Halloween, Elections & more

Yes, we can! Obama was elected as the new president of the United States of America the last week. Not a lot changed since then but Flavio can still tell a lot of new stories. The past weeks were the perfect opportunity to make real American experiences. Let me start with it.

Rain: Rubber boots can be fashionable
Seattle is probably the only place on planet earth where rubber boots are really fashionable. The rain season started here and you may wish to type "weather seattle" in google to find out what the weather is here right now. The weather forecast hasn't much to do because they can just copy the forecast of the previous day and use it for the next day. The variety of rain boots is incredible! You might want to look at this link. Aren't the colors incredible :) ?

Man on fire
No, this isn't the perfect Halloween costume: A tragic incident happened on the Campuson the day of Halloween. A man set himself on fire on the red square, which is the main square of the university (something like the Polyterasse). The brave reader can read the story here and look at pictures: Students rush to save a man who set himself on fire.

Halloween
Halloween was another American key experience! Already a month before October 31st you can start buying costumes and other Halloween utilities. Halloween is one of the biggest festivals here: For the children it is a paradise because of the trick-or-treating, where they proceed from house to house to ask for candy (treats). If they don't get any they will play tricks on the house owners. For all the older people it is the perfect opportunity to act like a child. My costume was Kellog's Tony the Tiger. I already owned a t-shirt with Tony on it so the only things I needed were a mask and Frosted Flakes ;) Plus some random golden chains which made me the hip hop version of Tony the Tiger. Look at the pictures to find out more about my dress and see how my friends dressed up.
There is one comment I want to make about the costumes of the US girls: for most of them Halloween is a great opportunity to dress up in a really slutty way. Most of them are wearing skirts that barely cover anything... it is up to you to judge if that is good or bad.
This is actually not the last comment I will make because I could be part of another really American experience: a fraternity party. A fraternity is a brotherhood with a Greek name (Pi-Kappa-Alpha or Alpha-Beta-Gamma). Membership is limited to men and the own big houses close to campus and people say that they are crazy, drink a lot and have huge house parties. So on the day before Halloween we could get into one house and I have to confirm; it is like in the movies. They have a huge house with a huge party basement. Loads of drunk people doing dirty dancing, that's probably the best description and that's were I stop.

Election Night
Wow, election night was a blast! The atmosphere was incredible - basically it felt like French revolution back in 1789. US citizens and even all the international people felt absolutely happy that Obama got elected. The alternative was simply ridiculous (Muhahahaha). After watching the election ralley at a friends place we went to Capitol Hill to a bar to watch Obama's great speech and after that every single soul started marching downtown for the manifestetion of Obama! Absolutely insane! Ten thousands of people were marching in downtown Seattle, the streets were packed and everybody huged and high-fived the next person. Great atmosphere.
What was a bit astonishing is that everybody was still so sceptic until the last minute whether Obama will win or not. Now he is there and he will move into the White House soon.

Seattle neighborhoods
Seattle has many many beautiful neighborhoods. Most of them though have a really small core. I checked out Seattle Center. This is were the world fair in 1962 took place. They built the Space Needle, a monorail and other very futuristic things. On another day I discovered to the international district to see the small Chinatown they have here. Please have a look at the pictures.

Look at the pictures

Purple and Gold - colors of a Husky

I am safe and sound in Seattle! I am actually already since about twenty days here: I got settled and I started my studies at the Computer Science & Engineering department of the University of Washington in Seattle. So it is about time to please your minds with some new stories!

7th heaven
I am living in a house with six other international students in Capitol Hill (Click here for map). The location is great because the house is nicely situated between Downtown Seattle and the University District. Our neighbors have huge houses, and nice cars - it seems to be a pretty safe area.
I was totally frustrated when I arrived in Seattle and found out that I got a spot in the university residence hall in a triple room! That means three people in one tiny room! I had a look at it and decided to find another place to live in. The dorm just looked awful and all the other people living there are freshmen (18 years old)!
By happy coincidence I ran into other international students having the same problem and I joined them to look together for a house to share... and a few days later we found this amazing house I am living in now with the coolest people. That's why I want to shortly introduce each and everyone of them: Click here for picture.

• Frida (Denmark)
  Tall, blond and good-looking Frida is studying architecture. She has a great style, dresses really cool and likes to fool around. She talks about houses as if they were living creatures that interact: it sounds terrific and you can see her passion about it burning in her eyes! What I really liked was how she climbed on a dumping side digging for useful stuff for our house: a rocking chair for our porch! She is a great entertainer, "maker" and seems super independent. It is great to look at her when she is excited about something.


• Line (Denmark)
  Line is the Danish princess - because she has such nice skin (that's what an Asian guy thought ;D). She married the man of her life shortly before she came here to Seattle. She likes as well to fool around, to dance and sing. She has great skills when it comes to second hand shopping and when she smiles she looks really cute!


• Katy (England)
  Katy is a little bit more shy than the other ladies and moved in just lately. The first thing she brought was this awesome hat stand. So we can actually throw our hats on it as soon as we enter the house. She is a great actress with the greatest British accent and she should show us some more of it :).


• Ras (Denmark)
  Ras is an incredibly nice guy. You can feel that he is happy and that he somehow understood what is important in life. He is tall and slim, just like me (and has the same problems when buying clothes). Other great characteristics: generous, helpful, great mediator and absolutely funny! He built a tennis court with his dad and thinks about marrying! That's mature.


• Petter (Sweden)
  Petter is another Scandinavian. He is the chef of our house - he pleasures our senses with great food! He is a real gourmet. Looks good all the time and is a little bit vain. He's style is very cool and he sometimes looks like he owns IKEA - I though never figured that out. And finally: he is my tennis teacher!


• Moritz (Germany)
  The German! He is football player and beer trinker. He actually just made it in the university soccer team! We actually manage to not talk German - which is quite magnificent. A very funny guy - he especially likes to joke about Scandinavians. He is here to party and meet girls :P... and he likes the attention.

University Life
People at University of Washington (UW) are really welcoming. I am now a grad student in the Computer Science and Engineering department. I have a desk and a computer in an office that I share with three other people! Infrastructure is pretty good here, actually just as good as back at ETH. The main reason is Microsoft which provides my department with pretty descent funding!
The campus in general is absolutely beautiful. There is a gorgeous fountain and buildings that remind you of Harry Potters school. It feels absolutely awesome to go to school here.

Purple and Gold
The colors of the University of Washington (UW) are gold and purple -the mascot is a husky. So everybody is supposed to dress in those colors and act like a husky! Go Huskies go! For me it is really impressive to feel the school spirit they have here at UW - there is nothing like that at ETH Zurich. Everybody is proud to go to school here, walks around with UW t-shirts and cheers for the college football team! I bought tickets for the whole season to watch all the games! Every game is a big festival with more than 50'000 fans that go crazy! It is insane! So check out my pictures from the football game to get an idea!

Photos
Click here to browse all the new pictures!
Seattle
Baseball
Football