everything, yesterday someone asked me whether I would be interested in helping in a project between Italians & Turks as an interpreter, which I would definitely evaluate... And today I found some messages from a dear friend of mine in Skype asking whether I would consider helping her & a friend in putting their web site in shape. Sure I would do that, too! Of course we should not forget about my duties as the mother of two little kids, driving them back and forth, cooking, organizing, cleaning, washing... Nowadays I feel like an octopus, yes that is what I am, a multi-processing octopus :-)

I am hungry. I am foolish. iSad...

We woke up to the news of Steve Jobs' death this morning. I felt like I have lost someone from the family. Such a brain, such a character......

❤❤❤❤

I remember the first time I had touched an Apple product. I was studying at the university in Istanbul, in late 80s and we were given programming assignments, each assignment on a different type of computer. After an assignment on the CDC Cyber, and one on an 8086 PC the next assignment was to be done on the original Macintosh. It looked like a little rectangular box, with a small screen on it. We were all so excited about using a Macintosh...

That summer while I was doing my stage at the computer center of a major Turkish newspaper I was lucky enough to work on a Macintosh II. It was the desktop publishing era and we were using Apple specific programs like QuarkXpress. Great graphics, lots of colors, working on the Macintosh was fun.

Some years later when I was in Norway I had met newer Apple Macintosh products through one of my boy friends who loved graphics and music, and used Macintosh computers and their specific software in his projects.

I had always seen Apple computers as nice, sweet toys with their limited software bundle, but never thought that they would be appropriate for me to use them. I loved Unix, later Linux. I didn't even use Windows operating system, it was for people that had no idea about computers, just were users. For me Apple computers were also for users only, not for us computer scientists that new the hardware, and the programming and the 1s and 0s of computers... Until (nearly) 5 years ago when I got my first MacBook Pro. It was love at first sight! The operating system, software, design, capacity... everything was perfect. I can do my work, do creative stuff, anything I want. Right now I am writing this post on my new MacBook Pro that I got this spring, and there is no way back, it will be Mac forever for me.

Not only Mac, but I own an iPod nano (must be either the 2nd or 3rd generation), iPod touch and an iPad. I love Apple products so much that I am studying iOS programming lately. I would love to write my own apps. Needless to say our kids are Apple product freaks as well ;-)

❤❤❤❤

Steve Jobs left us too early. May he rest in peace.... And we should all "Stay hungry. Stay foolish."

It is wonderful to live in "Chiantishire"

April 25th is Liberation Day in Italy and is a public holiday. This Friday since we were all free from our obligations of work and school we decided to go out and do something different. We went to Panzano in Chianti, a fraction of Greve in Chianti, on the scenic road from Florence to Siena. It was the day of Festa Della Stagion Bona, the beginning of the "good season" with a procession in historical costumes of the Renaissance, a medieval play and plenty of stands with ready-cooked food. The weather was beautiful. We drove slowly on the road enjoying the magnificent green of Chianti stained by the blue/violet of the irises (one of the most beautiful examples can be seen in the middle of the second collection of photos below) and the red of the poppies, and the soothing music of Loreena McKennitt on our stereo.


In Panzano all the houses were ornamented with red and white flags on their windows, some with stripes, some with Florentine fleurs-de-lis. The narrow streets were full of people waiting for the procession. There were stands of the local artisans and many tables and benches placed in front of the food stands. The main road of the village was going slightly uphill and ending at the Church of Santa Maria (Santa Maria Assunta) (in the picture below). Before the procession the medieval play took place in front of this church and was broadcast through the loudspeakers placed in different places of the village (it was quite loud, actually). Then the procession of people in historical dresses followed by a band started in front of the church, went down to the village piazza and then up the road again to the church. We watched the show that took not more than 15-20 minutes, and after eating some panini and taking some photos, went back to our car.


On the way back to our house we decided to discover where the lake of Castel Ruggero was. It turned out that right behind our house we have an undiscovered (for us, at least) jewel. Walking between the trees you come down to a nice little lake. If we were alone, only me and my husband, we could easily walk down there from our house and pass several hours by the clear water just lying down and reading, or only dreaming...
Today we went for a long walk with our little ones. We went all the way through the forest, then the open fields down to the narrow road that leads to the lake, but had to turn back. Maybe another time we can go until the lake, too....

Can't foresee tomorrow from yesterday

It has been over a month that I had last written something here. When I wanted to visit my blog today, I had to type all the address in the address bar of Firefox since it was so long ago I visited my own page the last time that the address didn't remain in the recently visited sites list..

Everything is fine here. I have been on a business trip to a country that under normal circumstances I wouldn't travel to. It was a change. If it hadn't been for the blister on my foot I would have enjoyed it more ;-)

The weather got crazy in Florence. It is raining extremely much mostly during the night and there is sun during the day... Usually, that is. Otherwise it is dark and cloudy all the day like today.. I don't like this weather. It makes me gloomy.. Sometimes I cannot believe that I survived 10 years in Bergen, where rain was the default background of our days for months...

I got back in touch with many people from the past thanks to Facebook these last weeks. It is so strange.. There is one that I had no contact for nearly 30 years.. And now we are writing to each other as if it was only yesterday our roads have separated. There is so much to write about, so much to catch up. I don't even know why we never met again. We were living in the same city for 10 years before I left the country, but none of us made an effort to find the other one. Not that I didn't wonder what that person was doing all these years, I did. But never did anything significant to find its location. Now, reading all the mails that I receive, I find someone that I would have enjoyed to have by my side as a friend... Anyway, it is never too late. I was complaining that I cannot make new friends any more and all of a sudden I found one in a place where I didn't expect to find it.

I am happy

- I love my new job! :-) Not only because I can do it from home via internet/phone, but also because I have to learn new things all the time, keep my brain working, never be far away from research and my favorite topic high performance computing. I just want to learn more about our products and begin contributing more. I couldn't be happier in another job.

- Otherwise, spring is nearly here. We have more and more daisies in our garden everyday.

- Soon I should buy some new clothes for my daughter since she has grown a lot during the winter.

- Today it is Fathers' Day in Italy. Yesterday Iris and I bought a present for my husband, something he can use in his new fancy clinic :-) Unfortunately tonight my little son is not with us to celebrate Fathers' Day. Since he is sick, he doesn't go to school and he is at his grandmother's house until Friday. But they gave me his presents for Fathers' Day and Easter that he had prepared himself at school.

- Finally we managed to have a party for Sander at home with some close friends, a lot of food and presents.


- The weather is getting warmer and sunny each day and we began going for a walk in the woods in the weekends.

If you were wondering why...

I didn't manage to write much lately. And I am afraid I won't be writing for some time.

As of 1st of March I've got a job. Until I learn what I am supposed to do and get in the rhythm of working and managing my family life at the same time, I am afraid I will continue neglecting my blog.

Please pray that I find a maid soon, otherwise my house will suffer....

In the meantime, Sander celebrated his 2nd birthday on 28th of February at school with his friends. We will celebrate it again with grandparents and a couple of friends next Sunday at home.

Iris got her first evaluation card ever in her school life and she made us proud. She had excellent in all the subjects and her teacher has written in the comments area that she has special talent for mathematics. You can guess how happy and proud I was on reading this :-) I hope she continues like this all through her school life.

Last week..

Thursday it was Valentine's Day and our daughter made us the following pictures :-)

This week..

I am back from a week's vacation at La Villa, Bolzano. We had a wonderful week with sunny days, snowy mountains, good food and lots of relaxation.

I am reading The man who counted by Malba Tahan. Malba Tahan is the pseudo name used by the Brazilian mathematician and author Julio César de Mello e Souza. It is a collection of mathematical problems, puzzles and curiosities embedded in tales. I strongly recommend it to all lovers of mathematics and non, the ones who enjoy solving logical puzzles and stuff like sudoku. You can find more about the book in another blog post here. I intend to read other books of the same author afterwards and I would love to make my daughter read this book in a year or two.

I have to tidy my house and do a lot of ironing.

I noticed that spring is coming. The supermarket shelves are more colorful now with the first strawberries (God knows where they are imported from), and there are already the big bags of charcoal for the weekend BBQ. The first signs of spring for me, however, have always been the daisies in our garden and they are there since a couple of weeks now.

I am very excited about the job offer that I got, but I cannot fully believe it until I sign the contract :-)

Nothing new here....

- Last week it was my birthday. In fact, I had written my last post on my birthday. We celebrated it one day before though. The photo above is the photo of my birthday cake this year. Am I childish? Yes! Am I ashamed of it? Absolutely not.. If we lose the childishness in us and take everything seriously, what is left there to enjoy?? I love celebrating my birthdays with cakes and presents. Not only mine, also those of the others as well..
- Not much is happening here lately. Me and my husband are busy trying to finish my husband's new clinic, cleaning, mounting furniture etc. We will be working on it also this weekend.
- Next weekend there is a carnival party arranged by the kids' school. I need to find some costumes for me, my husband and the little one. My daughter already has a beautiful dress (he dress of one of Walt Disney figures,- I don't remember which one!- I bought the dress last year after the carnival period during the sales ;-) )
- I am fed up with people that are reading strange meanings in to my words. Hey, I am a person who says things straight out! If I wanted to say something mean, I wouldn't hide it in nicer words, I would say it out to your face. I don't understand why you are picking on my sentences... uffff... Some people have nothing to do, I guess... Or they are reading their minds in to other people's words. Whatever...

In between....

Just a short note to tell those who wonder about me: I am back from Canada, everything is fine, kids are back to school (well, Sander is sick and at home today), husband is working hard as usual, and I am putting the house in order after the vacations. I began writing about our vacation in Canada but it takes time to finish it. I will post as soon as I can.

Hope all of you had some relaxing days during the holidays.

Bye for now!

To give or not to give... a gift

When I was little, I remember that every year around new year, the national day of teachers and mothers' day the parents' representative of our class was gathering money from our parents to buy gifts to our teacher(s). I remember how irritated our parents were every time they were asked for money. Since we are two sisters, of course, my parents had to pay twice for each occasion. I thought this was something done only in Turkey. God, how wrong I was.. When our daughter began attending daycare, I learned that the same tradition existed also here in Italy. The amount that was asked increased when we changed schools and my daughter began the kindergarten. This year she is in elementary school and we pay even more! I wonder where this thing will lead us to... And you should hear about the presents the parents' representative has got for two of the teachers (thank God that she bought gifts only for two teachers and not all the others). This year the primary teacher is getting a Gucci foulard, and her assistant will get a Gucci silver bracelet. I have never bought any Gucci stuff for myself... Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Gucci, or Prada, or all the other designer stuff. The thing that disturbs me is the extravagance in the gifts. What happened to the good old modesty?

Oh, my son is in daycare by the way, and we never had a parents-teachers meeting for his class, so we do not have a class representative there. Yet, someone has taken the initiative (as always is the case) and has sent out notes to us parents, asking for money to buy gifts for the teachers :-) We have already left the asked amount at the school's secretary since we have no idea who the initiative taker is, and what kind of presents she has in mind....

Do you buy gifts to the teachers of your child? Do you think it is necessary? For me, they are doing their jobs, and are getting paid for that (in our case, getting well paid I presume, since it is a little private school). I do not see why I am forced (not literally, but, hey, the pressure is there; if every other parent has paid, you are also expected to pay) to give/contribute to a present if I really don't feel like it....

Xmas objects everywhere in the living-room

We are ready for Xmas in our house. Last Saturday, December 8th, Iris and I decorated our tree as we do every year exactly on December 8th. It is a holiday here in Italy and it seems to be the right day to begin decorating the house and mounting the tree. I said 'mounting' the tree because some years ago we decided to be environment-friendly and bought a plastic tree which looks quite good in fact. Of course the smell and the real green of a little pine tree is more beautiful but it is a pity to throw it away after the holidays are over. We have tried to plant our trees after the holidays in the past, but none of them survived, so we gave up.

In addition to the tree we have other objects that we take out only at Xmas time. This is our electrical '7-candles light' that we have bought in Norway in 1998. I saw on hedikliev that the same light exists also in Sweden. In Norway they usually place this light in their windows and that was what we used to do in our other house. Unfortunately, in this house we don't have a proper place in the windows so we place it over one of the furniture in our living room.



Over the fireplace and on our coffee table we place different candle holders. The Santa-figured candle holder was a gift from our gasoline station a few years ago. The Santa-hat on the coffee table belongs to Iris.



The candle holder on the left is one of my favorites. It was a gift from a friend of ours some years ago. The snow ball shaped tea-light holder is from Norway, we bought it in 1998. The other tea-light holder below is Swedish and it was a gift from a friend who visited us in 2003. I love these Scandinavian design objects.

As is the tradition Iris has written her wish-list for Santa and placed it over the fireplace. She began writing it in early October and every week one or two new things are added to the list :-) This year she wants objects of Winx Club, different games of Winx, computer of Winx etc. There is a Winx mania in Italy among little girls, and of course, my little one is also a part of it :-) There are some electronic toys, dolls and few innocent stuff like colored pens, a new pencil holder on the list as well. My favorite on the list is: computer come quello della mamma, a computer like my mother's :-) Eh, I know that also the father would love to get a computer like mine (a MacBook Pro), but my little one, I guess you should wait some more years before you can get that wish granted ;-)



Iris likes Xmas and Xmas decorations a lot. She also likes making drawings of the Xmas tree. For now, we have only two drawings in the living room: one over the fireplace and one on the Xmas tree itself :-)



The decorations on our tree increase every year with the edition of new pieces. The two pieces in the photos above were Xmas presents from one of my husband's assistants a couple of years ago.



These two were products of the tiny hands of my Iris. The first one she made in kindergarten, the second one even before, when she was still in daycare.

I think that this is one of the most beautiful decorations we have. It was a gift from my Norwegian professor Trond. He sent it with his Xmas card in 2004, saying that the minute he saw it he thought about Iris :-) The little girl sitting under the tree with black braided hair does look quite much like Iris :-)








These five figures above are my traditional Norwegian Santa Claus, 'nisse' (click the link and read the story of nisse in Wikipedia, really nice), that protect our tree :-) I bought them in 2003 in Bergen at the Christmas Shop, Julehuset, an all-year open traditional Xmas decorations shop, along with some other decorations. One of them was broken, but I didn't have the heart to throw it away, so it has been glued (as can be seen in the photo).

The last important Xmas item in our living-room is the tree mat. When we bought this plastic tree I also looked for a nice tree mat to put under it, but didn't like the items in the market. Hence, I went to a shop that sold beautiful cloths with traditional Xmas figures and bought two different textiles and made my own tree mat using one textile as the border and one as the center piece. I even used an old bed sheet as lining under the mat ;-) I am very happy with the result.

Magical days...

- It is that time of the year again.... We have to be creative! Creative in gift ideas, creative in decorating the tree, creative in finding the right food to prepare... I have a love-and-hate relationship with Christmas. I love to see all the streets with beautiful lights, the shops full of red and green stuff, people walking hastily from shop to shop trying to find that special gift for a loved one.. But I hate that I should sit and be 'creative' again in finding the right gifts for everybody. Tell me, what shall I buy for my in-laws??? What can you buy for people that have everything and that really don't have a special need or a hobby?? My father-in-law likes hunting, cooking and gardening.. Some instruments for gardening: bought, cooking utensils and books: bought, special clothes for hunting: bought already. What is left there to buy? My mother-in-law does not have any hobbies at all, also due to some problems she has she cannot knit or do other handcrafts either. She doesn't cook, it is the father who usually does the cooking. She has only her gym hours, that's all. We have bought things for a nice and comfortable bath, pullovers, candle holders, electronic photo frame (I know, not personal enough the last two). And this year?? I am really out of ideas. Oh, I shouldn't forget that I have also a brother-in-law and his wife to think about... nightmare.... What do you buy for people that you see less than five times a year??

It is very easy to choose for the kids, on the other hand. My daughter has already written her letter to Santa Claus with a loooong list of toys&co. that she would like to receive. My son is too little to even think about gifts but he is crazy for toy cars, so that is easy...

When it comes to my mother, sister and other close relatives from 'my side', I have already found the right gifts, packed them and placed them in my mother's luggage to be taken to Istanbul.

- My daughter told me a few days ago that some kids in her class don't believe in Santa Claus. They have told her that it is the parents that buy all those gifts for their children. She asked me: "But is there really a Santa Claus?". I asked back: "Do you believe in him?". She said: "Yes". "Then Santa Claus really exists", I said. "But then why do those children say that he doesn't exist??". I said: "It must be because they don't believe in magic, but you do, so Santa Claus exists".

- Yesterday morning my daughter lost another tooth. This morning, in the little tooth box that she had put her tooth in and placed under her pillow, she found two 2-euro coins! "It must be because I lost two teeth recently", she said :-) In fact, one of them was from her grandmother and only one was from the little mouse a.k.a. mother ;-) She was so worried that she would lose it on the Christmas night, because what if Santa Claus and the little mouse arrived at the same second and one was afraid of the other and ran away without leaving gifts/money??? :-) Luckily it didn't happen, she was relieved :-)

In sickness and health

- I was sick yesterday. So sick that I didn't even get near my computer, think! :-) On Sunday we went out to see the fresh oil from the little producers around our area. There, around the stands, we ate something prepared over the grill. We think that we got poisoned by the things we ate. I spent the whole night between the bedroom and bathroom. Iris was also sick but she survived by not eating anything and my husband managed to go to work although he wasn't feeling well. Luckily my son and my mother didn't eat from the same thing and they were saved. I spent the whole day yesterday in bed. Today I am feeling fine again.

- I need urgent help. I should buy a present for a friend of ours who is celebrating her 40th birthday this weekend. I think that it should be a personal present, but I am having trouble deciding what could be the best thing to buy. Any ideas???

- I added a new link to the blogs that I follow, take a peek: talk turkey.

Halloween; the chocolate shop

Halloween is over. Iris was so excited about Halloween this year. She wanted a witch's outfit, but was content with only a hat & wig :-) For the first time we bought a pumpkin and carved it to put a candle inside and placed it out in our balcony. We did a trial of the outfit and the pumpkin the day before Halloween.



On 31st when we came home from school, she changed in her black clothes, put her wig and the hat, took the broom in her hand and was ready to knock on the door of our downstairs neighbor. Sander was dressed all in red; was the little devil :-) He cleaned the floor of the neighbor's kitchen with his sister's broom :-)



Yesterday I was in a dream shop for all chocolate lovers: Slitti Café, in Monsummano (Pistoia). You enter the shop and begin breathing in coffee and chocolate. They produce different types of chocolate and offer quality coffee. On the walls there were the clips of newspaper articles in different languages about Slitti products. They are world famous. I couldn't help taking a couple of pictures in the shop.



On their coffee stand there was a bag of very particular coffee beans: the kopi luwak, the most expensive coffee in the world. On the information leaflet it said that kopi luwak is the rarest coffee, which originates from the Sumatra island and is produced in very small quantities. It is nothing but coffee berries eaten and passed through the digestive system of a local animal called luwak. This animal goes during the night into the best coffee plantations and feeds on the sweetest and ripest berries selecting them one by one. The gastric juices that favor its digestion create a fermentation process that is absolutely unique for coffee, thus explaining its totally different and original taste. The beans, once swallowed and then expelled by this small marsupial, are collected from earth in these plantations and then disinfected, the coats containing the beans are broken and beans washed, dried and packed into 20 kg bags. The taste of the coffee from these beans is extremely thick, characterized by a flavor of cacao, aromatic herbs and bitter orange marmalade.

After reading this I took a last look at the bag containing the kopi luwak beans, with a price tag of over 600 Euros a kg. I don't think I will be able to taste that coffee, even if it is offered for free....

Traveling again..

We are going to Canada! Me and my husband, alone again, in Canada, meeting our friends and my sister. We always wanted to go there one day, and last year, right after Christmas, we decided that it was enough doing the same things every year: the family lunch, opening the presents, eating until we die... We decided that next year would be different, that we would travel, alone, far... to Canada. During the year there have been some periods that made me think that we wouldn't make this travel after all. But finally, two days ago, we bought our tickets, so it is for real, we are going. We will leave Florence on 23rd of December and will be back home on 3rd of January. I am so excited. It is rather far, we haven't traveled so far since our honeymoon (which was in Mauritius), and I am afraid it will be cold there. But hey, I managed to live for 10 years in Norway, I should be able to survive a mere 10 days in Canada, no? ;-)

Toronto, get ready, here we come :-P

I am back! (not that I have been gone anywhere, but...)

It has been 4 weeks since my latest post. Well, if you can consider that a post, only two lines where I am sending you to another blog so that you can read something that I had written..

I have been extremely busy these weeks. First of all my little one began going to daycare. He had a period of insertion in the system, where the duration of stay at the school increased day by day and finally since last week he began staying at school from 8:30 in the morning until 16:30, nearly 17:00. He had no problem in going to school, meeting new people, both adults and kids like himself. He is a very independent little boy, just like his sister. No crying when we leave him at school, no crying when he falls while playing... They say that he eats everything (and in abundance) at lunch and snack time. He is a very good boy indeed. He is so sweet that during his first week one of the little girls in his group wanted to 'taste' him, and gave him a big bite on his left cheek! The teachers said that he was left there in awe without knowing what to do. He went around with a round blue mark on his cheek for a week after the incident.

Then, of course, began our sicknesses.. First me, with stomach-aches, sneezes, coughs.. It lasted two weeks. Afterwards it was Sander's turn. Poor him, he had an ear infection, he couldn't go to school for an entire week and had to use antibiotics. Now he seems to be fine.

And last, but not the least, important thing on my agenda was finding a job. I have been searching on the net every single day. I got contacted by two people, who wanted to discuss job opportunities with me. One of them was for a job in Ireland, so I just had to forget about it. But the second one is here in Italy, although it is not in Florence, it is close by. Today I had to do a programming test for this position. It works like this. They send you a problem that needs to be solved algorithmically, and coded, run on the data set that they include in their mail. Then, everything that is produced (i.e. the algorithm, the code and the output) needs to be mailed back to them in 3 hours. Well, when you have only 3 hours you cannot do much. Luckily they didn't expect me to find an optimal algorithm for the problem, but just any solution. I only had time to write the code, compile it and get rid of any compilation errors, and then write my assumptions and sketch the algorithm for the solution. I didn't have enough time to debug the code, which, right now, is not finding a solution to the problem, but with a few hours' work would work just fine. I wonder what they wanted to see with this test... Now the ball is in their hands.. I am waiting for their next step.

I will try to write again here every now and then. By the way, I have already begun writing the rest of our vacation in France, but didn't get the chance to finish it yet.

The Austrian experience

Finally the vacations are over. I was bored of filling and emptying luggage, doing the laundry and ironing.. :-P
The last leg of our summer vacation was the best. Me and Gabriele had a great time in Austria. Our hotel was in the state of Carinthia, more specifically at Katschberg, in Spittal. It is a little mountain village with a few hotels specialized in summer and winter vacation packages for families with kids. It is a definite paradise for families really. All the hotels have animation for kids during the day and in the evening, plus special menu at their restaurants, family rooms equipped with kitchen stuff to prepare food for babies etc. There are ski-schools and ski-kindergartens for the winter season as well. We are thinking of returning there one winter with our kids.
In addition to all the kid oriented stuff each hotel has some kind of spa, with swimming pools and whirlpools, different kinds of baths, beauty treatments and massages. The weekly package that we have bought included some massages and treatments, too: hot-chocolate massage, classical upper-body massage, 10 minutes of solarium and half an hour in the hay-bed. We did them all and added some others to the list: hot stone massage, lymph drainage, facial treatment and, the best of all, lomi lomi nui. Lomi lomi nui was a great experience that lasted 1,5 hours with Hawaiian music in the background, relaxing smell of the massage oil and the able hands of the masseur. I would definitely recommend it to people that want absolute relaxation.
Apart from spending a lot of time in the swimming pool and the spa (I miss the hammam and sauna, and lying down on the rocking beds in the silent relaxation areas, sipping my green tea and reading a stupid magazine) we went for long walks every day either at Katschberg, on the hills, or nearby locations. It was extremely green everywhere we went. The forests were full of all kinds of berries. I have no idea how much I ate everyday during our walks. I just couldn't help myself from stopping to get nearly each and every berry around the walking tracks.

One day we went to St.Michael, down the ski tracks of Katschberg, a little village with its typical wooden houses all covered with colorful flowers hanging down the balconies. The park in the photo below was in St. Michael.
On a rainy day we went to Spittal, just for an hour or so. On our way to Spittal we stopped at Gmünd to visit a private museum: Porsche Automuseum of Helmut Pfeifhofer. Did you know that although Porsche GmbH was founded in Stuttgart in 1931 it was building cars in Gmünd during the 2° World War and moved back to Stuttgart later in the early 1950s?

We even tried something new in Austria, for the very first time in our lives: golf. There was one hour of free golf lesson at the nearby golf club on our first day and we decided to give it a try. Watch the video below and see how it went for me :-P I did enjoy it, but I should warn you, I couldn't feel my arms that evening. It was tough :-)

It was a wonderful week in Austria. We came to the conclusion that we have to repeat these vacations-for-two whenever we get the chance.. to keep our sanity ;-)

Soon I will write about our 10 days in France. Keep checking this page ;-)