2013

This is Christmas Day! And as usual, the whole city shuts down - transport, shops, restaurants, you name it. Of course Pei Li, Pei Ting and I prepared ourselves by buying groceries the day before (hooray for Tesco!) and spend the whole Christmas day being exceedingly productive.

This was from a quick mid-week stopover in Berlin to pay a visit to my cousin, Daniel, who's from America but free-lancing as a journalist in one of the coolest cities ever! Had fun catching up and even being exposed to many vegan options in the city (because I would never have tried otherwise)! I came to Berlin during New Year's last year when everything was more or less a ghost town, but this time I definitely felt more of the dark energy and dirty, hipster vibe that the city is known to have (and is pretty awesome). Having seen other cities of Germany, I feel that Berlin is kind of in a world on its own. I still say my danke schön's (thank you very much) and apply my genau's (exactly!), but I don't know why I feel more overwhelmed and lost than anywhere else when I'm in Berlin. It's weird to think of myself as a small town girl now, but living in comfortable, little old Karlsruhe has definitely changed my perspective of big cities, and I wonder if I still would feel this lost every day had I put Berlin as my first choice and not second choice for exchange.

That said, the funny thing about big cities is that they are never truly yours. So many people pass through cities like Berlin, and they always have opinions on it. They loved it, they hated it, but they've all been in touch with the city. I really strongly believe that everything happens for a reason and I'm really happy to have a small town to call my own that not many have heard of, and it's only up to me to paint them this picture of it.

Christmas is a state of mind. The moment the Christmas Markets were set up and snow started falling here in Europe, the festivities more or less began with... Spontaneous ice skating in Karlsruhe!



When you live somewhere, you always delay seeing the sights because they're just there. So, after 3 months of living in Karlsruhe, I finally saw the Karlsruhe Schloss (castle) as that was where the temporary rink was set up. I was actually really enchanted by how big and majestic it looked! Oops! Better late than never.