A new adventure

I have been at home here in pittsburgh for the last 4 days but I leave for the 22 hour drive to Boulder tomorrow morning.  I have been reorganizing and packing (my mom has done about 90% of it) for the last few days and as of tonight I am all ready for the trip.  I also managed to find an apartment on craigslist.  I will arrive at my cousin Zak's house, who lives in boulder, on sunday night and then move in to the new place on Monday.  From the photos and description that I got from the current tenant it seems like a really nice place but it is also more than I have ever paid for rent...

I am excited to get to CP+B and they have been very well organized with the internship program so far.  They started an intern auction on ebay and from the description it sounds like a cool program.  I will be in transit for the next 3 days but I will post details from the first few days after I settle into a routine.  I am looking forward to this new adventure and am excited for it to start tomorrow.

the fastest week ever/goodbye austria

Wow....I really can't believe that in 2 hours I will be on my way to the airport to leave Austria.  This week has gone by in a flash but I was somehow able to tie up a bunch of loose ends and get everything organized here.  My time with GP has been fantastic and I am so thankful that they worked with me in order to arrange it all.  I will really miss everyone there but know that I will keep in contact with them all.

I have been slowly packing up my stuff all week but the bike was sort of a burden that I didn't deal with until thursday night.  I got it packed up and then carried it to the post office friday morning--but was told by the austrian post that "it is not allowed to send such a big box to the US".  I was just sort of frozen for a few seconds and tried to grasp what they were saying, but it just felt wrong.  I argued for a few minutes but they weren't budging on the issue, and I left with this really terrible feeling that I would not be able to bring the bike with me.  I came into work and Klemens started calling around to UPS and DHL and a few other places to try and help me arrange the shipment....but no matter what, they all said the same thing as the Post and that even if they could send it, it would be about 350 euro.

I was really stressed out and just sort of said out loud "I guess I have to try and sell it".   And then Klemens said "I'd buy it".......

I don't really know how to describe it well, but I don't think things could have worked out any better.  Klemens has become such a good friend over the last 5 months and it just felt perfect to leave him with the bike.  He has loved it since I first got it, and was always talking about how he wanted to get his own soon.  I am just at total peace with knowing that I left that beautiful bike with such a special person and dear friend and I don't think either of us could be more happy with how the deal worked out.

I spent my last day in vienna at the shops in the morning and then with friends in the evening.  I was able to buy some gifts for my family before everything shut down in the city, and then came back home just as it started to rain.  Klemens called around 5 and I went out for dinner with him and all of his closest friends.  There were about 7 of us and it was a great group.  I had met them all before while hanging with Klemens, but it was really cool to see them all together and I appreciated their coming together to send me off.  We ate a HUGE wiener schnitzel at a beer garden and then went to a small crepe shop for desert.  We left around 11 and came back to the dorm where I said my goodbye's to Klemens.  

Fabio and Miljan were waiting for me when i got back to the room and we went right back out to a local bar.  We talked for 3 hours and had a great last night together.  We got home a few minutes ago around 2, and my taxi comes at 4....so I think I am just going to stay up and hopefully ensure that I will sleep through the flight.

This has really been the experience of a lifetime and I am so thankful to everyone that helped arrange it; especially to my parents who supported me whole heart-idly since the beginning.  I have learned and grown so much over these last 5 months and will have this experience with me for the rest of my life.  Thank you for being a part of it, and I hope you enjoyed following along.

......

new adventure in boulder, Co with CP+B.....starting soon

hallstatt/CP+B

I finally got to the austrian alps and more specifically to the most beautiful location I have been to this point in my life.  I went to Hallstatt, Austria (like I said I was) and I was really blown away by the mountains/town/lakes/rivers/waterfalls/lederhosen/animals/everything.  I took about 500 photos but like always--a 2d image can never capture the feeling of being there in person.  I am posting some of the photos I took--but I will upload more later in the week.  It took about 3.25 hours each way--and I had about 7 hours in Hallstatt which turned out to be just about right to see everything there was to see.  I had really been romanticizing the idea of swimming in an alpine lake and I walked around for an hour to find a secluded beach.  When I finally found one and stripped down--I touched the water for the first time and realized it was about 25 degrees (so, no, I didn't go swimming).  I hiked up into a valley and found one of the most beautiful but fierce rivers I have ever seen.  It was crazy powerful and really pumping at maximum volume.  I don't really know what else to write about my experience other than it was just like I hoped it would be-

Work was good today and I informed GP that this would be my last week in Austria.  I got an internship offer with Crispin Porter + Bogusky on thursday, and I formally accepted today.  The internship starts on May 26 so I will have to fly out on the 17th (in 6 days) in order to get home and then head to Boulder, CO where the new Product Innovation Department is HQ'd.  CP+B, as they are called, is actually an Advertising company; they have been ad agency of the year 8 times and some of their bigger clients include Microsoft, Volkswagen, Nike, Coke, Burger King etc....

I was telling Ruedee and Klemens about the Burger King ads one day at lunch and I went and did some research to find out more about who was behind them---I wanted to show them some examples of hip american advertising.  I ended up at CPBgroup.com and I realized they did almost all of the ad campaigns that I really like.  I just sort of kept browsing their site and finally found that they had a new/small product innovation group and that they were starting an internship period soon.  I read a few articles by Core77 and BusinessWeek about how CPB was starting to offer product design just as companies like in the 90's when IDEO and FROG started with product design and then turned into more full service firms.  They also talked about CP+B buying a minority stake in both FUSEPROJECT and BRUCE MAU as they try and develop their own in house industrial design group.  I will let you read the articles if interested but I think it is a cool time to be with CP+B as they try and create this new model.  The decision was not easy though as I hate to leave Austria a month early.  

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I have a lot of work to do in order to get ready for my flight on sunday and it still hasnt hit me that I will be leaving austria in such a short amount of time.

welcome to the factory...

I am finally going to Hallstatt, Austria tomorrow morning...catching a train in the morning and then back late in the day.  I think this is the last thing I have to do before I feel like I am ready to leave Austria.  I am really excited

computa says No

My great mood from the weekend trip spilled over into work today and I had a great day.  I showed off my pictures and stories from the trip to the other designers and I had a good day working on the concepts that Ruedee and I came up with.  Roland was on a roll today and was mocking whatever Christian did in a super annoying voice and it was hilarious.

I came home from work and Miljan was waiting with his camera to transfer photos...so I am going to upload some that he took of this and last weekend (his are all people based).  Then I am going to bed; for some reason I was up till almost 1 last night and waking up was nearly impossible.

 

serbia

My best weekend since coming to austria turned out to not be in austria at all.  I had such an incredible time this weekend and on top of that I feel like I learned so much about myself.  I was skeptical about if I should even go because Fabio couldnt...but I am so glad I just did it.  There was so much that happened that I cant really go into details without going on for 5000 words, so I am going to break down the highlights in small tidbits for you.  I will also post some of the 250 pics I took.

Neimenya and Jovanna are brother and sister and they are Miljan and Pedja's (his brother who is in the US) best friends.  We hung out with them almost the whole weekend and there were defly my two favorite Serbians.  Their family adopted a young boy from the government and he almost fainted when they introduced me as "an american"....he litrally was looking at me like I was god.  We played soccer for a few minutes and he handed me the ball like it was a golden chalice.  Only about half of the people I met spoke english but our core group of Miljan, Neimenya, and Jovanna all spoke pretty good....and there were some really great translations.

Serbian food is really good but really heavy and they eat A LOT.  Also, Miljan's mom would look at me after I had finished eating and say "EAT!"  So, for most of the days I would gorge myself at breakfast and then not have to eat again until when we got home from da clubs at 4 am.   We went to serbian pubs (a really cultural thing with traditional music played by live bands) and then clubs until 3-4:30 everynight and slept on average 4 hours a night.  

Miljan's family has a Yugo and it was our lifeline.  We packed 5 people in almost every trip (and Miljan, Neimenya and I are over 6'2" and Jovanna was like 5'10").  On the outside serbia looks really depressing and rough.  Almost everything is broken and hasn't been kept up for the last 30 years...but it was real and the people were some of the nicest I have ever met.  There were traffic jams with 10 yugo's and 2 horse drawn buggies.

We went to atleast 8 different friends houses to chat and at every house we were given a slice of cake and a drink.  They are very much rooted in tradition and it was the most different culture I have experienced so far in my life.  By the end of the first day I had totally disproved all of my initial judgments of serbia and became blind to the quality of their objects (something I want to continue to do).

The Serbian country was really beautiful and we were in the 3rd largest city of Nis (pronounced Nish).  Nis is in the souther part of serbia and there were really beautiful mountains surrounding the city.  There are hundreds of natural springs in Serbia and about 10 natural thermal spas.  Nish has one of the thermal spas and we visited it twice.

I am in such a great mood after this trip and I feel like it was a 2 week vacation.  I am hopeful that some of the friends we met will come to Vienna while I am still here and I can return the hospitality I was given.  They wouldn't let me pay for a single thing in the last 4 days no matter how hard I tried, and no matter where we were or what we were doing...they made sure I was having fun.  

I will load more pictures after I get some from Miljan but for now they are:  

1.  We ran out of gas and we had to push the Yugo to the petrol station.

2.  Neimenya, Jovanna, and Miljan at the highest point in the city

3.  The view of the mountains from "Mediana" an archaeological site from Roman times

4.  Dance line at our second stop of the trip

5.  Me in front of Miljan's house and next to the pimp wagon