IKEA-ed
It was just minutes before lunch time. I was getting ready to walk out of the room to prepare my lunch and suddenly a email appeared on my mailbox. It was from the real estate agent.
I thought I told you to checkout before 11am! They called me saying that all your belongings are still there. Please checkout NOW, otherwise you’ll need to pay the bill for today, yourself.
And she attached a email from 3 weeks ago asking me to checkout before 11am, cc-ed it to my secretary.
Before I even get to pickup the phone to call her, the secretary came in and asked me to go checkout the apartment right away. They won’t be paying the bills if I was charged for today’s stay. My initial plan was to checkout after work as the landlady of my new apartment is only available after 6pm. So, I totally forgot that I need to be out by 11am.
There I went. I had only 1 hour.
In 1 hour I had to go back to my apartment, pack my things up, checkout the room, then take a taxi to the new apartment, some 2km away. When I finished packing, I realized that there are quite a lot to carry. A luggage bag, 2 backpacks and 5 bags of foods in all. Some of the foods were mine, some were passed to me when my colleagues left.
The heavy rain this afternoon just made things worse. Within minutes of calling them, the taxi arrived but it was parked some 100m away. And I had to carry everything to the taxi under the rain.
The new apartment was very near to the main train station, less than 200m away. There was no elevator. Again I had to carry all these bags 3 floors up. I ended up staying at the roof unit.
Afterall the packing, carrying things around while getting wet under the rain, I was greeted with my new apartment for the next 4 months.
It was definitely much better than the old one.
Everything in this new unit is from IKEA. I can even see the phrase For IKEA From Whirpool on the microwave cum oven. I feel much better here. At least now I feel more at home. The previous apartment (was it even an apartment?) had the bed, toilet, kitchen and living room everything in 1 room.
I was complaining about the old apartment to my colleagues when I first came and they told me to see theirs where the kitchen is inside the cupboard! The only good thing was that it’s very near to downtown. Downtown is now 15 minutes walk away, not too far either.
Anyone coming here?
Aachen September Special!
Where else can you find FREE concerts from 1500hrs to 2230hrs for 9 straight days? All kinds of music; hip hop, rock, jazz, R&B, etc..
It started last Friday and will last until this coming Sunday.
The initial plan was to go together with my other colleagues, but I arrived late and they were already busy dancing to the tunes at 1 of the 4 stages. The stages was setup in and around the town hall and cathedral, isolated from each other. There’s ample space for a few hundred of people for each stage, tables and not forgetting beer stalls!
They even have a ferris wheel, as big as The Eye in KL!
While everyone was busy dancing and drinking, I was happily snapping pics. The thing I like most about this concert is that I can get really, really close to the stage, for free. With my 17-55mm, it was just enough to get some closeups of the performers.
But I still miss the reach a longer telephoto. A 70-200mm would be ideal, or maybe 135mm.
Lighting wasn’t that good on some of the stages. Luckily enough I had my flash gun with me when I need it from time to time, depends. My gears’ settings were pushed to the max; F/2.8, ISO 1600, 1/200s to freeze those people jumping up and down.
Good thing was, most of the shots were keepers.
Here’s another one with ISO 1600.
The remaining photos are in my Flickr.
Sights of Aachen
The Aachen Cathedral at dusk around 2045.
It’s one of two very famous landmarks here in Aachen, besides the city hall which is situated directly opposite of it. You wouldn’t miss them if you’re in the right place. It’s that big that it will definitely catch your attention and your camera’s.
And mine certainly did.
Last week, I was lucky enough to join a customized, short guided tour around Aachen. 2 hours of walk and 10 euros didn’t come to a waste. At least now I know a little history of the place that I will be until next year.
The cathedral was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978. It was built around 800 AD by Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor, and is the oldest cathedral in northern Europe.
The name Charlemagne is pretty much synonymous with Aachen. There are events named after him, his statues etched at important places and he was buried here when he died in 814 AD.
If you have a good look at the structure, there are 3 different types of architecture there. All these 3 are built in different centuries. It started out with the structure in the middle, initially called the Palatine Chapel.
From 936 to 1531, it was the church of coronation of 30 German kings and emperors. Charlemagne’s throne was used for these coronations.
600 years later in 1414, on Charlemagne 600th death anniversary, they expanded the structure by building a 2 part glass chapel on both sides on the Palatine Chapel.
And it has since been called the Aachen Cathedral then.
Wait. Did I not say that the Aachen Cathedral and the Aachen Town Hall used to form what they call Palace of Aachen? It was a collection of residential, political and religious buildings used by Charlemagne as the center of power of his Carolingian Empire.
But today, most of the palace has been destroyed and only the cathedral and town hall are still standing, facing each other. (The photo of the cathedral was taken from the place where the tourists are standing in the photo above)
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