As promised, here are some photos from my latest activities..

On our way to a paintballpractice, we stopped at a gas-station to pick up two more guys. It was just next to a huge Ferrari and Maserati reseller. They had like 20 cars standing outside their building, plus several more inside.. Pretty cool. Wish it hadn't been a Sunday, so I could have had a closer look...

http://www.iddqd.se/Bilder/nurnberg/paintstorm.jpg

(wiiiiiide picture)

The plase where we practiced during that day. Somewhere in mid/west germany. Surrounded by hills, 20-25 degrees. Loads of games, and just generally good times!

BEER in 1 litre seidels + One of the aussies. Damn this beer tasted good.

Pretty nice place where we went for practice last weekend, 30 minutes from Nürnberg in a small town called Schwabach.. Expensive though, 35 euros walkon and BYO fee + 5 euros for membership card. But they seem to keep it in well condition. Shame that there hardly were any people playing that day. Could have been a lot of fun.

Yeah, I know I post a lot of pics of paintball fields. Let's just call it documentation!

Yesterday after picking up a pair of shoes that I forgot at the hostel. We decided to go to the Volksfest, which is basically just a carnival kind of thing with shitty rides, food and beer. However, since we're in germany, the beer is pretty darn good(Hefeweiss!), and ofcourse it's served in 1 litre bier seidels.. Good times.

Anyway, me and Iain went there with an Australian couple, who were backpacking through Europe as part of their honeymoon. Awesome people, and we had a really good time. (I will post pics later).

They recomended an Aussie band called 'The Presets', and to my surprise, they had a really cool Homepage with some selected songs from their albums. (I think im a bit bias regarding this, but have a look and tell me what you think!)

http://www.thepresets.com

Wish I could code like that...

Bis später!

So, you know i got an apartment, like 2 weeks ago. Well, I stayed there for one night and then I bailed. I realized that it would take way more energy and money then the landlord had to get that apartment up and running. So with quite a heavy heart I returned to the Hostel..

I got contact with a new apartment through some other interns, aproximately a week after I moved out of the last one. It is quite expensive (340 euros a month, only furniture in my room is a bed). The whole apartment is pretty worn down, but the kitchen and the bathrooms are decent. There are 7 other people living there, including one danish guy, and another Puma intern. I have to get a hold of a desk and something to put all my clothes in, and then im pretty much set. However, not having a car, makes it harder than it sounds. I went to IKEA the earlier this week to get some minor things, like bedsheets, pillow, bedcover etc. Can you imagine, they did not accept any other card than the damn german EC-something card. Magnificent! So after a lot of hassle I was able to leave the place a bit poorer, but finally able to get a good nights sleep .. Oh how i have waited..

Last weekend we went to the west of Germany to play some paintball. It was a X-ball training day. The sun was shining, no wind, a lot of paint and people to shoot it on. All in all a great day. I played pretty decent. Some bad points, and some really good ones. The guys im playing with seemed pleased, so thats pretty good.

Work has been awesome lately. Weve had an ideation week, with some crossfunctional brainstorming and concept suggestions. Yesterday the designers went to Boston, except for the interns, and are supposed to present some of the ideas. I made some renderings and explenations for my idea, and hopefully they decide to present it along with all the other stuff. Who knows, it was super fun to work on anyways, so its all good.

I think we have had 1! day of rain since i got here, and the rest have been sunshine and +20 degrees. Can i ask for more? Well yes... I did not pack clothes for this weather! Also, I need to pick up some jogging clothes and shoes from puma so I can start work out. My back really needs its. And speaking about backproblems. I have been reading up a bit about Nailcarpets, that seem to be the latest fitness/health trend. It is pretty interesting, and not at all as expensive as i thought it would be. About 50 euros for one. I was expecting 200 euros for a single one...

Seems like were having a barbecue in the apartment tonight, so I think I will pop down to the store and get something to put on the grill.

Did not have any interesting pictures to upload today, and I havent bought a new camera yet, kind of in some financial problems right now, thank god for my wonderful parents who never hesitate to help me out.. This month i have to cough up 680 euros for deposit of the flat + 340 for May's rent. + some other monetary debts. Hopefully i can take care of most of it, since it finally got my grade documents from Austria, so now i can apply (again) for some government educationloans.. Well see what happens.

All I can say is that I am really enjoying myself. It's aaaaall good. Tschüss!

So, I've just moved in to an apartment with a guy from Dresden.

He recently got it so it is totally stripped. All there is are two old sofas and two sofa-chairs. I think he went home to dresden during Easter, so i`ve spent my first night there alone on the sofa.

I hope we can get as much as possible during next week, but I doubt it. There are not even lamps in the ceiling. I'm starting to regret that I chose this place, but wtf, new experiences are always good.

Anyway, theres obviously no internet in the flat, and It might take a while to get. So until then, expect less updates than usual (aka VERY seldom).

Just a smaller update.

I have been running around like crazy the last days trying to find an apartment, and I realized that I have'nt even showed you the Casa del Björn..

This is where all the magic happends, and by magic I mean that last night i was able to sleep the entire night without anyone waking me up.. I have an entire 12 bed room all to myself, and I hope the magic will continue tonight!

Damnit, a french guy just rolled in through the door.

Wish me luck!

So I've finally started my internship last thursday! I got some help getting a workers permit and a bank account. The day after, I got a ride to work with another intern at Puma. It was a very friendly girl called Nilo who gave me the ride.

So just arriving to PUMAs HQ was awesome. A pretty modern building, with a nice reception where I had to wait for one of the girls at the HR department to bring me to their office.

I got some instructions about database systems, got to sign a gazillion papers, and then I was given the tour of the place. Things like this is really hard, because you get huge amounts of information about important things + beeing introduced to shitloads of people. Anyway, everyone was super nice, and polite, so I did not feel uncomfortable at all. A big mix of different nationalities, so almost all communication is held in English.

Walking around in the design office, was like going in to a big library, you just had to replace the books with sneakers, aka awesome! So I was shown to the room where my department was, which is the color&materials department. I was then first introduce to my new boss, Conny, who was the one who interviewed me. Then to the other intern and two of the senior designers.

I will try to get some pictures of our office, but I have to ask first if its ok.

And then, tadaaa, to my own desk and computer! An IT guy showed up and started setting the computer accounts up for me, and showing me even more of the systems they used. So after browsing through a couple of their catalogues, trying to get familiar with their collection, I was invited to join one of their meetings, where three of the design directors were inspecting shoes. It was really cool to see them in action, because they had a great eye for the details, which I hope I will develop soon.

I thought that getting up at 6 in the morning would be one of the biggest challenges, but it has been working out nicely all week. I hope its because i only work 8 hours a day instead of 12-18 hours a day as I do with schoolwork.

Friday was also fun, I got to do some colorwork updating, which was a bit confusing but educational. Mainly just worked on that all day, so Im not to effective yet, but I got the job done. There's a lot of administrational work around the tasks, and I think this will be the biggest challenge for me to master.

So now I've stayed at the Hostel since tuesday, and it has both it's perks and cons. I've met a lot of new people, which is really cool. Wednesday night, we went to a karaoke bar with one of the hostel employees, some guests, and a bunch of couchsurfers. Since I had my first day of work the day after, I took it pretty easy. Had two beers, watched some horrible singing, and then went home.

Another funny story. There was a girl who had been in the hostel since I arrived and slept 2 meters from me (Its a room with 12 beds), she seemed to be a nice person, so we started talking a little on thursday evening. I asked her what she was doing in Nürnberg, and she told me she was doing an internship. Then I asked where, and she said it was at Puma, which is kind of crazy. Apparantly, she had started her 6 month internship on wednesday, and was staying at the hostel while she was looking for an apartment, just like me. She had also taken the train to Herzogenaurach every day, which costs about 13 euros (one way ticket), and takes about 1-2 hours. So I hooked her up with nilo, and now she is in our commuting group! It's a small world I guess.

Friday evening, two Aussies showed up and we started talking. Both were really friendly, so after sitting around the table chatting, we decided to go have something to eat, which then lead to us trying to find a nightclub. An american joined our small group, and we had quite a good time, just walking around nürnberg, trying to find a decent place. Since I was going to play paintball on saturday, i called it a night pretty early and went back to the hostel.

After watching some cartoons, suddenly two big guys come in to the room, carrying a third guy who is crying. It was three american soldiers, and one of them was insanely drunk. Don't know what had happened, but they put him in a bed, where he was crying until he fell a sleep. Weird experience for sure.

5.30 am, a guy called Sebastian, who I got in contact with prior to going to Germania, picked me up, and we were off to play some paintball at an American recreational base. The german gun laws are very strict concerning paintball, so most outdoor paintballfields are in the US military bases. They had a HUGE firing range for real weapons. They had a large and thick concrete wall behind them, and behind those, there were two pretty mediocre paintball fields.

Anyway, the guys were fun to hang around, although there was so many of them so I did stay a little on the side of things. I got to know a guy from a German pro team called Frankfurt Syndicate, and we got to chat a bit. Also a really nice guy, so I hope I get the chance to get know him a bit better too.

Networking networking networking. :)

I played pretty much like crap all day, due to a lot of different reasons, but I'm sure ill be back in my old game as soon as i get to adjust to their type of gameplay.

When we were done with paintballing for the day, everyone started walking around and looking at the people who was in the firing range. It was so insane to see all the different types of weapons they were using. I would probobly not have been surprised if there was someone shooting with a flamethrower.

The other guys found a man, who had 4 handguns and one machinegun in his small sportsbag. A person with that kind of stuff is creepy by default.. No matter how nice they seem! He let the others shoot with everything he had which was pretty scary. I watched them shooting with a mp5 and a desert Eagle etc. And he then showed me a black powder gun, real old school stuff. I always feel pretty uncomfortable around real weapons, and the fact that these gun made 150 times more noise than I expected did not improve that sensation..

Also, an american soldier who plays with the team i practiced with (Ohio United), went in and borrowed a m4a1, and a SIG handgun, to blast off a a couple of rounds with. I was offered to try, but politely declined..

Anyway, I managed to get some photos of some of the guns.

Anyway, after three hours of driving back, I got to see the teams home field, which looked really nice. Might go there during Easter and play + have a BBQ with those Ohio guys.

Formula BMW at the gas station :D