President Musharraf in Oxford

Today I went to my first event at the famous debating club "the Oxford Union".

After meeting with President Bush of the USA and Prime Minister Blair of Great Britain, President Musharraf of Pakistan ended his journey in Oxford speaking to students.
Isn't this amazing?! This guy comes to Oxford to speak to students after just having met with two of the most powerful men in the world. Seems like Oxford's reputation works well.

The speech was on how Pakistan plans to tackle the challenges it faces in the 21st century. Except for the fact that Musharraf's english wasn't really good, it was interesting to listen to what he had to say.
Afterwards, we had the opportunity to adress questions to President Musharraf. To be honest, some of the questions that were asked were actually pretty random and stupid.
Nevertheless, I guess there are only a hand full of places in the world, in which the president of a country faces up to students' questions.

And just to give you (the readers of my blog) an idea of the quality of speakers: Bill Clinton was here to talk to students two days ago, Steve Wozniak (co-founder of Apple Computers) is coming to speak to my MBA class on October 23rd, Kevin Sharer (CEO of Amgen, the world's largest pharma company) will talk to my MBA class on Monday next week, etc.

Amazing, isn't it?!

Tonight I have a get together with graduate students from my college. So, let's see if my college is as diverse as my MBA class. I'm really excited to meet people from other fields of study.

1st MBA soccer match

Today we had our first MBA soccer match. It was a lot of fun...

We don't have any really good soccer players, but we made upfor that by playing rough :-)
I think not a single player got off the field without bruises or scratches. I guess that's because MBAs are really competitive people. Especially Andy (a huge rugby player from Australia) and I had some pretty good fights.
I ended up with a split toe nail and some scratches on my chin.

Looks like we will have to practice some more for the MBA Olympics (sports competition of all major business schools in Europe) next year. We also plan to set up a game against the guys from the Master in Financial Economics program (MFE) at our business school. But I don't think they are going to be much of a challenge, as the MFE is a pretty quantitative finance course and the MFE guys are more the nerdy types :-)

 

Meeting the class

Yesterday night I met part of my MBA class at the "Head of the River". What a wonderful class...so many interesting people...I think we'll have a lot of fun.

Here are some of my class members:






















After having dinner and a couple of drinks, Daniel, the two Andys and myself went to a club called "Park End". What a wild party...















We ended the night (or should I say started the morning?!) with a Kebab from one of the many Kebab vans, but...the it wasn't nearly as good as the average Kebab in Germany.

Singin' in the Rain!!!

What a surprise...it's raining

  

Moving to the UK

I'm finally in the UK.

Today Daniel, the 2 Andys and myself drove all the way from Germany to Oxford. Fortunately everything went according to plan.
From the ferry "Pride of Kent" I was able to see the beautiful English coast - at night :)

I had to drive from Dover to Oxford. First it was really weird to drive on the "wrong side of the road", but as long as there were cars on the street it was not much of a problem. It was harder to drive when there was no other car around...

We arrived in Oxford somewhere around 2 o'clock in the morning. First we dropped off Daniel & his friend at Green College. The porter of Green college was a really strange guy. When I asked him where Wadham college (my college) is, he just answered that he didn't know that college - very funny *haha*. In the end he sent us off to South Parks Road, but there was no Wadham college, so I asked the porter of another college. He said that he didn't know there was a college called Wadham - awww come on...I hate the British humor already. When I turned around he said "I have the funny feeling that it might be on Parks Road!". Luckily this time we were told the truth.

Finally Andy and I made it to Wadham College at 3:30 in the morning. I got my room keys and we started unpacking the van. Unfortunately my room was at the opposite side of the entrance of the college...but that wasn't all: the English weather greeted us with a little bit of rain ("little" meaning it rained cats and dogs, as they say over here). And it was even getting worse! When Andy and I had carried al of my stuff to my block, the pin code door lock didn't work, because someone had locked it from the inside. So the porter and I looked for another way to get into my block. What an adventure...I got a full tour of the college in my first night, including the firestairs. By the time we had all the stuff in my room it was 5:30 in the morning and we didn't have anything to drink any more. The porter was really nice and gave us 2 cups, tea and a glass of milk...so Andy and I had our first real British tea.
 

Later on we got up to explore the city. And guess what?! It was raining again...what a surprise!
What an overwhelming feeling...I still can't believe I'm actually going to study in this place.

Anyways, I'm really excited, because I'm gonna meet some of my fellow MBA students tonight at the "Head of the river". 

Countdown T minus 1

It's finally there. My last day in Germany. Tomorrow, Andy (my best friend), Daniel (fellow MBA student) and Andy (Daniel's best friend - looks like Andys make pretty good friends) will leave for Oxford. The plan is to rent a van in Aschaffenburg, pack all of my & Andy's stuff in the van (again...seems like it never stops), drive to Bonn, pick up Daniel and Andy No.2, pack all of their stuff in the van, and drive to Calais (via Belgium). From there we want to take the ferry to the "island of shock & horror" (to Dover to be accurate) - and then? Welcome to driving on the wrong side of the road! Next stop: Oxford!
That's the plan at least!

I just said Good Bye to my grandparents, my cousins and my good friend Bjoern. Tomorrow I will have to say Good Bye again - to my uncle, my aunt and my parents.
Saying Good Bye sucks!!! It's strange...but I'll be back for christmas, so it's alright.

Mourning for my "baby"

I can't believe I just sold my baby!!!
It was my first baby. I invested so much love, time, and money in my baby...and now I sold it. I'm such a bad dad!

My beautiful car...my red BMW...I sacrificed it on the altar of MBA tuition.
Where will it end up? I don't even wanna think about it - the guy who bought it told me that he sells cars to Russia, Africa and all kinds of other places...shock & horror!












Baby, you will always be in my heart and in my thoughts...I will never forget you...my beautiful first car *weep*

Good Bye Erlangen

I moved to Erlangen almost exactly 2 years ago...packed all my belongings in a van and brought it all the way from Muelheim.
And now - same all over again, but in the opposite direction.
Packing all my stuff in a van, bringing it to my home town Moembris, storing it, driving back to Erlangen, renovating my appartement (I hate painting walls!!! GGGrrrrr!) and leaving Erlangen for the time being.
Luckily the handing over of my appartement to the landlord worked out alright...I got all of my deposit back $$$$$ :o)

Looking back I had an OK-time in Erlangen. I mean, it's a beautiful small city, but like I said...it's a small city - not much going on. Nevertheless, I will keep the good memories (for the insiders: especially the Bergkirchweih, my fraternity and the Halloween party at Torben's appartment).

Good Bye Erlangen! I'm off to Oxford!

Siemens Judgement Day

WOW!
Yesterday was my last day as a Siemens employee & I definitely left with a big bang!
Astrid (one of my colleagues) and I had a little party prepared to celebrate this day with the project team.
It was wonderful, I had a great time! A lot of colleagues came, even my former bosses dropped in. Everybody was really nice and wished me the best for my MBA.
Apart from some snacks, we also had a couple of bottles of wine and champagne. Finally, there were only 7 of us left in the meeting room enjoying the last bottle of red wine and talking about the past and the future (all kinds of sentimental stuff, you know...).
After cleaning up the meeting room, I passed the gate one last time and handed over my Siemens ID to the security personnel...what a moment...I almost shed some tears :-(

Well, looks like that chapter in my book has been closed for the time being!