must...control... fist of death!

You know where this is from? No? Start reading dilbert, by all means!

Today is the second day of this "Personality development" course which durates three days. As I haven't been in yesterday this is my first day in this course - day filling - an it is "interesting". Not sure yet if I really like it. The fact that behind dark glass in the back in the room there are three guys with their computers which have no other task than surveillance of all students (or better, observation?) is not adding to my comfort, as I am right now the only one who has his notebook open... they will attest me something like a "renitent charakter". Well, I can live with that.

However, today is my lucky day: I managed to withdraw some money from the ATM. That is nearly a miracle, as my account is overdrawn - I guess that means that the bank rejected the transaction of the credit card (which was heavily laden with christmas shopping, driving through whole Germany for moving, seeing my folks and stuff) and so there is still some little money left. Well, I will take care of this soon. This happened in Singapore as well: Somehow I always manage to drain my account exactly before I go abroad. Great timing...

More good news: Yesterday I finally received my "Vordiplom". The overall grade is a 3.3, which I don't consider to be great, but the great thing is: I made it! Being proud of that might seem strange to most of my colleagues, but all who saw me struggeling with my turnaround in the third semester and went through the terror of the "Nachprüfung" with me might feel as relieved as I do, and maybe as well proud.

Even more good news: We booked the bus tickets for tomorrow. David Schröder is just arriving here in Mexico City and will join Hansjörg and me to Guadelajara tomorrow to visit Jaschar who is doing his semester there. We were promised some good clubbing and fun - let's see how it works out! Both guys, Jaschar and David, are damn fluent in spanish, so wherever we go I guess people will start talking into me like mad until they realize that I DO understand, BUT NOT IN THAT SPEED! That recently led one of my mexican colleagues here to ask me "do you understand spanisch?"... well...

Finally last good news: I am listening to Defcon Radio the whole time recently. You can find the stream at DEFCON RADIO. It is a mixture of life program and recorded comedy shows, sometimes quite rude - so don't tune in if you are searching for something without the f-word :-)

So long - write me comments, they are welcome in any language you like.
I was asked lately why I am blogging in english - but as some folks from outside Germany are reading this as well, this is just the most practical - as I said in the Singapore blog as well.

Looks like in Berlin, doesn't it? We are on the Avenida Reforma, really at the heart of Mexico. That's it for now - watch out for the second part of "Round and round in Mexico!" !

Close to the Center-center of Mexico, campus of the Universidad Panamericana, founded by IPADE. Nice and quiet place, with some really ancient buildings with "here lived YABBA who did YABBA and YABBA and was therfore extremely famous"-signs.

Not that it helps much reducing the traffic jams... but I really like that viaduct-style double-whopper streets.

Hungry! So let's go to a really mexican fast food place! - food was delicious and extremely fresh. And: That place really was authentic, no tourist except us. I love it to discover what the people at a place _really_ eat.

How did you like the museum? NOT BAD!

They tell a whole story on this stone, and some people really decrypted that language!

This is from the Maya - really impressive. This thing has a diameter of about 3 meters!

That's an Aztec statue.

This is us guys under the gigantic, free-standing roof that covers the space between the different buildings of this huge museum.

in Chapultepec we went to the...

The same performance, about one minute later, halfway down. They are hanging heads down all the time - this is awfully dangerous, as they really just make a knot in the rope around their bellies.

At Chapultepec, a huge area with parks, museums, fairs, etc., a group from a special tribe (I forgot the name, sorry) performed a ritual act. They sit on top of a tree (which here is of steel), the one on top makes music, and the four others wind themselves down on ropes, spinning around the pole exactly 52 times (which is sort of a sacred number, as it representes different meanings). I made a movie of that as well, watch out!

Viva México!

Passing by the poor part of Santa Fe. That's more like reality.

Santa Fe, as well: When you go for a BMW, get it at München Motors!!!

Some years ago, the Santa Fe area was nothing more than the garbage dump for Mexico City. On top of the garbage, they created a whole new commercial and housing area - really every building here is brand new.

Our guide - FANTASTIC, FANTASTIC, FANTASTIC guide Ricardo in his office (Santa Fe).

The small scyscraper on the picture below is in Santa Fe, by the way. This house is from one of the richest parts, obviously. I think it is Polanco, but I could be wrong. Architecture in Mexico is weird, but I don't have an idea of architectural styles anyway. I somehow like it, seems so 70s to me.

The first pic from saturday, I think I will post some now and then when nothing else happens. They are just tooo many to be posted in one rush, but let me give you and overview today.

The entrance to our residence. Always locked, and today I saw that we also have an electric fence on top of the wall. Scary, but safe.

This is the however you call it - gangway, floor, whatever, where the rooms are. I live behind the first two windows that you see.

Home sweet home! Our residence, I live on the right side on the second floor.

No comment.

My name tag in the classroom.

Update, but not mine

Hi folks!

I know, I know - owe you something. Party pics, and the complete saturday story, which will be long. We've made a 13 hour long tour through Mexico which was just as good as it could be... hopefully I will have some time to post it with some nice pictures (I took about 500). But the update that the title of this post is talking about...
NEW POWERBOOKS! Yes! Today it finally happened, the PBs got an update. Nothing extraordinary, but very nice. The new touchpad allows scrolling with two fingers on the pad, the drive grew from 60-80 to 80 standard up to 100GB, the keyboard backlight got improved, it has bluetooth2, and so on and so on... just look yourself at apple.com/powerbook.

But the ultrasupermegabest news: In the USA Apple Store for Students, my DESIRE aka PowerBook 15,2" Display, 1,67MHz Processor, 128MB Graphics, 8x DVD Burner only costs 1,747.28 EUR. You realize something: That is far under the sisterly advised "stay under 2000 EUR to convince your daddy". And in fact, in Germany the ultimate cheapest price for that machine is 2.173 EUR, that makes a fair difference (in case you don't have a calculator or a working brain at hand of 425,72 EUR!!! Even when I want to equip the machine with a german keyboard later on which costs about 100EUR, savings are still great.
And best: I got a bunch of my colleagues from WHU who are just up there in the states... we should be able to figure something out there, hm? DAD? :-)

So long