I have a job !-!-!

I found a job !-!-! I found a job !-!-! Its been over three years since I last worked at Motorola. I went to Europe hoping to get some international exposure and get a job. We'll ... I got both, but ironically the job set me back to the US !

I work for a company called zanox ... they are in the online marketing business. Its rather high tech, surprisingly interesting and hard to explain : )

I was in the US for about two weeks by the time I had my first guest … Sarah from Valencia, Spain. I had been so busy with my new job that I hadn’t had any time to explore the city or my neighborhood … it was nice to have a chance to finally step away and show Sarah around. A few days later zanox packed up the things in the Chicago office to attend a convention in NYC. I volunteered to drive a rented SUV there to carry booth etc. I left a couple days early so I could visit the parents in Boston and pick up some things I dropped off at their house a few years back.

The convention was good but tiring. On the second day, coincidently, Ingrid had an overnight layover in NYC … on her way from Denmark to Colombia. She came in late at night, we ate some sushi in Manhattan and early the following morning she made her way to Colombia as I drove to Chicago.

Here is the month of February in pictures.

• Super Bowl with CEO Heiko and co-worker Helen.
• Baby Pooh at zanox, 21 floors high, with a window washer hanging by a string outside
• Me in a bluelight
• A German, Peruvian, Spaniard and American in an Irish bar in NYC speaking German
• zanox booth at adTech NYC
• Ingrid and all her suitcases in NYC with an overnight layover
• AskJeeves in carbonite
• Cousin-in-law Christina, Sarah from Spain and Brian from Motorola
• Erica and Nick at Old Town Tavern

Skiing the Alps in Innsbruck, Austria

I hadn’t even unpacked from my London trip when several of my friends and my friends friends were leaving for Innsbruck, Austria to go skiing. They rented this massive bus and wanted to make it a booze cruise all the way from Berlin to Central Austria.

The road trip got off the a comical start about an hour into the 20 hour drive, once the effects of a couple beers kicked in. To everyone’s horror the toilet on the bus was busted !-!-! To accommodate this we needed to make frequent stops adding to the road trip.



The city of Innsbruck was quite and quaint … but to be honest, I didn’t see much of it, I spent more time on the slopes. The highlight had to be a late night sled run down the mountain. Valerie (French, who I spent most of my time in Innsbruck with and have become closer to in the recent weeks), Annelise (Belgium/British, who I hit it off ever since we first met) and I were the last three down the hill. We only had two sleds for the three of us. We raced each other down the mountain resulting into countless crashes and wipe-outs SO MUCH FUN !-!-!

The next day we went skiing. Every once and a while the fog (which added mystique but detracted from the view) broke, revealing scenery that was unparalleled and breath taking. The slopes seems to go on endlessly. The lodges had fun restaurants with waitresses in ‘Heidi’ outfits serving delicious food.

London ... for the first time again.

I’m having a nice problem these days. Life is moving faster than I can type. I like when life moves so fast I have to sprint to catch up. At the same time I enjoy writing the details in a life that when I look back I am wholly taken up with reminiscences of past gaiety. Obviously the former explains my 3-month hiatus of this blog.

I spent Christmas and New Years with Ingrid traveling Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden and Copenhagen). I come back to Berlin, my home away from home, to find out I don’t have that either. Luckily I have good friends. Gabriele has been my Italian brother ever since I arrived to Berlin. We both get care packages from our parents. Mine usually includes peeps, candy corn or whatever the candy of the holiday is plus some other hard to find goodies like Cheese Whiz, dill pickles and what not. Meanwhile Gabriele gets huge vats of the newest olive oil or other such Sicilian produce. Anyway, I digress.

I was just looking for a place to sleep when Gabriele comes to give me that and a whole lot more. The couple weeks I stayed with him showed me just how great our bond was. He gave me so much clarity on my life … and I totally new perspective on live. I can’t thank him enough for all his support.

While staying with Gabriele I did some traveling. I had the perfect opportunity to meet Ingrid in London !-!-! Naturally when you mix 1 part Ingrid, 1 part Chris and a dash of adventure WATCH OUT !-!-! Even before we met Ingrid had an amazing story about her visa … but we’ll leave that for another day.

Ingrid arrived a couple hours before me. We met at our overpriced undersized room by the Thames. I got goose bumps every time I looked at the London map because of my ‘Mr. X’ flashbacks (just wanna give quick shout out to my peep’s Marcelo and Kerstin !).


I’ve been in / through London countless times, but hadn’t done the tourist circuit in a long while. Ingrid, Baby Pooh and I had such a good time! Despite seeing London before, its always so beautiful to see it through the eyes of Ingrid. She has such a unique and intriguing why of looking at things. New firsts included a visit to a flea market and various places seen in the movie ‘Notting Hill’

Our Scandinavian trip!!!

On the December 23rd: Chris arrived to Copenhagen, we stayed at Lucas’s house, made our little Christmas tree and put all our presents around it.

Xmas was just GREAT; Ingrid made an amazing Dinner (Chris helped too!) Then we opened presents and it was very cool that we both like our presents (nothing to change or give back…)

On the 25th we took an overnight cruise to OSLO where we stayed in a very nice hotel that we found on the Internet for less than a hostel. Norway is a very expensive country; we paid about 25 EUR ($30) for two basic Burger King ‘value meals’.

On the 27th we took a two hour OUTDOOR boat cruise along the breath-taking fjords in -5 C (20 F) weather. Afterwards we arrived to Bergen (amazing city) where we ate the famously stinky yet traditional lutefisk and the perplexing red meat of a whale! Views from atop Bergen’s funicular were spectacular.

The next day we traveled to Ålesund, which is the only Art Nouveau style city in Norway, the landscape on the way there was incredibly beautiful. However the city, despite being very unique from the rest of Norway was interesting, but nothing special. We decided to leave slightly ahead of schedule to make some time for Hellesylt, which was a great idea! We arrived to a very small town, surrounded by mountains and frozen waterfalls.

We caught an overnight bus to Oslo, and finally a plane back to Copenhagen on the 31st. We had to run to catch the Christmas cabaret in Tivoli Park followed by a nice dinner. New Years Eve was brought in at Copenhagen’s beautiful City Hall Square, but had flashbacks of a war when the fireworks started to get out of control.

On New Years day we took it easy and went to the movies.
The next day, we made a two-day trip all the way to Goteborg, Sweden Going over Europe’s longest and very new tunnel Bridge Oresund, which connects Copenhagen to Malmö.

We really had a great time!!!If you want to see some GREAT pics click HERE