Halloween - finally!!!

Well, finally after all this pumpkin carving and freaky trips Halloween was coming up. The weeks before I was trying to think about a scary costume which is not a witch, a vampire, a skeleton or a devil...Kind of lost and without any clue, I was talking to all the Americans around to get an inspiration. And then I learned something interesting that would probably surprise most of the European people who consider Halloween as a scary event with freaky costumes. But this is not really the case. I learned that girls first of all should dress sexy, no matter what. Second, Halloween is taken as an opportunity to dress in costumes, so it is not really important to dress "halloweenish". After this new insight, guess how I ended up??? I went as a Spanish Flamenco dancer...

The whole Siemens intern community was invited to Andrew's house party. Andrew is an American intern with Siemens. Before we went to the party, Miri and Miguel came over to my house as we girls promised Miguel to turn him into the 'Joker'. That was great fun and we were really proud of the outcome:

If you would like to get an idea about all the costumes, check out my digital photoalbum:

http://gerryg.myphotoalbum.com/albums.php

Six Flags - Safari Park & Rollercoaster

After that relaxing Saturday afternoon at home with the Pumpking carving event, the alarm threw me out of bed on Sunday morning at 6.30am. "Why the heck", I asked myself,"am I doing this on a Sunday morning???" But I have to admit after this adventurous day, it was all worth it.
We were 8 people, cruising down to Jackson, New Jersey. Our destination was "Six Flags" which offers a Safari Park and also a theme park with a lot of different rollercoaster. We first decided to ride through the Safari park until the theme park would open. Guys, it has been a long time ago that I went to such a Safari Park so it was great to do it again!
We saw all kind animals from all over the world but definitely the funniest part was the section with the giraffes. They were luring their heads into the cars when the windows were open and licked the roof and the windows or just blocked the car. It was unbelievable to watch it and we laughed so much!

After more than 1 hour of Safari, we finally entered the theme park. The weather was brilliant, no cloud, just sunshine, perfect for such a day. The most important action before we went on the first rollercoaster was to pick up and activate our "Fast Pass".

It is a little device which allows you to enter the attractions via the fast lane therefore you don't have to queue for hours. Believe me, the price for it was all worth it. For many of the rollercoaster the queuing time was between 2 and 3 hours!!!
The attractions of this park are simple to describe: rollercoaster of all kinds and variations. Thanks to our Fast Pass, Bene, Miri, Miguel and me were riding the "Nitro" 5 times in a row because there was no waiting for the Fast Pass lane. No wonder that we felt pretty dizzy afterwards...

This park holds also the fastest and highest rollercoaster on Earth at the moment: "Kingda Ka" Absolutely crazy how they boost you up from 0 to 128 mph in 3.5 seconds and catapulting you 45 stories into the sky. The way up is far worse than down! And you will get the best out of it when you jump in front seat of the vehicle...

Trust me: Your ears, cheeks and eyebrows start to shake when you go up...I cannot describe that feeling, you have to do it!
We had a pretty long day but even though we left the park around 10pm just shortly before it closed, so we got the most out of it. Absolutely knackered after the 1,5 hours drive home, we arrived at home at around 12pm. Pretty exhausting day but I don't regret any minute!

Watch more pics on my digital photoalbum:

http://gerryg.myphotoalbum.com/albums.php

Pumpkin Carving

Halloween is almost there...All the scary trips have been made, so what is missing apart from getting a Halloween costume? Correct: Pumpkin carving!

On that rainy Saturday afternoon, the 5 girls came to my house, all excited to carve a pumpkin the first time in our lifes...All but one: Gillian, one of the domestic interns with Siemens who is joining us for lunch and coffee breaks at work. As she is American and we came across that pumpkin topic a few weeks before Halloween, she volunteered to help and show us how to prepare the pumpkins.

We all had nice, large pumpkins and after cutting out the lid and removing all that disgusting, spiderweb-like inside stuffing and the seeds, we started to draw the fancy faces on the pumpkin.

Some more successful, me less... I don't know where all my drawing skills went but they left me behind that day...So I ended up by carving out the little, friendly ghost, while the others were working on their more sophisticated art.

But this allowed me to cook the pumpkin soup while they were still working.

And Gillian? Apart from giving tips and instructions, she did a great job, removing the seeds from the net and baked them in the oven. A very delicious crunchy snack!
We all had great fun with that new experience and I think that all of us will remember that day once we will carve another pumpkin in our life.

Watch more pics on my digital photoalbum:

http://gerryg.myphotoalbum.com/albums.php

Haunted Hayride

As the time draws closer to Halloween, all the haunted and freaky attractions come more and more in the focus. After I already visited and survived the haunted prison in Philadelphia, I decided it is time for another haunted trip. Petra, Lalo, Bene, Julien and me drove down in the middle of nowhere to get scared. I cannot even remember the name...
This attractions consisted of 3 different areas: The Bates Motel, the haunted Corn Maze and the ride on the trailer torn through the dark forrest by a tractor.

Even though I had been to a similar attraction already, it was still scary again for me again and I was screaming, jumping around and pinching the guys in the arms all the time. The difference here to the haunted prison in Philly was that the actors actually really touched you and were holding you back, tearing your hair or locking you in a small closet which happened to Bene and me. We wanted to avoid to pass that scary, freaky guy who was crawling around on the floor and decided to take a short cut out of the room...But of course, the door in front of us and behind us slammed shut the second we entered. We were suddenly trapped in that closet and the guy started to reach after us through the fence. The most horrible moment was when suddenly something from the ceiling crawled down and was starting to rush around our hair and pinching us in the shoulders....We didn't see this girl before hanging on the ceiling...The others we standing outside and were entertained by us freaking out(or me...freaking out). After a few more moments, they released us from that torture and we continued to walk through the rest of the house.
That was definitely extremely scary! But also the walk through the Corn Maze and the Hayride held some exciting moments!

More pictures on:

http://gerryg.myphotoalbum.com/albums.php

Rehoboth Beach - October, 16-18, 2009

Finally it knocked on the door: Our long expected weekend in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. We rented a huge beach house right at the waterfront which hosted around 30 people.

This house is just unbelievalable huge: 14 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, a seperate pool room, a huge main area and th emost important: the heated Jacuzzi on the roof with a huge terrasse.

Many of the interns stopped working on that Friday very early to make their 2,5 hour trip down to the coast. As I was leaving Malvern as one of the last persons together with Petra and Miguel, we arrived straight when the party started. All was set and people were sticking together for card games, Godzilla (an electronical version of Tabu, more or less), Jenga, Wii or simply just talking.

We had a few new interns around who arrived just a few days ago, so that was a good chance to get to know them. You can tell that we had a lot of guys around because the first Keg was empty at 1am. That was more or less the time when we decided to check out the heated Jacuzzi. What a brilliant idea! It was so much fun, in the middle of the night and once the Jazucci started to cool down a little bit, we reheated.

No wonder that some of us stayed several hours in there, climbing out with fishy skin. This night ended around 5 or 6am for me, after we decorated one of our fellow interns with hot dog and cucumber slices...

The Saturday started with a healthy breaky and after watching an extremely funny movie (Eurotrip) that Bene brought, Mona, Miri, Dominik, Miguel and me made our way out into that nasty weather...Our destination was the huge outlet store just down the road. Of course we entered the A&F and the Hollister store as it was still cheaper than in the normal shops. Unbelievable! In the end, everyone was carrying around several bags with a happy smile:-)

Back at the house, we found people playing Monopoly or Playstation or just hanging around. Sooner or later everyone had dinner and we all started to warm for the 2nd party night. Some people didn't make it that long as they were tired from the first night. But of course the Jacuzzi was opened and heated again...After that we played a few rounds of Mario Kart on the Wii, before I fell into my bed at 6.30am in the morning. The sunday morning started at 12 for me and after a nice breaky with the whole crowd, Petra, Anni and me decided to explore the beach even though the rough weather conditions.

It had been raining and it was pretty windy all weekend but fortunately on that Sunday afternoon, at least the rain stopped.

We had to leave the house at 5pm, so after we packed and cleaned up, Petra, Miguel and me made our way home.
It was a funny and interesting weekend and I kept up with the less sleep the week after. Watch the best pictures on my digital photoalbum:

http://gerryg.myphotoalbum.com/view_album.php?set_albumName=album16&page=1

Recipe for the heavenly chocolate cake:-)

This report today is for all those chocolate cake junkies who are desperately waiting for the recipe of the delicious french chocolate cake:-)

Here we go:

Gateau au chocolate

200g bar of chocolate (at least 70% cacao)
200g butter
250 sugar
5 eggs
1 table spoon flour

Important to use a wooden spoon for the whole baking procedure to stir. No electrical mixer needed.

1. Break chocolate bar into pieces and cut butter in little pieces.

2. Put both together in one bowl and melt it with medium heat in the microwave or using
the double-boiler method until it is totally liquid. Stir from time to time.
Important to use a wooden spoon.

3. Add the sugar while stirring.

4. Add one egg, then stir until totally dissolved. Repeat this procedure for all 5
eggs. Important not to put them all at once.

5. Finally add the flour and put the pastry in a square or form. Use baking paper for
it.

6. Bake it for 20-25 minutes at 425°-450° F.

ENJOY!!!

My birthday

I cannot deny but on October 7 it was time to turn one year older....just take it for the paperwork.
In the US (as also in the UK) it is more common that your friends or team members prepare something for your b'day but I decided to bring in the German tradition and baked a German apple pie and a French 'Gateau au chocolate' for my team mates and the interns at work.

As it was during the week and everyone had to work the next day, I decided to celebrate more decently, appropriate for my age;-)So after work we went to play Bowling for a few rounds.

We finished playing around 8pm but for me there was no way to go home! So a few of my close friends here joined me and we went the Boathouse. There I managed to bring in my charme and convinced the barkeeper to spend shots for us;-)

When they closed the bar down at 11 and threw us out, we made our way to Bene and played a few rounds of my hobby: Mario Kart! The day could not have end better.
I have to say that this was such a nice evening! We had a really good time together, played pool and darts and it was just so relaxed, I wanna thank the others for this wonderful night and went to bed as a happy birthday girl:-)

Watch more pics on my digital photoalbum:

http://gerryg.myphotoalbum.com/albums.php