mila's blog

just a short feedback from our trip to Madrid 1st-3rd December 2011.

Of course it was great meeting my boyfriend in another city, not only in Barcelona.
We first were looking for our hotel, which was in the middle of the center. It was rather a hostel, but very clean and of course with the superior room we can’t say anything wrong about it.

It was very cold, but we decided to go to the shopping street and the big square where the place to be was. at least in the late afternoon.
at 5 PM we were hungry for the first time so we decided to get some tapas, pintxos and a cervecita.

Later we decided to find out what’s the night about in Madrid. Cava Baja was a narrow street with tapas restaurants, wine bars, cocktail bars. Also Mercado de San Miguel was the place where everybody met.
So many people on one stop – you can’t imagine.

The next days we spent mostly with sightseeing, visitng an art gallery, eating eating eating and drinking drinking drinking. we event found one place, where we got 5 beers (i counted 4 though) for three euros. and tapas were also cheap but sooooooooo amazing good. oh i loved that place so much, that we went back again the next day.

Another highlight was that we met Tamar, our old friend from the Surfcamp in Fuerteventura. She is actually living in Madrid and could show us the famous market on the sunday morning. It was nice catching up with her after one year. The whole Sunday afternoon we spent in the nice botanical garden…

Oh I love this city.

now, i would like to write a blog entry how I toured trough Germany for two weeks.
on the 7th November we started our Bulli Tour in direction Munich….

we had good sound, warm blankets and a lot of pillows.  this can’t be too bad.
Fops was driving all along to Munich, we only had around 6-7 hours. First destination was a good partner in the middle of the city.
i was impressed that everything went so smoothly. The next partner visits were also fantastic. We got a very nice response and everybody welcomed us warmly. It was great to see these people in person after working together for such a long time. Of course they were also very excited about our new innovations and products which we are currently pushing into the European market. During the ride up to Hamburg we experienced so much and we definitely fall in love with the Bulli. The weekend was also nice – as it was my first visit in the harbor city i really loved it. The second week brought us to Arnsberg, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Freiburg and Grenzach….

The spirit of the tour-members was also excellent.
By the end of the tour everybody has their job and we got used taking picture in front of the bulli and we even got used to the breakfast habits of Raffi (butter, ham and eggs).

The Bulli also got some highlight good and bad ones:
- Bulli goes Reeperbahn
- Mila broke the key
- stranger in the bus
- cold partner ride in Mönchengladbach

all the rest can also be seen on our on tour website: http://ontour.coresystems.ch

our i-love-the-cloud-bulli

13th – 16th October 2011

Everything started with the Facebook Status: “Who is in for a eyes surgery in Istanbul?”
Few months later me and Sandra (a former colleague when I was working at Alprausch) organized a trip to Istanbul. Our goal: get our eyes lasered….

We had some troubles just a couple weeks before our operation appointment. We booked everything through a company in Switzerland, which was not the best idea. So we decided quite spontanously to book our flight ourselves and we got in contact with the clinic directly. We already got a competent response on the phone and via email. This is just the ‘organizing’ part.

Thursday we took the first SWISS flight to Istanbul. We got picked up from a german speaking driver and he took us to the Hotel (Park City Hotel Taksim). When ww arrived we already had some funny conversation with the receptionist. (we are still convinced Tarkan is not gay!!!) Thursday afternoon we had time to discover the city. It was very cold and raining. Here my first recommendation: plan your trip in spring or summertime.

Friday morning we had the preliminary inspection/test if our eyes are capable of doing such a LASIK surgery. 5 different mashines but everything was fine. -5.25 has to get reduced to 0.00 or max. -0.25! Well well well…. Time to get lunch and get prepared for the operation. No coffee, coke or alcohol before the operation. This would make you even more nervous. My friend and me were so “hibbelig” (sorry there is no english translation) anyway.

2.30 PM time to be at the clinic again. We got a pill which should have made us calm. Furthermore we went to the waiting room where a very stimulating movie ‘planet earth’ was on. My Friend was first, afterwards my turn. The first room a lady cleaned my face and tried to calm me down even more. She kept telling me that they have the best doctors in Turkey. In the meantime I heard from the room next door *zzzzzzz* *zzzzzz* my friend got lasered in this very second.
Okay. My turn. Next room. I laid on this bed and the doctor told me to look straight into green light. Thats what I have done. A ring kept my eyen open and i was not able to blink anymore. Once the green light disppeard it was time for the cut. Afterwards it took the doctor 19 seconds to actually laser my eye. It smelled burnt. No reason to panic, everything normal and everything seemed to be okay. The other eye was the same. ( what a surprise right? ) afterwards he said he was finish and i could sit up. The guys asked me if I am able to see, and I said surpisingly yes I do. They brought me to a different room where I need to rest few minutes. Next destination, waiting room again, where I also met my friend. We couldn’t sit quietly and were already making jokes again. Everything is cool. We got three different drops, stickers for the eyes and one panadol. We walked back to the Hotel – no problem at all. Next task: try to sleep, the next few hours it could hurt. We arrived at the hotel and had some problems to sleep (it was still afternoon). Somehow we still felt asleep (probably thinking of Tarkan :p)

8PM we woke up. What a feeling… We saw each other, we saw everything. awesome. What a life.
task: drops 1, drops 2, drops 3 with two minutes difference. Done! Time to get out of the hotelroom. We were walking down to Taksim Square and had some Kebab (what a surprise in Turkey) still unbelivable. No pain and nothing. It was not even necessary to use sunglasses. Very easy very cool, new life hello! We slept again with stickers on our eyes and showering was still forbidden. Water in the eye would not be good at all. Well okay, we stink and didnt care and went to bed.

Saturday. Waking up was great. I was still able to see and was still very happy and very convinced. At 11 AM we had another check at the clinic if everything is still ok. All fine, time to get out to see more from the city. The driver and doctor assistant took us first to BAKLAVA tasting and afterwards to a 1.5 hours boatcruise. We saw the nice coast And the asian part of Istanbul. It looks okay, but again probably better in summertime. Afterwards we went to the big bazar and to see the blue moshee. Incredible.
Afterwards shopping time… Like in every other city, nothing spectacular.

Sunday morning 4AM – we got picked up from the Hotel. Our driver brought us to the airport.
Thats it from our short trip to Istanbul

Recommendation: i can absolutely recommend this clinic. Everything was very professional, very clean, they were friendly and explained everything very detailled. If you are interested check out:
www.eyestar.us and get in contact with the Patient Relations Manager Fred Ozatakan. He speaks German, Swiss German (lived in Bern before) and English!

Costs: 1090 EUR for the operation. Flight around 350 EUR, Hotel 85 EUR

If you have any question let me know. I would recommend it everybody. It is a new attitude of Life.
see you now even more clearly!

7th – 9th October 2011

I can’t really summarize this weekend.
It was probably one of the best recently. I must admit it was an hassle picking up my new car, transported the surfboard via Basel to BCN and also tried to get relaxed after so much travels in the last time.
After I arrived I was extremely hungry. Very nice and expensive tapas helped me to survive
Saturday we explored a special part of the city, around Placa Espana. The Miro Museum was impressing. i like his art and other way of thinking during this time around the world war.
Afterwards we went to MNAC and to the shopping center at the Placa Espana. Very nice “smudy” bar by the way.
In the evening we saw the fountain show. Excellent!!!

Sunday was Sushi Time and Playa Time. What could be better? I love this weekend and didnt want to leave on Sunday Evening. Life goes on….

5th November 2011

Early flight to Amsterdam, journey to Breda where I was at a SAP event. The next day… We took the train back to Amsterdam. Around 4 hours time to explore the city.
Nice locker on the airport, easy and cheap to get a train ticket.
The first thing we saw was a ‘rent a bike’ sign. few minutes later we were cycling trough the paths of Amsterdam. The breakes were a little bit special and there were no gears.

At a nice little restaurant we made a break and had a sandwich. Enough energy to cycle further… to all the different squares I cant remember anymore. The whole city smelled like joints. It is still very common… However, we decided to get a tea and relaxed a while.

Time to get on the flight. Amsterdam is always worth visiting. Especially with the bike! way less exhausting belive me (especially when you are acciedently wearing business shoes) muahaha.
It is also very tourisitic friendly… Everything is marked and good signs. A map or a guy with orientation is an advantage

Here few words and memories to Singapore.

If you have read my previous blog you could imagine I was dead tired arriving in Singapore. Nevertheless, we checked-in in our awesome hotel. It was not very central, but good chance to get some sleep at night. ha-ha good joke. of course we wanted to have a look at the partyscene on a saturday night in Singapore. We discovered quickly where the place to be is. The difference to Sydney was first of all the weather. Singapore was very humid and hot, also in the evening. This means the teenagers and all others were sitting outside, drinking on the bridges, hanging, chillling… lovely. What a life, what a city! After we have payed the first drink, we found out why everybody is sitting with a bottle of vodka outside on the bridge. Alcohol in Singapore is expensive. So, this is why we found this mojito place – happy hour and live band latino sound. The place to be? Well, maybe not for me. Girls went crazy… too crazy for me. So I’d left and got myself a little sleep.

Next days in Singapore were busy again. We had another SAP Event where we could present our products. Partners from Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia took part and were excited about different AddOns for their business software. We were lucky that we had our presentation at the second place. this means, everybody was still listening and was still in the room. After our presentation a lot of people left and the other didn’t have the chance to show off. The beer after the event with the fingerfood was unbeliveable. Maybe because it was paid by SAP… or just because it was good to have a cold, nice tiger beer on the building and enjoying the last sunshine. After the event we had the chance to visit another Partner in their company to fix contracts and discuss partnership and further procedure.

I don’t want to bore you with my business stuff. More about Singapore. More about what I love about this city:

• I have hardly ever eaten such a good food, in a foodcourt for around 4$
• It was hot and humid – perfect if you have a swimming pool in the hotel
• Shopping never ends…. I think if you stay one week in Singapore and do shopping day and night you still wouldn’t have visited all shopping centers in the city.
• It is a very green city – lovely parks and everything is so tropical.
• Nightlife is crazy
• Sushi is amazing
• The highest building looks like a ship. How awesome is that?
• Singaporean are quite handsome (of course not like cambodian)
• Fishspa only with a table and a laptop

view from he famouse clarkquai

ready to go out, or tired like hell?

Hotel & Shopping Center with rooftop Swimming Pool

Little Venice in the shopping center

It has been a while since I wanted to write this blog post…. well it already has been more than a month since I returned from my business trip to Australia and Singapore.
the whole trip was quite spontanous, but of course I didn’t have anything against a 2 weeks tour to Australasia. The trip begun with a long journey, in the wonderful A380 of Singapore Airline. As always, i was too excited to sleep in the plane, but actually can’t remember what I have done. The time flew by… and I landed in Singapore. The stopover was only for around 50 minutes… too less for a real stopover-experience in Chiangi Airport. I didn’t care if I went to the gate late. More important is a short footmassage, which is a MUST in Chiangi. Everybody who made this experience knows what I am talking about. The flight from Singapore to Sydney was a little bit longer, but luckily i was able to sleep.

Sydney Airport. Taxi to Darling Harbour. I met my colleagues from China and we went together to a BBQ restaurant. How touristy I am, I ordered kangaroo. It was not too bad, but not too good, but anyway it was rather a thing when you got home and you can answer the question “have you eaten kangaroo” with “YES”.  So anyway, after dinner I was jetlagged – of course and after we reached the hotel we decided to go for another beer around Darling Harbour. This beer didn’t help much and my sleeping pills convinced me to eat them. Well done. The following days was more a preparation for the SAP Event, visiting partners made some remote demo sessions and worked in the tiny little room with the slowest internet which you can ever imagine. Lunch and dinner was mainly Sushi or Burgers. And how can I forget…. dessert was always TimTams (my belly still blames me for that)  The main SAP event took place in a Hotel close to Darling Harbour and was a full success for coresystems. It was interesting to meet all the partners and convince them about our products. We also got very good response and partners felt in love with the cloud (cloud computing -> coresuite cloud -> our coresuite mobile solution -> iPhone App for SAP -> if you still didn’t get it forget.

After the event on the second day I was terrible tired and wanted to go for a nap before we meet all the others again for dinner. That’s what I wanted – but didn’t get. We had the chance to change clothes had a three minutes shower and we had to rush into the city again for having lunch at the beautiful seaside close to the Opera House. Seafood, oyster, wine … pretty good, pretty expensive and I didn’t care because it was on expenses. After dinner we had a closer look at the opera house and the big question came up: Where are we going out? me, still very tired decided to join a Whisky Cola at Kings Cross. Of course this was not the only Whisky Cola I drunk this night… and I was not in bed like planned at midnight. The night went on and on and on… and I had only time to go back to the hotel, packed my stuff and catch a taxi to go to the airport. No i am not crazy, BECAUSE i thought of everything. Sydney- Singapore 9 hours flight – perfect sleep time. I may not have thought of everything exactly, because I took a seat not next to my colleagues I took a seat next to a fat chinese guy who ate like horrible stuff. He almost make my whisky come up again… and this is the story how I left Australia.

Oh, and before I finish this thread I also have to mention that I met my favourite Australian in Sydney and had a beautiful lamb and later a amazing chocolate dessert. I didn’t know that australian have also such nice chocolate.

And here I again I would like to thanks again for the TimTams

Here some pictures:

jumping picture in front of the opera house

panorama picture like on a postcard

me presenting our products

Dinner: Kangaroo