Guten tag, Germany!

Berlin... Berlin was too perfect for words. 

If I could relive my time there on a repeat loop I would. My very own Groundhog Day fantasy. Maybe a few years from now, I will tell you the story (who knows, I might even blog it here if "Buzzing about..." still exists) but for now, I can only show you a few photos.

1) View from atop the Berlinerdom. Maybe it was a sign...

2) Not just an ordinary car park - this used to be Hitler's bunker.

3) Nothing is as it seems in Berlin: this "Police" vehicle is actually a stripper van. 

4) And these "guards" at Checkpoint Charlie? Strippers.

5) The Berlin Wall. 6) And the Berlin Wall Bear.

7, 8) Berlin's idea of an art gallery. Too awesome. A refreshing change from the Van Goghs and Botticellis.

9) Riverside lunch: beer with "banana juice"
(the Germans are fond of their mixed beers). My tastebuds approve. 

10) Just one of a few city gates at the Pergammon Museum. *jaw drops*

11) The haunting Jewish Monument. 12) A different look at the Berlin Wall.

13, 14) Repainting history. 

15, 16) Two dress circle seats at the Berliner Staatsoper (Berlin State Opera) to see Leonard Berstein's musical adaptation of Voltaire's Candide.

I normally don't have too much trouble saying goodbye, but this one was hard. It still is hard. My days in Berlin were some of the best I spent in Europe, and that's saying something.

And to think I wasn't even going to go to Germany...

Happy Mother's Day!

I would like to dedicate this blog post to my beautiful mother and all the other wonderful mothers I am lucky enough to know. 

You deserve to be loved and celebrated every day of the year.

Sending my love from the picturesque Leman lakeside in Ouchy, Lausanne, Switzerland.

Love is in the Air

Valentine’s.

Despite having a Valentine this year, I completely sympathise with the singles on this day. I’ve been there. Actually, by bad luck and even worse timing, I have always been there. And being half-way across the world this year doesn’t make it much better. No matter how “happily single” you may be, witnessing PDAs around every corner, watching men rush home with chocolates and roses, and being strangled by the pink and red streamers of commercialism cannot be fun. It’s like being hit in the face by a heart-shaped pillow. Repeatedly. And hard.

Or at least, that’s what I thought when I left my apartment on Valentine’s Day.

I had had a lovely conversation with the boy on Skype earlier that morning, but now, the signs on buses flashed obnoxiously with “JOYEUX ST VALENTIN” and “♥ LES AMOUREUX”. And it seemed that everyone had received the memo to carry around a single red rose. Everyone but me. In class, a project on the tradition of chocolate-giving on Valentine’s Day followed. Was there no end to this taunting? And I even had a Valentine. A wonderful, wonderful one... Or maybe that was the problem? That I knew exactly what I was missing? Well, I was missing it, alright.

But five hours later, I took back every bad thought I had directed toward St Valentine that morning. Because I came home to this:

Of course, I would’ve liked the man behind them, but the sentiment alone had me grinning like an idiot for the rest of the night. Organising the delivery of my favourite flowers (actually, they are white lilies, not Arum...but that’s another story!) from florists offering only French, German and Italian could not have been easy.

After that, I did exactly what I would’ve frowned upon that morning: I plastered a photo of the flowers, complete with a caption of my gushing, straight onto Facebook.

Sorry, my dear readers, I guess love does make you do crazy things after all...