Who is that hot chick over there? My sister!

Lekha and Henni in front of the Berlin TV tower last year

I don’t know if you know, but I have a little sister. Today is her birthday and it hit me that she actually is a grown up woman. Somehow she emerged from that girlish cuteness – where everybody (and when I say everybody I mean eeeeeeeeverybody!) went like “ohhh…!” when they first saw her – to that talented, independent woman.

I have to confess that it took me quite a while to accept my sister’s development. I always wanted to care for her and protect her from the evils in the world, which resulted in her revolting more against me than against my mom when she was in her teenage years.

It seems like she does not know how much I secretly look up to her and how much she impresses me everyday. Some examples:

-       As a kid, she could play with one simple thing like a rubber band for hours. I would throw it at her once and be bored already and run off to another exciting thing and when I would return to her, she would still be playing with this thing. This amazes me still today.

-       She can love people despite their faults and even if you are mean to her, she will still love you, because she manages to see the good in people.

-       She is a fighter. She went for a career that everyone advised her not to go for, because it is too competitive, but in the process she had the chance to make mistakes and go her very own way for the first time. I admire her for that courage.

-       She cut her hair off. She has always been admired for her beauty and bubbly spirit. People wanted to adopt her, because she was so cute. She still looked awesome when she cut her hair three centimeters short, but I have to say it gave her some character.

I could go on forever with this list, but I think you get the point. One of the best things in the beginning of every year is always to take my Christmas money and spent it on birthday presents for her. It does not matter if she is grown up or not, I will always enjoy spoiling her.

I really hope that you have a person in your life you love as much as I love my sister. So, happy birthday Hendrikje, ich hab dich lieb!

Only cats have nine lifes?

After entering school at the age of seven, I had two cycles of development and growth which where quite different from each other, both lasted nine years.

Until I was 16, I spent my life in Germany with my family and with regular school and hobbies. I faced challenges you have to face as a child of a single mom and as the stranger to a new city or school.

After I turned 16, I moved to Denmark, to finish my education and grow up. I truly became an independend individual and have learned to tackle different challenges as they come.

Now I am 25, have moved back to Germany and am both terrified and looking forward to the next nine years. This is the time where I will establish myself not only in terms of education, but mostly in terms of experience.

I have started to conquer monstrous Berlin, which tried to let me down several times but which I forced to work out for me, because Berlin was my only option for Germany. I am beginning to see some paths that I am happy to take and there is finally a goal to invest time in. My current achievements and achievements to come look like this:

Done:

-       Find a traineeship

-       Find an apartment

-       Find a roommate

-       Find new and exciting things you ONLY to do in Berlin

To do:

-       Figure out my next steps after the traineeship

-       Order Internet access for my apartment (finally I can use Skype again!!)

-       Finish beautifying the apartment

-       Find a choir to join

-       Find a gym or yoga class

I am quite happy that my to do list is longer than my done list. I am tired from the past months of discovery and fighting, but I know it’s worth it. What about you? Have you encountered a shift in your life in the recent past and how did you tackle it? 

Picture: http://www.onedigitallife.com/images/cat-jump.jpg

How a true lady spends her weekend

Banana working outfit

As you might know, I have found this nice little apartment in Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin. It was all freshly renovated, except for the floor, which was wooden and painted with a deep red color, very typical for Berlin. It was quite old and you could see that the last owner had taped carpet on the floor, so there was no way around renewing the whole thing.

I had three options:
1. I could put another carpet on top (which would be a bit expensive, but not too much of hard work),
2. I could build in this clickedy clack laminate (which would be expensive and quite some work), or
3. I could grind the entire floor (which would be the cheapest option, but super hard work).

THE machine

So guess, what I did: Off course I went for the cheapest option, so I recruited my mom and rented some machines and off we were to the dirtiest and hardest work on the Banana-planet. There for sure is even harder and dirtier work, but in my sphere this is quite hardcore.

I planned the last Saturday to be our grinding day. It was dirty, it was back aching, but at some point you could see some results. Off course I had planned completely naïve and at the end I had to take two days off work to complete what I had started. Yesterday, we gave back the machines and impressed the craftsmen with our work.

My mom preparing the floor for the next round

It is not everyday that you see a girl with an angle grinder, so I somehow feel stronger and independent. My mom always says: a good woman can substitute the best man. And sometimes her feministic talks go on my nerves, but when I have done something like this with my own two hands, I cannot help but feel freaking fantastic. She also said that every time I enter my apartment I am going to be proud of my floor. To that I can just say: Hell yea!

So, to all the ladies, maybe you should try and give it a try yourself the next time you have to fix something on your bike or at home. It feels awesome once you’re done and afterwards you can take a nice long bath as a reward. It feels better than any other expensive beauty program, I promise!

What it's really about

This morning I saw this incredible video on YouTube, so have 21.330.938 other people, which I think is awesome.

In the video you see a food court in a mall. I hate food courts, because you have to eat in the middle of all these consumerist temples, next to the makeup and jeans stores. To me, food belongs in a safe, quite place, where you get the chance to enjoy what’s on your plate, and to enjoy your company.

Anywho, there is a key board player, who plays Christmas tunes in the background, he is ignored, but suddenly a woman jumps up singing Haleluya. And a flash-mob starts with a choir singing beautifully in the middle of the shopping mall.

This moved me a lot, because suddenly the choir brought such a beautiful mood to that ugly place. The mall, where consumerism and the biggest and best gift rule the holidays, was reminded of what Christmas actually is about: To be with the people you love and spend a good and peaceful time together.

I was haunted the past days, because this year I am not able to afford all these nice gifts I like to spoil my mum and my sister with. Instead I have to turn every penny and be quite creative with my gifts. And it made me feel bad. After seeing the video, I have changed my mood. So I am giving time this year, and love and improvement, instead of books, makeup and cloths.

Ok, just finished polishing my halo, now back to work.

Where is the love?

This time of the year, a lot of people are talking about love and compassion. I will take this as a reason to quickly evaluate my love life. Super quick: basically non-existent.

A little bit more in detail: I have had boyfriends, some of them I deserved, some of them not. Today I am trying to keep in mind that I make my own choices and also that there is responsibility connected to it, so if I am dating a douchebag, it is my own fault. It practically reflects back on me, which enlarges my own douchebagness.

The chain goes like this: In high school I dated a couple of guys who were nice and sometimes a bit stupid, but still mostly nice.

The ultimate first big love came around when I was 21. I wanted to marry, have plenty of kinds, move to Africa with him and imagined that together we would save the world. After clinging too hard on him, he left me, which made me lose a lot of my love-self-confidence.

As a result, I wanted someone who would stick around and who would care about me one hundred percent. What I got was the most jealous and emotionally blackmailing dude on the planet. We moved in together after four months, I left three months later and there was no love-self-confidence back.

Then came the wonderful period of freedom. I dated a couple of guys, broke some hearts and had FUN! I underlined to everyone that I was emotionally stabbed and was unfit for a relationship.

In the end I still got into a relationship with a guy who was too awesome to not to be with. Unfortunately the knife was still stuck in my chest and I screwed it up.

Now I fled the country, live in a city with no meaningful male acquaintances and continue building up the courage to find Mr. Right.

Picture: Flickr

Jingle Bells Indian Style

Thanks to my friend Leila, I got to know this super awesome song, which truely enhances my holiday mood:



With a wobble of my head, I say: Enjoy your day, Sir/ Madam!

Banana Traditions

Today is the 6^th of December: Saint Nicholas Day!! As I learnt to love Christmas time, I also learned to love “Nikolaus”, as we call it in Germany. In my years abroad and amidst Internationals, I always tried to include as many people as possible in these celebrations. Today is the first time in nine years that I was at home at “Nikolaus”.

So here it, what happens at this day: Generally it is the celebration of Saint Nicholas, who kind of is the pre Coca Cola Santa. He actually helped the poor and is celebrated widely in countries like Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, and many others. In Germany, we have to clean our winter boots at the night of the 5^th of December. If we do so, St. Nicholas will put candy and gifts in them during the night, if not (or if we put out bigger boots that are not our own), he will put coal into the boots. Actually my aunt Moni was punished with coal once, as she put out my grandpa’s rubber boots for St. Nicholas. It is a story widely known in our family, as you can imagine.

Normally, I put candy into the boots of my room mates, colleagues and friends, this year it was my mom. She got a rasp, but the reason for that she has to tell you yourself.

So, to all of you, who are not around this year, I am putting an imaginary piece of chocolate into your boots. Take care and eat it, before your hot feet melt it!

Picture: http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s242/Knuddelfussel/adventskalender/nikolaus_stiefel.gif