run up to my trip: the last three weeks before leaving

I haven't been updating my blog lately, since the 3 weeks after my term finished belonged to the busier ones I have had in a while. But the busyness resulted from doing lots of things with family and friends and not so much the work aspect, although my job as the WENA conference coordinator keeps me busier than I first imagined. It feels somehow strange to for once have different priorities, to have time to do things like going to the alpine openair movies (www.riederalp.ch), going to concerts, drinking red wine on a pedalo on lake Lucerne.

I went to this really rocking blues concert in the Bernese Oberland, one of the best concerts I have ever been to. The band is called Philipp Fankhauser www.philippfankhauser.com and if you ever have the opportunity to hear him perform: GO! Live the band is absolutely amazing!

As we are on giving recommendations: if you haven't seen the movie called ' Les Chorists' then I would urge you to see it! Very intelligent movie, good music, good actors.

My last recommendation for today: don't loose your bag, with all essential things in it! I lost my handbag with my cell phone, my keys, my old passport and some money in it. Only 3 weeks after I had my wallet stolen in the Netherlands, I managed to leave my handbag on the train. (this is only a very simplified version of putting it, in reality it had a longer story to it) Still, there are two things left to report: first I got my cell phone and my keys back and my current passport I had taken out the very same morning of the day when I lost it. Just imagine what would have happened if that hadn't been the case: I could have scraped my trip, since it had all the visas in it! There wouldn't have been any way to recover them in such a short period of time. So I have been more than just lucky! Or another way of putting it: more luck than brains...

Other than that the preparations for my trip kept me busy: going to the doctors, queuing in front of the Russian embassy for the visa, exchanging money, shopping, figuring out options for my one week stay in Mongolia, communicating with the travel agency, writing to my hosts I have on the way, reading in my many lonely planets. I have to admit, that I completely underestimated the prep time such a trip takes. Still, it is one of the things utterly enjoyed! in German you would say 'Vorfreude ist die beste Freude'!
But now let the adventure begin...- but to that tonight or tomorrow. Now I'm off to see Moscow city centre! Yiiha!