Rane's World

So last week I headed to Warsaw, Poland to see how my team is doing.  They went through a big transition from moving from one team (Maggie, Kasha, Mariusz) in one division of the company to another team (Karol and DPE team) in a different division.  It was also difficult as the new team has a different execution model than how my team is use to executing.  I would say each team member has a great plan but now they need to come together to build a cohesive strategy.  Almost there...After long days of meetings, planning, revising and negotiating we headed out to fun dinners to see the town.  The first night we headed to the Praga area and had a very yummy international restaurant where both old teams and new teams came together.  The second night we headed to a fun local place that was very angelic.  The food was fabulous and we had traditional polish favorites.  The last night we started at the roof top lounge where you could see the entire city of Warsaw and then allowed my boss Csaba join the ladies night out.  We took a nice walk from the Marriott to old town Warsaw.  We had Polish Tapas and Vodka at an old time Communist Era Bar.  We then headed to this cute restaurant that had over 50 different types of pirogues and special polish honey drink that was hot, alcoholic and very sweet! 

 

Let me give you a little history of Warsaw.  Warsaw is the capital and the largest city in Poland.  It is located on the Vistula River (very beautiful) roughly 370 kilometers (230 mi) from both the Baltic Sea  and the Carpathian Mountains. Its population as of 2009 was estimated at 1,709,781, and the metro area is approximately 2,785,000.  Warsaw is the 8th largest city in the European Union.   On 9 November 1940 the City of Warsaw was awarded with the highest military decoration for courage in the face of the enemy.  Warsaw is also known as the "phoenix city," as it was completely destroyed during World War II, and rebuilt with the effort of Polish citizens.  It is an amazing town and the people are so very friendly.  I loved our taxi driver who had amazing customer service but was 3X the price of the regular taxi- oh-well.  Sometimes service is worth the extra charge.  I hope you decide to visit Warsaw.  A few pictures of the trip...

So I headed to Oktoberfest today with my neighbor Bernie.  I should have known Greg was going to bail on me when he said he would meet me there at 13:30.   The wether was perfect not too hot, not too cold, no rain and not too many people- just yet that is...  We got there and walked around before meeting the Munich International Ski Club with our Box section Hacker Tent.  The tents are amazing, huge and hold 9000 people.  It is crazy they take 2 months to build, 3 weeks of festivities and then another 2 months to take apart.  Over 8 million people will come to Munich and I think it is 6 million masses of beer and 3 million chickens are consumed in the 3 weeks of Oktoberfest.  We joined 80 of our closest ski buddies for Mass biers, 1/2 chickens, dancing and singing.  Greg finally shows up to make an appearance for 15 minutes and then said he was going on a quick walk and never came back.  Bernie joined me and we enjoyed the next 4 hours.  After feeling quite drunk we headed home so we can be productive at work tomorrow and not be too drunk. 

 

Let me give you a little history lesson on Oktoberfest-  Crown Prince Ludwig, later to become King Ludwig I, was married to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen on 12 October 1810. The citizens of Munich were invited to attend the festivities held on the fields in front of the city gates to celebrate the happy royal event. The fields were renamed Theresienwiese ("Theres'a Fields") to honor the Crown Princess, although the locals have since abbreviated the name simply to "Wiesn". Horse races in the presence of the royal family marked the close of the event that was celebrated as a festival for the whole of Bavaria. The decision to repeat the horse races in subsequest years gave rise to the tradition of Oktoberfest.  In 1811, an added feature to the horse races was the first Agricultural Show, designed to boost Bavarian agriculture. The horse races, which were the oldest - and at one time - the most popular event of the festival are no longer held today. But the Agricultural Show is still held every three years during the Oktoberfest on the southern part of the festival grounds.  In the first few decades, the choices of amusements were sparse. In 1818, the first carousel and two swings were set up. Vistitors were able to quench their thirst at small beer stands, which grew rapidly in number. In 1896 the beer stands were replaced by the first beer tents and halls set up by the enterprising landlords with the backing of the breweries. The remainder of the festival site was taken up by a fun-fair. The range of carousels offered was already increasing rapidly in the 1870's as the fairground trade continued to grow and develope in Germany.  Enough history... Here are a few pictures from the day.

 

So I headed on Wed. from Moscow to the Windows Client BG Leads offsite in Milan.  To my suprise we headed straight to the Staium to see the Inter- Barcelona Game.  The downfall for me is arriving at the Stadium with 76,000 people and having a suitcase and backpack with it pouring rain.  I was then told to go against the traffic of all the people and head to the Metro to meet the bus to leave my bags and head to the game with the team.  After a 40 minute walk and 2 hour wait,  I finally found the bus-dropped off my bags and headed to the game.  The energy in the stadium was crazy but it was no Allianz stadium in Munich.  It was a tie 0-0 game and not much energy in the offense, mostly defensive game.  Expected a lot more from Barcelona.  We then headed to the Castle.  Yes, the offsite was in a Castle and we had the Castle to ourselves!  Our rooms were amazing and the faclities perfect!  The food was fabulous and the conference facilities great! Free internet access and anything you needed you got.  I felt bad for my leads as our offsite as always in Munich at the MS office. 

 

A little history of the castle for you.  Villa Gallarati Scotti is probably the most majestic of the many delightful villas constructed in the area. Of the Baroque structure, transformed into Neo-Classic shapes with a monumental entrance between the end of the 18th, beginning of the 19th century by the architect Simone Cantoni, there remain only the traditional U-shaped play and several interior spaces with 18th-century frescoes. The 19th-century modifications also involved the park, transformed into a typical English landscape, inside of which traces of the Baroque garden survive with a valuable nymphaeum of Neptune located on the northern edge of the landscaped area. In 2008, the restoration of the villa was completed and it currently houses a centre for conferences, seminars.  I would recommend staying here absolutely wonderful!  A few pictures from the 2 day offsite. 

 

 

So I noticed I forgot to blog about MGX- Microsoft Global Exachange.  This is the one week a year that 17,000 Microsoft employees from around the world get together to understand the strategies for the new fiscal year.  This is my 7th MGX and I can't believe every year I get re-energized and chanting I LOVE THIS COMPANY!  Amazing Products, Amazing People, Amazing Research and Amazing impact in helping people around the world- makes me so proud to work for this company.  It is also great to catch up with co-workers you haven't seen for months- some for years.  I am amazed at our MACH ( Microsoft Academic College Hires), could you image what it would feel like starting Microsoft right out of college and then being in the Atlanta Dome and seeing flags from all over the world and people chanting I LOVE THIS COMPANY with Steve Ballmer runing around the dome.  Its pretty cool.  Here are a couple pictures from the week.

 

 

Well, we just got back from a long weekend in London and we want to share with you our latest adventures.  On the right you will see some pictures from our romps through London.  The first day we landed late and had dinner at this strange Pub called the Churchill Arms where we met my old boss and her husband but the pub was a Thai restaurant.  The next day we did a lot of walking must have been 12km, we went to Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, changing of the guard, St. James in the Field Cathedral, St. James park, Buckingham Palace, National Gallery and dinner at a Belgium Restaurant and met our friends’ boyfriend-Mike at a quirky little Pub in Notting Hill Neighborhood to listen to music. 

The third day it rained a lot so we spent most of the time using the underground.  The second picture is the millennium bridge that we took to the Tate Museum.  This bridge was over budget and did not open on its target date of 2000, it cost 10 million pounds to build!  We headed to  the Tate Museum and saw a play at the Shakespeare Globe and had lunch at a vegetarian restaurant called Neil's Yard.  The play was really cool, it is the top picture and it was open air and no roof.  The bad thing is it rained the whole time and the people standing in front of the stage got soaked.  Greg was smart and saw an area on the far right side of the stage where we had a good view and stayed dry.  My favorite part was our futbal game Chelsea versus Burnley.  The crazy thing is no beer drinking in your seats, only in the food area.  If that was the case in Germany no one would be at the futbal games. 

Greg’s favorite part of the trip was our ride on the London Eye.  The next 2 pictures.  Our friend in Munich, Steve Murphy help build it.   He told us that when they opened they did a big commemoration to breast cancer and he had to tied huge pink ribbons on top of each pod.  The view was amazing and it takes 30 minutes to go all the way around.  There is a cute kids 4D movie you watch before the trip-Greg liked the pictures of us in the funny glasses, we'll spare you from viewing.

Greg had not been to Prague, Czech Republic yet-so I took him for a long weekend.  I do love this city!  We did lots of walking, at least 18km a day- Greg wanted to kick my butt by the end of each day.  We saw Prague Castle, did a bike tour through the city, did a show, saw music, went to great restaurants, and investigated neighborhoods.  We love the great art structures around the city.  The FREEDOM wall was one of my favorites.  The Dancing Building is very cool!  We saw typical Praue flats, which are pretty cute.  We had dinner with one of my co-workers and his wife.  It was a jammed pack 5 days.  If you haven't been to Prague it is a must!

 

Some interesting facts of this Bohemian city- Prague history is an epic story. Inhabitants of the city have witnessed a declaration of independence, Nazi control, brain washing communism & capitalist democracy. And that was just the 20th century!  Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Prague has become one of Europe's (and the world's) most popular tourist destinations. It is the sixth most-visited European city after London, Paris, Madrid, Rome and Berlin. Prague suffered considerably less damage during World War II than some other major cities in the region, allowing most of its historic architecture to stay true to form. It contains one of the world's most pristine and varied collections of architecture, from Art Noveau to Baroque, Renaissance, Cubist, Gothic, Neo-Classical and ultra-modern.  It was also Mozzart's favorite city and it's known that he had stayed with many citizens of Pargue when he was fired by the King in Austria. 

 

So with my MBA finished, I now have a life and my hope is to keep my blog up to date.  So Greg and I headed home to enjoy the great Oregon Summer.  Greg stayed home for a couple months and enjoyed fishing, camping and hanging with his boys.  We climbed South Sister, did my hooding ceremony, went to the Oregon Coast and saw whales, hiked the Oregon dunes, went wine tasting, went to soccer games, went camping, went deep sea fishing and headed to central Oregon for fly fishing, hiking and enjoying the warm sun.  Oregon is one of the most beautiful places in the world and being gone sure has made us appreacite it.   It was great to see family, friends and catch-up with co-workers in Seattle.  Good times, now its back to Munich...

Okay, so I am 6 months late on this entry.  With finally graduating from my MBA, I now have a life again.  So I am doing my blog catch up.  So over the winter holiday's we had our annual Munich Holiday Party- this year we had about 45 packed into our tiny 3 room apartment.  We went through about 20 bottles of win and a case or two of beer.  Our crazy friends stayed till about 2:30AM and then headed out dancing till 6AM, crazy people!  The funniest was watching a bunch of expats (Spanish, British, Russian, Austrian, Croatian, Irish and Auzzies) and Germans trying to play Scene-IT with American Movies. 

 

After our party, Greg and I headed to Austria for Skiing and Snowboarding for the Christmas holiday.  Well, Greg's great idea in saving money got us a pension that had lovely pictures on the bathroom showing us how to clean the toliet and shower. (I Know..)  Also, the conditions were so great that it rained almost all of the trip and the most fun was sledding down the 3.5KM sledding trail (which was a lot of fun!).  The town was cute and we spent most evenings at a pub listening to a dutch band seeing covers.  We became friends with a dutch family for some reason folks from Netherlands love Soell.  Here are a few pictures of the fun event...  I give Greg points for trying to schedule a great skiing holiday but the location and hotel were a little lack luster. 

 

In December we also headed out with the Munich International Ski Club on several trips.  Our favorite trip to Solden occurred first weekend in December and was brilliant.  Great snow, gondola walking distance from our pension.  Our pension with sauna and great breakfast.  We also headed to Austria for several day trips that were fantastic.  The Alps are great over the winter!

 

 

Well, I am very behind in my blog so in November Greg's Mom and Dad came to visit us for 3 weeks.  We went to Istanbul and Alanya in Turkey for a week and then we ventured to Salzburg, Nurneburg, Ragensburg, to visit all the Christmas Markets in Germany and Austria.  We had many adventures in Turkey as we went with a German Tour Company so to the dismay of Pam, Gordon and I everything was in German.  Greg got to be the translator and I think we got about 20% of the story.  We visited all the attractions- many mosques, cistern, markets, leather shops, rug factories and were good little tourists and bought a lot of stuff we didn't need.  We saw many ruins and the vast amounts of history was the most amazing part of the trip.  Turkey was a great visit and glad we went but that was enough bartering for me for a few years- I felt like I was in Mexico.  A couple pictures of the trip there are more on my facebook page.  We enjoyed visiting all the Christmas markets with the family and Germany during the holidays is a very magical time.  I think I will miss the Christmas markets the most when we head back to the states.