Sooooo...Dublin!

After a little bit of Icelandic Rock Fog trouble I made it to Dublin last Wednesday. I was supposed to leave Monday morning, which of course did not happen. So I booked another flight for Wednesday morning and things were looking really good until I got a text on Tuesday at 10.30 pm with another flight cancellation and by that time, all other flights on AerLingus were fully booked until the weekend. I got a little upset and started looking into train, ferry and Eurostar arrangements when I randomly checked AerLingus' website again wednesday afternoon and actually got on the Wednesday night flight from Düsseldorf to Dublin. I checked in immediately, booked a train, packed my bag and left. And without further inconveniences I arrived in Dublin a few hours later. Somewhere in between booking the flight and leaving I also managed to make appointments to view apartments on Thursday and on Thursday morning I arranged a few more viewings. The second apartment I viewed was actually perfect (or so I thought): 15 mins walk from the Google office, big living room, huge balcony, decent furniture...so I agreed to take it. Really enthusiastic I went to have my first Guinness with some fellow Nooglers (which is an abbreviation for new Googlers...not nerdy at all :P). Unfortunately on Friday I received a call that the landlord decided to give the apartment to somebody else. I was a little upset, but a "welcome to Dublin"-seminar, held by Google and their Relocation Specialists distracted me. And I even got more distracted later at night when we checked out some bars. We discovered this awesome guitar player at the Porter House, which also brews their own beer. I had a chocolate beer, which was actually quite tasty. I've also had more Guinness and I am already over it. Heineken it is - for now. On Saturday morning I got up at 9 (even though I only slept for 4 hours) to view some more apartments and since the housing market is kind of busy around the end of the month I wanted to be early. I viewed three more places and found a really nice place which is only 2 minutes walk from the Google office, 15 minutes walk to the beach and 15 minutes walk to the city center. It is also cheaper than the first place, but that is only because the landlord gave me a 100 Euro rent discount, since I am female, German and work for Google. Right... We went out for dinner on Saturday but I headed home immediately after since I had some sleep to catch up on. On Sunday we went for a very nice Brunch at...I forgot exactly where...but there was Jazz music as well. Today I checked out the stores downtown and found some nice places to spend my first salary :) Work will start tomorrow and I am very very very very very very very excited. I hope I can find some sleep tonight, since I forgot my sleep and nerve-calming tea in Münster. I'll also go sign the lease for my apartment tomorrow, so that I can move in on Saturday once all my stuff (that I am having shipped from Germany) can be delivered to my new place. Until then, I am staying at a great Bed&Breakfast (Waterloo House just in case you need a place to sleep in Dublin) with a bunch of fellow Nooglers, which is great fun. Google did an awesome job at selecting me some company :P. The atmosphere is very international and everybody has an exciting story. Until tonight it all felt like a big vacation (even though it starts to be a little like home already too), but that is going to change tomorrow when I work starts...

Googletastic :)

Last august, after my internship and before I really got started on my thesis I enjoyed "unemployed" life for some days, drank beer at daylight and watched trash-tv. I didn't like that lifestyle, so the last half year, while I wrote my thesis I was nervous about finding a job, since at the moment the world economy is not waiting for me to graduate. Except for some experimental applications I had put my job-search off until after graduation, because writing applications and preparing for interviews is exhausting and an awesome reason (as if I ever needed one) to procrastinate the thesis.

Still, when I e-mailed with my friend Natalie, who I know from AIESEC and who now works as a recruiter at Google, I sent her my CV and grade lists anyways. And two phone interviews later, on february 10, I found myself on a plane to Dublin for even more interviews. The next day I had my interviews at Google's EMEA headquarters there. I was really nervous before, but my interviewers were kind and fun and even though they made me think hard from time to time, it felt more like nice conversations than actual interviews. After enjoying a great lunch at the Google canteen I went back to Utrecht. During the next day my confidence positive feeling about the interviews faded and I came up with more and more things I should have said and done differently until I finally got an email from my recruiter saying she had only heard great things so far. It would still take two to three more weeks for different committees and the management teams to look at my papers and only then a decision about hiring me would be made. So I started waiting again. Luckily I went on vacation in the meantime, otherwise I would probably have gone crazy. I returned from my vacation on Sunday and still had to wait until the end of the week and those were crazy days. Things got even crazier when my phone rang Thursday night and I actually got the job!!! Starting on April 26, I will be Online Media Associate at Google in Dublin. I will be working in the Adwords Account Management team for the German market. So I graduated a week later having an awesome job at an even more awesome company waiting for me :) Well-organized as I am I found a new girl for my room within 24 hours so that I could leave at the end of March. I packed my stuff, sold my bed and had my dad bring my stuff to Germany. There I repacked it and now it is waiting for the movers to come pick it up and ship it to my (still unknown) address in Dublin.

I am leaving next monday and I am very very very excited! But even though I went to Berlin for Easter and had a lot of things to do last week, not having something to do and not being on some kind of mission bores me a little. Also, apartments in Dublin are always "available immediately" so looking at apartments too much ahead of time doesn't make sense. So I look at apartments online and hope they're still available next week, because I can't wait to have a place for myself! Until then I play with my Wii (I finally got one), make cakes, hang out with family and friends and wait for time to pass. And I am very pleased that this state only lasts for one more week :)

Christina Brauer, M.Sc.

One day I am complaining that nothing is happening and there is nothing to write about, and all of a sudden it is three months later, a lot of things happened I didn't find the time to write, or whenever I had some time something even more exciting was about to happen and I wanted to wait for it to include it in my blog.

On March 12 I (finally) graduated! I got an 8, which is a very pleasant result and in the end, I was very proud of my work. My results were partly what I expected and provided valuable insights in how consumers process metaphors in product packaging and how that influences their product and brand perceptions. My professors are even talking about publishing an article about it.
For now I am just very happy that I am done. Especially the last week before my presentation was a little stressful, I stressed about my presentation and also procrastinated the last minor adjustments on my thesis (which was almost ready a month before) until the last days.

At least I chose the location for my procrastination wisely, Coniurata and I went on vacation to Egypt during the last week of April. We did not really want to hang out in an all-inclusive resort for a week and we always wanted to learn scubadiving, so that is what we did. We booked our diving course online beforehand, at the Diving Center James & Mac. And it was perfect! Since the diving school is run by Germans everything was organized very well, even the (egyptian) drivers that picked us up from our hotel every day were always 5 minutes early. After my other travel experiences in the middle east, this was really pleasant. Unfortunately most days the drivers picked us up at 7.40 am and we did not get to sleep in during our holiday, but the diving was worth it. We saw many awesome fish (some of you were lucky enough to have me show them to you in my fishbook) and diving overall is just a very nice thing to do. Coniurata and I did not like the fact that we could not communicate under water, so we expanded the diver's sign language with more signs to point out cool fish. Our hotel was also very nice, it had different really cool beaches and our room was nice and clean as well. It was in the north of Hurghada with not so many other hotels around, so by leaving the street the hotel was on we were already in an authentic egyptian street (or what they call street). We liked it, because in the South, where also our diving school was located, there was a promenade with some bazars and everything was shiny and nice...it basically could have been anywhere where beaches and tourists are. Au contraire, when we stepped out of our hotel, Egypt hit us :D It was the perfect vacation, diving and the beach were perfect, we even managed to catch a little tan (two weeks would have been much better for that), we quickly found ourselves a gang of locals and expats to hang out with at night and had a great time. Unfortunately we were even more sleep-deprived after the vacation than before, but oh well...and there was one thing not so perfect: our luggage got lost and did not arrive with us in Germany. It was delivered to my house two days later. As "westernized" as all the hotels and touristy things in Hurghada are (there is probably Germans all over the place who keep things running), the airport is the weak link in that chain. Which is only authentic, so whatever. I spent the first two days back in Germany looking like a homeless person and wearing my brother's clothes, but oh well...

At this point I should start telling you that I will not be looking like a homeless person in the future and that I will also (contrary to my biggest fears) will not be unemployed. But since that is a long story and I am in Berlin right now and have awesome Hauptstadtstuff to do I will write about that another time. Soon.