Travels. Music. Love.: October 2018

Autumn is beautiful in Sweden, I imagine. The vast forests, the colourful foilage, lots of saunas and cozy huts beside neat little lakes, ideal for the better part of a cold day to be spent there, watching the sun set earlier each day. Since there wasn't much to keep me in Germany, and Maik was open to new adventures after returning home from Mexico, we decided to move to Sweden in September and study/ work there. I'd fallen in love with it's beauty and the friendliness of the people ever since my first trip there with Ulli back in 2004. Maik's interest also sparked when we traveled to Gothenburg and then hitch-hiked to Stockholm in 2016. And yet, as plans were made and discussions about potential residences in the north began, especially talking to others who had moved there, it all kinda let my excitement fade. I started wondering if I really want to spent a cold, dark winter in a foreign place, neither having a job secured, nor lots of money saved, surrounded by rather introverted people... Sounds like excuses, doesn't it? Well, some decisions we don't end up making, as Maik's application for university was denied and he offered me one alternative:
Berlin.

Things always turn out different from the original plan, and isn't that fantastic? Keeping life interesting. So here we are in Berlin, it's been over two weeks since that tough Saturday morning when we left Dresden and our favourite WG of all times behind, and tears wouldn't stop until Maik and I had driven the rental van deep into the empty roads of Brandenburg. I had been really angry that morning, because the farewell party the night before didn't go so well, I mean the food was great but that might have been the end of good reasons to stay and many of our friends left shortly after midnight. I thought, maybe that's a good point for me to leave town: when the parties start to be lame. But as I looked over the half-packed boxes in our room, all caught up in a major frustration, I also understood that anger can be the best cover-up for sadness. Supposedly, I was quite sad. Sniff. No more people to chat with in our new flat, no shared meals, no spontaneous games, fitness or music sessions, no more cute baby flatmates, no more consolation talks when that drama queen side of me pops up (which it rarely does. I think.) Huge sniff. I knew there wasn't any exciting future waiting for me in Dresden, so I had to leave and stop pretending I'm ok with an okay life. Time to take some risks! And yet it was heartbreaking to leave the one flat where I've felt truely at home, you know, in all of the past 6 years. Why, oh why can we never have it all?

I guess I always knew the worst part of being on the move, is leaving dear friends behind. Walking the beautiful lands of many countries in the world, I couldn't really imagine living so far from most people close to my heart, and I yet after living so close with some, I understand that every meter counts when it comes to hanging out. (more nostalgia and why our boring adult lives suck, in another post)

Like in Berlin, where some people barely leave their Kiez. What a huge place our Hauptstadt is! Cycling over to Annika's to baby sit, who used to live literally round the corner, now takes over 30mins, and we don't live on opposite ends of the city. But it also means there's plenty of everything here: events, cultures, food and people of all kinds, all jammed into narrow plastered streets and topped with a good amount of attitude. Even the crow on the dog's playground at the Tempelhofer field didn't give a sh*t about the puppy storming towards it, the dog had to stop and bark before the bird bothered to take off and being chased away. Also, a lot of trash everywhere, we see ads for many projects of social or ecological nature, and of course traffic is more like survival of the fittest. But it's the people we came for, the mix of all kinds of ethnicities, allergies and of course appearances, seemingly followling the laid-back fashion approach of saying: "Wear whatever crap you want!"

It's so international, it feels like I'm back on the road, hearing about 4 different languages being spoken on the sidewalk in front of our window each day. So Maik and I found a temporary 2-bedroom appartment, with a lot of stuff already in it, making the move and getting used to it a whole lot easier. On the first night, on that dreadful Saturday, I said to Maik: We need a couch, because climbing up onto the loft bed for chilling isn't really that comfortable. #firstworldproblems
On Sunday we hung out with Tim, a friend from Rügen, and he told us about the couch his girlfriend Hannah doesn't want anymore, she's only keeping the seat cushion for constructing her own sofa. Since sh lives next door, we quickly moved the piece over. And then it got even better, while inspecting the basement and all the stuff left behind by former tenants, we stumbled upon a large foam pad, that fits perfectly into our new couch. Bam! Epic win, or as I like to put it: our welcome-to-Berlin gift by the universe. #travelflow

vocabulary:
WG (Wohngemeinschaft) = shared flat
Kiez = Berlin term for small neighborhood, e.g. a part of Neukölln
Hauptstadt = el capital

soundtrack:
(started using spotify and despite all my doubts, got kinda addicted... ooops)

and finally, some pictures: