Go-Karting in Jena

Our big cross-team event for our week in Jena was go-karting. But really it was ping pong, pool and foozball while waiting to go-kart. And, because it was Germany, we got to do it all with beer. Ha.


Sasha was ready for a nap before we even got started.


Artem finally gave up the idea that I would stop taking pictures of him just because he refused to look at me when I had the camera out. Happily, he did finally start smiling, though, even when he was looking away.



As always, Sasha B. is a riot — even if he was all sweaty from a highly physical set of back-to-back ping pong matches.


The foozball games were endlessly entertaining as well.




Nastya and I teamed up in a game of pool against Matt and Sasha. Nastya’s attempt to demoralize by trash-talking the guys didn’t have as big of an impact as my sinking a ball for them at the end. We lost, but only barely.


Me and Sasha, waiting for our turn to hit the track. We were on the same team, and he rather enjoyed running circles around me.


Nastya and Sasha B. watching another team race.


I’ll upload the video later, but Sasha B. was a maniac at the pool table. And quite the sweaty boy once he was done playing.




The caps they gave us to go under our helmets were endless fodder for terrorist/airport security jokes.


Me and Matt, enjoying hanging out with the team.


Ilya and Marat preparing for another round on the track.


Yet one more game of pool with Marat, Eugene, Artem and Nastya.


Sasha B., Ilya and Nastya chilling out for a moment between games.


This is what Sasha looks like when he gets bugs assigned to him. We told him this should be his new Skype picture.


Our team shot at the end of the evening.

And then after we got back to the hotel, most of us piled in Sasha’s room to do a vodka tasting: Sasha’s Ukrainian vodka and Matt’s California vodka. The Slavic purists objected to the Californian… but the Californians liked it. Maybe a little too much. But there is no photographic evidence of that part of the evening. Thank goodness.

Tags: germany work

Team Dinner in Germany

With work being so busy, we didn’t get much chance to go out — and definitely didn’t get much chance to hang out with just our team. But on Wednesday night, we went out to dinner and enjoyed a night out, with just us.

Unfortunately, German restaurants tend to have trouble handling large groups. So a table for nine is hard to come by. Eventually we found a place that pushed together two bar tables, that could (sort of) accommodate nine people.

In addition to food and drinks, Ilya decided to teach Matt how to play a Russian card game called “Fool.” Good thing, too, since it took nearly two hours to get everyone’s food out to them. BMW’s much-trumpeted boasting of “German efficiency” does not appear to apply to German restaurants.









Arrival in Germany - March 2011

I’ll write more about the ups and downs of the trip later, but since work is so crazy and time is short, I’ll start with some quick pictures, and circle back around to the rest later.

Sunday, March 27, 2011


My arrival in Frankfurt. I’ve gotten so used to flying domestically, that I forgot what it was like to get on a really big plane.


(Artem, Sasha S. and Sasha B.)

After catching up with my guys from Kiev at the airport, we decided to head to downtown Frankfurt to walk around a bit, before picking up Matt and Ilya from the airport that evening. (It turns out, we were really on a quest for sausages and beer.)


Frankfurt has a lovely river walk through downtown. And, though it wasn’t quite as warm as I like, it was still a very pleasant day to be outside.



Sasha reminded me that I needed to get an actual picture of myself in Frankfurt, instead of just taking pictures of other things. I always forget that part.




All in all, the trip itself was long but uneventful, and the few hours we got to spend in Frankfurt before leaving for Jena was nice.

The final photographed event for the night:
The joke for the night was: “How many Ukrainians does it take to load an American van in Germany?”

Of course, it wasn’t until we loaded up, with me in the back buried under suitcases, that Ilya realized the van was a stick shift… which he doesn’t know how to drive. Fortunately, Sasha was happy to take the wheel on the 3 hour trek to Jena.