I was born in February 1976 in Rostock - a mediumsized northern German city - and spent the first years of my life together with my parents and siblings (2 brothers and one little sister) in a small village called Blankenhagen. High school brought me back to Rostock where I lived 4 years in a dorm - a time which I really enjoyed! Just my love life didn't really work out those days...

Our army didn't think me 'fit' for service - but I wasn't too upset about that. It just meant I could start university life right away in 1994. To escape the reach of my parents I chose the nice, sleepy city of Muenster. Information Systems is what I wanted to study, and I was immediately caught up by the new possibilities the Internet offered. I've got to admit that without Evelyn I wouldn't have seen more of Münster than my own dorm room and our computer pools. At least not until autumn 1996...

At this time I ran into the biggest adventure of my life so far - studying abroad in Finland. And it's said that nothing stayed the way it was before... For 10 months I studied in Turku, got to know the incredible party life and became an unstoppable disco junkie. Of course it was the fault of all those beautiful Finnish girls - it didn't help my love life though; even so, most of my friends expected me already to marry a Finn one day.

Back in Germany I really got into my live - studies became more interesting and pleased me with fascinating seminars and projects, as a tutor I helped foreign students through their time in Münster, checked out the disco scene (much to my friends' surprise...) and used every opportunity to go back to Finland - even Nokia had to write some paychecks in order to finance my summer holidays in Helsinki.

Life just kept getting better: In Autumn '99 Aggi moved in as my new neighbour in our dorm - a real power woman, who soon became Tobis best friend - she taught me lessons that life hadn't so far, while quite a few bottles of dry white whine where emptied...

By moving in to a new shared appartement I finally got a bigger room - space that I needed for the time of final exams and my thesis. Enthusiastically I worked on my thesis while preparations for my final exams grew increasingly difficult and challenging. In order to help me de-stress, I decided to look into sports, and my friends and family were quite surprised to discover me playing badminton and volleyball regularly. These games were complemented by some ballroom dance lessons.

I should have known before - already my first dance course in the 9th grade had already ended up in some girl's arms. Well, this time it wasn't just some girl and probably my whole circle of friends sighted in relief: I fell in love with nice and cute American called Jen!

So, come October when she was back home in Virginia I decided to leave the European continent for the first time, to spend 2 weeks in the U.S. I got to relax and enjoy myself, and mentally prepared myself to begin studying for my final exams in February.

Finally, the moment I've waited for for so long: In May 2001, in a wonderful ceremony in Münsters biggest lecture hall I've got handed over my diploma! How many exams, how many lectures and how many stressful hours did it take me the last 6 1/2 years - but also how much fun and joy did I have!

But I didn't have time to rest - already 2 weeks later I my new job waited for me to come to Hamburg. And also a nice apartement in one of Hamburgs outskirts had to become the new home of me and Jen!

Hamburg itself is a wonderful and fascinating city - huge but underestimated, with lots of nice and interesting places - to be investigated (not only) by bike, with a lot of water also outside the harbour area and especially with lots of interesting people. And we've just started to discover life in Hamburg...

to be continued...