Visit from Cologne
Last weekend my sister was here for a (too short) visit. On Saturday we went out for dinner at our favorite steak house in Eckernfoerde, and afterwards to a cocktail bar.
On Sunday we went to the sauna wellness park in Kaltenkirchen (story follows!) and on Monday we went out to one of the best restaurants in Schleswig-Holstein. A very old traditional restaurant in Oeversee near Flensburg, called “Historischer Krug”.
All photos (also from the awesome food, of course *g*), except from the sauna ;o) are in my online photo gallery. Actually I planned to empty some of my wine bottles with my sister, because I cannot take them all with me to the States…but there was almost no time, so we only had two glasses of wine and after that we fell asleep *g*.
I still have 3 Australian wines, 2 Croatian white wines, 1 from Maine (blueberry wine), 1 Prosecco wine, 1 sparkling wine, lots of beer and vodka. When should I drink that all? Come to visit me and we’ll have a party ;o)
Unfortunately I accidentally deleted the rest of this blog post where I described the very mysterious visit of the famous sauna world in Kaltenkirchen (near Hamburg). What a pity that I spent at least an hour to write about it and now it’s gone 
Well, you’re lucky that you don’t need to read much now. But it was a funny story. You would have liked it, I’m sure 
If I really feel like typing it again, I will post it in the next days, but I guess, I don’t.
Tomorrow and Saturday I will work at IKEA in Kiel. I will bake Christmas cookies for and with children. I hope it’ll be a nice time. I work together with another girl in a Swedish dress. I’m curious how we’ll look and what recipes they will give us. I try to take pictures for you ;o)
Finally after sitting two days in a totally cold house, because the oil in the tanks was empty, my nose, hands, feet and body becomes warmer now…and I can stop drinking hot chocolates and can take off my layers of warm pullovers and my three pairs of socks.
Nov 30, 2006 • A-life & English & Germany & Visuelles •••• 0 comments »Search track of my visitors
It is always interesting how people find my blog.
Here is a little statistic list about the keywords that people type in search engines and the pages where they land on my blog. There are some funny and also some strange ones
#lonelyheartsclub berlin [hihi, the two people who looked for the lonely hearts club landed on my blog]
#date in a box care package [what may this be??]
#mare schönkirchen (search engine: google.com) [my blog was the first search result! too bad for the fitness gym]
#halloween partys pics (6 times) [:)]
#karten card boat trp in austria (2 times) [???]
#gorillasushi (landed in my category: boyt (best of youtube))
#guys under 18 (landed on my entry: “steve was here and the party was hot and brutal”) [hey, I didn't write about guys under 18, so no idea how the search engine connected that]
#muff hollandrad [weird!]
#i slipped on the stairs 3 days ago now i have a clicking in my arm and feel sick why (search engine: uk.ask.com) (landing page: http://planetcola.com/category/random-thoughts/) [how FUNNY!!!]
#arachnid-plant-cake (search engine: google.com) (landed on my entry: http://planetcola.com/2006/09/18/arachnid-plant-cake-mix/) [that's very weird...]
#how to play spiel 77 (search engine: google.de)
#byron bay australia (search engine: search.msn.com) (landing page: http://planetcola.com/tag/australia) [Yeah, Byron Bay, my love!!]
#veteran’s day partys (search engine: search.msn.com) (landing page: http://planetcola.com/category/holidays-events/)
#weather/how do we get snow/where does it come from (landing page: http://planetcola.com/category/german-news/) [funny that people type this into a search engine!]
#studentenparty (landing page: category: holidays/events)
There is more to come. I’ll post more statistics in the next weeks.
I’m working a lot in the last days and I’m very busy that’s why I’m slow with answering emails and blogging at the moment.
Money money money, must be funny, in a rich man’s world….la la la….(influenced by an ABBA documentation that I saw on TV a few days ago).
Talk soon…hugs and kisses to Cologne, Berlin, Kiel, Hamburg, Santa Fe, Fairfield, Madrid, and wherever you are,
your exhausted planetcola.
Choc Season Mood
Wow, I’m very surprised that I now have the majority (12 people) who voted for English as (my) blog language! I thought that my German friends (if they read my blog at all) will vote more for German. Well…I will leave the voting open until I leave Germany. I do the voting because I want to write about my new life in New Mexico. I thought that my German friends probably would like to read my stories in German. I have no idea who reads my blog, so if you’re not too shy, please say your name in the comments =)
Today I worked in Kiel again. I got the job yesterday night. It wasn’t as boring as last week, it was very…busy! Today the sales for a very very popular party (for Schleswig-Holstein) called “Oldie Night” started and us, a team of three, were answering phone calls and calling people back all about the ticket order; doing it for six hours straight!!! No time for a coffee (ok, I had a half hot cup, the rest always got cold before I had time to drink it) or for a chat with my colleagues. I brought two books and my tax papers, because I thought it is as boring as last week and I have time for it. Nope. It wasn’t. And tomorrow it will be the same and Friday as well. However, some money is coming in the pot, that’s all what counts.
Here is a picture for you to guess what it is (almost a picola-quiz):
Read my to-do list from one of my last posts and you will know what it is ;o) I just say, almost 250 pages.
I couldn’t finish my to-do-list from last week completely so I will do it this week. Tax return, meeting with student loan office, car check, work certificate request, etc. I will change my eBay sales. From now on I will only sell the stuff that is worth the most, so I can set a higher prize and it’s worth it to put it on eBay and pay the eBay fees. All the small things go into boxes and, as Nathan said, will wait here for a yard sale next year (when we come to visit Germany). Sigh.
Damn, all these 
that I bought last Saturday, they already are gone….in my belly…digested…in the underground of this planet. To my defence (?) I must say that I didn’t eat chocolate since weeks!! I promise! But as soon as I think about these ‘weeks’ I cannot think about something else than CHOCOLATE.
Time for a hot chocolate now. Time for bed now. I started to write the post in the early evening. Then my sister called me and now it’s late and I better go to bed. Tomorrow it’s time for call center agent Cola again
Still time for you to vote (see top-left). Please write your name and your preferred (planetcola-) blog language in the comments. Would be very very very and also very helpful for me.
Nov 20, 2006 • Blog & English & PiColaQUIZ & Visuelles •••• 3 comments »Baking Queen
“Chocolate Nut Cake” of last week:
This was my favorite chocolate cake during school time and it is still very good!
A new try out, the “Old German Apple Pie” (Altdeutscher Apfelkuchen) of this week:
Baking in the oven and done:
The little holes on top are from pricking the top layer with a fork before baking.
In December I will work as a sales promoter at IKEA in Kiel, making Christmas cookies for and maybe also together with the customers (mostly with children I guess, ehm I hope).
I got the job because I’m so experienced with baking. I’m not kidding.
Honestly they asked me how experienced I’m with baking and my answer was that I bake cakes/pies almost every week. I could hear an astonished ‘wow’ and ‘yes, then you’ll get the job’ through the phone line.
What a nice job for the hectic Christmas time! Best job to have I guess. I hope that there are enough cookies in the end of a day that we can take some home ;o) Then I could bring some to the States as well. I work from December 1st until December 23rd (every Friday and Saturday, if someone from Kiel wants to visit me) and I fly out of Germany on December 24th, yippee.
…and again: little reminder!
Nov 17, 2006 • Delicious & English & Visuelles •••• 3 comments »Oh happy eDay
You may wonder about my headline while I had some bad days of trouble in the past, especially with eBay?
Ha, because I never give up (hope) and sometimes the good wins. As it happened today. I checked my emails and unsuspectingly I tried to get an overview of my emails in my messy account, where tons of eBay emails are marked as unread although most of them I’ve already checked in my eBay message account. Still, there was one email that I wasn’t sure, if I know it or not. It has the subject: Re: TL%H00390 Verkäufergebühren bezahlen [#DE ?01 ] (Anmfsi/892420uGFmllsdfjv) (changed) and I, again without suspecting any good news, opened the email and automatically put my face more and more towards my screen as if I couldn’t decipher the following message:
Guten Tag,
vielen Dank fuer Ihre Nachricht. Sie haben uns geschrieben, weil Sie
sich am 12. November 2006 nicht bei eBay einloggen konnten.An diesem Abend war es einem Teil der eBay-Mitglieder nicht moeglich,
sich bei eBay einzuloggen oder auf einzelne Seiten zuzugreifen. Wir
verstehen sehr gut, dass Ihnen dieser Fehler erhebliche
Unannehmlichkeiten bereitet hat und bitten Sie deshalb um
Entschuldigung.Fuer Ihre Angebote, die im Zeitraum von 19:30 bis 21:30 Uhr endeten,
werden wir Ihnen alle Gebuehren (Angebotsgebuehren, Gebuehren fuer
Zusatzoptionen sowie die Verkaufsprovision) innerhalb der naechsten zwei bis drei Wochen gutschreiben.
Sobald wir die Gutschriften verbucht haben, werden wir Sie informieren.Wir entschuldigen uns nochmals fuer die Ihnen entstandenen
Unannehmlichkeiten und bitten um Ihr Verstaendnis.Mit freundlichen Gruessen
(Vorname Nachname)
eBay-Kundenservice
In English:
Hello, thank you for your message. You sent us an email, because you
couldn’t log into eBay on November 12th.
On that evening it wasn’t possible for a few eBay members
to log into eBay or to get access to special sites. We
understand that this mistake caused major trouble for you.
We apologize for that.
In the next two or three weeks we will credit all fees (offer fees, fees for extra options
as well as the selling commission) for your auctions
that ended from 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm.
We will let you know when we entered it as your credit.
Again we apologize for the trouble you had. Thank you for your understanding. (don’t know if this is proper English)
Kind regards,
(name)
eBay customer service
Yay, there is always light in the end of the tunnel.
I checked all auctions that I had online that day. I had 9 articles that ended last Sunday the 12th. Eight articles luckily ended between 7:30 and 9:30 pm that day. (Three ended exactly at 07:30:00 pm!!!) From these 8 articles I only sold 2.
Anyway, I will get at least all fees back (also for extras like pictures, cool) (quick calculation says 12,02 Euro). I know that I could have sold my articles for much more and that I could have sold at least some of the articles that haven’t been sold (because I saw how many people watched it and they always bid in the last minutes what they couldn’t do last Sunday). However, I’m glad about eBay’s message. I know that not everyone who had the same problem as I got this message yet. A lot of people still wait for an answer from eBay.
If you wonder if it was the nice email that I sent eBay, read the rest of this entry…
Blog font display problem
Today is the first time that I see (browse) my blog site with an (old) Internet Exporer 5.5 on a Windows 2000 computer. I’m at work and I sit at a computer, with internet, yay ;o)
The design looks different in its background color. It is very dark dark, instead of dark red and the fine lines in the background are gone. The font sizes look different (bad), too….way too big and I cannot say if it is Arial or Verdana; looks more like Verdana, but it should be Arial. Hmm…I used em to define my fonts in my style.css instead of px. Now I’ve read that em can cause browsers to show a too small or too big font size (e.g. when the user set his/her browser to small or medium font size), but px is not very user friendly because the user cannot adapt the screen font size by [strg] or [ctrl] + “+”/”-”. However, if you can give me a tip, what is recommended or if you have further information about how to declare the font in your css the best, please leave me a comment.
Update I: Another just noticed problem: my About site has empty white space until the end of the (left) sidebar; it starts underneath it…woooaahhhh
Update II: I decided for em style and changed to font verdana, because it was easier with the small font. I don’t know if I’m happy with it, but for now it’s ok. And I changed the background into a nice(r) (web safe) red tone (in my opinion); reminds me of fire stone red or brick red…ready for a warm new mexico red ;o). Anyway, bedtime… .
Cola’s this week’s organizer-to-do-plan-omat
What a day yesterday. I was really upset. I couldn’t log in to the eBay website until 10pm. I found out that eBay.de and eBay.com had the same problems what is extremely discussed in the eBay forums and chats. A lot of eBay members already talked with their lawyer. Today eBay just wrote a ‘sorry about the technical problems, now it is fixed’ message. Some of the emails from the eBay members are answered by eBay, mine (2) not. I don’t expect much from eBay’s side, but well, I wait a few more days and try to calm down ;o).
Thanks for the people who voted yet, it’s:
5 for English
3 for German
3 for half German half English in rotation
until now.
I only know maudchen’s opinion, because she wrote it the comments separately. Thanks again! I don’t know if all my friends voted here or just some blog stalkers. ;o) Would be nice if you guys, who already voted, write it in the comments here as well. Thanks a lot!
Well, since the result until now is not convincing, please vote if you haven’t done it yet. Thanks a lot for this as well.
Ok, now you know what is going on in my tiny life. I have a lot of stuff to organize before I leave. I’m too nervous to keep everything in mind, so I need to write to-do-lists for every week. The last ones don’t count.
This week the following to-do-list lies on my desk:
#Call MLP insurance company (ask if my abroad health insurance contract is still valid, I found out that I didn’t cancel it last year after I came back from Maine (US))#Send three postcards to Nathan (each with the same but different address) to see which one will get there and how long it takes).#Send eBay sold things as packages to buyers.#Pay student fee for upcoming semester.- #Bring my car to the garage and talk to my uncle (who has a garage as well) before.
- #Try to get in contact with Esprit (a shopping company) again; they don’t answer my emails; try to solve their bookkeeping error as soon as possible what means I must pay them back 540 Euro :…( )
- #Finish my tax declaration finally…hopefully this week (shame on me).
#Work on Thursday for a ticket hotline in Kiel.#Meet a friend after work on Thursday (we plan this since June).(explan: friend canceled it)- #Visit my student loan office (Bafoeg-Amt) after work on
Thursdayanother day and discuss their wrong claim about 490 Euro. (explan: person is ill) - #Ask the company in Kiel I’m working for for a certificate/reference (best would be in English).
#Print out my Bachelor-Thesis from 2003 (yeah well, after cleaning up my hard drive I found it and never made a copy for myself, so before I put everything in storage…I want to save it…on real paper 237 pages, *shaking-head*).- #Former students meet in Kiel every year. This year: on this Saturday (party) and Sunday (brunch) and I’m invited because I’m a former MultimediaProGirl, hehe.
#Work on Sunday at concert in Hamburg (advertising).#Transfer my dad the money for the flight that I borrowed from him (his credit card), 763 Euros (sniff).#EDIT (I forgot) #Edit the photos from birthday party of HH-HupPie .)#EDIT Urgent: Send cancellation letter to health insurance company.
Ok, that’s it for this week. I hope I can get everything done.
Nov 13, 2006 • A-life & English •••• 1 comment »Damn Spam and Ebay Junk
Normally I don’t read over my Spam that is being filtered by my Blog’s Anti-Spam tool (that catches comment Spam), but this one is very outrageous (ok every Spam is just not worth to speak about it), but well, read this: “Please, e-mail us at stop(at)forseowork(.)info if you want to remove your blog from our database (it’ll stop messages from us)….” Hahaha!
I changed the email address and please don’t send them anything, of course it is a catch! For those who don’t know: if you send an email to this stupid guys they will probably throw tons of Spam emails back to you. I promise. I hate these people on this planet. Ahhrgghhh!!! Give me something I can throw at all these people out there who really think that their effort is worth anything. It is not, you stupid DNA people (desoxiribonucleinacid) (or in German: DNS=desoxiribonukleinsäure; thanks to my sister!).
I’m in a very dangerous mood right now. Better don’t talk to me today. Not only because of this Spam message, also because Ebay really sucks most of the time. I just want to sell all my stuff before I leave Germany, but most of the time it’s very time-consuming, EXPENSIVE and not working as it should!!
You pay quite a lot of fee on every item you sell. For that you get a very bad website with a bad design (bad usability as well). Also, their website doesn’t work properly, especially on Sundays (common problem). Why on Sundays? Most auctions end on a Sunday and the website has not enough power (let’s say it that way) to handle the amount of visitors. Very bad, guys!
My personal problem with this unreliable eBay service is: when nobody can log in or browse (my) auctions that means: nobody can bid on my auctions!!! This means I sell my stuff for mostly 2 Euro (if nobody bid on it yet) and you know that most of the people bid in the last hour and minutes… Still I have to pay the eBay fee what is at least about 1 or 2 Euro plus a 5% commission fee for items until 50 Euro. Arghhhhh, I hate bad services, yes!!!
I will claim back my fees for this weekends’ auctions, that’s for sure! Don’t accept other companies service failures, (re)ACT!
It’s interesting that a lot of other eBay people feel the same, as I read on the German eBay “Stammtisch” (regulars) site.
Some of the quotes from today 7.18 pm until 7.49 pm:
“bestätigt ihr, dass innerhalb von mein eBay nicht mehr geht? kann keine artikel aufrufen, beaobachte, bieten und verkaufen seite funktionieren nicht.”
“kommt ihr in “mein ebay” ??? ”
“jepp siss..hab das gleich Prob”
“jemand sollte ebay auf schadenersatz in millionenhöhe verklagen und damit durchkommen, damit die mal merken, dass man uns nicht verarschen kann. eine frechheit, was die einem jeden sonntag aufs neue bieten.”
“darum krieg ich die Bankdaten nicht…warte schon seit 2 Stunden”
“toll für alle deren Angebote pünktlich zur besten Sendezeit ablaufen, das gibt wieder jede Menge Schnäppchen”
“nu gehts wieder.. mal sehen wieviel minuten..”
“klappt noch nicht”
“ich schmeiß lieber alles weg als bei ebay was zu verticken, denen gönn ich keinen Cent”
“ich verkaufe hier auch nix”
“die geb ich lieber nem “Penner” am Bahnhof als diesen Scheiß-Monopolisten”
“schaysse, geht wieder nicht”
Ja und so ergeht es mir seit über eine Stunde!!!! I cannot get into “MyEbay”, I cannot log in anything on this f***ing website.
I will think about selling my stuff elsewhere or donate it somewhere (where? If you know good places, I’m glad to know) or just throw it away.
Except for the new and good stuff.
Would be less stress, less wrinkles ;o) and the good feeling that I don’t throw more money at bad (monopolistic) services.
Most important: the earlier I get rid of my stuff, the earlier I can leave for NEW MEXICO :o)
It’s now 9 pm ( 2 hours later) and I still cannot log into my eBay account! Damn it!
Well, you can be happy that I’m not using smileys anymore…&%§)=/(“”;_?ß
Nov 12, 2006 • A-life & Blog & English & Germany •••• 0 comments »Nun ist es an der Zeit Folgendes zu verkünden, nämlich…
…DIE WAHRHEIT
…WAS ICH WIRKLICH DENKE
…WAS ICH PLANE
…WAS ICH BEREITS SEIT EINER LANGEN ZEIT WEISS
…WAS IHR SCHON LANGE WISSEN WOLLT
…WAS ICH STÄNDIG GEFRAGT WERDE
…WAS DIE MEISTEN VON EUCH NICHT WISSEN
…WO ICH SCHNELLER ALS BALD SEIN WERDE
…TSCHÜSS_I_KOWSKI?
OK, ich kann es nicht mehr für mich behalten…
Um es kurz zu machen:
Tschüüüüüss Deutschland – Hallo Santa Fe, New Mexico!
Ich komme!!!!!!!!!!!
Ich habe heute endlich meinen Flug gebucht und es fühlt sich toll an!
Also, um es genau zu sagen, es ist keine Urlaubsreise ;o)
Ich gehe.
Für die Liebe.Für’s Leben.Für Zufriedenheit.Für Weisheit.Für Weitblick.Für die Zukunft von mir und dem wundervollen Herrn Nathan-der-Weise.
Nun habe ich es getan und schreibe auch mal was auf Deutsch. Allerdings warte ich noch auf mehr Stimmen in meiner Umfrage. Also bitte, abstimmen liebe Freunde und (versteckte) Leser der planetcola! Danke!!
Nov 11, 2006 • Deutsch & USA •••• 2 comments »Now it’s time to say…
…THE TRUTH
…WHAT I REALLY THINK
…WHAT I PLAN
…WHAT I ALREADY KNOW FOR A LONG TIME
…WHAT YOU WANT TO KNOW
…WHAT YOU ASK ME ALL THE TIME
…WHAT MOST OF YOU DON’T KNOW
…WHERE I WILL BE SOONER THAN SOON
…GOOD BYE?
I cannot keep it by myself anymore….
To make it short:
Good byyyyeeee Germany – Hello Santa Fe, New Mexico!
I’m coming!!!!!!!!!!!
Finally I booked my flight today. That feels so good!
I can just say, it is not for a holiday trip ;o)
I’m leaving.
For Love.For Life.For Happiness.For Experience.For Wisdom.For Vision.For The Future Of Me Myself and I And Mr Wonderful Nathan-der-Weise.
• English & USA •••• 5 comments »