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The One Time I was Adopted by a Cuban Family

Read part 1 of the story here Those who know me personally may have noticed at some point that I usually don’t drink alcohol and should I ever do so, said alcohol would form part of a cocktail. But even in the form of a cocktail, the alcohol strikes me as too strong and always makes me feel like I just had a sip of disinfectant. Not so in Havana. The Cubans,…

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Lobsters are Just Fancy Shrimps

To make the post shorter, this is part 1 of a longer story. Read part 2 here. If I really think about it, lobster basically tastes like a fancy shrimp. Back in Riyadh, a piece of lobster the mere size of my thumb was part of a € 70 six course meal I never would have gone for myself, had it not been upon an invitation which would have been rude to…

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Faith in Humanity Restored in Havana

Quickly stuffing away my Cuban convertible pesos that I had gotten in exchange for a bunch of Mexican currency, I had saved my Euros for another time, I took a deep breath and started looking for a taxi at the airport in Havana. I had barely any time to pick one of the yellow cars to approach when I heard someone asking me where I was going. It was a fellow traveller,…

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What a Day to be Alive, Said the Dead

Ever since my beloved old-fashioned hand written letters were replaced by E-Mail, Facebook & co. , conversations with friends have not only taken new dimensions in the distances traveled by our words but also in the topics being discussed. Hence, while walking the streets of Mexico City not too long ago, a question from Israel kept crossing my mind. What did I think of the fact that there were different religions in…

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The Earthquake After the Drill

At 11 a.m., on the 32nd anniversary of the Mexican earthquake of 1985, there was the customary earthquake drill, so people could practice for a real-life situation. Same procedure as every year. At 1 p.m. we agreed to have lunch. At 1.20 p.m. hell broke loose. I sometimes can’t help but think about the situations I find myself in when the most inconvenient things happen. When the skyscraper, a very noticeable one…

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A Tribute to the Grasshopper I Had For Lunch

There would come a day in my life where I would find myself on a weekly market in Cholula, thinking about whether dried grasshoppers have bones. If somebody would have told me that way in advance, it probably wouldn’t have been so much of an intense moment. I may be an A-student in university and a curious person with glasses which makes most people think I am some sort of super smart…

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Observant Thoughts From Mexico By Someone From Berlin

I have lost count of how many times I have used the sentence other countries, other customs  on this blog. I may have done that so many times that it is almost like a cliché by now. On the other hand, at the end of my fourth week in Mexico City I notice that some things are really different from Berlin. In a good way. In a way I find so interesting that…

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Where Will You Be When an Earthquake Strikes?

Two days after my security instructions meeting as a novice to Mexico City, I woke up to an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.2. It felt like a dark way of destiny, the universe or whatever it is you want to call it, testing how well I have been listening during the talk. I can luckily say that I am fortunate enough to be well. My thoughts go out to all of…

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Dear Coward From Platform 5,

You will probably never read this because you have no idea who I am. You probably don’t even remember what you did but why not just talk about it anyway? I still wonder what you were thinking, sticking your hand up my skirt. You did it in passing. Casually, like it’s something one would just do every now and then. Not brushing slightly against it, not accidentally touching it because you were…

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Happy Halloween

For the last couple of days, on the news feeds of my social media accounts, Halloween jokes have been shared and costumes and make-up presented with a pinch of pride. Growing up in Berlin and never having been anywhere near the United States or Canada, this holiday had always appeared to me as something…let’s just say “rather American”. Even though one can find tons of decorations for this theme, I have never seen…

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