Bikram Yoga

After a break of about 3 years I yesterday did my Bikram Yoga come back. It felt so good so I went for a class today as well. For those of you who are not familiar with Bikram Yoga or also called Hot Yoga here is a brief description: The room temperature is heated to between 40 and 45 degrees Centigrade. The class duration is 90 minutes. Includes 26 Hatha Yoga postures and 2 breathing exercises. It´s a tough workout but the feeling afterwards is just amazing. You will sweat as much as in the Sauna so it´s a good idea to drink plenty of water(1-2 liters) throughout the day before the class so that you don´t have to drink at all during the session. I can recommend Bikram Yoga to anyone no matter what your age or fitness level is.


Tomorrow I´m off to Mauritius for 2 nights. In one week from now I have my recurrent safety and first aid training so most of my layover will be spent studying unfortunately.

The only picture I took in Vienna was this...

Tomorrow

I´m off to Vienna for one night. Wake-up is as late as 6:20 am which is unusually late for me on a work day. Can´t wait to go for a run in one of the parks and then later on park myself in a café with a coffee and a piece of Sacher cake.



By the way what would you do if you were in an escalator going up and half way up it would stop? Would you start walking up or down?
Today I saw an escalator stop in one of the malls and the people just stood still and waited for someone to come and fix/switch on the engine again. That I call being spoiled and lazy...

In-flight corruption

There´s corruption going on pretty much everywhere in the world and even at 40.000 feet.
On a flight the other week a passenger wasn´t happy with the taste of the food that we were serving so he asked if we had a seafood meal for him. He promised to write a good comment about me if I could provide him with this meal. We happened to have a spare seafood meal for some reason so I was happy to serve it to him. He wasn´t happy about the taste of the seafood meal either so I got him a meal from Business Class. After finally being satisfied with the meal from Business Class he filled in a comment form and asked for my name. After he handed in the sealed comment form I didn´t open and read it through so I don´t even know what he wrote in the end. The point is that I would have treated him the same no matter if he would have tried to bribe me or not. It´s my job to make sure he´s happy with everything on board. It´s not that important for me if the company knows if I´m doing a great job or not, it´s more important that the customer will fly with us again and that I know myself that I´ve made someone happy by just doing my job.

I am totally against corruption in any form so I hate it when passengers try to bribe the crew by telling them that they will write good comments to the company if they get what they want. This case wasn´t luckily that extreme but it annoys me every time it happens.

Some pictures from Uganda

Just when I entered my room a major thunderstorm started

Lake Victoria

Tripoli

This was my first visit ever to Libya. I´ve wanted to do this trip for a long time already in order to experience a new country. I would probably not go there on a holiday so I´m happy I´ve now been there and seen at least a little bit of the place.
I spent most of my time though in the Hotel apart from going out for a walk in the nearby area.
There´s not much or any tourism at all in this country at the time being but I hear people saying that it will start booming in the near future.

Tomorrow I´m off to Africa again and this time to Uganda.

View from the hotel room

Not that much going on around the hotel we stayed in

Not much swimming going on at the beach either

A police bike

A local taxi

The past few days

Had a Düsseldorf flight 3 days ago. Visited my aunt and cousin in Cologne for the first time in many years. It was really good to catch up with them again after so many years. Would have been nice to stay longer than only 1 night but maybe next time I have more time.

After coming back from DUS I had a flight to Maldives and back. Unfortunately we didn´t have an overnight stay there due to the short flight time. Departure was 3 am and we were back at base at around 13.00 so it was a really tough and long night. Flights were luckily ok without any drama though.

Now I´ve had 2 days off. Went to eat Korean food last night but it was a little bit of a flop because i ordered the "wrong" dish. That´s the problem when I´ve only had Korean food once before. At least next time I know what not to order..

Ramadan ended today with the Eid holiday starting. It felt strange to be allowed to chew gum and eat in public again.

Tomorrow I´m off to Libya for one night. I haven´t been there before so I feel excited to go to a new destination.

Pics of some of the Maldives islands:

This is how crowded it gets around the mosques on an Eid Friday afternoon

Cote d´Azur

I had a Nice flight a couple of days ago. I was really lucky to be there at this time of the year. It was a perfect summer day. I rented a bicycle and headed a couple of hours east along the coast. I decided to spend the day by myself which turned out to be a smart move so I could go exactly where I wanted and when I wanted.

Tomorrow I´m off to Europe again and to Dusseldorf this time.

Promenade des Anglais

Villefranche sur mer

Eze

This is where U2´s Electrical Storm video was shot

Nice by night

Oh man do I love oysters...

Rib eye steak

Tarte Tatin

U2 in Helsinki

U2 played in Helsinki for 2 nights in August 20th and 21st 2010. I had a ticket for the gig on the 20th. This was my third time i saw them live. My first time was in San Sebastian in 2005 during the Vertigo tour and second time in Gothenburg 2009 during the current 360 tour.
This one in Helsinki was the best so far in my opinion. It was a perfect summer night with a temperature not cold and not too warm. The set-list was good because they played more of my favourite older songs.
It´s just always great to hear I still haven´t found what I´m looking for and With or without you live.

If I compare the crowd in Spain, Finland and Sweden the best would be found in Sweden. In San Sebastian you could see a lot of people behaving badly and using drugs openly during the show which is really disturbing if you wanna enjoy the show. In Finland it seems to be a rule that you have to drink the whole afternoon prior to the concert and then be drunk during the show. In Gothenburg it seemed like the people really came there to enjoy the show and respected others so that everyone else could enjoy the show as well. I did happen to see drunk people during the concert in Gothenburg as well but they turned out to be from Finland surprise surprise...

The set-list:

Return of the Stingray Guitar
Beautiful Day
New Year's Day
Get On Your Boots
Magnificent
Mysterious Ways
Elevation
Until The End Of The World
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
North Star (An Acoustic Version)
Glastonbury
In A Little While
Miss Sarajevo
City Of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight (Remix)
Sunday Bloody Sunday
MLK
Walk On

One
Where The Streets Have No Name

Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
With Or Without You
Moment Of Surrender

Helsinki Olympic Stadium

The weather didn´t look too promising during the day

A peek of the stage from outside the stadium

The stadium was built for the 1952 Olympic Games

The Claw

Show time

The U2 360 aircraft parked at HEL airport