Monday, November 20, 2006

First Day at the New Job

Today was the first day at my new job.

It was a weird feeling walking over there, but the the whole day was very relaxed and mostly involved having coffee with colleagues. I guess I will (unfortunately) do somewhat similar things to what I did 5 years ago, but hopefully that will only be for a short period while I get up speed. Guess it is actually rather good since I can be of use right away and instead of having a long training period. Off to my new life as a working man.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Stockholm Filmfestival 2006

Since I have some time before I start to work and Wen is waiting to go back to Belgium in December, we got involved in the Stockholm film festival.

Premiere and red carpet outside cinema Skandia.

Wen going through the schedule at the festival center.

Our roles were to be guest hosts to one of the visiting directors and to the director of Hong Kong film festival. Meet them at the airport, bring them to their hotel, update them on their schedules, organize with cars etc. In return we get to meet a lot of cool people, watch movies, and party!

Our first guest was Jay Jonroy, who has directed the movie "David and Layla". We helped him around the first couple of days promoting his movie. He forgot his SIM-card at a kebab-restaurant and when we went back they had already sent away the trash. One of the guys working there still went through the only garbage can left and found it! I must say that it was a small miracle!

We went with to the Iraqi embassy to talk to them about the film. The ambassador is Kurdish, which I understand would be impossible a few years ago. I guess that book with the mugshot of Saddam wouldn't have been there either. They said that just a few years ago they would have been outside throwing rocks. Apparently there is a power-struggle around the embassies around the world between the ethnic groups in Iraq.

We also went to the Kurdish library which was very interesting. I guess Turkey is not very enthusiastic about the existence of such. Jay had just put up his fliers of his film on the background.

Our other guest was the director of Hong Kong film festival. Unfortunately I have no picture of him. He went right from the airport to start screening movies. Very efficient guy indeed.

Altogether we have seen 9 movies. One of the most memorable ones were Ye Lou's "Summer palace", which I highly recommend.

Friday, November 03, 2006

Our IKEA home...

Finally a place to stay on our own. At least for a little while. It is small, it is temporary, but it is close to where I will work. I'm sure we'll be alright staying there. We are quite used to living in small places.

IKEA is the one-stop shop if you need everything, including plates to eat on.

Putting up our Billy the shelf.

Having our first meal. We had to stop putting up furnitures because it was getting too late and the neighbor complained!