Achievement unlocked: ordered coffee in German

It's totally ridiculous but I'm so excited- actually had a full exchange in German this morning. While it was only ordering a large coffee to go with one sugar and milk, I did it!! 

Lazy, nesting weekend

Absolutely perfect fall weekend in Berlin! 

Saturday: clear blue skies and a light breeze blowing copious amounts of golden leaves onto cobblestone streets. Perfect day for walking around and exploring my new neighborhood and discovering adorable shops, cafes and bell ringing churches. Throw in a trip to Ikea to pick up a few things to make my mostly furnished apartment a bit more "me" (as well as a few things to help organize closets). The evening was all about getting organized- unpacked my very big bag while enjoying a really cheap but good French red wine. 

Sunday: Grey skies and a fall chill outside provide the perfect excuse for staying inside, "nesting", and being extremely lazy. Breakfast on my little patio, coffee and a book on the couch. I did runout twice to pick up a couple pieces of furniture I purchased on eBay kleinanzeigen (aka- eBay local) to help supplement my mostly furnished apartment, but otherwise I'm looking forward to an extremely chill evening. To be honest, I am really enjoying the downtime of getting settled in a new apartment/city/country while not really knowing very many people (yet). It's a great recovery from the chaos of the last seven months of my crazy life. 

Dear Stockholm, I think I love you. xo rach

One of my very good friends Amber was visiting Berlin my first few weeks in Germany. We decided to take a weekend and go explore somewhere other than Berlin.. because, you know, Europe!

Hellooooo Stockholm.. 

Top Five impressions from a weekend in Stockholm:

1: these are the nicest, warmest, most genuinely welcoming people on the planet

2: people here happy.. in a well balanced, amazing quality of life, radiate wellness and authentic contentedness in a way that my brain cannot completely grasp kind of happy

3: yes, it really is as expensive as they say. HOW MUCH IS THAT CINNAMON ROLL!? ok fine.. take my money.. it's totally worth it.

4: Stockholm is clean, beautiful, filled with museums, history and culture, and has to be one of the top three most picturesque cities in all the world. cities surrounded by water have a certain beauty about them, but there is something about Stockholm that makes it a bit more vibrant than the rest. 

5: damn the men in Stockholm can rock the man bun. and it totally works. 

A few random shots from walking around the city (I think we clocked around 24,000 steps on Saturday, maybe 22,000 steps on Sunday)..

Along the waterfront

love the architecture

Stockholm... look at my junk!

meandering around old town

funny Swedes... 

mmmm.... meatballs

I found VOD's little brother!!!

Adorable food truck court outside an amazing modern art museum.. had really good mac and cheese served by an American/Swede couple. 

Flags! Boats! Flags on Boats!

very cool display on Russian propaganda in the Moderna Museet

The Vasa

little viking troll doors!

had dinner here one night.. cool surroundings, not so great food. the Swedish meatballs tasted nothing like the ones I've had at Ikea... (and I am totally kidding by the way.. well, not really, they weren't that good but I don't eat Ikea meatballs!)

lovely

It was absolutely beautiful most of the weekend.. so thankful it wasn't pissing down rain!

So long for now... I will absolutely be back!

Viva la blog..

So... I moved to Berlin in September...

Figured this would be a good time to revive my blog and share adventures in traveling and living in Germany!

A few reminders about what this IS NOT:

Well crafted writing: I majored in Finance, failed spelling in 4th grade, and my grammar is often corrected by my non native English speaking friends. You have been warned. 

What this IS: 

Images, captions, notes and thoughts about living in Berlin, acclimating to life in another country/culture/geography/world, and bits about my travels.  

The goal is to update at least once a week.. hopefully more, but we will see how things go.. I am working and trying to travel as much as humanly possible.. so you know.. priorities :) 

rach

Granville Island, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Alas.. my last international trip of the summer, and my sabbatical, is now complete.  

I Made a VERY quick road trip up to Vancouver, BC this weekend.

Drove up (from Portland, OR) to Vancouver on Friday, spent one beautiful day milling about Granville Island and a bit of city, and then drove back down to Portland earlier today. 

The reason for this insane road trip- to see a good friend's AMAZING one man play at the Vancouver Fringe Festival.  Zeb's "Innocent When You Dream" was absolutely fantastic!!  Heartfelt, sweet, entertaining, and funny as hell!! 

Even through we were not supposed to take any photos.. I sorta snuck a couple in during the performance....

The lineup waiting to get in to his opening show

Walking in we all grabbed our seats and were greeted to Zeb, already on the stage...

And then the performance began...

I was able to snap two before getting shut down :) but it was sooooo worth it!!

Yeah!  we found one of his show's posters as we meandered about Granville Island after the show.

The Festival was held at Granville Island.. if you are ever in Vancouver, BC I HIGHLY recommend walking around this adorable little spot- the land is owned by the Canadian government and is required to be mixed use.  There is a cement factory, an art & design school, tons of retail/ work spaces for artists and very, very creative businesses, and an amazing public market that was PACKED with local farm-stands, butchers, fish mongers and even a few yummy gelato spots.  

Global Vipassana Pagoda

Another post about India lingering in my drafts folder..

This was our adventure the last weekend before leaving, I think on Sat, 3 August.
Not a lot to write about on this one but some cool photos to share.  This Pagoda is actually a relatively new structure meant to provide a place for meditation and hosts a school for Vipassana style meditation, so there's not a huge historical significance to the location, but it was a really tranquil environment and it was a nice hour of just walking about and taking things in.

For context- this was another typical day in Mumbai... slightly overcast, humid, hot hot hot, and muuugy.
We drove out to the northern part of the city and then caught a ferry to a new Buddhist center- the Global Vipassana Pagoda and just walked around, listened to the Buddhist chanting, and admired the beautiful structures, carvings and landscapes.

Enjoy!

On the ferry, approaching the Pagoda..

I absolutely love the contrast between the gold, turquoise and red..

This wall was gorgeous- huge, beautifully carved and impressive.  So bit it was impossible to get a photo of the entire thing in one shot.

Details from the door panels:

there were sets of doors all around the pagoda.  while not as large as the one main set pictured above, they were still very intricate and beautiful..

Love this.. (there were Buddhist sayings all along the exterior of the building)

This little guy was hanging out near the ferry as we left.

A very, very smelly fish market set up along the ferry dock.  Walking through it back to the driver after our little boat ride was a very fragrant experience...