Just a quick impression from Norway - Sørkedalen, while I have found internet access near a small shop. There’s a lot of snow around and over last night 20 to 30 cm more snow appeared on top of the already present 100 cm.

Gibberish? No, they seem to be the oldest English (and Indo-European) words, dating back a few thousands of years according to an article by the BBC.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7911645.stm

Well, you certainly know the situation: you buy some new clothing, stand in front of the washing machine and you try to decrypt those small symbols.

Here’s a good resource: www.waschsymbole.de (German) or www.waschsymbole.de/en/ (English)

Still suffering from an utterly evil cold and worse is, today’s my birthday. Hope it’s gone until the weekend… the cold at least - I would wish birthdays extend to birthweeks in such cases. All the colleagues at work express their worries, but I suspect there is more worry about the missing cakes now. I promise, I bring them on Monday!

But at least I got a few more things for my journey to Norway next week: a new Mammut windstopper cap (I wish I had that in January when I was cycling to my office through -10° C), a new Icebreaker Bodyfit 150 shirt as well as new warm socks from Falke, T1 and T4. One pair is expedition level, you never know what kind of weather you get to know in Scandinavia.

This year’s Golden Bear of the the 59th Berlinale goes to the movie La Teta Asustada (The Milk of Sorrow) from Peru.

The complete list:

Golden Bear for the Best Film

La teta asustada (The Milk Of Sorrow) by Claudia Llosa

Silver Bear - The Jury Grand Prix

Alle Anderen (Everyone else) by Maren Ade and Gigante by Adrián Biniez

Silver Bear - Best Director

Asghar Farhadi for Darbareye Elly (About Elly)

Silver Bear - Best Actress

Birgit Minichmayr in Alle Anderen (Everyone else) by Maren Ade

Silver Bear - Best Actor

Sotigui Kouyate in London River by Rachid Bouchareb

Silver Bear - Outstanding Artistic Contribution

Gábor Erdély and Tamás Székely for the Sound-Design of Katalin Varga by Peter Strickland

Silver Bear - Best Script

Oren Moverman and Alessandro Camon for The Messenger by Oren Moverman

Alfred Bauer Prize (for a feature film that breadens the horizons of the art of filmmaking)

Gigante by Adrián Biniez and  Tatarak (Sweet Rush) by Andrzej Wajda

Congratulations to the winners!

Norway won 1:0 against the German national football team yesterday.

Gratulasjon! Could this be the kickstart for Norwegian football?

I am fighting with a stye for two weeks now. It’s some kind of bacteria infection of the eyelids’ glands. It’s really annoying: itching, burning, red swollen eye… the first ointment didn’t help much, so I had to revisit the doctor yesterday. Now I got a salve with cortisone and antibiotics, which should help more. At least I hope so. Otherwise I have to visit a specialist next week.

In German we simply say “Gerstenkorn” or “Hagelkorn”: barleycorn or hailstone. BTW, another word for stye in English is hordeolum.

Not that I play WoW anymore but this somehow reminds me of: For the Horde!

Allons enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé!

France won against the Croatian team and the hostile Croatian supporters with 24:19. France is now the Handball World Champion. Vive la France! Well earned with an exciting match!

Poland got the bronze medal with their clear victory over a weary acting Denmark (31:23).

I also updated the final ranking below.

As expected, France and Croatia will meet in this year’s finale of the World Men’s Handball Championship. Denmark and Poland fight for bronze.

Yesterday, France won easily against Denmark: 27:22. And Croatia declassified Poland with 29:23, I guess the success is also partly based on the furious Croatian supporters in the hall. France and Croatia both displayed really nice and for a viewer enjoyable handball playing. I guess the finale will be hot, very hot!

Germany won their match against Hungary yesterday with 28:25 and reached at least rank five.

[update: 02.02.2009] Added the final four to the list.

The final ranking:

1. France
2. Croatia
3. Poland
4. Denmark
5. Germany
6. Hungary
7. Sweden
8. Serbia
9. Norway
10. Slovakia
11. Macedonia
12. South Korea
13. Spain
14. Egypt
15. Romania
16. Russia
17. Tunisia
18. Argentina
19. Algeria
20. Cuba
21. Brazil
22. Kuwait
23. Saudi Arabia
24. Australia