Zhong Hua, Ljubljana, Slovenia

A nice, quiet Chinese place, a little out of city centre. A darker, rainy day. Stories begin and stories end. Soup was hot and sour. Songs were subtle.

Peking Garden, Zurich, Switzerland

Hot and sour soup and chicken szechuan. Good restaurant. Empfohlen.

Yak und Yeti, Vienna, Austria

We left our touch rugby companions at Rathausplatz and went toward this Nepal place.
First there was an Audi Q7 Rim Job to be done:

And then there was some Need for Speed: Vienna drift:


We passed a Schwullenhaus and arrived to Yak&Yeti place, where Agi joined us. Bohra ko Khana - cheese and spinach and things. It first time in this blog that we had a chihuahua model: the legendary Chico from Grüngasse in Vienna. Somebody in the restaurant said loud and clear: "I hate the smell of dead meat!" After 15 minutes of eating Nepal food, I concluded that Hot is Cool :)
http://www.yakundyeti.at At the end we were served Yaki&Yeti rum, made of rum, ginger, clove and several other spices. BTW if you are interested in Nepal Miss: http://www.missnepal.com.np
We finished the evening in Arabic place Mabia or something similar. Shisha cooled off the day ...

Rathausplatz, Vienna, Austria

We were first doing some sports in the park. Vienna has nice parks:

I was playing touch rugby (girly version of rugby) for the first time. The team was really international: Neil is from New Zealand (travel writer for Lonely Planet http://www.lonelyplanet.com), Alessandro from Italy (freelance chemists), Margaret from US (marketing for Update software http://www.update-software.com), Sabine from Austria, but originaly German (working for BoKu University http://www.boku.ac.at), Christian from England (journalist for FM4 http://fm4.orf.at) and Marek (Channel guy for VMware http://www.vmware.com) Later on we had a beer at Rathausplatz where there was Film Festival 2006 going on. http://www.wien-event.at/ "I'll do my level best" is a real English expression.

Sofra kod Momira, Skopje, Macedonia

After a long tiring day a well deserved dinner. It started of with rakija and continued with very good Macedonian wines - Muscat from SKOVIN and BOVIN. http://www.skovin.com.mk/e_index.html
http://www.bovin.com.mk/ If you are interested in Macedonian wine, you ought to try these, though they also provide you with a healthy dose of headache if you overdo it :) I was enjoying fine Macedonian wine and food with guys from INet http://www.inet.com.mk/ INet is somewhat of a synonym for IBM, Red Hat, SAP and some other brands in Macedonia and increasingly also in Kosovo. Saso (Sašo) Tasevski, Slobodan Stojcevski (Stojčevski) and their boss Toni Petreski proved themselves to be a very good company to be with. Later on also Predrag Radojicic (Radojičić) from Simt joined us. http://www.simt.com.mk/ --> I deliberately posted the link to their site, because it is, plainly said, awful and I hope they will "repaint" it soon.
At the beginning we were served a very good fish soup from a small copper kettle:

Sofra actually means a low table full of good food. A small version of sofra was served with a selection of Macedonian salads on our table. There was also some quite hot paprika (piperka). The main course was really delicious sweet water fish from Lake Ohrid, Macedonia's prime resort. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Ohrid We found out that there is a hotel at Lake Dojran in Macedonia owned by Slovenian company Hit (http://www.hit.si) where nobody but Greeks are allowed. I called them and verified that myself. And as I was trying to call Hit Hotel at Lake Dojran, I had a very bad customer care experience with Macedonian Telekom http://www.mt.com.mk/ and their Mobile arm MobiMak http://www.mobimak.com.mk/English/default.asp A terrible customer service. To end this post in a more positive note - there is a very nice article on Macedonia on Yahoo: http://adventures.yahoo.com/Macedonia

Pivnica Gonza, Skopje, Macedonia

A very nice old-style beer place in Skopje, where they serve great food. A was accompanied by Milan Balevic (Balević) and Jovance (Jovanče) Taskovski. If you are from Serbia, Montenegro or Macedonia and interested in IBM Software Solutions, Milan will make you a good deal http://ibm.com/software Jovance, on the other hand, will help you operate and win on Macedonian Stock Exchange. He is running a Brokerage House Innovo Broker http://www.innovobroker.com We had klobasice and some other quite spicy food. Though I was told what I was served, I forgot what I had. I just know it was very good. Waiter, too, explained us (in a very quick Macedonian language) what he has brought us:


At the end an old man played some old songs on accordion:

Emonska klet, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Another nice IBM ladies couple: (Živa) Ziva Lencek (Lenček) and Petja Rogelj. Ziva is still studying (FDV Media Science Marketing) and prior to IBM she was working at Sinfonika. If you are an IBM partner and have already stumbled upon (sometimes very intense) complexity of IBM, she is the one that turns on the light at the end of the tunnel and help the ride to be smoother and according to regulations. (http://ibm.com/partnerworld) Petja used to work for Vita Commerce as she was studying. Now at IBM she is the reason why more and more smaller (but growing) IT companies want to work with IBM in the lower end hardware and storage area. (http://ibm.com/partnerworld/pwhome.nsf/pi/pat_sol_system_offerings.html) Discussion was among others also about Sinfonika and mutual funds in Slovakia. http://www.sinfonika.si/en/ http://www.kd-group.sk Waiter in Emonska Klet was asked to recommend (in English language) which pizza is preffered. He did not want to do that and we have this on video :)

Emonska klet, Ljubljana, Slovenia

In company of two ladies: Kristina Koman and Petra Mozoli. Kristina came from S&T Hermes Plus and before ITS Intertrade. If you are an IT company in Slovenia and want to work with IBM as a partner in software area, you want to know her. Petra came from Iskra Avtoelektrika, Kolektor and Hidria. She has comprehensive skills in SAP (SDMM module) and at the moment she is spreading the word of our IBM software solutions via telephone among our existing and potential customers. Chances are you will hear from her and get persuaded to buy something. On being the victim of your own success: 699 SIT promotion attracts a lot of people and at peak ours pizza waiting times are unbearable. We discussed openBC (http://www.openBC.com) and the phenomena of such services. Another snapshot from the discussion: Should we dare to compare "krvavica" and haggis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pudding Namibia (1.7M) has less population than Slovenia (1.9M).

Emonska klet, Ljubljana, Slovenia

It was raining cats and dogs all night and also a little in the morning and Emonska klet outside terrace was not opened yet. Inside was pretty crowded. It appears that the 699 SIT pizza promotion is working very well this year, too. This time I was accompanied by Mateja Celcer and (Boštjan) Bostjan Kos. If you are into Business Intelligence, Information Integration and Content Management then Mateja and Boštjan are the people you wanna talk to. (http://ibm.com/software/data) From Value proposition and Technical features&functions point of view, respectively. The pizza bearing the name of the place is a delicious sea food queen.

Emonska klet, Ljubljana, Slovenia

As a tribute to this blog as its first anniversary is nearing, I decided to (to a certain extend) recreate last year's experience which brought to the creation of this very blog. Last summer I tested 34 pizzas in Emonska klet. Now the pizzas are not in focus anymore, but the people serving and eating them.



First post is with Anton Orazem (Oražem) [above] and Damjan Florjanic (Florjanič) [below], two still more or less new persons in IBM. Toni (Anton) joined in December and came from Hella Lux. If you want tools (CAD/CAM) for designing Airbuses and fast cars, Toni is the right person for you. http://ibm.com/solutions/plm Damjan joined in June and came from RRC and Bankart. If you want Workplace Productivity and Collaboration Solution, then Damjan is the right person for you. http://ibm.com/software/workplace Pizzas were good and the day was very hot. Anton Orazem had Calzone/Prepognjena and Damjan Florjanic had Veneziana. And now guess who is who.


And there was a very interesting couple sitting next to us. They were dressed like they were, for no particular reason.

Farao, Crnuce, Ljubljana, Slovenia

TurningPoint was the name of the game. Interesting business and value proposal. Big potential that needs good execution. If you dare - "Ce si upas". http:://www.upamo.si http:://www.turningpoint.si

Kanu Klub, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Company Atol (http://www.atol.si/) had their party, celebrating their second year of business.
If you want CRM for SMB - they are the one to call. There was some good food and excellent cocktails. Congrats Atol team!

Namibia (May 11. - June 4.)

No Nokia, no coverage, no email, no blog. A real log off. But there were some photos made of course. http://triptracker.net/trip/885/map/

Bohem, Ljubljana, Slovenia

On Ljubljana's beachfront. We don't have sea in Ljubljana, but we have a nice river - Ljubljanica.
And on sunny days people flock to "The Beach". I took colleagues Faye Chandler and Mike Dowling.

Hotel Condor, Cairo, Egypt

BP meeting and during lunch break the disussion was about Maslow, Pavlov and The Mother of Ali (Om Ali). Delicious. Christian Minarovits and Michael Grosinger.