Over my years abroad I learned that children who grow up in a culture other than the one of their parents or who move around a lot internationally are called third culture kids. Living abroad is a great privilege and I am lucky to have been granted that. It seems, however, that the privilege aspect is taking center stage in any discussions on this topic. I am happy with how my life…
Read part 1 of the itinerary here Sweet Sins In Russian, the walnut is referred to as Greek nut. The connection between the word and its country of origin occurs to me at the age of 24 as I sit down at Stani, looking at the Greek yogurt with honey and walnuts in front of me. I appreciate the hunger of the early morning hours to try as many local dishes as…
At the age of 18, the first trip I ever took on my own began with a map of Amsterdam spread out on my table and an Excel chart on the screen of my laptop. Although it would only be for four days, I took the planning of this trip very seriously, all the way from a to-do list to budget planning for each day. As I sat in a café in…
A lot has happened since the last time this blog has seen a new post. To reward myself for the work I had put in over the last couple of months and to celebrate all the good things that have happened recently, I decided to finally add Norway to my list of visited destinations. While there is a lot of truth to Norway’s reputation of being one of the most expensive countries…
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…
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,…
We’ve all heard them: rumours about what countries are like. The ones say Kosovo is a war-torn country, where tanks dominate the streets. Others get goosebumps at the thought of living in Saudi Arabia and Belarus is apparently exotic enough to be a destination serviced by travel companies like Young Pioneer Tours alongside North Korea and Chernobyl. In the case of Mexico, German reporters don’t fail to mention that although they have been living…
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…
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…
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…