Spilling words on Sunday

It´s Sunday, I don't have to go to work until 4 p.m. and have some spare time to get creative. So: What have I been up to?

I have lived here for a bit more than two weeks now and I have settled into a pretty good daily routine. My work has started the 2nd of August and I so far really enjoy my job! It was incredibly exhausting to work for 6 hours straight without breaks and a proper meal at the beginning  but I have adjusted to that and built my rhythm around it. Working at this cafe has already given me so much. I am getting better at my job every time I work and even if it is the most ridiciulously easy thing to learn (like who new you could do something wrong loading a dishwasher!?) I aspire to perfect it. And at the end of the day, whenever my boss has nothing to criticize or even praises my work I can feel a bit proud. Other than that I enjoy talking to my coworkers, getting to know them a bit better.

When I have a day off work I get up early in the morning to go to the gym and I love it so much! I do just a bit of cardio training and train with weights afterwards per usual, but I change it up whenever I feel like it. I finally bought an adidas swimsuit which sounds odd, but I have wanted one for so long so that I could go back to swimming as much as I used to years ago. My biggest achievement for myself was my run today. I ran 6 kilometers (honestly in a pretty bad time, but I don't effing care), which I didn't even know I was able to do until today. I was gladly surprised when I found myself  alive and still in a pretty good state afterwards. It´s amazing to see what a body can do when only you treat it right, fuel it right and work out. Only the tiniest bit of cardio exercise has improved my performance so much, I still can't really believe it. But yeah, let´s wait for the sore muscles tomorrow and see if I´m still so happy about my workout.

As you can see my days pretty much consist of work, the gym and food, but I can't complain. Watching carefully what I eat  and how active I am is a lot of fun and I can feel results when I eat healthier every day. I watch my not only my macros (not counting calories or anything!), but also my vitamins and minerals very closely and I don't eat junk food to screw up my fitness all over. Okay, I must admit I got a pizza after a meltdown on my first day of work because I was so exhausted and hadn't eaten all day, but my share of junk food compared to healthy foods is tinier than ever! I hope I can keep it up, but luckily it has already become a habit so I am positive about that!

Another goal of mine at the moment is to explore Berlin further and the way I do that is to not take the underground everywhere I go, but to walk places instead. Thus I have gained a better understanding or orientation of the city. In my opinion it is the small things that make you call a city home and knowing where you are is a big part of that.

Okay, I think I have bored my future self enough with this messy and unstructured text about my life so I will put this to an end here and go read my book until I have to go again... bye!


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My first days in Berlin

Leaving home...

I just moved across the country. I haven't truly realized it myself, but yeah, that is what happened in my life the past few days. Leaving home is maybe not the best title for this text, because I kind of moved from home to home, so first of all I will explain this odd situation of moving in with my Mum again: I have been wanting to move to Berlin for one and a half years now and when my parents separated last year and my Mum decided to move 600km away to Berlin, this gave me the chance (see the good in everything!) to go back and forth between my hometown and my favorite city in the world. I went to Berlin 4 times this year and I will stay for three whole months this time. It feels so good to not have to leave after just a few days.

 


What I have been up to...

Moving usually takes a ton of time to prepare, but since I don't need to find an apartment or quit a job,  I just packed my things and went here. What I did in advance though is look for a job that would keep me busy over the next months and would pay my travels at the same time. So I looked up Cafés and Restaurants that offered jobs for waitresses and I got really lucky to be accepted into one I especially liked. Other than that I enjoyed the past few summer days. After our arrival (my brother brought me here) we went to my favorite restaurant (more about that soon), hung out at a park and discovered more of the city. Normally, I´m not up for super touristy things, but it´s nice to see some  more touristy parts of the city from a different perspective. And some of them are too nice not to stop for a quick snapshot. (which these photos obviously are, duh!)



 What I will be up to...

For the next three weeks, this apartment will be all mine. Work and keeping my s*** will probably keep me busy enough, but I still got a gym membership to get more active again. Berlin has so much to offer, I will for sure not get lonely or bored. My favorite things to do are to go to Photo exhibitions (Want to see the Mario Testino one so badly!) or try out new vegan cafés . But I´ll see how much I can fit into my schedule. Who knows, maybe I will fail my test run at work so hard, that I will have more spare time than I would like.

My Bucket List (Check when done!):

o get a job
o visit Mario Testino´s Photo exhibition
o go to botanical garden
o get a tan at the park
o go swimming
o go to the open air theater
o do a bike tour
o finish a good book




I´m excited for what is next to come! xx, Viktoria





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Paris Diary



"Paris, Je t´aime!"- would be the first thing that comes up to my mind when I think of this stunning city. The last time I went to Paris was in 2013 and I already knew back then that I wanted to come back so badly. Almost four years later, this finally became reality and I had one of the best trips ever. So the thing is, my two best friends and I planned on going to the Lollapalooza festival in Paris this summer because we went to the festival in Berlin last year and honestly liked the Parisian line up better, so we extended our trip by 3 days and planned this year´s summer holidays to the city of love. Man, was that a great decision.

Thursday...

Our trip started at 4 am on thursday. Obviously my favorite time to wake up. We got into the pouring rain on our way to the train but we didn´t even care. Once we  arrived in Paris we got completely lost on our way to the Air BnB, which is the most typical thing that could have happened to us, but luckily I am the walking google maps of the group, so I handled the situation like a real pro (not really). Our Air BnB was the cutest little studio in baby blue tones and just enough space for the three of us. We lived close to Sacre Coeur, so we explored Montmarte and the area around the same day. Again: No clue where we were, but the great thing about Paris is that it looks cute no matter where you are (almost. We lived in Barbès so I know this is not entirely true.) The view at the top of Montmartre was just as stunning as I remembered it. Would definitely recommend going there. After our walk to the top we took a bus (better than the metro if you want to see more) to the Eiffel tower and continued the tourist life until we came home, cooked, had tea and talked. A pattern that we tend to follow a LOT.



Friday...

Was one of my favorite days. We got up late to get over the shock of waking up at night the day before and strolled along the Camps-Elysées, shopped a little and walked to the Louvre and Notre Dame. Oh almost forgot: We went to a vegan patisserie and I bought some seriously fancy cake which I can not show you because I devoured it right away. At nine p.m. or so, we went back to "Trocadéro" to see the Eiffel Tour sparkle, which it does hourly every night. Our view was amazing (maybe because we got the best spot behind the barriers...) and we listened to a street artist. Now comes probably my favorite part of the day. My best friend Em loves to sing and she has not been sining in public for long, but when she asked the musician to play a certain song he invited her to sing with him. It was so cool to see her sing in front of the Eiffel Tour and I was definitely proud of her being so brave.


Saturday and Sunday...

Lollapalooza was obviously on the weekend and it took place at the "Hippodrome de Longchamps". Our last festival experience was pretty stressful so we decided to hang out and relax a bit more this year. And we had the best time. Although the past two days had already made our feet and legs hurt, we did our best at forgetting about that. We saw artists such as Imagine Dragons, The Weeknd, Charlie xcx, Alan Walker, Lana del Rey and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Yup, pretty cool. The absolute best performance in our opinion was by the Imagine Dragons. I must admit that I had quite low expectations for them, but they were SOO good. They had a great show, they were loud and emotional, but all of that in such a personal way. I can not even describe it, but if you ever get the chance to see them life, you should definitely do it.  I was also really excited to see Lana del Rey, but unfortunately had to meet some unpleasant personalities in the crowd (shoutout to you) but I guess this all is just part of the deal. Lana was amazing and that is what matters. I don't think I need to say much about RHCP. They are freaking legends and I will never ever forget dancing in the pouring rain in my bright yellow rain coat with my best friends in the whole wide world to the songs of my brothers´ and my childhood. God, writing this makes me miss it even more!


Monday...

Was the day of our departure and the day, when we were slowly giving up on our existence. Four extremely tiring days had passed and we definitely did not want to walk the extra mile (literally). So we bought tickets to the top of the Eiffel Tour and stood in line for two hours. We didn´t even mind the rain and the queue at this point. We took our time and it actually filled the whole day until our train back home...


Things I realized...

Are that traveling on a budget is not that hard. We are super cheap girls (does that sound wrong? idk) and with a little effort of finding a cute Air BnB and by booking the train ride long in advance, we did not have to pay a fortune for this trip. Especially cooking at home made a big difference. After all, eating out in Paris is super expensive and not very exciting for three vegetarians/vegans.
Another thing that was quite sad to see, that even though I took advanced classes in French in school, my French does not get me anywhere. I can order baguette and I understand most of what they try to slowly explain to me, but French people don't seem to understand me and communication overall is difficult. So either German schools need to step up their French Game or French schools should teach proper English.

After all, it was exciting to go on another trip on our own and to organize the whole thing ourselves. You learn from every experience, either good or bad, and at the end of each journey you come back richer. The only thing I do not want to think about is that this was kind of a farewell trip, because I am leaving home in two days. But I am thankful to have spent this time with the people I love the most.

Bisous, Viktoria






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First Post







Hello everyone!


My name is Viktoria, I´m from a small town in Germany and I love to write. And since I just graduated from Highschool and have a ton of free time on my hands and a couple of adventures coming up, I thought that it would be a good idea to start this blog. Exploring and trying out new things will be the main topics on here. I hope for it to become a diary that I can look back into in a few months or years to remember moments and travels but also to remind myself and others that getting out of one´s comfort zone will be worth it.

The name of this blog is part of the next great adventure I´m about to dive into, I guess you´ll figure it out in time. Other than that, I don´t have anything exciting to say right now. I just hope you enjoy (In case anyone ever reads this lol) and return if you do.

xx, Viktoria 
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