The good thing about traveling for work is that sometimes I end up visiting places I might never have heard about otherwise. Last week I had a meeting in Ulm, and since I had not heard much about it before I was surprised how interesting and beautiful it was. Continue reading
Oops! I haven’t been blogging very much lately, have I? In between work, wedding organization and summer bike rides, there hasn’t been much time. However, Clara over at The Expat Partner’s Survival Guide is running a series called “A Day in My Expat Life”, and this week she is featuring a day of my life in Berlin. Click here to read it!
As Mani from A New Life Wandering says: Share your happiness! I find that the small things that make us happy every day are easily forgotten. This blog event is simply about remembering and sharing those small things that made you happy during the week.
Technically this is two week’s worth of small pleasures as the last two weeks have been quite busy and sort of rolled into one! We took a weekend trip to Cambridge, then I had to prepare a work presentation and poster, and we had our work retreat. Here were some of the highlights of the last two weeks. Continue reading
It feels like it was a short week, as we just returned from our bike trip in the Alsace, France, on Tuesday morning and now we are off to Cambridge to visit a friend for the weekend. But here are this week’s small pleasures nonetheless. This week I tried to take note when little happenings (rather than things) made me happy, so they were not always things that could be photographed. Continue reading
We are headed off on another adventure in few minutes, but before we go I wanted to do a Weekly Small Pleasures blog post. Weekly Small pleasures is Mani’s blog event where you highlight the little things that made you happy this week. For her post and other people’s, head here. Here are mine:
It’s May.
What’s not to love about May in Berlin: it’s a month full of public holidays. 1 May is Worker’s day, but this year it was a Sunday and they didn’t give the Monday off, so we lost out on that one. Then there is “Himmelfahrt” (Ascension Thursday – date varies by year) and also “Pfingsten” (Pentecost – date varies by year), which seem to always fall in May too. So last Thursday instead of sitting in the office I was kayaking in Neu Venedig (New Venice), and this weekend is a long weekend and we’re headed off for a bike tour in the Alsace wine region of France! This promises to be quite an adventure (possibly an uncomfortable one, since we’re taking two night trains and sleeping on tatami mats in a Yurt one night, with a dry toilet and cold shower, oh the horror) – but I guess that’s what the wine is for. Unfortunately being away means this year we’ll miss the Carnival of Cultures.
It feels like not long ago I was wearing boots, a jacket, scarf and gloves, and now I’m in a T-shirt and need to carry sunglasses. This is how rapidly the temperatures can increase in Berlin! But I’m not complaining, I much prefer warm weather. Plus, I’m pretty sure my vitamin D levels must have been super low after the long grey season and now is a chance to soak up some sun and make some more! I feel more energetic already.
The trees have flowers.
I haven’t got over the novelty of flowers on all the trees yet. Yes, the little pieces of flowers blowing in the wind get into your eyes when you’re on the cycling lane – but everything is so beautiful!
Welcome to this week’s Weekly Small Pleasures, Mani’s blog event where you take note of the little things during the week that bring you happiness. After spending the whole week working inside a biosafety level 3 facility, the weekend was a good chance to get some sun and some time outdoors. We had great weather in Berlin this weekend, and spent Saturday walking around the city of Berlin and Sunday cycling in the surrounding countryside of Brandenburg.
Our first stop on Saturday morning was the Markthalle Neun in Kreuzberg, an indoor market where you can enjoy different foods such as English pies, Italian cheeses, German cakes, Spanish tapas as well as craft beers, coffee and ice-cream. a good coffee is always a pleasure. After that we took a long walk around Berlin. My favourite part was the pretty and charming area around the Nikolaiviertel. After a brief stop at home we headed off again to check out the blossoms at Bornholmer Strasse and continued walking by the railway tracks right up until Pankow.
On Sunday we went for a bike ride on the Panoramaweg, as it is Baumblütenfest time. We enjoyed cycling in the countryside through villages, orchards and countryside and trying the fruit wines along the way.
Other pleasures of the week were the fact that it’s getting light later now, the temperatures shot up, ending the cold spell of the week before, and we are having blue skies more regularly.
Check out A new life wandering blog to see what other people enjoyed this week.
Wishing everyone a good week ahead!
What’s one thing that doesn’t come to mind when planning a summer holiday to Germany? Beaches! But in fact the north of Germany has the lovely Baltic coastline, called Ostsee by the Germans, and you’d be missing out if you didn’t go there. My first experience of the Ostsee was on the lovely isle of Rügen, north of Berlin; home to seaside towns, countryside, beautiful beech forests and white chalk cliffs. Next I visited the Darss peninsula, where the waves were wilder. Last summer we went to Boltenhagen, a lovely seaside spot with long beaches and great cycling routes. And more recently, last week, we spent some time after a work trip to the north around the lighthouse at Bülk Strand near Kiel, and at Haffkrug Strand and Timmersdorferstrand towards Lubeck. It’s still a bit early for swimming, but it’s always good to see the sea! We”ll be back in summer!
The waters were amazingly clear, and standing on piers we could even see jellyfish swimming below in the water. Continue reading
Not wildfires, but fumaroles in Furnas
Before our Easter trip to São Miguel, Azores, I’d heard that the Azores islands were volcanic, but had assumed that all the volcanoes there were extinct and didn’t realize we’d see such fascinating volcanic activity. If you’re interested in volcanoes, it’s definitely worth a visit! I lost count of how many volcanoes are in the Azores islands since different websites say different things, but there are a lot, and it seems there are six volcanic zones on São Miguel. As a result the island has many calderas (craters formed by eruptions), each with its own character. Many of the villages are built in and around these volcanoes, and one of these is Furnas. Continue reading
Now and then we go on walks or bike trips and I always said I’d add some photos so that you can see what everyday life looks like here, but it’s been a while since I did that! Continue reading
