Check out the photos page. I've added several more photos to the 'Remembering South Africa' album and added an album with photos of the Ludwigsburg Castle taken during my recent trip to Germany.

Eduard (2009-07-15 21:56:24)

After my second rejection from Orange, I spoke to a lady from their credit department. Finally someone told me how they do things in this country and put me on my way to building my credit history (something I really miss since leaving South Africa).

In short, don't try to get a 18 or 24 month mobile phone contract. Don't get a pre-paid or pay as you go phone either. They have these SIM-only 30-day rolling contracts which, as long as you pay them by direct debit, builds credit history! Why didn't anyone tell me this before?? Anyways, the lady put in an application for this service and my new SIM is on its way.

Hopefully in three months from now, I can ask Orange to reconsider my application for a full contract based on my performance on the 30-day rolling thing.

Eduard (2009-07-14 18:44:17)

In the many weeks since the last update quite a bit has happened:

I've been to Germany. Really cool. I enjoyed it a lot. Especially the eating! It's only during this visit that I realised that the general quality of meat in the UK is poor at best.

I also really enjoyed the fact that Germany is not flat. Looking at google maps doesn't do the region any justice. It's really up and down - quite steeply. And it is very green. Probably even greener than the UK.

The buildings generally look pretty cool. I like the style. I also rather appreciated that even some of the old buildings (200+ years old) are in really good condition. Often one can clearly see the lack of maintenance of buildings in the UK. So it was good to see what these old buildings ought to look like

My only issue was that the German border police did make me feel like a criminal the way that they studied my passport and photos before letting me into and out of Germany.

Then I've also been back to the German embassy in London and got my second schengen visa. This time a longer term, multiple entry visa. Later this month I'll be off to Spain on this visa - I'm not looking forward to this trip quite so much as the Germany trip, but it should still be cool.

Since all that it's just been business as usual. The only other note worthy happening was our visit to the Fleet Air Arm Museum by RNAS Yeovilton. That was really cool! Laurel's got some photos from this trip on her Picasa site (get the link on the Photos page).

Then today I've also had my second rejection from Orange for a mobile phone contract. This time I phoned up their customer support people who put me through to accounts who put me through to a really nice lady in the credit department. This lady finally gave me some useful information ...

Eduard (2009-07-14 18:31:51)

Four rejections for Google Adsense! :( I just can't seem to get Google to accept my application to place ads on my website. And they don't give any reason why not! So, tonight I'm redoing the Sitemap, the robots file, the metatags, all of it. And then I wait for Google to update their database before I try again to get some ads up.

Eduard (2009-06-16 19:33:00)

The decision has been made. It's time to start learning German. There are some smart looking software available for this, but they also sell for really smart prices.

I got a free limited copy of one program which has a pretty decent interface. It may be limited on content, but I think it will cover the basics which is probably all I have time for before the trip to Germany.

So, now there's just two things left: first, I need to do a lesson every day. Easy said. And second, do I talk to Jens and get some help from him, or do I surprise him by speaking German in Germany? ....

Eduard (2009-06-15 19:48:37)

I've now been to the German embassy in London which was a pretty good experience. They are definitely very well organised and especially like that they processed my application BEFORE I had to pay for the visa - the UK have you pay before you hand in your application and there is no refund if there was just a small problem!

Today I have also received back my passport with schengen visa! So I'll be off to Germany on July 1st!

Eduard (2009-06-08 19:00:00)

After being asked to go to Germany for training by my company, I've finally got all the paper work I need and have applied for an appointment with the German embassy. This will be next week Thursday.

I'm afraid I won't be able to do any travelling or visiting friends in Germany as I'll only be there for three or four days and we'll have a tight schedule. But, we'll see. This may just be the first of many visits.

Eduard (2009-05-27 22:38:51)