a new life.

welcome to hamburg! my first post from germany and if you expect me to write in german now i am sorry to disappoint. i still think i sound funny when i speak it and dotting my ü's is a pain when i have to write application letters and such. also i just blow-dried my boobs. what are you up to?

i also blow-dried my hair which in itself is a novelty i haven't attempted in ages and only did because i was so cold, but it didn't help my boobs which were also really cold, so i just stuck it into my t-shirt for a few seconds.

just another day in hamburg. while it is still freezing (or what feels like freezing to me after 4 weeks in thailand with constant sweat running down my face) today there is a bit of blue skies. that also is a novelty because since my arrival almost three weeks ago i haven't seen much of the sky. the weather totally tricked me because i got out of the airport and it was...nice. well, evening, but nice and warmish. i think hamburg arranged it like that so i wouldn't turn right back around and get on the next plane out, because had i known that since then it would be the most dreadful weather i can imagine, i would have run while i could. on top of it everybody keeps on telling me that it was amazing in april and i just think what the fuck?! and the they are all lying.

now i have been here for just three weeks and i am just very slowly getting out of my bubble. a bubble of hurrah, i am here! what the fuck am i doing here? why is it still light outside? will the sun ever shine here? wow, look at all these pasta choices! i need a job. sehr geehrte damen und herren, i am awesome, please hire me! i want to buy everything at COS. a look at my account makes me cry. yeah, so much bikram classes in a day. i am too tired for bikram today, i will go tomorrow. or not. i need my own space. i am so happy to have my bestest friends around me... yes, the bubble is slightly confusing and thus exhausting.

on monday i realized i need to chill. not in the sense of not doing anything, but in that way were you relax and let the magic happen, that only happens when you don't clench your jaw too tightly. i can say it is working. when it rains it pours and at least now that is not meant literally in hamburg.

while that worked for about two days, my wallet got stolen on day three.

agh, the karma that eating at mcdonald's will get you.

now things are somehow back on track and i am staying with my brother (who is an awesome cook, so it is no hardship to be here!) till i will hopefully move into my own place at the beginning of june. before that i have a wedding to attend and friends from new york to show around and a whole lot of general merriment so life ain't so bad here. oh, and they have macarons too! till i find time to sit down and actually write a story or two, find me on instagram (thanks to awesome internet connection, which is fast everywhere!) under #ilivehere - don't ask, it is an inside joke only friends from new york will get, so just go with it.

between worlds.

i have almost been back home for a week. it feels like forever and like i just got off the plane at the same time.

i don’t have proper post-holiday blues, but i’m not really here either.

 i’m still so cold all the time and yesterday i complained about my melissa’s cappuccino for 10 minutes. what is the point of drinking coffee without any sweet condensed milk?

my first yoga classes teaching were lovely, but i just want to stick my tongue out at my own mat.

some of my friends were incredibly sweet and welcoming, but i also had an incident with someone i deeply care about that had me work on my don’t judge other people skills overtime.

when i was away coming home seemed wonderful. now being home is just okay.

my aunt and uncle both mentioned that my last posts from vietnam sounded sad. did it? was i sad? i actually don’t know, i don’t think so. my holiday was absolutely fantastic, but i think at times i felt it was all a bit overwhelming and now i’m trying to process it all and acquaint myself with the concept of home again at the same time. so therefore i’m still feeling overwhelmed.

yesterday i took a nap and i had one of these funny reality dreams. boy, that dream got me thinking…thinking and wondering if my world is becoming once again a bit too small for me. not that anything came out of all the thinking, except that it scared me a bit and made me feel even more in between worlds.

sorry. none of this is very coherent and since my airbook is still sick i don’t have the possibility to make it up to you and write a proper travel post. i will as soon as i have it back (and i have caught up on all the series i’ve missed), pinkie swear. but in the meanwhile my first and proper post about cambodia is out on travelletes, so check it out here and bear with me while i’m trying to sort out my life.

mozzies or not i wish i was back here just eating coconut ice cream. 

 

 

train of thoughts.

you would assume being on a night train in the top bunk is conducive to writing. it really isn't when you have to wonder who slept in the sheets before you, whether you might fall off, and if the roaches in the food carriage are any indication to what's underneath your bed. but then your travel companion brings out a $1 bottle of rum to make it all better and you decide that drinking is more of a necessity than writing on the night train.

however the a couple of days later the same thoughts are still here and i can sum it up neatly: i am starting to miss home. i am at the pinnacle of my trip, one cannot not love hoi an, by now i know everybody's name in my group and have learned how to avoid the motorbikes, and i prefer the vietnamese food to anything i have ever eaten. and now i am starting to miss home. how? why?

first of all my body feels a bit off. i have gotten sunburnt, had a cold sore, sport various bites from anonymous sources, and my left toe nail seems to be dying (which, dear wary traveller, had already started back home, so one cannot blame asia for it!), and for the past few days my stomach feels dodgy and since i have so far gotten away with eating pretty much anything, this makes me especially grumpy. it is probably punishment as i was secretly laughing at a couple who wiped their utensils with antiseptic at a fancy breakfast place. i obviously didn't and here i am looking for the happy house (yes, that's really how it's called!).

i am also starting to realize that even though i am travelling with a lovely group, i sometimes feel really lonely within this group. in certain moments i feel even more lonely than if i was travelling by myself, because being surrounded by people makes me more aware that they are not my people. though i have met some great girls, had nice chit chats and some good conversations, at the end of the day they are still strangers. i miss the non strangers in my life. i miss people that i have a history with, that i don't need to explain to, that still get my references.

i miss my brother, because he would love the fact that vietnam seems to love tin tin as much as he does. i miss julia to talk me in or out of buying giraffe print fabric for my tailor made pants. i didn't get them in the end, but i'm afraid i made the wrong decision, because i could have had giraffe pants! i miss my mother, because she would love all the different massage places and watching the chefs in the kitchens and the ladies on the markets. she would go into any restaurant kitchen if they would allow her and here most chefs actually wouldn't mind. i miss thekla, because she would enjoy eating all the food with me and i wouldn't have to feel bad that i can actually, without any problem, eat three full meals per day. i miss marie so she can check for me if something is really silk or not. i miss claire so i can proudly tell her that not me, but only the cover of my camera lens, fell into the rice paddy and luckily i had a knight in sweaty armour by my side to stick his arm into the muck and fish it out for me. i miss my father, because he would love taking pictures with me of our dinner before it becomes our dinner and because he is the best to order champagne cocktails in french. as it is i didn't have any because i'm not that fancy on my own.

but having that said, i will stop now. i have to collect my non-giraffe tailored pants, buy a bracelet, eat lunch at morning glory (no jokes please, i have heard them all over the last week), get a massage, attend a birthday party, and take a boat trip down the river for the lantern festival. so yes, i miss you guys, but i will see you soon, and life is too good right now to mope. 

Tree, rainbows, and one party bus.

I bought a travel blanket for Zambia and Morocco. Well, actually it is more a shawl or a throw and I just couldn’t resist and needed a reason to purchase thus called it a travel blanket. Two weeks after returning home the blanket still smells like a mix of fairy tales and adventures. Actually the smoke from the campfire is still sticking to it, but since I don’t do campfires in real life it just equals the smell of Zambia for me.

As you know through bits and glimpses now I went to Livingstone for a week to plant trees with Greenpop at the beginning of the month. The idea came up after I managed to survive the weekend at Platbos, realizing that maybe it was time to face two of my biggest ‘fears’: Camping and sharing close quarters with someone I don’t sleep with or who is not on my top ten friend list. I was fortunate enough to never have to share a room with a sibling and the only time I had to team up was for one year in the dorms. That went alright till my roommate decided to pick up a stranger in a bar one night and take him home. I was greeted by his sight in her bed the next morning from across the room. Awkward to say the least and I am still wondering till today if a stranger admired my uncovered butt at some point during the night. After that it was no more room sharing for me so the prospect of sharing a tiny tent, well, to call it even worse would be an understatement.
Though this time I didn’t even think about it too much, I just really, really wanted to go to Zambia and plant some trees. It helped to be overly well prepared, as I usually am, and to take a sleeping bag the size of a toddler (I am still surprised the airline didn’t charge me extra to take it…), but I can proudly report I was the only person not cold! Also a big thank you right here goes to Micah, my tentie for the week, who made it cool to share a tiny tent and who just overall rocks.

What can I tell you from my trip? I kind of don’t know where to start as there was just so much… stories experienced, stories told, newness which became daily life overnight, sunburned shoulders and a fat Labrador doing yoga, Nshima for lunch and the pleasure of a slice of orange on a hot day, lions touched and elephants ooohed and aaahed over… little things coming together in one big bubble like a dream when it happened and still like a dream now that it’s over.

Excuse this story for being a bit incoherent, but I find it hard to wrap such week with so much here and there, this happened and then that happened, into one neat package. I’d rather tell you how I remember it. The little bits. Like the one time when we took the bus to the Victoria Falls to see the lunar rainbow, which I didn’t even know existed. How lucky did we get that there was a full moon when we were there! Or that day when we came to a school that gets frequent visits from elephants passing by and we had to ‘hide’ the banana tree saplings from their view.
Then there was the afternoon we went to play soccer at the local club and all ended up dancing like crazy people, which sort of didn’t stop when on the bus back to camp. Then the bus broke down. But that was another night and it wasn’t the same old crappy, but beloved party bus, it was the fancy one. Go figure.

New friends were made immediately after I managed to get through immigration despite my expired dollar bills. More on the first bus ride to camp and then each day after that. Muscles popped up we didn’t know existed, greeted with joy the first time around and cursed when they started to ache.
Lots of talking. From early mornings till late at night, in the showers, overlooking the crocodiles, on the bus, off the bus, during breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Even I talked in the morning though not before 7am. Baby steps, people, baby steps. As you know I am more of a sit around the camp fire (yes, the campfire is a new addition to the routine), drink whiskey and then talk – in the evening/at night – kind of girl. There was plenty of that too. Which would explain the adventure smell on the blanket. There was also lots of dancing by the campfire. Also applauding for various reason or just because we could and hurrahing too.
Of course there were trees. Baby trees and grown-up trees, magic trees and thorny trees, leafy trees and painted trees, trees on the bus, trees on my lap, trees in the ground. Mr. Shorty and Mr. Tall tree and their neighbour the honourable Mr. Annika Bran tree. Tree stories were followed by tree songs and skits, often funny, always smart, and sometimes a tiny bit sad.
Then there were the people from Zambia we met. The kids who showed us naughty dances, the boy who declared “I’m the handsome one in the class” only to be met by roaring laughter from his classmates, and Philippa who went mulching with me and called me her daughter. There was uncle Benge who draws the best warthog ever and Kebby who has planted 9 million trees in his life. New friends who immediately became old ones. Stories, handshakes, and laughter shared while we all gave little trees a new home.

So now you see how it was impossible for me to try to put such a trip into a nutshell, right? I don’t need to tell you that it was probably one of the best weeks ever. Or how grateful I am to Greenpop for making it possible and being all around awesome. Or that if you laugh at the picture below, I shall never ever speak to you again. Right?

Do not judge! I was really hot and probably severely dehydrated and didn't know what was happening to me.

The handsome one. But which one?

Just another ordinary rainbow.

The capes are not a money making scheme. You will need one or other.

Baby banana tree.

Trees riding shotgun on the party bus.

Good yoga motto.

Dangerous lions to be found everywhere.

The rules of unfriendment.

In case you were scared with my recently taken up dare or the giraffe post that you were going to get just puppy pictures from now on, rest assured and don’t be silly – this will not happen.

Day one of the dare went really well though. At one point while driving, someone cut me off and instead of yelling asshole, I shouted oi, dudey. Which is slightly concerning as far as verbal expressions go and I have no idea where it came from, but obviously it was far more polite than asshole.

Yesterday I also started thinking about the rules of befriending or unfriending someone – on Facebook that is. I and assumingly a lot of others have a love-hate relationship with Facebook and what it does to relationships, singledom, and stalkerism. We love to know, but actually we don’t want to know. Thinking about it, I came up with my rule of thumb of how much and whom I want to know: Just because I slept with you doesn’t mean I want you to be my Facebook friend, but if you are, I won’t mind having at least a theoretical coffee with you. Upon these grounds I recently unfriended Mr. April. It wasn’t so much to make a statement to him (well, obviously a little bit), but I just didn’t care for updates of his new therapist (girlfriend) and thought him now overall a bit too weird to be called friend. I thought all in all this was valid reason to unfriend someone, non?

I also learned that I had been unfriended as well. Mind you, I think I broke quite a few hearts back in the day and probably don’t deserve even virtual friendship from a few men, but it wasn’t even of them. Last September I met a guy and we hit it off. We hit it off like you always dream of hitting it off with someone. That was till he gave me the worst line any morning after has ever heard: I am still in love with my ex. Eight months later when we met again and hit it off again – for a night. Then he declared it could never work as I don’t like camping or trance parties. He was quite smart, the way he figured me out and had me all put in the proper boxes within a total of 3 dates… Anyhow, I have long ago given up on trying to convince someone to be with me, so I didn’t attempt any further. We continued our lives as Facebook friends who occasionally give each other thumbs up and yes, if I had to have a coffee with him, I would have managed just fine. Till I realized yesterday that I was unfriended by him. I was so puzzled I even wondered if it might have been me in a state of upset and drunk, but no…I only text drunk! So here I am – still very puzzled. If anything, shouldn’t have been me doing the unfriending?

In accordance with this week’s dare though…I am just letting it go. I will not ask why, I will not call him stupid, I will just let it go. After all I know deep down that he could have only done it for one of two reasons…

He saw this picture of me, realized he made the biggest mistake of his life, and now can’t deal with seeing me as a happy camper:

OR

I am quite guilty of spreading quotes lately, yes. I guess I should be glad he was the only one who unfriended me!


P.S. I am quite aware that this post contains a few words which cannot be found in the dictionary. I made them up, because they sound most appropriate and thesaurus wouldn’t offer options. If anyone can, please feel free to comment.

The story of 2001 trees.

I’m still seeing a bit green and haven’t quite come back into the real world completely. So I will keep my Reforestfest recap brief and just tell you that instead of the originally announced 1000 trees, we planted 2001. Though the 2001. was a bit of a mistake as it was supposed to be 2000. But when the time came around to plant the final tree there was 1 little tree extra and everyone thought we may as well put it into the ground too so it wouldn’t feel left out, and voila we had planted 2001 trees.

It was simply the best weekend ever and full of exciting firsts for me…

I volunteered to sleep in a tent. And loved it.

I wore a head lamp, felt like the last unicorn, and was quite upset when I lost a battery within an hour of our arrival. These little buggers are very useful on a dark camping sites. Luckily I had some chaperones and a bright moon to show the way.

Call me a girl, but pink bubbly is appropriate anywhere.

I ate porridge with butter, brown sugar, and cinnemon for breakfast and think it is the best thing ever!

I danced in the forest at night.

I got down and dirty and planted a tree. And another one. And then some more.

A bit of a mad smile, but I was in fact enjoying myself.

I saw a big mole snake. Yuk. Exciting in the not so nice way.

I did yoga under a 1000 year old Milkwood tree with my hair down (Can you imagine? Me – doing yoga without my bun? Unheart of, but I loved every moment of it…)

Yoga mats warming up by the fire, getting ready for class.

I shared a mug of hot tea and milk with some friends and realized the act of sharing something makes it so much better.

I smiled for 2 days straight, but did not shower.

I learned how to break a tent down.

Shoes chilling in the forest.

A thank you to the sponsors will follow tomorrow. I’m still a bit lost in the forest today....

A good place to be a bit lost.

We live here.

My recent work project which included coming up with a cool pop-up card for our next mailing introduced some much needed entertainment to my daily routine. It also reminded me last time I made a pop-up card for a friend of mine. Shamefully I must admit that the card was never sent as it became part of a too-big-to-finish project, which I frequently indulge in. It was a card showing the layout of our first apartment in New York which Gladys, Marie and I shared.

The grand tour:


Bottom left
The bathroom. If you need the fax machine explained, please contact Marie directly as it is all her fault and I won’t say no more.


Top left
Marie’s room. The clothes are a bit misleading as we all worked in fashion, but her fashion job rocked the most that’s why her room gets represented by clothes.
It was at Roy’s Hosiery and each Friday was called ‘Sock Friday’ as she would bring left over sample socks for us. I don’t think I have bought a single pair of socks since Marie left college. When she came to visit Cape Town she lived up to the true spirit of Sock Friday and brought me about 30 pairs and it wasn’t even Friday. I love visitors!


Top Middle
Gladys’ room. Yes it did have a pop-up wall for real. That’s how you convert a 2 bedroom to a 3 bedroom in New York and charge 50% more rent. It also had the only TV and Thursday was Friends night. Marie and Gladys would sit on her twin bed, I was crouched in the corner of the window sill and we would watch the new episodes of Friends together. Who needs a La-Z-Boy or even a living room?


Top Right
My room. I had an original red iMac and a liking for Internet dating. Also did I become a professional on how-to-make-the-most-of-a-4m2-room in this room.


Middle Bottom
Kitchen/Living Room/Dining Room/Foyer/Gladys’ walk-in closet. Equally inhabited by Coronas, Enchiladas or other Mexican treats and mice.
The mice became a bit of a problem. In an attempt to be PETA friendly I not only decided to go Vegan for a week (I stopped after trying to eat soy parmesan cheese), but also asked them for a mice friendly way to dispose of mice. The answer is simple: One buys a little cage (preferably with handle), puts bait inside (preferably of the soy kind) and waits for the mouse to run inside (hoping the mouse unlike you will like soy cheese). The cage should be one where the mouse runs in, but can’t run out yet remains unharmed. Then you have a cage with a mouse and you can take the mouse to Central Park and release it. Someone explained that to me while keeping a straight face. To my question why I would do such a thing and surely the mouse would manage to run the 4 blocks back to my street and up the stairs into the apartment and how this would defy the whole purpose, I just got blank stares.
I am not proud to admit that we then decided on the least humane way: glue traps. Bad idea for both parties involved. For the mice for obvious reasons and for us as we underestimated how much a mouse can wiggle when glued to a trap. She can wiggle herself from her discreet trap hiding spot under the stove into the middle of the kitchen with the trap. By doing this it will cause the first person getting up in the morning to shriek loudly and the other two to wake up and know immediately that we caught one.
I will spare you the details of how we got rid of any mouse on trap, but it usually involved our trash shoot and the Yellow Pages.


Far Right
The zebra van which you already know.


Top Far Right
The address we would give the cabbies and then shout in unison: “We live here.”
Go figure, Mr. Cab Driver.