the long weekend.

V.

The loooong weekend. The very, veeeery loooong weekend. -Is finally over. I just fought through the rest of Seminar-Sunday and now life's got me back. :) I must say, however, that it hasn't been that awful actually, especially since our Professor has put a lot of effort into making those three days bearable. She even brought us some snacks yesterday, something to drink and some chocolate. In return we've all chipped in to buy her flowers and other pretty little things today.. Since she didn't expect that, she was totally surprised and very, very happy. :) -Ps.: the pic you can see up there shows the packaging of the delicious little broccoli tartlets I ate on Saturday. :)

Sadly, I can't tell you anything exciting today, just a few stories that'll probably entertain you. 

First of all,- on Friday, (and that one goes on the "typical Vicky" list)- I went to IKEA. Again. And guess what I did. -(To all of you non-plushy-animals-fans,- please immediately skip to "Secondly" and ignore this part- I bought one of those cute, snuggly and incredibly sweet pandas I saw at IKEA on Tuesday. Since that day I've been regretting not taking that little fella with me and I couldn't think about anything else 'till Friday, so I went there again, rescued two pandas,- one for my friend Anja who also thought that they were adorable when I showed her a picture of them and one for me, of course. She now lovingly calls her panda "Franzl" and I'll call mine "Gustav". Or "Oskar",- I haven't decided yet. 

Here's a pic of  "Oskar" sleeping in my bed (ok, I'll call him Oskar, that's much cuter...) >>

... and here you can see him stealing my chocolate bar >> 

... and here he's enjoying the light summer breeze while looking out of the window >>

Alright.

Secondly, - here are a few pics I took during seminar hours ..

I guess, after seeing the 235th picture of some byzantine icon painting, most of my colleagues (and not just me) went like this ...

Our provisions for the 9-hour-long day...

... some cute little muffins Anja brought :) ...

... and our hourly routine of looking at blogs on Anja's mac ... 

Well that was pretty much it.. I didn't do much more than that. Except watch TV and go to sleep.

On Friday I watched a movie with Jennifer ..

 ... and on Saturday the german TV show "Wetten, dass..?".. And seriously, how lowbrow can one TV show be? Sure, it was a fantastic show years ago when Thomas Gottschalk was hosting it - but now.. it really is quite disappointing. Why does every single guest who comes here (especially Hollywood actors) need to disgrace themself in order to make everybody else laugh? Has it come to this? Yesterday night Gerard Butler had to put icecubes into his trousers and read "Erlkönig" out loud to the audience. No wonder Tom Hanks dissed the show last time he was there because he had to wear a hat in the form of a cat while watching the presenter performing a sack race. I would be pissed too. Sure, one should always be able to take a joke and not take oneself too seriously, however there's only a thin line between fun and making a mockery out of someone. So there you have it. I'm not a big fan of "Wetten, dass...?" anymore, which is a shame, because it once was a fantastic show! 

However,- to say a least one nice thing about it, I really did enjoy one candidate's bet! :) This sportsman had to run forward on a track, then do a flip backwards and somehow had to land exactly -with both feet- in short trousers that friends of him were holding up. 

It was magnificent! Now that's what I call shallow Saturday night family-entertainment. Fantastic. 

I wish I could show you guys a clip and not just pictures.. Well, maybe another time, if Esther allows it. :)

So far, I wish you guys a wonderful remaining Sunday! Enjoy it and have fun! :)