breaking the ice

This is the big movement weekend. Sigi is moving from the 2nd to the 7th district. Peter, Babsi and Jules are moving from the 2nd to the 7th district. Albert is moving in with me coming from the 9th to the 2nd. I will miss my nuclear family… a lot. But I am also looking forward to my new flatmate. But definitely, this weekend will change my living a lot.

today the chimney sweeper was here!

The Training course for the new advisory council members actually went quite well; a lot of nice people who seem to be highly motivated all together. It was very good to get to know them already prior to the actual meeting here in Strasbourg again in 10 days. Hope they all understand a bit more what co-management is about now.

But now that they all left, the youth center is ghost like and I am the last remaining one as my train only departs past 22 o’clock. But I charged my iPod well and my computer, I have 3 policy papers to comment on – the one on sustainable development, the one on diversity and equality and the one on social inclusion – so also enough work for the ride.

Still I found out, that no matter how well I am prepared, trains make me very melancholic… let’s see how I manage this time.

I am going to Strasbourg again; this time for the training course of new members of the Advisory Council. There are several good things about this trip.
First and foremost it is only a 2 days trip this time, so much easier to survive. But also it is an activity with lots of interesting people. I know already many of them, but there are also some who I have never seen before.
As I am responsible in the Youth Forum for the Council of Europe I will work with all these Advisory Council members rather intensely till the end of the year, so of coarse I am curious who these people are, where they come from, what motivated them and so on.
I am going from Vienna to Strasbourg by train, so I also made sure to have lots of cheer up music on my iPod. Currently my biggest cheer up is Jack Johnson, I’m dancing on the streets because of him.

With this preparation everything should go well and I let you know if I met cool new folks.

As I really enjoy online tests, I can only recommend this politics test to you! Go ahead!

create your own visited countries map

this is a funny tool, you should try it! and post in on your blog right after!
I have 41 Countries and those countries together cover 18% of the world.. so a long way to go to conquer the world.

I just had the chance to spend a weekend with my boys! I can tell you Nuno’s hair cut is much better now.

I got some complaints that lately I only steal pictures for my blog and that I do not write testimonials for friend anymore.

So there is Giuseppe who is my rescue anker in my desperate days in Strasbourg. He takes care of me there when the ceiling in my room starts to get lower again, he's my safety net!

And then there is Nuno. I appreciate him a lot as a trainer and as a friend. He always has funny episodes to tell about burning carpets or mattresses, but I also love talking with him about education and training and he is a big big flirt.

both, real friends!

Moctezuma Ilhuicamina, or Moctezuma I (the surname meaning "solitary one who shoots an arrow into the sky") was born to an Aztec noble named Huitzilihuitl. He took power as Tlatoani of Tenochtitlan in 1440; he was preceded by Itzcóatl and followed by Axayacatl in 1469.



Moctezuma formed a triple alliance with two neighboring civilizations, Tlacopan (a small sovereign kingdom) and Texcoco. In this skillfully crafted Triple Alliance, when a new territory was conquered 4/5ths of that territory would be divided between the Texcoco and the Aztec and the remaining 1/5th would be given to Tlacopan.
Among the Aztecs' greatest achievements, Moctezuma I and the King of Texcoco organized the construction and completion of a double aqueduct pipe system, supplying the city of Tenochtitlan with fresh water.
Moctezuma extended the boundaries of the Aztec empire beyond the Valley of México to the Gulf Coast. He subjugated the Huastec and Totonac peoples and thereby gained access to exotic goods such as cocoa, rubber, cotton, fruits, feathers, and seashells.

A friend who has been with me to Moldova wrote 2 blog entries. As I have been there with him – here are the links.
Moldova –
Facts and
Moldova Impressions

http://alldifferent-allequal.info/

have a look, link it, register

they make me happy!! you can not believe what a mood booster this song is for me!
singing through the day!



He said: I have seen the others
And I have discovered
That this fight is not worth fighting
And I've seen their mothers
And I will no other, to follow me where I'm going
So

Take a shower, shine your shoes
You got no time to lose
You are young men you must be living
Take a shower, and shine your shoes
You got no time to lose
You are young men you must be living
Go now you are forgiven

Going to Moldova now. Last week is temperatures were down to –28° Celsius. Fortunately the worst is over and we only have –7 - -10 in the weekend forecast. We are having the Council of Europe Affaires Commission there. So – Chisinau I am coming.

swirling around my brain like chocolate and cream

I fall in love easily. But it has reached a point where it is simply ridiculous. I got the first season of a TV series on DVD from a friend on Saturday; a late Christmas present. Thank you again my love! So I watched the how for 5 episodes now. And I am in love with one of the main characters. I really think the person during the day, such as - how would it be to talk to each other – or - how would the reaction be if.
Maybe I need to spend less time dreaming and more time doing…
For all German speakers I can recommend a wonderful podcast about the world of TV http://garagenpodcast.podhost.de/

On Monday morning I was working for my role as district councillor. I had to make an inspection together with someone from the city building inspection department in a private flat. The people renting the apartment were making a claim against the house owner. Their apartment mouldered at some walls as some water tubes were lacking and humidity is coming from a very dewily cellar.
It is quite obvious that such living conditions are harming the inhabitant’s health. The house owner did not appear to the inspections. The family had 3 small kids and was definitely not rich. 2 of the kids have asthma so mildew is especially dangerous for them. The guy from the building inspection department made clear what will happen next, the house owner gets a deadline of 3 months to make sure the damage is repaired. He can only oblige the owner to repair the stuff but cannot oblige them on how to do it. So it is highly likely that they will only do the minimum and the mildew will be back in the next cold and wet weather period.
The women with the baby in her hands started crying, as 3 months are very long, they have to find probably alternative accommodation during the dry up works and they will not have any influence on this.
This family had at least such a decent financial situation, that they can afford a lawyer to help them and get the best out of this situation for them.
I really felt desperate cause I had no idea how I could possibly help them. I felt like in a scenery of ‘nachbar in not’ = ‘neighbour in need’ one of the most successful charities we had in Austria for donating money to our southern neighbours during the war in Yugoslavia. Just that it was in the middle of Vienna.
I know very well that a lot of families, especially those with migrant background are living in similar and worse conditions and they do not have this help.
It was just terrible to get such a reminder of what living in poverty in our country means and how people are treated and who is powerful and who is not.

So – we have 35 different countries present out of 48 possible ones. Missing are Spain and France with apologies and then Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, Iceland, Ireland, Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Micro States… so not that bad in the end.

Did I mention already that I am in Strasbourg? Well for the first part of the week I was staying in the maison rouge – a hotel right in the city center. Since yesterday I am in the youth center.
I have a day of All Different – All Equal campaign steering group behind me and tomorrow there will be the first European co-ordination meeting of National Campaign Committees.
There are 40 people supposed to come, I am already very curious how many countries this will cover, but as someone said already earlier today, knowing that the invitations where sent out not even 20 days ago, having 40 people here is already a success, no matter how many countries this will cover.

I have just attended a conference organised by the Congress of local and regional authorities and the Council of Europe, the title was “Social Cities, needs for disadvantaged neighbourhoods”

I was in a panel which was about the partnership triangle between research, youth work and policy makes; noticing that all the speakers were male researchers (30 min speaking time), all the respondents were females from NGOs and no policy makers were present.
Can you all clearly see the partnership?
Basically everyone who was at the conference in the capacity of NGO or in the capacity of Researcher was in this penal on the triangle.
But if they (and almost all of them were there) would have taken into account the Luxemburg results, where a whole 3 days seminar on the research partnership took place, researchers and NGOs would have been in all the panels.

Whilst all the male oldies, who work with each other for a while and would not have needed to meet here to continue their ongoing discussions, which is in addition ridiculous, as they were talking about the same things as in Luxemburg and by anyway agreeing largely with each other (they mainly kept making references to each other - male network at it's best) the young females who were there to represent NGOs got 5 min speaking time each!

All other people who were not in Luxemburg felt left out and excluded and did basically not contribute to the discussions at all.

The biggest loss is that there were such interesting people attending the conference, with such a variety of experiences and practises that we could have all benefited from! But no chance for interaction as it was totally frontal; all this local people from projects who could have shared so much from their programmes did not even manage to speak at all; no exhibition place nothing; just a big waste of time.

Knowing the gang of the old youth policy researchers, I did not learn much new. One of them as speaker and the other bringing their indeed good ideas into the other panels would have been wonderful!

Pity that the researchers and NGOs did not get to attend all different kids of panels and that all the not so regular European conference attendance had not change to get the word in the formal framework of the conference.