This is probably not the greatest title. I left it to the very end and couldn’t come up with anything better but I hope it does the job. The initial dilemma The news of the illness were surprising. They broke the last hope there was that maybe this was just a regular infection gone too far. I had a sudden wake- up moment somewhere between the regular calls and the waiting for…
opinion
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,…
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…
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…
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…
About Poetry
It was a small gathering and to be brutally honest, it was only a matter of coincidence and good luck that I remembered the little note in my calendar. In school they used to tell us that if it didn’t rhyme, it wasn’t poetry so when she told me that in her writing, there was no such thing as a metrical pattern, I was yet again convinced that my whole school life…
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…
Germans and Small Talk
I started watching a vlog by a charming American woman who lives in Munich with her German husband. In her cheerful voice full of positive energy, she talks about living in Germany, explaining different aspects of the daily life here to those from abroad while also addressing habits and the lifestyle in the United States. In one of her videos she talked about how small talk is not really a thing here in Germany…
Being a Local in Berlin
A while ago, I wrote about why traveling to other places can be so much more exciting than one’s own hometown. Today’s subject of my random thinking session after I had finally finished my French revision was what makes the difference between living in a country compared to just visiting it for a few days. When you become a local somewhere you notice that the carefree days of being an explorer of…
Torn Between Home and Elsewhere
When I walked the narrow, nostalgic streets of Lisbon, listening to the sounds of Portuguese TV programmes escaping through open windows and watching the yellow streetcars pass by, I thought to myself: “This would be a great place for a honeymoon”. When I visited Madrid two summers ago, I started thinking about what a nice idea it would be to come back for an ERASMUS semester. How come I rarely experience such…