ENISA published BCM Method and BSI also its

Not everybody knew that ENISA was working on this for quite some time now. However, they published there "Business and IT continuity: Overview and implementation principles" report in February.

I read it and I can say it is quite good. It has for example a useful mapping between the ENISA model and other established BCM-standards. Like the BS25999, which I'm working on in my thesis. However, I will not tell you everything, because if your interested in details, you should read my master-thesis "Process model to implement Risk Management and Business Continuity Management organization wide". I'm working on it, so be patient.

Have fun reading the report, if you need more, ENISA still has other reports to read.



Also the German BSI was working on there catalog number four, which cares about the continuity topic. They published a draft version of 100-4. I also checked this one, but not in detail, so I will not give you a comment about it at the moment.

Some News

Hei my friends!

It's been a long time since I wrote my last blog entry. Sorry for that. But there is not that much to tell at the moment. I guess you don't wanna hear about my master-thesis anymore, so I start with some other news.

News Nr. 1. - my new flatmate

Yes, I have a new flatmate. *gg* No not that kind of flatmate. It's a new plant *gg*. I got it from the easter bunny. So have a look, it is the one on the left side, at the moment it gets its blossom. Looking forward to that, should be really nice.



Actually, the one in the middle is the part I could save from one of my Finland-Plants. They died on the way back to Austria in the car, because of the cold. But fortunately one had a little sapling I could use to plant it. I'm proud of it *gg*

News Nr. 2. - job interviews

At the moment there is not much to tell about jobs. I have some job application out, of course not only one. I guess every company knows that a candidate does not only have one application a time. However, some get positive answers, some got negative answers, some got so far no answers.

My study colleagues aren't in that hurry to get a job. Some have one or more applications running, other's don't have any so far. The reason why I have already some applications out is simple. Because there are some jobs, I would really like to work in, therefore I sent my applications now, because I don't know, if this kind of jobs are on the market in six month.

Whatever, some are perfect for me, and I hope I get a chance to show that I'm the best to have for the job ;)

News Nr. 3 - car needed money

Blablub.... I had to repair my car, because I wouldn't have got the "test badge". In the garage it would have cost 1600€ (!). So I had to do it on my own. Of course not me, but a friend of mine did it for me. In the end it cost 480€, I guess that is cheaper ^^

Ok, I would say that's it for the moment. Tonight we have Alumni-Meeting, looking forward to it.

Paintball and other kind of painful things

Hey my friends!

Last Saturday some friends and I where playing some Paintball at this field.
It's a really nice field in an old four-edge-farmhouse. They will expand it soon with the inner side of the farmhouse and one part to simulate house-fights.
We were 11 people, some I didn't know, but in war there are no friends anyway ;)

The field has everything you need, from a tunneling-system to a tower, everything there. Our opponents were some kind of campers, so they always hide behind the wall and wait for the others to come. I didn't care, so maybe that was the reason that we lost most of the time. It was really funny and it didn't hurt that much (except next day, but this was the "sport" not the bullets).

Ok, what other painful things.... hmmmm
Actually I over reacted, maybe my master-thesis could be a painful thing *gg*. Or let's say Latex is a painful thing, it will not do what I want it to do. I work now for days to get the document in the shape I want it, but it won't work. Hopefully it will work soon, because I'm already one step behind.

Last Friday there was also open doors day at my university. It was also a nice day, because I like to show people around and the things we do. Most of the time I spent in the biometrics lab, where I showed people how to use iris scan, fingerprint scan and face scan devices. The funny part at the face scan was, we used some pictures of celebrities to compare with our users. The result was sometimes really funny, for example a couple, both compared with Paris Hilton, ... the guy was more Paris Hilton than his girlfriend *ggg*
My result, I do not really look like George Clooney, neither Bill Gates..... ;( *g*

Yeah, I had also a job interview on Friday. But more on that in another entry.

Doors open Day at my University

Hi all,

this Friday 14.3 is doors open day at my university - University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria and of course especially at my Campus Hagenberg.
I will be there starting at 10 until the end. You can find me in the Biometrics lab.
More information:
On my university (english)
Doors open day (german only ;( click on the campuses to get detailed information about the program)

PS.: I also have a job-interview on Friday, but later on more on that.

Exhibitions and job interviews

This week is fully planned. Not only because of my master thesis, but also because of the additional program.

First of all there are a lot of exhibitions this week, which are quite interesting. The first one I visited yesterday, was the "B.e.s.t" exhibition. It's about continuing education, work and studying. Maybe you ask yourself why I have been there when I'm nearly finished with studying.

Actually I wanted to inform myself about possibilities to join a phd-program. Therefore I visited a lot of universities, Austrian but also universities from abroad. I wanted to know something about making a phd next to a job or how it works if you do it full-time. As expected, the Austrian universitites are still a bit snobbish when it comes to students from universities of applied sciences (Fachhochschulen). Except the Johannes Kepler university in Linz. The people from the technical university of Vienna, who I spoke to, were friendly at the beginning, but when I asked how difficult it will be for Applied Sciences students, there was this acknowledgeable change in the face and she said, maaah you have to do a lot lot lot of additional courses to get even a chance to be affiliate at the phd program.
I can only say, wake up girl!! I studied 5 years (not 4 as some still believe). I have no problem to make the one or other additional course, but lot lot lot to get a chance, hahaha.
The girl at the JKU stall was quite more relaxed. She said that probably will be some additional courses, but that it is possible to do it next to the phd program. I know that there is still a problem to get a free place, because universities prefer there own students, but they should think if a healthy mix of university and applied science students wouldn't be better. However, thanks to JKU to be not that small-minded as other Austrian universities.

Actually, at the moment I haven't really decided if I start working or continue studying. But at the moment working is the favorite choice, because there are some nice job offers available.

Which brings me to the next point, the job interview. Of course I send my resume to more than one job, but I guess every human resource person will know that. However, yesterday I had my first job interview. In my opinion it wasn't that bad, but the problem is you never know what the other side thinks. People who know me know that I'm a truthful person, so maybe some other people can't handle that fact. For example, I mentioned clearly that a job as programmer is not what I will do in the future.

The company makes a very nice impression and the job sounded also very interesting. Of course it is in my field IT-Security and as far as I can see right now, it will be cover the whole field. I hope I made a good impression and get an invitation to the next round of interviews.

For the other jobs I didn't get an answer yet, but I will inform you when I get one.

Let's get back to the exhibitions. We also planned to drive to the Cebit exhibition. But the schedule was changed to 23o'clock yesterday and that would have been to much stress for us, because we already were tired. So we cancelled that one, but instead we will go to the energy saving exhibition in Wels tomorrow. We have been there also last year and it was really interesting. This year I want to find out what my "dream"-house would cost, *lol*, I'm looking forward to this shock.

Storm over Europe

I guess a lot of people recognized the storm we had a few days ago.
Also Austria had some places which were hit hard.
But I guess one of the most famous scenes is the one you can see on the following video. It is about a airplane who tried to land at an airport and was hit by a blast, but just look for yourself. It happened in Germany.



I guess they were quite lucky ;)
Good luck also to all people who experienced damages or worse losses, keep your head up.

Nightwish concert videos

Finally kampfjogurt published his videos, the quality is the best to find at the moment, so enjoy the three nightwish videos from the concert in Vienna:

Amaranth



Everdream



Bye Bye Beautiful

Nightwish Concert

After skipping the concert in Helsinki, what I regret later on, I finally made it to a Nightwish concert.

First of all, why did I regret skipping the concert in Helsinki? Because I would have loved to see Indica ;( But at that time I didn't know that Indica is not the support band for the European tour.

However, on 28.2 I have been to the concert in Vienna (Gasometer). The supporting Band was Pain. Fortunately the band was not a "Pain in the ass". They are a Swedish metal band and they were quite good. To get an impression, here is a video of one of their song at the concert (thx to kampfjogurt who made this video):



That was actually the last song before the Nightwish show. I can not say a lot about the show, only that it really was great. I had my concerns about Anette (the new singer), because I loved Tarja's voice, but Anette is a very nice (and good looking) woman. She is Swedish, but actually in my opinion she looks perfectly Finnish.

There are yet not really good videos available, but I'm sure there will be some soon. Therefore I give you some impressions with some photos. Unfortunately Günther forgot his camera (bravo günther!) and mine was too big, so I searched for pictures and found a good source in the German Nightwish Fanclub homepage, where raven_arkadon put some really nice pictures.

Here are some impressions:




Thanks for the nice photos, you can find the rest of the gallery in the above mentioned link.

It was a great evening and I enjoyed it a lot !!!

Finland : Austria -> 1:0

No this is not about the world cup in ski-flying. Actually Austria won gold and silver in the single competition and gold in the team competition.

It is about the people
Last Friday I went out with some friends. On this evening I drank not even one gram of alcohol. Why? because I don't want to. The evening was very funny. But why 1:0 for Finland?

Later this evening we have been to the newly renovated Segafredo in Steyr. This was one of my most famous pub some years ago. It was newly renovated, so I wanted to see how it looks like. Nothing really special, but ok.

As the evening went on, I had time to "monitor" the behaviour of the people there. It is always different to have a not drunken view *g*. A lot of young people have been there, good looking, but fancy.

Remember Finland, have you ever ever see or here a Fin gripe about the look of others, or the clothe of others and so on ? Think about it, .. I haven't. Because nobody cares how people look like, and if they do care, than they don't show or say it. Because there is some respect and privacy.

In Austria and especially I recognized it again on this evening, people here care,.. more than they should. This kind of arrogance is so pathetic. The Segafredo always was a place to attract those kind of people, who think they are better than others. Is it really necessary for Austrians (especially the youth) to run down other people, just to feel better? This competition between people, not only at work but also in the private life. It is normal for central Europe. Especially in Northern countries, but also southern countries, it is different.

I think the problem already starts in school (learned from the parents), where 7 year olds complain about the cloth of other 7 year olds. Because some don't wear any popular brand, or maybe they do not have a playstation or own tv or own computer at home. In my opinion school uniforms would make a lot of things easier for some children. Or when 19 years old complain about 45 years old people coming to a disco. (What the hell are those "old" people doing here ?!)

Ok, one more examples. When a car is driving on the road and a faster one is coming from behind and on the other lane is a car driving in the opposite direction. Finland: both, the one on my lane and the one on the opposite lane would drive as right as possible to make space for the faster car. Austria: both, the one on my lane and the one on the opposite lane would drive as far in the middle as possible, and think "you are not overtaking me, no your not, ...."

In Ireland the 18year old goes to the same pub and has fun as his 60+ year old grandfather. In Finland, how often did we see naked guys running around *g*, did someone complain or run them down? So what's so special about central European people, ... I don't know and I hope I can fight those behaviours and not become (again) one of those kind of people. Give some more respect!

What do you think about this?

Workshop Resume

I'm back for some days and I now want to give you a short feedback.
The workshop about Business Continuity Management was quite ok. The most interesting part was the practical part in the second half of the day.

Nevertheless it was hard for me to stay awake, not because the topics were boring, but after 8h overnight train and nearly no sleep, sticky air, ... *yaaaawn*

However, even if the topics were quite interesting, the workshop was not worthy the effort. First of all the wasted time in the train and secondly the money of course. 14h ours train (linz - frankfurt and back) 39€ + 39€, local trains (st. valentin - linz and back, frankfurt - darmstadt and back) 4,10€ + 4,10€ + 6,75€ + 6,75€, a room for one night 70€, tramway 1,45€ + 1,45€ and the workshop itself 35€ (student price).

I recommend doing it another way, for example booking a cheap flight as early as possible. (when I tried to book flight also would have cost 250€)

About the content:
The first speaker was from the BSI UK. This is the organization which created the BCM-standard BS25999. The topic should have been BS25999-2:Specification .. . But unfortunately it was mostly about part one of the standard, not part two. So nothing new for me in that case. But afterwards I asked the speaker some questions, so it was a bit helpful at all.

The second topic was "the concrete procedure in a BCM project". I disagreed a lot with the speaker. He has a lot of experience in the field of Disaster Recovery, but his mapping from "there way to implement BCM" to the 25999 standard was ... hmm... let's say, not how I understand it. One example, he always talked about assets and continuity of this assets. But in BCM normally you always talk about (business) processes and the continuity of those.

After a short coffee break the chairman and professor of the TU Darmstadt talked about how to measure efficiency of BCM. This topic was quite interesting, even if I do not need it for my master thesis. It was a mathematical approach how to calculate an efficiency value. You can calculate a result without even testing the BCM approach . It was very theoretical, but something different and interesting.

After lunch there was a presentation about a doctoral thesis. It was ok, but not very exciting. Would be nice to read the whole dissertation, because in such a "short" presentation it is only possible to get an idea of the content.

Then there was a presentation about the human factor in BCM,.... sorry can't tell you anything, I was too much concentrating of not falling asleep. (not the presentation, the followings of the train trip ^^)

The last two presentations were about practical implementations at Siemens and BMW. Those were also very nice and useful to get an inside view to a practical implementation.

Workshop and other stuff

Until yesterday I was still correcting my expose, my content and my project report. (for the third time(!)) Hopefully this time it is good enough for my adviser.

Today I will travel to a workshop in Germany by train (2220). The workshop is hold by the Cast-Forum at the Fraunhofer institute in Darmstadt. The topic is "Enterprise Security Management" and has its focus on Business Continuity Management. So it should be perfect for my master thesis. I will travel 8h there and 7h back. The funny thing is, the workshop only lasts from 10-17 o'clock. I will stay one night in Darmstadt and when I'm back I will give you a report.
Fortunately I got this special tickets (Sparschiene), where I have to pay only 39€ from Linz to Frankfurt. (normally ~109€)

Today I sent my resume with all additional documents to a company to apply for a job. The job is called Technical Security Analyst and the description of it sounds very promising. So I thought, why shouldn't I try. It is only in a small town, but the company is very good. It is the biggest in its market (in Austria) and it also has settlements all over central and eastern Europe. I will keep you up- to date

Now I should excessively start with my master thesis, because the first milestone (chapter 1-4) is on 29.2. Phhhuuuuu!!

Presentation for PCClub and new technical stuff

First of all, last Wednesday we did a presentation (in the name of our organization Hagenberger Kreis) for the PC-Club in my hometown. It was the second presentation about IT-Security. This time we had the topic Backup. First I was afraid that the topic is too small and we can not fill the planned 1-1,5h. But as it is, when it comes to presentations, in the end it took 2,5h.

First we presented basics like medias, where and what to backup and so on. Also we explained in details what is and how works incremental, differential and full-backup.
At the end we presented two tools to backup.

The first one was the Vista integrated backup and restore center. For (semi-)professionals I would recommend not to use it. Because it has some really weird things implemented. First of all it is not possible to choose a backup strategy. (increment, differential, full) Vista makes first a full backup and afterwards only incremental backups all the time. So it is not possible to make a full backup every Sunday and in between incremental.

But the weirdest thing is, that you can't really choose a directory or file to backup. Because the only choice you have is to choose a partition or disk and afterwards choose which kind of file types you want to backup. That it definitely strange !!! You don't believe me? Have a look!

Weird!!
However, the restore function has the possibility to restore only one file or a directory. (why not the backup function !!!??)

The second tool was one of my favourite -> Cobian Backup.
It is freeware and it is really good. It has everything you need, except backup on DVD. You can find it here Cobian Backup.
The feature list is really very nice and the upcoming version, which should be published soon, has even more features. But read the feature list on your own, I give you just some key words: FTP, encryption, compression, password, timestamps, files/directories/partitions/disks, and so on and on and on.....

Ok, let's move on to the new technical stuff.
Truecrypt released a new version. Version 5 brings some new stuff, but the most important thing is the pre-boot encryption.
Finally a free software encryption tool has a pre-boot feature. This means that you have to enter a pass phrase at the boot process and if someone steals your PC or hard disk, he can't do anything with it, because it is encrypted. Very nice!!
I will do it as soon as possible, but first I will do a backup of my important data, because there is always a small risk with this kind of software. In the worst case, you can't access the PC on your own *gg*. But it should work, I will give you some Input as soon as I know.

Vista User Account Control issue:
When I put my PC into my domain and "transfered" my local user to a domain user account, I had a problem with the UAC. Everytime it asked me to enter my Admin and password. Not like before just to click at continue, this time I really have to type it all the time.
I lived some time with this issue, until I solved it yesterday. I played with the user accounts and recognized, that my domain user is not in the list of the local users. So I made a new user. There you can say that this user is part of a domain. After I did that, everything worked find as before.

Clinton vs Obama

I guess a lot of non-Americans out there watch sometimes the news about the "fight" Clinton vs Obama. Maybe because it's just funny how stupid sometimes US-Americans can be. I mean, come on, in which country can a men become president with having not the most votes ?! That's the American kind of democracy. (Ok, Austrians can be also stupid sometimes, especially when it comes to elections *gg*)

However, I think it is very important who becomes the next president, because the one they have at the moment is just embarrassing.

So, today is the "Super Tuesday" and US citizens can vote who of those two should be the presidential candidate. I think it is not easy anyway, but anything will be better than it is now. On one side is Hillary. A strong woman, who has the knowledge and the experience. On the other side there is Obama, "young" and dynamic, maybe the knowledge, but experience?? Difficult.

So we will see soon, how USA will decide. In the meanwhile you can spend your time with one product of the election campaign, the video "Yes we can", which is based on a speech of Obama, which includes a lot of supporting Hollywood stars. (I hope for them, the never will regret their choice, but it is the same for all supporting stars, also those supporting other candidates. (As far as I remember, some supported the actual president ^^)



Hmmm, by the way.... Yes we can is a good slogan, you can use it everywhere. For example conquering Irak....Yes we can!!! Yes we can!!! I hope they will not use it that way ;)

Some facts and your turn to vote:
Eco-Research US-Election monitor
Let the show begin!

There it is...

It's again a long time since my last entry. January is over, so is the real stress. Now it should be easier to find time to write some entries. So what did i do the last few days.

As I already mentioned most of the time in January did I spend on my pre-master thesis project. In the end I had 24 pages and it should be ok. But of course I did also other things.

One time I have been at a presentation from Ted Humphrey about ISO27001.
About Ted Humphrey:

"Ted Humphreys (FBCS CITP, CISM) is Director of XiSEC Consultants Ltd a UK company providing Information Security Management consultancy services around the world. He has been an expert in the field of information security and risk management for more than 27 years. ...He was the editor of BS 7799 Part 1:1999, ISO/IEC 17799:2000 and the 1999 and 2002 editions of BS 7799 Part 2 the ISMS standard. ..."

The presentation was very nice and the really good part for me was, that he confirmed indirectly, that my topic of the master thesis is well chosen, because it will be a relevant topic in the future. Good for me, hopefully!! :)

Some days after I visited a "Security projects fair" at our university. It was the first time, that every class from our security studies (computer and media security bachelor and secure information systems master) presented its semester projects. Before that we always presented only to the students of the same class and get the grade for that. Now it is possible for each year to see, what the other years have done.

I must say this idea is really good and the fair was very interesting. Some really good projects have been presented. One group programed a software which does load balancing with virtual machines without any interrupten (it is available open source on sourceforge, but did forget the URL). Another nice project implemented secure services over a mobile network. For example ordering a credit card per mobile and you can pay one minute after the order with your credit card on the phone. And a lot more interesting projects. Nice !

Ok, what else.

Last week there was my last exam (hopefully) in my study career. It was the cryptography2-applications exam. It was a bit more than expected, but it should be ok. Before that we presented our project. So finally I have all the time for my master thesis.

Ah, we also got the grade for Parallel Computing. I only reached a 4 (out of 5). It's not so bad, but 5 would be better *gg*.

Ok, the last thing for today. We have a presentation about Backups in my home town at the PCClub. We (Georg and me) do this for our organisation Hagenberger Kreis. I will give you a summary afterwards.

So much for today.... see ya!

How is it going?!

That is a question I hear a lot in the last few days. Thanks, I'm doing fine. Even when I have hell lot of work to do and Finland still is in my mind.

How is it going?
That what I ask you now. How are you doing? Tell me.

Some also asked me if the blog ends now, after my study abroad. I have this blog since 1,5 year now. My study abroad was just a part of it and the blog will therefore not end !!! The frequent of posting entries will be a bit bigger, so I recommend you using RSS-Feed. And yes, the blog continues in English.

Would be nice if some of my friends out there continue reading and sharing there thoughts with me.

So what I'm doing right now. As I already mentioned, I have a lot of work to do. First of all I have to finish my work for the project, which I have to finish in one week. I also have an exam at the end of this month.

But work for the university is not all. I have to visit a lot of friends since my return, ok maybe that is not work,... but it is time. (well spent)
I also have to support a lot of friends and relatives with their PCs and Internet. That is work!! Believe me!! Questions like "How do I make uppercase letters" are common. And last but not least, yesterday I had to renew my parents aquarium, because the old one was leaking.....

I hope you all doing fine, let me know!

Conclusion about my study abroad

It’s time to write my conclusion about my study abroad in Lappeenranta and Joensuu (EILC). It is quite difficult, because I’m still thinking a lot about this time and I’m not really finished with it. However, I will give you a short conclusion.
I will start from the beginning.

First of all, if you have the possibility to go by car, you should do it. If you don’t like too much driving, you can choose car train and ferry as we did.

Secondly, if you have the opportunity to attend the EILC (Erasmus Intensive Language Course), you should definitely do it !! The time during EILC was one of the best during the whole study abroad program. Why? Not difficult, first of all it was in the summer, so you can enjoy the warm weather and the lake, sitting on the beach, parties at the beach and so on. You can meet a lot of nice people before starting the real Erasmus semester. Joensuu is a nice city and in my opinion a good place to study. Don’t worry about learning the Finnish language, everybody is able to pass.

Let’s move on to Lappeenranta. Lappeenranta is called the summer town. There is a reason for that, in autumn and winter there is not really much activity there. With activity I mean public events. September is the last month where some events take place. During the autumn and winter month it is just another Finnish town, but I think there are not much towns in the east, southern and middle Finland area where this is different. Only towns with special skiing areas can offer more.
Nevertheless, Lappeenranta is in my opinion a nice town. It would be no problem to survive there longer than one semester.

Ok, maybe I should say something about Finland itself. Finland is a very
nice country. If you have no problem with short winter days and long summer days, then you can go there. The country side is very nice, the nature is beautiful, even when they don’t really have mountains there. You can do every kind of sports activity during the whole year. Nearly everybody speaks perfect English, so surviving is not a big problem, and if you stay more then one semester you should learn Finnish. I think if you really want to learn it, it is possible. I will not mention all the good and bad things and the little things that make Finland the country it is, because it would be a never-ending blog entry.

Finland is a good country for living and in many ways quite similar to Austria. Some things are better, some things are worse. If you want to know details, you can ask me personally, because writing everything down is just too much at the moment. Maybe I will make a separate blog entry with some examples.
Must do activities are: Lapland (National Park), St. Petersburg, National Parks in common, Helsinki, Savonlinna, Great Lake Saimaa (boat, swimming, grill, ...), maybe Rovaniemi (Santa Claus, Martiini), Tallinn by ferry, if you have time and money maybe Stockholm by ferry. (and so on)

In some ways living in Finland can be very expensive. But I guess it is also possible to find cheaper places. For example in Helsinki a 74m² apartment costs about 900€. As far as I know, Fins don’t really earn more money than we do in Austria. For my room in a shared apartment I paid in Joensuu 160€ (3 persons apartment) and in Lappeenranta 290€ (2 persons apartment). The one in Joensuu was quite fucked, but the one in Lappeenranta was brand new renovated and it was the biggest room. Smaller rooms are available from 230€. A meal in a restaurant can start at 16€ all included, but it is also possible to eat for 5€.

Shopping is not really different to Austria. Some stuff is cheaper, some stuff is more expensive. I never checked the prices one on one, but I didn’t really realize a big difference. Of course alcohol is a lot more expensive, but that is Finland. For 0,5l can of beer, you pay in the best case 0,99 cent. For the cheapest 0,33 l beer can you pay 0,66 cent. The bottle of wine is available from 5€. Austrian Stroh Rum 0,5l costs 15€. One big advantage by going by car, is of course that you can bring a lot of stuff with you ;)

Now to the most important part of Erasmus or study abroad, the people. First of all, whatever you think you know about different countries, the chance to change this opinion is very high. I would say I changed my mind mostly about Poland and France. Austrians experience with polish people is mostly not a good one and therefore there are a lot of stereotypes. The people I met in Joensuu and Lappeenranta truly proofed this stereotypes wrong and I’m really glad about that. Also my meaning and another stereotype about French people was changed. Yes, they do speak English ;)

There will always be people who want to stay in groups of there own, I mean with people from the same language. I think this is a really big mistake and I’m glad that I found a lot of people who tried to make friends from other countries. Every country had this kind of groups, I will order them from beginning with the worst: China, Spain, Germany and France. Those were the biggest parts of the people, that’s why it was easy to recognize. I met some Chinese people, they are nice and polite, but when it comes to party or do some activities they always stick with Chinese.

Of course not all people of the named countries only stick in there language groups, but a big part of them did. Ok, maybe if there would have been 20 Austrians, it would be more difficult for me to stay in foreign language groups.

I give you some examples of Countries I met: China, Japan, Nepal, India, Chile, Nigeria, Canada, England, Spain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Greece, Austria, Germany, Czech, Slovakia, Poland, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania, Russia, Finland. I think a very nice collection (I hope I didn’t forget any).

I hope I can stay in contact with a lot of people. I know it will be difficult, but nowadays with Skype, MSN, ICQ and E-Mail it should be not that big problem. Just let’s talk some times and maybe meet again in the near future.

Ok, I forgot to mention one group of people, the Fins. The easiest way to know Finnish people is of course your tutor and people of the same lecture. Any other way to get to know Fins is a bit more difficult. I have to say, that my focus was more on the Exchange students, because it is hard enough to get to know a lot of them in just one semester. Would I have stayed more than one semester, I would have focused more on knowing Fins. Because first of all it needs time to get in contact with them and it is mostly your turn to do it. Fins are great people and if the know you and you earned there trust, you find the true Fins then. Because Fins are not that silent as everybody thinks, yes maybe in the beginning. Unfortunately I don’t know much of them, but those I know I enjoy there company.

I guess this was enough to read for this time, maybe I will drop another thought on my study abroad later.

Thanks to all the people who made my study abroad probably one of the best times in my life. I already miss you and I hope I will see some of you soon. Thanks also to Finland and the Fins, kiitos paljon!

New Year's eve in Helsinki and the way back

Hei my friends, it took me a bit longer than expected, but now I try to write the missing blog entries. For the summary about my study abroad in Finland you have to wait one more entry.

Ok, first I will tell you something about the New Years Eve in Helsinki. My friends (Maxx, Roland) and I, Roman and his friends Thomas and Martin, we went on 31st to Helsinki to celebrate New Years Eve.

After checking in at the Hotel (Arthur) near the center, we relaxed first to have enough power for the rest of the night. After lunch we went at 2030 to the senators square to check the place because the main event was there. At this time there were not even one person there, so we went to the center to go to a pub and drink some. We stayed there for nearly 3 hours and played also some card game.

Afterwards we went back to the place, and we were not alone, thousands of Fins joined us and when we arrived at the square some thousands of people were there. I would guess that there were more then 10000 people.

There was some live music and show and at midnight after the countdown the firework show started. It was very nice in my opinion, the only strange thing was, that there was not even one stall where you can buy alcoholic drinks. Every Fin knew that and brought own drinks, we didn't ;(

We made a lot of nice photos and a lot of even nicer videos, but I haven't got them yet. I will publish them when I have them.

After the show we went back to a beer bar where we celebrate again new years eve at 100, the new years eve from Austria ;)
The night ended at the entrance of a nightclub, where the entry fee would have been 7€ even when it was only possible to buy drinks for half an hour more, lol.

UPDATE: Late, but I didn't forget, the videos from New Year in Helsinki (sorry no time and no motivation to mix it with music):

The countdown and firework:



After the countdown second part of the firework:



The days after we spent with a lot of shopping, I spent hell lot of money on souvenirs.
At the 2nd of January we went back. First with the ferry from Helsinki to Travemünde (Germany), which took 27hours and was a "ride on the wild side", because the sea was quite rough. We arrived on 3rd of January at 20 o'clock and had to stay there until the next day, because the car trains leave at 1930 from Hamburg Altona. We stayed at a private room and went to Hamburg on the next day to do some final shopping. At 1930 we left with the car train and arrived on 5.1 at 900 o'clock in Vienna. After breakfast in the Pertl's residence (thanks a lot) I drove home. I arrived, ... maybe more with the body than with the mind (at the moment).

It is over ;(

The captain leaves the sinking ship as last. Ok, maybe I'm not the captain, but in the end I also have to leave Lappeenranta for good.

Tomorrow on 31st of December I will go to Helsinki to celebrate the New year there with my friends and also Roman has some friends there who are joining us.

I don't know if and when I have a possibility to write the next entry, so in the worst case I can write it on 5.1, because then I'm back in Austria. On 2.1 we will go by ferry to Travemünde, which we will reach on 3.1 and on 4.1 we will go by train to Vienna.

I will not write my Finland summary now, so be patient. I really need time to write one and I'm not ready at the moment to accept that I have to leave.

See you soon, and if there is no possibility to write an entry before,
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008 !!!!

Austrians and Gigglin

A new wave of Austrian friends (Maxx, Roli) arrived at 27.12. I fetched them from the airport in Helsinki. The rest of the first day we spent with changing news from home, initial shopping and a welcome beer.

Next "morning" we went to the city center to do the sightseeing program, as usual, and go for coffee and shopping. Actually the original plan was to go to Savonlinna to make a tour through the castle. The bad thing is, that it is closed from 15 - 31.12.

Maxx and Roland at the harbor:


And relaxing at the fortress cafeteria:

Of course if it comes to the night program, on Fridays, guess what, Gigglin Marlin *gg*
We missed the bus at 23, even with spontaneous sporting afford by me, we missed it :)
(Perkele !!)

Ok, back to the flat and taking the next bus. Finally we arrive in Gigglin and the party started. It was really funny and we enjoyed it a lot. Drinking and a lot of dancing and even more fun.


more impressions ? :) ( the time on the photos is Austrian time, so one hour more to calculate)


We met a lot of nice girls and we left the Gigglin after it closed, but finished the night in my flat with some breakfast at 530. And yes, we slept long ;)

One last photo, because I like it a lot, Maxx coming straight from hell *g*:


The rest of the photos is in my Webalbum.

Christmas Eve

Finally Christmas eve arrived and we spent it with a lot of cooking and baking. I already mentioned the menu plans before, so I will show you here how it looked like in the end ;)

I already started my preparations in the morning, because the dough for the Apfelstrudel has to be made earlier to rest a bit. After that Martin and I cooked the potatoes and eggs for the (Slovakian) potato salad.

At 1330 we started cooking and begin with cutting all the ingredients for the onion soup and the potato salad. No, nobody was hurt in the end. The onion soup was Romans responsibility. After finishing the soup we put it in the oven to bake it with bread and cheese and in the end the first meal of the day looked like this:

Meanwhile Martin was already finishing his (Slovakian) potato salad.


We made "Wiener Schnitzel" to the salad. The strange thing when it comes to breadcrumbs in Finland is, that they don't have them the way we do at home. The breadcrumbs here are flavored, so you have to choose between breadcrumbs for meat or for sweets.

We were already nearly full after the soup, but of course we also had to eat the main meal. And it was also very delicious, like the soup.

As dessert I planned a Apfelstrudel. Directly after lunch I started to make it. After putting the ingredients for the first of two Apfelstrudels on the dough, Roman read what was written on the description for the breadcrumbs, which should be for sweets. One of the ingredients in the breadcrumbs was Paprika !! LOOoOOL
Ok, a bit nervous now, because I already put it in, I just put more cinnamon and sugar on it :) In the end there was no difference and it was very good.

The skin was a bit too crusty, because I left it too long in the oven, but for next time I know a trick to solve this problem.

So we were finally finished with all the eating, we made a small break and after this break I started to bake some cookies for the party in the evening.

First of all I wanted to bake some "Vanillekipferl" (vanilla rolls) and secondly I baked some "Nußhäufchen" (nut something).

Me rolling the vanilla rolls:

So at the end when we were nearly finished, it looked like this:

Yeah, I know, we are damn good ;)

So finally the Christmas party took place at Evi's flat. There have been surprisingly less people, so that we have to start with 6 people, but later on fortunately we were 10 people. Actually I thought that all the Chinese will come, but they did their own party with only Chinese people allowed ;(

Nevertheless, it was a very nice evening even when we were a bit tired sometimes because of that much work, but my conclusion is, that it was a good Christmas evening worth to spend. Luca also brought some self made Tiramisu and Jose brought some Finnish pulla both have been also very delicious .

The party ended at 230. Thanks all for coming and sharing Christmas with me/us.

All the photos are online in my Web album as usual, have fun!!