No knock-out punch. No Loco-motion.

Last weekend winter has arrived in Vienna - just as the weatherfrogs have predicted. While friday was super-unfriendly, with some 3 degrees and heavy rainfall, saturday morning presented itself as a fantastic day with blue sky and crispy cold temperatures. A few hours later the sky darkened and when looking out of the window one felt like on a movie-set: the aircondition was turned down massively, the wind-machines were running on full-throttle and the guy on the roof emptied huge bags of tiny polystyrene-balls. We have never seen such funny and strange snowflakes before. After roughly 1 hour the snowflakes had againthe normal and usual shape one expects and our terraces as well the Prater put on a beautiful white winter-outfit. Luckily temperatures stayed low so that the snow did not disappear immediately. Unfortunately though the wind prevailed as well and not only made the temperatures feel much lower but also forced Markus' scooter into a horizontal position 3 times over the weekend.

The new week started of cold but nicely with stockmarkets all over the world being pretty strong. Not because Austria has a new government (or a t least new faces and new responsibilities), but because Citigroup, on of the largest financial institutions, has been bailed out over the weekend with a 20bn USD cash injection and a 306bn USD guarantee and investors were relieved and had enough of falling prices. How long will the euphoria last? Could be anything from 1 day to a couple of weeks. I would not get over-excited and not chase markets for short term profits, but clearly in the long run levels are attractive.

We are moderate and therefore did not celebrate the positive Monday with a Kylie-gig, huge fireworks and champagne like the opening of Atlantis - The Palm hotel in Dubai but with mulled wine and punch at the christmas market outside Schoenbrunn castle in Vienna with Viki and Stefan, Markus' brother. The four of us have not met for more than a months now and it was a nice, though a little bit wet-cold evening concluded with some snack and warm tea in their flat which is pretty close to Schoenbrunn.

Same Same, But Different

So far we were pretty lucky with the weather as it was relatively mild for November and actually also pretty dry. If you would not see live-broadcasts of ski-races instead of Formula 1 races on TV one would not guess its mid-November. But if the meteorologists are right, then we are heading for the first signs of winter and maybe the first snow.

We could return there every year without getting bored!

We can't imagine a better thing to do than to catch a car to the airport, get on a plane and flee to a sunny destination. Hence we are pretty envious on but at the same time very happy for our friends Lini and Peter, who have delayed their honeymoon from August to November and are heading to Thailand for a three week holiday next weekend. We used the last opportunity yesterday for a nice brunch with them and the rest of the Bella Familia - including special guests from Hamburg: Moni, the exile-Austrian and Tim, the photographer.

We are looking forward to the pictures from the trip and accompany Lini and Peter in mind to Bangkok, 30+degrees, sunshine and the warm waters of the Gulf of Thailand. Have fun, enjoy it and come back safe!

Kerstin & Markus

We together - The race

Last week Saturday Kerstin came back from a week in Gran Canaria where she has visited her cousing Katrin and her friend Dipak together with Sandra. It was a great break from the grey (though warm) Vienna as temperatures during the day ranged between 20 and 30 degrees depending on whether they went to the south of the island or stayed in Las Palmas. Even short but heavy rain did not cool off the days a lot and only during the evenings temperature levels droppped. The sunshine allowed for hours on the beach (be it "normal" or nude), walks on the dunes and hiking tours to the mountains and in the evenings the 4 had great spanish dinner an met with their friends.

Unfortunately the wind in Gran Canaria was preventing Kerstin to use the time as training camp for today's big race: the 25th Cricket Sie-Er-Lauf in the Prater - a relay race over 2x 4km where almost 1200 couple-teams were participating. We obviously were adding training sessions during the past week, but the missed unites were very hard to make up for and we have had a big challenge to overcoe: our private race between Maria & Mirko, Lissi & Christoph and ourselves. The big favourites were clearly Lissi & Christoph (especially after learning that Christoph finished the 4km Vienna Nightrun in ca. 14 minutes!!).

Big excitement before the race

Sunday morning at 0945 the three teams + our two cheerleaders Evi and Valentin met in our flat to get prepared for the race which was started at 1100 not far from our place. The excitement was big when the girls started off and fighted hard - after 2 km they were level. Unfortunately on the second 2km Kerstin was outdistanced slightly by Maria and Lissi and so Markus had the almost undoable task to chase Christoph. The task could not be fulfilled at all, but Markus and Mirko crossed the finishing line together. Whatever the result - it was big fun and we were very happy that we have signed up for that event! We will be working on our pace for next time! So be warned ;-)

Kerstin & Markus

No signs of global warming, but rather Ice Age

This week Kerstin, Sandra and Heidi were supposed to visit Katrin and Dipak in Gran Canaria for an autumn break. Unfortunately though Heidi was not able to fly and after several days of wrestling for a decision the two sisters decided to do the trip anyway and so they flew out to Spain on Sunday morning. They seem to enjoy the time in relatively warm temperatures and sunshine Heidi in the meantime checked into hospital and luckily is on the way of improvement again. Not the ideal way to spend your holidays, but we are glad to see you getting better again, Heidi!

Markus used the situation "home alone" to spend some spare time with his PS3 playing the newly released NBA 2K9. Better don't ask if he improved his skills. The frustration level at certain points was very high. At least in real life his team, the Oberwart Gunners, managed take revenge for last season's heartbreak final for the championship with a strong 93-82 victory against the Fuerstenfeld Panthers on Monday evening in the second round of the ABL.

The weather forecast: Freezy!

On Wednesday evening Markus flew over to London for a two day business trip. He was too late by a few hours for the premiere of the new James Bond movie - Quantum of Solace - which was partially shot in Bregenz on the floating stage (approx. 10% of the movie!!). He also missed the first snow in London on Tuesday. This was the first time in over 70 years that London had snow in October. London presented itself still crispy cold but snow-free. But not only are the temperatures close to the 0 degree mark, also business climate is almost at the freezing point. Credit crunch, falling house prices, massive lay-offs and doomsday scenarios in the media. In Austria we do not feel this chilly wind and we do not see this extent of the economic crisis. But there are chances/risks that it might haunt us there as well. We definitely hope not!

Kerstin & Markus

When I grow up, I will run away from home and join the circus!

What a week! The rollercoaster ride on the equity markets is nothing for the faint-hearted. You must have a good stomach for that. If not, a gastric ulcer can be developed very quickly. Whether the worst is yet to come is a very tough call. Markus somehow feels that volatility and bad news will persist for a while, but we are not seeing the end of the world. Let's hope he is right!

The past weekend was absolutely gorgeous and it was crispy cold both Saturday and Sunday morning, but there were hardly any clouds and sunshine all day long. Ideal to relax, go for runs in the Prater Hauptallee and enjoy the sunshine. The perfect peak of the weekend was the Cirque du Soleil with its show "Varekai". Kerstin's present for Markus' birthday were two tickets for this amazing "circus" which is back again after quite a long time in Vienna. Quite conveniently the Grand Chapitaeu, that's the name of the tent, is situated 15 minutes walking from home on the other side of the Prater.

The Grand Chapiteau - not far from home

We were both really excited about the show as we have seen also "Allegria" and "Quidam" in the past (we are not sure if we also saw "Saltimbanco"… seems like not, as the shows are memorable!) and we have not been disappointed at all. Cirque du Soleil is not a common circus but much more a mixture of carnival and perfect body control & artistic peak-performances! The costumes of the actors were colourful and amazing, the music yet again perfectly fitting the performances of the artists and kind of mystique. But the breathtaking part of the show was, what the artists are able to do. Whether it was the girl on the Aerial Hoops or two guys on the aerial straps, whether it was the performance on crutches or the juggler who handled among other things 4 ping-pong balls in his mouth (!!). It almost hurt us watching the girl hand-balancing on tiny pillars and bending herself to the extreme and the Russian swings, which catapulted the guys meters high through the Grand Chapiteau did enthuse the whole crowd. Both of us were though most amazed by the Icarian Games which are very hard to describe as it was so unbelievable to see. Basically one guy was juggling his partners (one at a time) with his feed lying on the back. The partners were flying through the air doing somersaults and other moves. It was jaw-dropping and the ultimate body control.

Truly amazing what these artists are doing!

Whenever Cirque du Soleil stops by near you or whenever you have a chance to go to a show, please do so. It is worth every Euro-Cent. Go for it!!

Kerstin & Markus

Closer to the gutter than to the stars (??)

Whenever you believe it can not really get worse, you can be quite sure that you are proven wrong. The events on the global stock markets this week are one good example for that wisdom. The meltdown of asset prices is not really something unprecedented, but clearly the scale and even more so the fact that markets globally are affected is quite a while back.

The Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the Russian financial crisis in 1998 and did not manage to trip over global markets, the Swedish real estate crisis in the early 1990ies reshuffled the whole banking industry in Scandinavia, but the rest of the world was marginally shocked and the burst of the internet bubble at the beginning of this century had only limited impact on the industrial and commodity markets which helped us stand up again. The Wall Street Crash in 1929 resulting in the Great Depression seems to be the most suitable comparative event as it also had massive influence on global equity markets, global economies and the personal wealth of the population. The fact that US car maker General Motors (GM), whose share price last night closed down 30% in New York has now the a lower market capitalization (2,8bn USD!) than in 1929 is anecdotal!

The market believes GM is now worth less than 1929. Is he right?

It feels very much like a Black Friday today, the mood in a dungeon can not be worse and most of the people Markus was speaking to were fed up and hoping they would not be working in that industry. Some are thinking already what they could do instead, either because they expecte to be sacked or because they consider withdrawing from the investment arena. This smells very much of capitulation, which is what we need. But whether we are seeing the lows today, we would not want to bet a lot of money on.

No matter whether the G7 meeting over the weekend will come up with a magical solution for the crisis or not one drought will come to an end for sure: Finally this coming weekend the Austrian Basketball season is getting underway again. Tomorrow, Saturday last season's cup-winner Allianz Swans Gmunden take on the 2007/08 champion Raiffeisen Fuerstenfeld Panthers and one weeks later the regular season kicks off. Judging by the transfers, team changes and pre-season performances one can expect a very tight and interesting season as there are five teams which are expected to be able to beat each other: The two above mentioned plus the Kapfenberg Bulls, WBC Kraftwerk Wels and Markus's team, the Oberwart Gunners. On top of that with UBM Arkadia Traiskirchen, kelag Woerthersee Piraten and xion Dukes Klosterneuburg there are three contestants which could easily suprise. With Admiral Sportwetten the league has received a new main sponsor and the fact that Premiere continues to broadcast up to 45 league games live should enable more presence for the sport and help Markus to stay close the the events. The target to see more games of the Oberwart Gunners live should not be difficult as last year he saw only 3 games all season long live in an arena.

Let's go Gunners!

Kerstin & Markus

The attempt to run away from the horrible markets.

Yet another turbulent week on the stock markets in which everyone focused on the ONE event on Friday: the second voting in the US congress on the bailout package. The expectation was that the bill will be passed this time and so the trading session did start off positively. Unfortunately market participant's reaction to the positive voting was a classic: as the structure and amount of the 700bn USD package was seen as not sufficient the markets sold off. The news on Saturday, that the support package for Hypo Real Estate collapsed as up to 100bn EUR are needed spilled some oil into the fire burning these days on equity markets. It’s probably best to keep your cash at home under your pillow!

Friday night, while the congress casted its votes we were driving to Vorarlberg where Markus was participating in the Sparkasse Marathon over the half-marathon distance. The cold temperatures paired with rain on Saturday were scary, but the weather forecast for Sunday was somewhat better. Especially the news that it’s supposed to be dry was heard with joy.

Sunday morning the weather was just perfect: crispy cold in morning, but no cloud and sunshine. After breakfast at Sandra and Flo's we boarded the MS Vorarlberg which brought us to Lindau, where the start of the run was. After warm-up routine and additional motivation with the right play list on Markus' iPod the run was started at 11:11 with ca 18 degrees in the sun and 9 degrees in the shadow.

Warm-up is key. The right music for it helpful

Markus, who had an "official" target of 1:45 for his race and was hoping for a time below 1:40, started off moderately with ca 4'15/km over the first few kilometers. After ca. 15 minutes he started though to feel horrible stitches and he had to slow down to an avg. 5'10/km, but the pain was persistent. When Kerstin saw him at km 7 Markus looked like not making it very far and indeed he was considering to turn in at the 1/4-marathon.

Along the pipeline he got the pain under control, managed to speed up again and the 21,0975 km were back in play! What followed was in all of his past half marathons unseen: he made up time vs. his target in the second half of the race, could mark strong last 3kms and reached the finishing line as 31st in his category and as 288th man after 1:39:30. This is ca. 1,5 minutes slower than his personal best (1:38:10 set in October 2004), but within the time he hoped for and clearly good considering the problems at the beginning!

It was a "happy finish". Different to a Thai massage though.

As a first reaction Markus was happy with seeing the finishing line and the time, but pretty soon also some annoyance about the problems in the first third of the race came up. The positive takeaway is clearly the fact that the speed in the second half was kept stable at ca 4'45/km and that Markus was running with an average heart rate of 178 bpm rather than ca 185 in previous races what usually resulted in much slower times towards the finish.

As we have taken Monday off we are planning a small late birthday dinner with Sandra, Flo and Werner and tomorrow morning we are driving back to Vienna.

Kerstin & Markus

After the elections is before the elections

Yesterday, Sunday we Austrians were "forced" to early parliamentary elections, as the two coalition partners rather quarrelled than worked and split up earlier this year. This development paired with rather colourless election campaigns lacking real messages from pretty much all parties resulted in a shake-up of the political landscape with the coalition parties loosing significantly and the right wing gaining massively. Not really surprising that many of the coalition supporters who disliked the elections, showed that by not casting their votes.

The leader of the socialist party, who could defend though its "first place", sent out a very strange message last night by saying that he sees no way in a coalition with either blue (far right) or orange (centre-right) which leaves basically the same situation as we had so far, only with less seats in the parliaments - a coalition of socialist and conservative party. This option bears the massive risk of driving politics yet again against a brick wall and Austrians could be forced soon again to elections. A light at the end of the tunnel is a new leader for the People’s party as the first consequence appointed today. Lets hope this light is not an oncoming train! For sure the next weeks will be quite interesting as to what coalitions work out and whether we will see another season of "The Muppet Show" or some serious and meaningful politics.

Is this really what Austrian politics is all about? If so: Who is Who?

Not necessarily due tot the above mentioned election outcome Markus left the country early Monday morning for Poland, but a long-planned investor trip gives him the chance to get out of the circus. Lucky him! But lucky only in a certain aspect: this coming Sunday he is planning to overcome the half-marathon during the Sparkasse Marathon by Lake Constance and instead of ideal nutrition, relaxing and perfect preparation he is supposed to rush to meetings, taking care of the client and taking him out in the evenings. Not the perfect setting.

The events of the day on the other side of the Atlantic where the congress voted against the 700bn $ bailout plan for the banking system caused stock markets to reach new lows (the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped a record 777 points or 6.98%!) did not add much joy at all to Markus, his client or other players in the financial markets.

Looking towards the weekend: The target for this years half-marathon is no new personal best (1 hour 37min) but to achieve a time in the area of 1 hour 45min which could be quite challenging anyway considering unfriendly weather with approximately 10 degrees and high probability for rain. But so far the hope for a wrong weather forecast keeps a glimmer of hope alive!

Kerstin & Markus

Like a virgin no more - Madonna in Vienna

Sunday evening Sandra and Flo arrived in Vienna for half a week with the main event: Madonna's first ever Vienna concert during her "Sticky and Sweet"-Tour on the Donauinsel. While we had to work both Monday and Tuesday, our guests had two fine days, whereas Sandra used Monday to fight an oncoming flu. She suceeded and was on top form on Tuesday.

In order to have enough energy for the concert, Flo made on Tuesday evening a fantastic pizza which was eaten away pretty fast before we got on our way. Having arrived at the venue we tried to find a decent spot close to the stage where we also had a chance to see the stage, but arriving at 1915 was obviously too late as many of the 45000 people where already there and so we were rather in the back, so only Markus did have a good view.

At 2040 the Queen of Pop, Madonna Louise Ciccone, came on stage and opened the concert with "Candy Shop", one of the tracks from her current album, "Hard Candy". The stage itself was full of technology, glamour, screens and in that respect impressive. Unfortunately it was not very high and therefore one did not see too much. The screens revealed to a certain extent how agile and fit the 50 year old still is. No way we could see details, which might have provided us of more age-evidence.

What was striking was that both older tracks as well as new ones have been performed in re-mixed versions, newly interpreted and they were not immediately recognized. This meant that the crowd had difficulties to get going and the atmosphere was rather cool, whereas the weather was ok - only 10 degrees, but dry. Only a rather genuine version of "Like a prayer" got motion into the crowd, but a humble attempt to integrate the crowd more with a 'sing-a-long' of one of her songs failed as unfortunately no-one recognized this song and so it was pretty much embarassing for both Vienna as well as Madonna and she seemed to be pissed off by that. What should we say? In a final attempt to make everyone happy the rather dancefloor-type of track "Hung up" has been performed in a heavy metal way that Rammstein or Metallica could be proud of.

Somehow expectation and performance did not match

Maybe the expectations were too high, maybe the way the gig was set up would have suited rather for an indoor performance with less people or maybe it just was not our day, but Madonna clearly did not impress us much and - before the gig we would not have bet a cent on us saying that after the concert - if we would not have been to the concert, we had not missed much. Let's stick to the albums which are great, but a Madonna live concert in a large arena: No, thank you! For impressions of the concert (actually mainly the stage) take a look at the our Picasa webalbum in the picture links.

Kerstin & Markus

London was Calling - It needed a shrink!

On Monday evening Markus left the rainy and cold Vienna again for probably one of the most vibrant cities in Europe, the home of Princes Charles, William and Harry, London, for a conference on Austrian companies, a management meeting and several client meetings until Friday. Having lived for almost 4 years by the river Thames, London became something like a second home to Markus and returning is always connected with nice memories. We are trying to come back at least once per year for a weekend, as both of us love the city to pieces. For 2008 our visit together is still pending actually!

Shopping in Carnaby Street is an integer part of any London visit

The conference, co-hosted bz the Vienna Stock Exchange and UniCredit MIB took place in the Courthouse Kempinski Hotel, just opposite Carnaby Street, one of the nice pedestrian zones and shopping streets in the West End of London. the hotel used to be, as the name says already, a court in previous times, and some oparts of the hotel have been kept pretty much unchanged. The most obvious examples were three cells (including toilets) which form part of the hotel bar, and which could have been used ideally for very private or detailed, undisturbed discussions between investors and some companies. Given the markets sold off yet again during the week (most of all hitting ImmoEast which lost 50% until Thursday close due capitulation of shareholders) such meetings would not have been a big surprise.

Ideal for very private conversations: One of the cells in the Courthouse Kempinski

Given the UK economy and housing market is structured in a similar way to the US market and after bancrupcy of Lehman Brothers, the takeover of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America and the bailout of AIG on the weekend also HBOS became a vicitim of the credit crunch and is most likely being eaten up by Lloyds TSB its not surprising that the mood in London's city was very depressed as the ghost of redundancies, job losses and recession were walking around rather than waiting behind some corners. Hence the management meeting on Thursday was a pretty much serious event with lots of measures having been discussed and taken in order to weather the heavy storm best.

Markets cost Markus' colleague his shirt..

As Markus moved to London in summer 2001, a time when job-losses, layoffs and depressed ewconomy was a big topic the last time it was not a complete shock, but the city presented itself very different to the past few times. Nevertheless, the mood did no harm to the beauty of London and the fact that Markus likes is looking forward to returning soon again. Obviously he can't wait to get back home again after 4 days away to spend some quality time together with Kerstin again!

Kerstin & Markus