from rise against to snowmen in london to skiing in austria.

 hello everybody (:

I knoooow - I haven't showed any sign of life here for weeeeeks. there's a few reasons: first of all the last two months (roughly) were really busy. as some of you might know, I'm not the most christmassy person on this planet; I don't buy loads of presents, put christmas stuff on all my walls, am in need of feeling more peaceful or friendly or united or whatever than throughout the rest of the year. however, this year christmas time got me as well. decorating dafna, writing greeting cards (for the first time of my life), buying presents, baking cookies, cooking food. what's more, my lovely brother stayed here with us for two weeks! in my opinion we had an absolutely fantastic time and I believe he also liked it here among us ten 18-26 year old people.

though, before all that stuff happened there were still a few more weeks I haven't wasted any words on yet (that's all so long ago that I've just got out my diary which I'm going to consult henceforth).

well, let's start with something delicious. if I can give you one advise: find mexican friends! at the beginning of november and again december I went to pamela's place in oxford, one time alone and the other time together with julie. one of the great benefits of knowing pame and roberta (apart from the fact that they are absolutely lovely persons!!) is the mexican food <3<3 as you can probably figure out, roberta and pame are originally from mexico, and every time we meet they spoil me with their tasty food - burritos, quesadillas, guacamole, etc. (be aware of mexican sweets though, definitely not my case!).

party and mexican food weekend in oxford

yumyum

a couple of other events took place in november: 9 nov rise against concert in southampton which was fantastic, 14-16 nov one of our infamous dafna party weekends, 22 nov england vs samoa rugby game, and finally 28-30 nov my birthday weekend. now that I've listed all these things I realize why nov/dec have been soooo incredibly busy (and good) months. my birthday by the way was fabulous - the guys organized a surprise party for me, I was absoulutely stunned!

naughty dafna house party

82000 spectators - england vs samoa

and we were two of them (:

fantastic surprise !!

odd columbian tradition

f.l.t.r. daseung, me, julie, dani, kat, pame in the front

one of the december highligts was the CSV volunteers day on friday the 12th. great fun, loads of people and peoples again. bring-and-share-lunch, games, ice-skating and eventually we ended up in a pub - quality time as always. afterwards julie and I went straight to another friend's place - rosi from germany who's a volunteer in hemel hempsted. friday eve the girls went to a pub while I decided to stay at rosi's to recover. saturday lazy and in the evening rosi's birthday party, once again a good evening where we got to know another bunch of new people.

snowmen on their mission

ice skating !

dafna <3

me, rosi and julie (giulia c's picture)

and then suddenly the time had come: my lovely brother arrived at dafna on 20 december; on his first evening in the uk julie, bianka, pame and I immediately dragged him to our rugby club's christmas party. I for one enjoyed it a lot, and we all looked very smart in our shirts and dresses.
the following two weeks passed unbelievably quickly, oxford, christmas at dafna with all in all ~15 people, brighton, reading, new year's eve dinner in oxford, watching the fireworks from lambeth bridge, london (pretty close to london eye and big ben). since we were a group of about 20 people we had two parties to join afterwards, travelling with that huge group through london was quite amusing. actually the whole night, first on the bridge and then at those two parties was outstanding. I'm not able to count how many great people I was with and met this night, amazing. though, I can't only write about the good things, the trip back to oxford in the morning of the 1st was awful, was in bed at 11am. therefore, I experienced the first day of the new year somehow twisted, woke up at 5pm, outside already dark again. we watched 3 movies, had dinner and then went to bed again :D
friday london with my brother, dani and kat and saturday at home, packing for my week in austria.

with da bro at the rugby party

loads of people at lambeth bridge

the austrian boys in the kingdom far off

on our way to the first party

well, so far, so good.
the next chapter brings the main character and his brother back to austria. on 4 january we arrived at Salzburg Airport Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, got picked up by our nice father. with us were the two mexican girls who took the chance to visit salzburg. as I had seen it come, time flew by. anyway, I totally enjoyed these six days at home, met friends, family, showed pame and roberta around and went skiing three times. very soon it was time to go back again - however, I was already looking forward to dafna and the uk again.
and that's where we are now, dafna, our sweet home (: at the moment it's a bit empty, many people travelling - and daseung left yesterday evening for korea, his time here's over :'( that also means that a new chap has joined us at our project, his name is manuel and obviously he's from germany.

perfect evening with my friends back home (in an irish pub of course :D)

SKIING <3

pame and me in front of Untersberg

adequate map in our living room back home - makes the distance to all my new friends' countries obvious; shows also where I can go and meet people again though

party back in the UK

nice sunday today at dafna; juggling, slacklining, relaxing.

that's been many pictures now, I hope some of you have made it through all these lines and reports (:
I'll try to write the next entry soon, enjoy yourselves, good night!