Auf Wiedersehen Deutschland

We’ll the unthinkable has happened. I left Germany. After a 2 hour flight to London and a 12 hour flight to Hong Kong, I am sitting in the airport for another 12 hours flight to New Zealand.

I don’t even know how to say goodbye to the place that has been my home for the past 2 years. I arrived in Germany thinking I would be there for a year, enjoy myself a bit and come home and continue my life. We’ll sometimes, unexpected events happen.

I fell in love. And I guess I would consider myself lucky. I fell in love with the country, with the amazing friends I have met and with an amazing guy.

I had decided I wanted to live in Munich after visiting the city for 4 days in 2009. I guess it was love at first sight. This city is nice, quiet, clean, safe and can be as crazy as you make it. It has beautiful sights, wonderful buildings and an interesting history. All of this made me want to stay here and be a part of its life for as long as possible.

When I first arrived, I met some great people who made me feel so welcome in my new home away from home. From the people I was living with (Ibo, Heidi, Franz) to the other expats that I met randomly over the course of my first few weeks (Lauren, Leah)

And threw them and others, I have truly met some of the most amazing people I have ever met. Everyone was there for different reasons. I am so fortunate to have shared this experience with all of you. I will always remember you all and thank you so much for being a part of my life. You are a great part of what made me want to stay longer than anticipated in Germany. It’s so hard to explain the connection you make with people while being abroad. Those of you in the same situation will surely understand.

I was also lucky to have met and fallen in love with an amazing guy. Go figure I come to Germany to meet someone from New Zealand. Someone who is thoughtful, funny, and who has amazing plans and goals for the future. Someone who makes me feel special, beautiful and loved.  

All I can say is danke Deutschland!

Ich liebe das Leben…. And now on to the next adventure.

We will see each other again some day.

Football, Gaudi and sunny… Just kidding, rainy

My final trip living in Europe. I spent a few days with my parents in Barcelona. I hadn’t seen my parents in about 10 months. SO it was nice to be able to spend some time with them before going to New Zealand.

It was an amazing trip. I never knew much about Spain and Barcelona and was pleasantly surprised.

We visited the football stadium on my first day. FC Barca is my dads favourite team. It was nice to see him so happy about visiting the stadium. Just like a kid on Christmas. Even as a lesser fan than him (almost not a fan at all), I thought it was impressive to see the history of the club and the stadium itself. A proud club that remembers their origins.

Another great discovery was the works done by Gaudi. I had heard of Gaudi before going, but not really anything specific he did. We saw the Guell park, the Segrada Familia and the Batllo house he designed and everyone is unique and different and incredible. To have designed such different buildings is truly amazing. Everything is different and meant something different to him. It’s interesting leaning what inspired him to do things in certain ways.

The rest of the time we mostly just walked around and saw different areas of the city. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t great. I was hoping for warm weather, but we had to wear coats almost everyday. And it rained so much. It wouldn’t last all day, but once in a while it would POUR. But that didn’t stop us from enjoying all the things the city has to offer.

We ate great food, saw beautiful buildings, experienced a different culture. What a last trip it was. 

It's been a while

So friends of mine are traveling around Europe and they are writing their blog and it made me realize I haven't been writing mine in a LONG while.

I'll soon have to change the name of the blog to something like Chantal's world adventure as I will be leaving for New Zealand soon. Before I go, I still have a few travels planned.

I just got back from a trip to Sweden and Denmark. It was quite a cool trip, although a bit cold. But hey, i'll never say no to an opportunity to travel.

I stayed with a friend in Sweden, in the city of Malmö, only 20 minutes from Copenhagen. It's really cute, but not so big. I was able to see the museums and the city in one day. We went to a crazy museum with no particular order or sense to it. You walk in and see stuffed animals, then have sections on giving birth, an aquarium, paintings and a special exhibit on toys form the 70s...

The other museum had quite cool things like a submarine that you can actually go into, planes, trains and automobiles and a cool interactive section with experiments you can try including a brain wave game where you need to relax to win.

Copenhagen took a little more time to visit. We went walking around the city, did a boat tour, went to the aquarium, went into some museums. It's really a beautiful city with beautiful buildings.

It was a little confusing with the money though. Waking up in Sweden and having to use swedish money, then going to Copenhagen and using danish money and coming back to Sweden in the evening.

One thing that was really cool though (well cool after living in Germany for so long). We were able to buy groceries on Easter Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. And not even before like 2 pm!! It's quite amazing after being used to only buying anything Monday to Saturday until 8 pm and never on public holidays.

Now just over a month before my trip to Spain with my parents!