The beginning of the Vienna Adventure :)

So the journey started on 19th of January :) 

I arrived in Vienna in a very sunny day. The temperature was around 15 degrees and couldn't ask for warmer welcome. I got pick-up at the airport by a newie and delivered to my new flat :) I live with two very smily and kind Austrian girls (Ida and Verena). Sharing the apartment with them is so easy. We have so different schedules that we rarely run in the morning to use the bathroom or the kitchen :) 

The partment is realy lovely and biggggggggggg. I couldn't dream for better one 5 minutes away from the main shopping street of Vienna :) Mariahilfferstrasse :) 

Here are some pics of my room:

After taking few minutes to rest I did my first shopping :) hehe needed to buy linners and bathrobe. Having in mind that one of the suitcases stayed with my parent at the airport I was missing lots of my stuff :) Thanks god my parents came during the weekend and brought my stuff + few nice surprises :) like my nargile :)

I managed to get in contact with the other Bulgarian Intern -Yoanna who is working at Raiffeisen.

On the second day I went with my AIESEC buddy (David) to arrange all administrative stuff (local authorities registration, opening bank account, buying mobile sim card,etc). Surprisingly my ID card is not considered official ID document in Austria :) 

Wednesday was my first working day!!! Yeaaaaaaaaah. In the morning i met my predecessor Ale from Romania :) and she took me to the office. A huge open space office at the last floor of the building with nice view of Vienna. I was welcomed by my boss and got introduced to the whole finance department and few other ones and after I everyone went back to the tasks :) Such a working culture. 

The first 3 days were a bit chaotic and slow. I got familiar with the people and culture in the office. 

Small things that were fascinating for me: 

 - we have a very nice canteen with 50% discount for us :) makes my life so much easier now.

 - We have tons of tea and cacao in the office. Well there is not as much free chocolate as thought but yeah it costs resources and resources are much more valuable nowadays. I do not complain as I got a very sweet welcome by the HR team:

WORK! I'm still a little bit confused what I have to do but hope it will get much clearer soon. More about work soon :) 

Few observations during the first week:

1.It turned out that Astrians don't really like speaking in English but if you are insisting enough they speak perfect English. 

2.Food. It is huge. When you ask for schnitzel you get 2 that can fill the whole plate. And everything goes with POMMES (fried potatos). Junk food is almost everywhere and is sold by Turkish or Arabic people. I don't like it to be honest. 

3. Wednesday is the Local AIESEC members meeting. I had very funny introduction by the EB as Igor from Russia :) Am I the only person who didn;t know that.

4. Saturday is the day we meet with other interns (around 25 in total). We usually meet for dinner in a pub called SV where food is half price at saturdays between 6-8 p.m. So cool!!! Well the beer is quite expensive though - 3 euro for a draught-beer. 

5. VIENNA. It is really beautiful city with very preserved architecture representing centuries of history of whole Europe. AIESEC organized a sightseing tour so I had the opportunity to see some interesting places. The Anker's Clock, Hofburg palace, Capucino Church, Abertina Museum, The opera, Stephan's Dom and many others.

6. Transport. Well I have to admit it is fantasticly organized. It takes me 250 meters of walking to go to work by 2 trams and metro. You never wait more than 5-6 minutes. You can breethe normally and you can travel comfortably inside :). Basically you can get almost everywhere by public transport and what is even better there are night buses as well. :) 

7. Astrians respect their free time a lot. My boss (Daniela) treats holidays as holy days and leaving office at 5 p.m. is rather rule than exception. Of course there are days when you have to stay but you get paid overtime. 

8. Sunday is the lazy day. Everything is closed and basically you can either stay home or take a hike. However it is still cold here.

9. Interns. There are mainly interns from Europe: Russia, Ukraine, Germany, Poland, Croatia, France, Bulgaria, Romania, Switzerland and few latinos from Brazil and Colombia. 

10. Parties and socializing will come in the next posts with photos better telling the stories:)

More to come soon :) 

Openning new page :)

It has been quite a long time since my last post and I feel that it is time to start doing it again. 

Probably because since June 2008 I had more time to meet the people I care about in person and there was no need to share here. 

However, three weeks ago I opened a new page in my life and now more than ever I feel sharing and posting here what is happening with me during my internship in Kraft Foods in Vienna :) Being just 8 hours driving away from home and still so far away... 

Exactly 21 days ago I was at home packing my 22 years in 3 suitcases. It was so fast and hectic that I didn't really have the time to sit and think about what i'm stepping into for the next 1.5 years. 

I'll try to capture here all my adventures and learnings about life, people, work and me :) 

Enjoy and feel free to post :) 

Love Revolution

Nope i haven't freaked out or something. This is the name of the new album of Lenny Kravitz who did an amazing concert yesterday in Sofia as part of his World Tour called "Get on the bus with Love Revolution tour".

I guess.... I was there too:) Here are few shots before i go on sharing:

Mostly you would hear Lenny saying "Thank You", "Peace", "Love", "You are very inspirational audience -Thank you again". He was giving 100% for sure: jumping all over the stage, going down to the audience and spending 10 minutes as close as my laptop is to me right now :). (guess yourself). 15,000 people screaming and clapping. I was inspired too. People adore him and they didn't know much of his songs' lyrics. The feeling is great. So much energy is going around that you cannot be passive. Your body is shaking in the rythm of the bass sound (sometimes that was all i could hear), your hands are rising and start clapping, you have smile on the face. Why??? How being famous and successful rockstar changes your charisma and everyone follows you? 15,000 people that you see once and will never see again. Interesting, isn't it? Add the music and you will reach the answer yourself. It is all about talent and good sound.

Anyway, it was incredible feeling. I felt it when i was on Rhianna's concert in Sofia in November but now was massive and stronger.

Updates on my life: I enjoy being who I am and getting a bit better every day :) Re-discovering what I missed recently: things i enjoyed doing in the past which i had not time to do last 2 years:)

March 3rd 2008

It must be a special day for every Bulgarian. Exactly 130 years ago my country got liberated.

I don;t really know if it is related to that but today i'm full of energy, ideas and desire to do stuff. (compared to the last three days while i was stuck sick in bed).

I feel very balanced with myself after some discoveries yesterday night. It's so much better when there are no assumptions and you have all needed answers. I'm a new person. You'd better like this one because I do :)

A strange contradiction is the fact that i feel much more healthy after being sick. My body feels better maybe i needed that system cleaning.

I so much want to see my team tomorrow and have random sharing in the dirty office.

Russia :) i want to meet you again very soon :) and i hope your embassy guys will let me do it :)

I.D.

Bang Bang Lulu

Bang Bang Lulu, my Lulu's gone away,
now who's gonna bang bang, my Lulu's gone away

Lulu had two boyfriends, both of them were rich
One was son of a baker, the other was son of a ...

Bang Bang Lulu, my Lulu's gone away,
now who's gonna bang bang, my Lulu's gone away

Lulu had a boyrfriend, drove a garbage track,
never collected no garbage, cause alll he did was ...

Bang Bang Lulu, my Lulu's gone away,
now who's gonna bang bang, my Lulu's gone away

My Lulu had a boyfriend , His name was Tommy Tucker
She took him to an alley to see if he could ...

Bang Bang Lulu, my Lulu's gone away,
now who's gonna bang bang, my Lulu's gone away

My Lulu had a cycle and its seat was very blunt,
Everytime she sat on it - it wen tright up her ...

Bang Bang Lulu, my Lulu's gone away,
now who's gonna bang bang, my Lulu's gone away

My Lulu had a sweater and it had many slits
Everytime she wore it you could see her ....

Bang Bang Lulu, my Lulu's gone away,
now who's gonna bang bang, my Lulu's gone away

Another lesson

I'm fine. I feel empty and unfortunatelly I'm sick. I'm sad i didn't get what i felt ready for. I was so ready, i so much wanted it. So many different emotions. I don;t know when i will be ready to let go. I just know that i have to move on. I have to find another adventure, another experience. I'm not ready to leave AIESEC when i have so much to share, give back and create. What to do next??? I don't want to "fail" again.

CONFIDENCE - is it based on educated decision or one mistake that costs shame and disappointment. I learned so much about myself and how others perceive me. I enjoyed being part of the AI Director candidates experience. I got to know so amazing individuals.

RELATIONSHIPS - i'm really bad in them, especially when my feelings and emotions take over my clear mind. I don;t regret anything i've done although i'm a bit sorry it didn;t work out. I was sad but its time to move on - maybe it was not meant to happen. Or maybe i'm having too high standards for girls.

Republic of Macedonia - Country number 15. A very cultural experience with insights on Bulgarian History. OHRID - really beautiful.

It's time to take the pills and antibiotics. I miss you...

Trip to Romania - 24 things we were not allowed to

24 things we were not allowed to do in RoMania!

To:
1. exchange Bulgarian lev - its not covertable!!!
2. take pictures with the Jandarmeria in front of House of People!
3. enter house of people (Only on Sunday)
4. drink on the bench - in the downtown
5. go to restaurant and not eat
6. go to pizza place and not eat pizza
7. go for a beer in any pub8. take money from ATM
9. sleep in hotel in 3-bed rooms
10. go to tourist information althought it was on the map
11. go to Church in Brasov ( Because it was Sunday)
12. eat in the kitchen after 9 p.m.
13. take pictures in Carrefour
14. eat duner in Carrefour
15. connect to Internet in McDonalds
16. go to girl's toilet - (other side please)
17. connect to internet for more than 10 mins
18. see the view of the town
19. open the bathrom door
20. collect the money from the well
21. go to the narrowest street
22. answer people's questions on the streets
23. buy postcards for MC
24. use electricity in the train

6 months

Its starnge to be exactly in the middle of something. You have exaclty six months left to do the things you want and exactly six months left to start something new. That's what my complex mind is mediating upon in the last week.
For now i just know that what i'm doing is making me really happy of who i am and what the future can be. I've decided already that my next year will be out of what i call home for now and i need to make sure i'm ready for it.
What's new around me since my last post here:
- 135 more individuals to inspire, lead and enable develop their leadership potential - isn;t it incrediblly what AIESEC make you feel at this early age
- another beautiful conference that proved me i was right regarding changes in the conference cycle. AChieve Today brought a lot of benefits for us. MC guys we rock :)
- I went to school for a first time this semester and didn;t see much value of doing more often.
- I'm having more talks with my friends on the globe - even something special for me is starting on there.
- Finance, Finance, Finance - i sometimes feel freaking freaky of my finance obsession :)

I discovered soon that i like more and more the people I'm working and its really inspirational. But i hope i will discover even more on the team days we are having in 3 hours - 2 amazing days I hope.
Besides that i will continue exploring Bulgaria and visit another town i have never been to. People say its beautiful.

Pictures and news in the next post.

I feel strange - i think i'm about to mix love with real friendship and i still cannot hold this person close to me. I'm simply not capable yet.

Let's see what Christmas will bring.