Here I am as usual, posting on my blog months after going abroad. I believe I said this before, but there’s nothing like a pandemic to get you to catch up on things you’ve been wanting to do for months. Also, how is this pandemic still not over yet? Am I the only one who thought this would be a 3-week thing and we’d go back to lectures in April 2020 like nothing happened? Here we are in February 2021 and I think I’ll be 30 by the time we get to go clubbing again. Anyway, this is not a Corona post, it is a travel blog. So let’s get to it.

Just a quick disclaimer: This trip was back in August 2020, so yes, I travelled during the pandemic. We wore masks most of the time there and got tested when we got back. Obviously we took our masks off for some of the pictures (don’t come at me). Also, considering this post is 6 months late, I had to go on my instagram for a few of the pictures, hence why some have place tags, writing on them or look like they have filters on (guilty as charged).

Day 1: Arrival in Split

We arrived in Split on a Saturday evening and, after having moved everything into the small apartment room we had rented for the week, decided on a place to go out for dinner. Now, if you have been reading my blogs for a while, you’ll know that my boyfriend is intolerant to gluten, so choosing a restaurant on holiday is not a 5 minute deal for us, it takes much more thought and preparation. Well, if you know ME, you’ll know I made a list of all the gluten-free restaurants in Split weeks before we even boarded the plane. So here’s a heads-up that all the places we went to eat at, had gluten free options (at least the ones I’m tagging).

Following a recommendation from the apartment owner and several positive online reviews, we decided to go to Šug. And boy, we were not disappointed. I think it’s fair to say, this was one of the best places we ate at during the whole trip. This small restaurant has a romantic outside seating area and a variety of affordable dishes that tasted incredible. The waiting staff was also extremely lovely and knowledgeable about allergens and the dishes they were serving (our dishes came with a quick explanation of what ingredients were in them and how they had been prepared for that particular dish).

I’ll leave a few pictures here for you to get an idea of how it was like:

Day 2: Beach Day at Kasjuni Beach

Following a good night’s sleep, we woke up to a blue sky and a lot of sunshine. If this didn’t call for a day at the beach, I wouldn’t know what else would.

The apartment owner had recommended a few beaches in Split to us, one of them being Kasjuni Beach on the left hand side of the city, near the Marjan Forest Park. We decided to get an Uber there, as the beach was a bit far away for us to walk and were positively surprised with two things, which turned out to be quite common in Split: a lot of the Uber/Taxi drivers are female and the rides were extremely cheap. I’m talking 2,00€ for a 15 minute car ride.

We spent the entire day at Kasjuni Beach. We did eat there, but the one place we went to eat at, is not one that I can recommend (Joe’s Beach Lounge & Bar). I suppose the place is fine if you’re not allergic or intolerant to anything, but the food is expensive and rather underwhelming. We also had some cocktails, which were fine, but not more than that. Also, make sure you buy those little swimming shoes (the ones that prevent you from stepping into sea urchins) before you go there, because there’s nothing except this one Lounge/Bar place at the entire beach. Not even one person sells these shoes there (and trust me, we looked).

Day 3: Exploring Split City Centre

On our third day on the Croatian coast, we decided it was time to actually explore the city centre, specifically Split’s old town. We went to see Diocletian’s Palace, walked through the intertwining streets of the old city centre, as well as along the promenade with its cafes and restaurants. For lunch, we stopped by Maka Maka Açai & Poke Bar, our second favourite restaurant in Split. We liked it so much, that we went back there on our final day to grab some more Açai bowls before heading to the airport. Split’s city centre was extremely beautiful, with street musicians playing near the tourist attractions and I was surprised that we weren’t the only tourists there, although there honestly weren’t that many due to obvious reasons. I think, however, that one day is enough to see all of Split, which is why we went to other cities for the next three days to see something new.

Day 4: Krka National Park and Wine Tasting in Skradin

The Krka National Park is considered a must see for anyone visiting Split. Considering it is quite close, there’s no real excuse not to go. You can book trips with getyourguide and similar tourist agencies that will organise tours all around Croatia for you and it is, even during Corona, a great chance to meet other people and enjoy a combination of touristic attractions without the hassle of having to organise it yourself. So that’s what we did. We booked a trip to the Krka National Park and a vine tasting in Skradin, which is a city (or village?) just down the Krka River. I won’t try to glamorise something that really wasn’t glamorous (that’s what Instagram is for), but the weather was… yeah it was kind of shit. It rained most of the day and the rain in combination with a cold wind made me shudder like a chihuahua for most of the trip. Don’t get me wrong, the park is beautiful and the waterfalls that it is known for are definitely worth seeing, specially because you can swim quite closely to them, but mother nature was just not on my side that day, so we couldn’t really appreciate the park in its full glory. The upside to the terrible weather (and the pandemic), was that the park was almost empty, which made it much easier to explore it without bumping into other people. If you do decide to go, make sure you take your swimming clothes, a towel and maybe even your own lunch, because the food there is an absolute rip-off.

After having spent approximately three hours at the park, we took a ferry boat down the Krka River, which took us to Skradin, where we would have our wine tasting. The Ante Sladić Vino vinery did a really good job in organising the vine tasting. We had five different types of wine and got some bread and cheese for snacking in-between. It was great fun!

In the evening we went to Step By Step Bistro for some gluten-free, quinoa based pizza. The food there was really good, although I admit a bit pricey.

Day 5: Hvar Island

Another day, another place to explore. And what is a summer in Croatia without a little bit of island hopping? Although Hvar isn’t the closest island to Split, the one hour ferry ride is not too long and for me personally, this was the most beautiful place of all the ones we saw during our trip. I wasn’t sure at first what there was to do on Hvar, but with enough research, I came across the following blog, which gave us more than enough inspo for our day on Hvar:

https://www.thecommonwanderer.com/blog/hvar-town-things-to-do

We started off with a walk along the old town, St. Stephens Cathedral, St. Stephens Square, went all the way up to the Hvar fortress that gives you a beautiful view over the island and the marina, before we went to Pokonji Dol beach. I can’t express enough how beautiful the island is. Definitely worth going!!

When we got back to Split in the evening we grabbed some gluten-free burgers at Toto’s Burger Bar. Unfortunately their sweet potato fries were not gluten free, so Philip ended up eating two burgers. The food was great though, and considering it was gluten free, it was actually quite cheap.

Day 6: Brač Island

Now this was the island I was looking forward to the most before going. The Zlatni Rat beach (Golden Horn Beach in English) on the island of Brač is one of the better known beaches not only in Croatia, but in all of Europe. It is shaped like a horn and extends towards Hvar island, which is just south of Brač. The sand on Zlatni Rat is completely white and the water is cristal clear. To get to Zlatni Rat, you can usually get a ferry directly from Split to the city of Bol, from where you can walk to the beach (app. 20 minutes). If you’re as smart as me and decide to go travel during a pandemic, forget the direct ferry. Instead, we had to take a ferry from Split to Supertar, which is on the north of the Brač island. From there, we had planned to take a public bus to Bol, which is on the south side of Brač. This bus would’ve taken us 1h one way. Luckily, there were taxis at the Ferry Station which would take a group of tourists directly to the Golden Horn Beach from Supertar and, considering it didn’t have to stop in every village on the way, would only take 25 minutes. We were more than willing to throw away any plans we’d made and take a taxi with 5 other people (when I say taxi, I mean one of these taxi mini vans) for only 10 EUR per person one way.

The beach was almost empty when we got there, which gave us plenty of options on where to lie down. Now if you clicked on the hyperlink above and have seen the shape of the beach, you need to know that the sand is not completely even. The beach is almost shaped like a little hill, with the centre of the sandy part being the highest point and sloping downward to its left and right. This way you tend to have one side that is extremely windy and the other side being protected from the wind because of the sand hill. So my advice here is, make sure to check out both sides before you put your towels down and I’ll assure you, you’ll have a much more relaxing experience.

I think I must’ve really liked the beach because I completely forgot to take any pictures, apart from the one you can see below. There’s also a variety of food stands on the beach that offer tasty and affordable snacks. We spent most of our day lying in the sun and swimming until we took another taxi van back to Supertar, from which our ferry departed back to Split. We did take the opportunity to look around Supertar as well and were not disappointed at all. One thing we didn’t do, and in hindsight we probably should have, was to visit the Bol town, as it was only 20 minutes away from the beach. A group of elderly British women, who shared the taxi van with us, had gone to Bol and told us how beautiful the small town was. Maybe next time…

Day 7: The Final Day

We decided to make the most of our last day in Split, since our flight back home was only in the evening. Philip has gotten used to having to go brunching with me at least once on every trip we take. This trip was no exception. We had a lovely brunch at Ćiri Biri Bela, a hotel and cafe which offers – you guessed it – gluten free meals. This is another place in Split I highly recommend for a meal out. Their outside eating area, as well as the inside area, is very nicely furnished and just overall cosy for a breakfast or brunch date.

We also had one more thing we had wanted to do in Split but didn’t manage to before our final day: Marjan Hill. In my head this was going to be somewhat like the Barcelona Bunkers – a great spot for a sunrise or sunset – but we never really managed to make it there for either of those, so we just went in the middle of the day. I will say it’s very different from the Bunkers, because the Hill is connected to the Marjan Forest Park I mentioned in Day 1 and therefore has a lot more green to it, but it was extremely nice. It’s a good place to see the city from the top and maybe even for a nice date with a bottle of wine and a setting sun.

We went on to revisit our favourite places in the Split town center, before getting another dose of delicious Açai bowls at Maka Maka and heading to the airport to get back home.

So this post is way overdue since I was in Morocco back in September, but things have been busy ever since with me finishing off my final year at uni and writing my dissertation. However, there’s nothing like a pandemic to help us catch up on things we’ve been putting off for the past 8 months.

As with many trips I have done in the past, my best friend Melanie was once again my companion for this one. She flew out to Barcelona, where I was still living back at the time (god I miss Barcelona) and after a few days of enjoying sangrias, Moritz beer and tapas, we took off for a week in Morocco. As some might say: #tatlanieontour (nobody except us says this).

Fez:

We arrived in Fez on Saturday evening, bubbling with excitement for finally having arrived. My particular excitement died down rather quickly, once I realised that Morocco is not a “feel at home country” (damn it, Three). So it turned out I didn’t have any internet or free calls in Morocco, which with my particular network provider is more shocking than one might think. We made our way to the taxi stand and negotiated a rate for someone to get us to our hotel (a piece of advice: life becomes easier if you travel with someone who speaks French, recommend 10/10). Another advice: taxi drivers in Morocco ALWAYS offer you double the price that the trip is actually worth. Do it better than we did and negotiate.

The driver did take us almost all the way to our hotel. The emphasis does lie on almost, as he explained to us that he couldn’t take us past the Medina of the city because cars weren’t allowed inside. As it happened, our hotel was in the centre of Fez’ medina. For you to be able to visualise how bad of a thing this is: If a demon and a labyrinth had a baby, it would be the Medina of Fez (Fes el-Bali). The medina consists of numerous small streets that are laid out similarly to a labyrinth and which are not mapped out on Google Maps. You can get lost or end up at cul-de-sacs at every corner.

The taxi driver must’ve seen the sheer panic in my eyes, because he then offered to call our riad, the Hotel & Spa Dar Bensouda, to arrange for someone to pick us up. He then left and we stood  there, waiting for someone to take us to our hotel. Someone did eventually come and guided us, while carrying our 20kg suitcase to the safety of our hotel. The walk through the medina to our hotel took 20 minutes (meaning: we definitely would’ve gotten lost).

The relief I felt when we arrived at the riad can’t be put into words. Even more so because the hotel was absolutely amazing, beautiful and the owner (Mamoune) extremely polite and made us feel welcome with Moroccan tea while he chatted with us for a good hour. That evening, Melanie and I went to the rooftop of our riad, laid down on one of their sun beds and watched the Moroccan sky above us. All around us were rooftops of other riads and music could be heard from nearby celebrations. It almost felt unreal.

For our first day, we had already booked a trip to Chefchaouen, also known as the blue pearl. This is a city completely painted in blue and a 4-hour car drive away from Fez. Forgive me if I sound harsh, but the only reason Fez is worth visiting (in my opinion) is to go to Chefchaouen. I shall prove my point with pictures:

The small city can be seen within a few hours, so a one-day trip there is completely enough. I don’t, however, recommend taking a 4-hour trip there and then back, only to stay in the actual city for three hours. I say this because our particular tour operator organised the trip this way and my German brain can’t quite grasp the logic behind that. Luckily, we took advantage of this trip and also bought ourselves a Moroccan sim card and topped it up with the help of our tour guide (turns out our Arabic skills were not on par with the machine on the other end of the phone call). Having a Moroccan phone number became extremely handy when later that evening the rude van driver from the very same tour organisation wanted to leave us in front of the medina without organising for us to be taken to the hotel, although that was included in the package. We did call Mamoune (he gave us his number and told us to call him if we ever needed help) and he had someone pick us up.

The following day consisted of us walking around Fez and exploring the Medina and the city. By this point we actually found our way around the Medina without a guide. We went up to the Borj Nord Viewpoint, which is one of the few touristic attractions of the city:

We also managed to visit the Royal Palace, Dar El Makhzen, which can only be seen from the outside and you can’t take pictures of the guards standing in front of it. The palace is located in the well known neighbourhood “New Fez”, Fes el-Jdid, so we walked around to see what else the city had to offer. Unfortunately, most places we intended on visiting were closed, so we actually didn’t see much else.

One memorable thing in Fez was our lunch at The ruined garden. This was a beautiful outdoor eating space in the middle of the Medina with some very tasty food.

This was the last thing we did before we took a train that afternoon to Casablanca:

Casablanca:

I’ll unapologetically say that Casablanca was my favourite out of the three cities we visited that week. It is modern, beautiful, by the sea, has a breathtaking mosque and good food.

We arrived in Casablanca in the evening and were once again fascinated with the beauty of Moroccan train stations. The 4-hour train ride had also been extremely smooth, with a first class ticket costing a mere £15. That evening we checked into the Kenzi Basma and went to a nearby restaurant for dinner. We had asked reception for a recommendation for a place to eat and the concierge himself took us to the restaurant. Unfortunately, the restaurant was just like the hotel: expensive and not worth the money you paid for it. To be honest, this is quite a Western hotel and not a Moroccan riad, so it was to be expected that we wouldn’t have the same experience as we did in Fez.

We had only planned one day in Casablanca (which I believe was enough) and wanted to make the most of it. The next day we decided to use Google Maps without using the internet (roads are still shown on the app, even without internet) and walk everywhere we wanted to go. If you have a somewhat central hotel, you can reach everything by foot. Our first stop was the Mohammed V Square, which was only 5 minutes away from our hotel. We then walked all across Boulevard Radchi and Avenue Hassan II (which to me looks a bit like Times Square) until we reached the sea. On our way, we stopped by a local attraction called the Sacre Coeur, which looks just like the one in Paris. However, we could only walk around it and not go inside. We also walked through a lovely park next to the cathedral and stopped for a quick photo shoot (because that’s how extra we are):

Once we got to the sea, we saw the ginormous Hassan II Mosque and walked around it a few times, not believing how beautiful it is. Outside of prayer hours, tourists are also allowed inside to see the mosque. I do advise you wear shoes with socks for this, otherwise you’ll have to walk barefoot through the mosque. We did catch a glimpse inside the building but didn’t have time to go inside, even though we could have:

We then walked along the coast, which is right next to the mosque and ended our Casablanca stay with a tasty lunch at the La Sqala:

That evening we took a train to Marrakesh, ready for our final stopover of this trip. Once again, the train ride went by super quickly and tickets were dirt cheap.

Marrakesh:

Although our riad in Marrakesh, the Hotel & Spa Dar Baraka & Karam, was inside the local medina as well, it was far easier to find than the one in Fez. Funnily enough, both riads also belong to the same hotel group so are very similar in style. The Marrakesh Medina is much more scattered and less concentrated than the one in Fez and much easier to walk through. During our first evening in Marrakesh, we walked around the medina and went to a local restaurant for dinner.

The next day we had to get up early. At 8am we were picked up from the Jemaa el-Fnaa square to take on a 7-hour journey to the Saharan desert. Alongside a Brazilian couple, a German couple and three Peruvians, we realised that we could understand everyone in the van, which for two language students is a quite rewarding realisation. The trip did have a few breaks, such as Ouarzazate, the “door of the desert” and Aït Benhaddou, where a number of films were shot. Nevertheless, we couldn’t wait to just get to the desert!

We arrived at the Sahara desert just before sunset. This is where we finally got out of the van and on top of our dromedaries. In a line, we rode them through a part of the desert while the sun was setting behind the dunes:

The pictures don’t make my dromedary any justice. It was by far the ugliest in the group and looked the dromedary equivalent to an alcoholic middle-aged men, but he did carry my ass for over an hour through the desert, so I was in no place to judge.

Following a 1.5 hour ride, we arrived at a camp with 13 tents for us to sleep in. We did share the camp with another group that was there with a different organisation and ended up sharing a tent with a mum and daughter from the Netherlands.

Once at the camp, the local berber guides made some Moroccan tea for us, cooked us a local, three-course meal and told us stories of the region.

That night we all sat in a circle around a campfire, while the berbers were playing local music, singing for us and watched the star-filled sky. I have never before and never since seen stars in the sky the way I did that night.

The next morning we woke up before the sun rose in order to get another dromedary ride during sunrise:

We had breakfast at the camp, rode another 1.5 hours from the camp to the nearest road and made our 7-hour way home right after.

The first thing we did after arriving in Marrakesh was take out our phones (guilty as charged). After all, we hadn’t had any internet connection for over 24 hours. A healthy break, but one we were happy to come back from.

During our final day in Morocco, we once again got up early (call it German efficiency) to make sure we’d be in the queue for the Majorelle Gardens before 9am. This is definitely something I recommend, because people who arrived after us stood in the queue for hours, while we just waited 20 minutes.

Majorelle Gardens is a part of the Yves Saint Laurent Museum that is located next to the garden. For any fashion enthusiasts (not me) this is a must-go. The garden, however, is nice for anyone:

From there, we went on to visit the Bahia Palace, which had me more excited than the following picture might suggest:

For the rest of the day, we walked around the medina of the city and looked at all the little shops, the souks, selling everything you can possibly think of. You’d think that two Germans would not be approached in such a place if they speak German with each other, but don’t be mistaken. Souk salesmen speak every language we could cover and more. German? Kein Problem, das können die auch. Spanish? Por supuesto! Entra en mi tienda que aqui puedes encontrar de todo. French and Portuguese are not safe either, so we decided to just silently walk through and enjoy the colours, textures and smells the medina had to offer. Here and there we negotiated with a salesmen or other to see if we could bargain cheaper prices for expensive items.

My go-to technique was the following (real-life scenario, prices may vary, do not try this in Europe):

Tatjana: How much does this wooden face statue cost?

Salesmen: Only 480 dirham (£40).

Tatjana: OH MY SWEET LORD JESUS! I AM A POOR STUDENT SIR, HOW CAN YOU ASK FOR THIS MUCH MONEY FOR THIS PIECE OF WOOD. HELL NAAAH IM OUTTA HERE! MY POOR LITTLE SOUL CANNOT SURVIVE SUCH PRICES!

I then proceeded to walk out of the store while the salesmen followed  me, dropping the price with each step he took. By the time I was outside, I would’ve gotten it for £5. Too bad it wouldn’t have fit into my suitcase.

The labyrinth-like streets of the medina led to the Jemaa el-Fnaa square, which we were picked up from the previous day. We went up to a Mezzanine restaurant, which offered food and tea on a rooftop and then headed back to the square to get some henna done. Now be prepared to be absolutely ripped off. You will be asked to pay up to £50 for a small pattern and it’s just not worth all that money. We managed to negotiate our way down to £20 for both of our hennas which didn’t have the lady making them thrilled, but we all knew it was still more than it is actually worth:

We finished off the trip by having a final tea on a rooftop overlooking the square and made our way back to the hotel and then to the airport to fly back to Barcelona on the same evening.

I’m not going to lie, Morocco was quite an adventure and I was anxious a few times and felt uncomfortable, especially in Fez. For someone who grew up in the West, the constant cat calling on the street and the stares are quite intimidating. I did “get used” to it or shot back evil glares where they were deserved and felt completely comfortable by the end of the trip. I do recommend, however, to go to Morocco with a partner. If you go with a male companion, you will not get called out on the street and you get your own tent in the desert…

I can’t wait for the next trip once this pandemic is over!

Now if you excuse me, there is a dissertation I have to finish.

Ok so people always say how quickly time passes and they can’t believe that x amount of time has already passed, but cliches are cliches for a reason and boy I can’t believe my 6 months in Barcelona are already over!

Fair enough, it doesn’t feel like it was only “yesterday” that I arrived, but it does feel like I arrived like 2 weeks ago or so.

My last couple of months in Barcelona were filled with new experiences, trips to new places, a whole new group of interns that arrived and new friendships that I will hope to maintain for a very long time.

So now that my time in this amazing city is over, I want to show you a list of pictures with the highlights of my stay (mainly for me to look back to when I think about this period of my life), followed by a list of things I recommend people should do if they visit or live in Barcelona at any point.

My personal highlights:

The first friends I made: My amazing flatmates who lived with me under the roof of a crazy Mexican lady who ended up kicking all of us out weeks before my internship ended. But damn do I love them!

The second group of friends I made: the interns at the firm. My Spanish family ❤

They are one of the reasons I felt at home in Barcelona and 100% of the reason I speak Spanish the way I do.

I really hope I get to see all of them again soon!

Watching the sunrise over the bunkers with my dad when he came to visit. I loved it so much that I went back with my boyfriend and then again with my girls straight from the club at 7am.

Anna Banana coming to see me was another highlight. We had met in Germany during my previous placement and it meant a lot to have her be part of my second placement to a certain extend. This is us watching the sunset over the bunkers moments before a storm started (yes, the clouds are a strong indicator, but we didn’t think it would start raining). We ended up drenched in rainwater and running down the hill and nothing went like planned but I couldn’t stop laughing because there we were, in Barcelona, running together in the rain.

My girls. Where do I even start. Most of them only came a month before I was due to finish my internship but I can’t even express how happy I am that they came.

This one month was all it took for us to form a bond that I hope will last for a lifetime.

Trips to Sitges, rooftop sunset picnics, photoshoots during golden hour, crepe making sessions at Dilara’s kitchen, nights out and techno festivals and many more things happened within this short amount of time and made my final months the absolute best I could ever have hoped for.

So these are some of my highlights, the ones I have pictures of, at least. Of course there is also Bhav’s visit in August, my mum’s visit and our road trip to the south of Spain in May, my boyfriend’s many visits throughout the 6 months there and, of course, when by best friend came just days before we flew to Morocco together (but that is getting its own post).

Now on to the list of things I recommend people do if they ever visit or live in Barcelona.

A lot of these things were suggested by a friend of mine who had been there for much longer than I had (yes Eve, I mean you) so I can’t take much credit for discovering many of these, but I can confirm that they were things I genuinely enjoyed!

1. Go have a drink at the Antic Teatre Bar. This cute little outside space is amazing for non-rainy days and relaxing drinks with your friends. You have to order at the bar and take your drinks outside to your table. Careful: You can only pay by card from 5€ onwards.

2. Sol Soler. Ok guuuurl, this is like the best tapas bar in Barcelona in my humble opinion and was 5 minutes from my first house (yes, the one I was kicked out of). I went there on my first day with Eve and this is the day I started liking beer (Moritz, the love of my life) and went back with Melanie on my last day. Highly recommend sitting outside at Plaza del Sol and watch all the young people sit on the floor and have drinks until the police comes and tells everybody to go.

3. Mamas Cafe Gracia: This place is really nice for some brunch. The food is really good, however the space is quite small and the chances that you won’t find a table if you come a bit later are quite high.

4. Elephanta Gin Bar, yet another jewel in the Gracia neighbourhood. This bar made me get into gin and tonic (my taste changed a lot during this placement). They also have a cute table with two chairs outside if you feel like doing some people watching while drinking your gin. They tend to have a gin of the month as well that you can ask for. The one I had was amazing.

5. A vocado, a cheeky Spanish pun with the expression “a bocados”, this restaurant actually offers less avocado meals than I expected, but the food is still very good with some great menu options (starter, main, desert) for 12€.

6. Acai&Me , if you are really into Açai or, like my boyfriend, haven’t tried it before and really want to, this place, right at the Barceloneta beach, is an amazing spot to grab a healthy, protein-filled, Açai bowl in the summer while looking down at the beach.

7. Alsur Cafe in the Born neighbourhood…I can’t even put to words how amazing and beautiful this place is. Hands down the best place I ever had brunch at. Careful, though, the bill can’t be split! The food and the ambience are worth it thoooo!

8. El Sabio Infante – Ok I really am into my brunch. This lovely cafe in Gracia has some amazing brunch options and super tasty pancakes (I’m a pancake kinda girl). The interior design is interesting and absolutely random at the same time.

9. La Oveja Negra (at least that’s the Spanish name, in Catalan L’Ovella Negra), which Eve described as the Spanish Weatherspoons, except it is cuter and right next to Razzmatazz. Really good to have some beer and Sangria. If you’re really thirsty, they also offer 10L pitchers of either beer or Sangria. Yeah, you read that right.

10. Razzmatazz, Apolo (my personal fave), Jamboree, Shoko and Catwalk were some of the clubs I went to during my stay. Apolo was my favourite, just because of the vibe and music they had the times I was there. They have two rooms with one of them playing techno (which I now started liking as well. Barcelona changed me!) and the other playing a different types of music depending on the week. Razzmatazz is the biggest one with 5 rooms playing different music. It is really well known and a must do when in Barcelona. Shoko and Catwalk are right at the beach and full of tourists. I suggest getting in before 1am if you don’t want to pay to get in (the drinks in there will cost you an arm and a leg) but if you want to party Spanish style, don’t even think about getting into a club before 3am .

11. Paradiso, one of the speakeasy bars I visited. It looks like a pastrami restaurant during the day (I think they even sell pastramis) and during night, the fridge door leads to a secret bar. Unfortunately the queue outside can be quite long sometimes, which takes away from the mystery. This is not a bar to get drunk in. Be prepared to pay 15€ for one drink, but it will be worth it!

12. Bobby’s Free , the second speakeasy bar I went to during my time in BCN. Similarly to Paradiso, this bar looks like something it isn’t. With the facade of a barbers shop, you would never guess this is a bar. The queues for this one also tend to be a bit smaller, which doesn’t make things too obvious. In order to be let into this bar, you will be greeted by a gentleman with a goat beard, who will ask you for a password. This password can be found on the bar’s instagram page and changes every month. Once you tell him the correct password, he will let you into the bar through a door you didn’t even know existed.

13. Tibidabo Amusement Park. Ok so I didn’t looove Tibidabo, because I got me and my boyfriend a ticket to go on all the rides and at the end there is one rollercoaster that is worth going to and that’s it. I do, however, recommend it to see the beautiful church that is there and for the viewing platform and Ferris wheel for amazing views of Barcelona.

14. Ok how haven’t I mentioned the Bunkers yet? You have to go there too, for sunset, sunrise, your call. It’s just beautiful, for free and always open. You can take a beer, wine, snacks with you or buy them there from the people that are there every day selling snacks and drinks.

15. Montjuic, one of the hills, literally meaning, Jewish mountain, close to the beach, can be reached by the cable car from Paral-lel or even walking. There are a number of beautiful parks, a castle and an olympic swimming pool, by which you can have a reasonably-priced beer with a view over Barcelona. From this spot you get a nice view of the sunset over the Tibidabo Amusement Park.

16. CosmoCaixa – this science museum which only costs 5€ to get in to (unless you have a bank account with Caixa, then it’s for free), is super fun if you like to read about random things in the history of science or if you want to discover their replica of the Amazon forest, the bosque inundado, as they call it, which includes plants and some very exotic animals. It is just on the bottom of the Tibidabo hill, on which the amusement park is, so if you’re too lazy to make the trip twice, you can combine a visit to this museum, followed by the park!

17. Brunch Festival – I know I mentioned I like brunch, but this has got nothing to do with food. Nope, this is a techno festival (yes, I like those now). A really good one, in fact. It takes place throughout the whole year, almost every Sunday and if you buy your tickets early enough, you’ll get them for 12€. Make sure you have a few drinks beforehand though, because they like to overcharge for theirs.

18. Also make sure to go to Figueres and Cadaqués! Those are the cities where Salvador Dali was born in and lived at. Both have museums  that you can visit. The one in Figueres doesn’t have to be booked in advance and is super worth seeing. The one in Cadaqués is basically his house. Do make sure to book this in advance, as when I went, all tickets were sold out and Matteo and I were only able to go into the garden, which was also super worth it:

Cadaqués looks like a Greek island, but might be a big expensive to stay the night at. I suggest taking the train to Figueres, exploring the city and sleeping there at a hostel for 18€. Then take the bus to Cadaqués early the next morning and be there within 1h. Spend the day in Cadaqués and take another bus straight to Barcelona in the evening. Absolutely beautiful and worth it!

19. Go to Sitges! Yet another beautiful town south of Barcelona with some beautiful beaches if you make sure to go along the beach, as far from the train station as possible, where all the tourists gather. Apparently is is also really good for a night out and for gay clubs.

20. Go to Girona! This was the first trip I made when I arrived, together with Matteo. It is in the same direction as Figueres (if you wan’t to combine them) and is a beautiful town with some old walls that you can walk along.

21. And, finally, go see as much of Spain as you can! The south, Andalucia, is so completely different from Catalunya, it might as well be a different country! I haven’t had the chance to see the north, but it must be amazing and completely different as well. Make the most of your time there!

After these adventurous six months I am, however, super excited to be back in the UK next week and see what the next and final year of uni brings.

I do know, for sure, that I want to go back to Barcelona at one point because I absolutely fell in love with this city.

Ok, so this post if way overdue and, to be honest, it has been laying around, half written, for about four weeks now, but here we are to talk about Barcelona and my first two months here.

Luckily, I have had a very successful start into my second placement by finding accommodation within 48 hours of being in the city (which to me is insane considering it’s Barcelona). With a lot of research on idealista and Badi (the two most common websites to look for apartments around here) and some German organisation skills, I managed to arrange viewings before arriving here, so that I would have something once I’d arrive.

I arrived on a Saturday evening, viewed some apartments on Sunday (the first one I saw was just the one) and moved into my new home on Monday, after having been in Barcelona for less than 48 hours. Me being me, I obviously already had a gym membership on Sunday after less than 24 hours here, because: priorities.

Together with an Italian, who literally always looks put together and makes me feel weird about wearing pjs in my house (we call him Tinkerbell), a Greek girl who has turned into my official wine drinking and travel buddy, and a lovely Mexican who is teaching me all the Spanish I cannot use around here, I live in a beautiful apartment in Gracia, just 10 minutes away from work (and from the gym!).

With these flatmates I have already had the chance to explore the city and visit some other places in Catalunya, such as Gerona, Vic, Figueres and Cadaqués, all north of Barcelona.

With everyone constantly being on trips to Marrocco, Marseille, Mallorca, Sardinia and more, it is difficult to find a time where we’re all together at home . But when we do, we make sure to make the most of it and enjoy the beautiful city we are living in.

Between tapas at Sol Soler, drinks at Bobbys Free bar (a speakeasy you need a password for, in order to get in) and sunsets at the Bunkers, Matteo is living his influencer life (which I am only pointing out, because he hates being called an influencer), Ellie is oblivious to celebrities everybody knows – e.g. Taylor “Swiffer”, “The Three Brothers” (the Jonas Brothers), “Thunder” (Chris Hemsworth because he plays Thor), “Zachary” (Zac Efron), “Adriana” Grande and more –  and I am just eating.all.the.time.

Being in Barcelona for 2 months has made me realise just how much I want to explore other parts of Spain. With my mum being in Spain for the next week, we are taking this opportunity to explore the south of the country, all the way to Sevilla. As I am writing this currently from our rented apartment room in Alicante, following a one-day stay in Tarragona, we are now off to a day in Murcia, followed by Granada and a two-day stay in Sevilla (any suggestions of things to see in any of these cities are more than welcome!).

Saturday morning we go back to Barcelona so that I can show my family some lovely places in the city, which I have fallen in love with in so many ways.

So, going to Iceland has been something I’ve been planning to do for a really long time. So when Philip told me he was going in February 2019, I couldn’t help but invite myself.

I’ll start with the beginning, because, well…that’s when things started to go wrong.

Day 1:

We arrived in Keflavik Airport at 2:30pm. We’d been awake since about 4am because we had to drive 4 hours to the airport that morning and were really tired at this point, just ready to pick up the car and drive all the way to Hellissandur to The Freezer Hostel, which we had booked for our first night.

Let’s just say things did not go as planned and instead of picking up our car at 3pm, like we had planned, we ended up leaving the car rental pick up point at 5:30pm, half an hour before the sun sets in Iceland at this time of the year.

First it was all good, the roads were clear, the weather was fine… until it just wasn’t anymore.  At some point on our way to the West of the island, the winds became increasingly stronger, the roads icier and the visibility non-existing.

What happened is, that we ended up getting stuck in the snow, in the middle of the night, during a storm, somewhere in Iceland. I’ll let you  know now that this was my biggest fear for this whole trip and it was everything but reassuring that this happened on our first night there.

While my boyfriend was off somewhere to get help, I tried to get out of the car (the wind was so strong, I almost wasn’t able to open the door) and stayed on the road to see if a car passed by that could help us.

We agreed afterwards that within this very much shitty situation we had a lot of luck, because:

1. A snow-clearing vehicle with a lovely man passed by and he said he wouldn’t leave until we were safe.
2. There was a hotel close to where we got stuck and they had a free room for the night.
3. There was a towing car nearby that got our car out of the snow for 300€ (Disclaimer: we later discovered that in these conditions we shouldn’t have paid anything for the service, so yes, we got ripped off big time. But hey, at least we got the car out of the snow).

We ended up staying at that hotel, not able to drive the 1.5 hours left to the Freezer Hostel.

So yeah…That was day one.

Day 2:

Ok, shit happened that day too, but at least we saw some things.

After our first night of horror (yes, I am dramatic and that is how I shall refer to this night forever), we drove further into the West to see some beautiful landscapes and to visit a black beach.

If was definitely beautiful and I can recommend that corner of Iceland, however not in the winter.

After we had seen what we wanted to see, we had to make our way up to Svinavatn in the North, where our next Guesthouse was booked (Svinavatn Guesthouse).

On our way, there were, once again, very strong winds and very icy roads, which led to us losing control of the car a few times and thinking we were gonna drift off the road and get stuck again.

We did, however, arrive safely in Svinavatn to find that we had an entire Guesthouse to ourselves (there are no humans in Iceland) and a nearby lake that was so frozen, that we could walk on it. This would’ve been the perfect spot to do some Northern Lights watching, but we didn’t have any luck, nor the patience to sit outside and wait.

Day 3:

This day started with us thinking we would never be able to leave Svinavatn. Not because it was beautiful, but because we had to drive up an icy road to get to the main ring road and we didn’t manage to get enough of a grip on the ground to drive up. Eventually the father-in-law of the lady who owned the guesthouse had to drive over from his farm and drive our car up the road.

Once on the road again, things weren’t as bad as they had been the two previous days and we managed to drive safely up to Akureyri, the capital of the North – where we spent one expensive lunch and a few hours – and then further to Myvatn.

We also had a coffee at Bláa Kannan, which was advertised as being great in terms of gluten-free options. It was a nice coffee shop, but the only gluten free thing they sold was a brownie, so maybe they need to rethink their advertising.

Day 4:

We stayed at the Myvatn Elda Guesthouse for two nights. During this time we finally managed to do some more relaxed driving and explore the things we wanted to see: waterfalls, geysirs, lakes, caves, etc.

There was one cave up there – Grjótagjá Cave- known from a scene from Game of Thrones, were John Snow and that ginger girl… get it on. It is advertised on Google as a really beautiful cave with thermal water, but the reality is, that you can’t even go in there at all. It was absolutely dark (and we went on a sunny day), so I suppose you can only go in there if you’re happy with crawling into a dark hole in the snow (whatever rocks your boat).

What is definitely worth visiting in the North, is the Godafoss waterfall (pictured below), which replaced the Dettifoss waterfall we wanted to visit, but couldn’t, because the roads that lead to it are closed all winter long.

After having discovered many more lovely places in the North, we decided we still had some time and drove an hour towards the East of Iceland to see another waterfall that google maps suggested.

Long story short: This waterfall was not worth seeing and we got stuck in the snow…again. Luckily, 4 Mexicans and 2 Austrians stopped to help us and towed us out of the snow. One of the Austrians found the whole situation so hilarious, that he took pictures of my boyfriend in the car while it was getting towed out of the snow. I can imagine their jokes going all night, about how Germans can’t drive…

Day 5:

After our two eventful nights in Myvatn, we drove across the whole country, into the South, to the Golden Circle. Although we had been told that there was going to be a storm that day, we had beautiful weather throughout the day and were able to stop a few times on the way to take pictures of the scenery.

After  what was probably our only stress free day, we arrived at the beautiful Héraðsskólinn Guesthouse, a really big boutique hostel with a yoga room, kitchen, pool table and piano. Basically everything a hipster heart could wish for.

At the reception we were given some advice on seeing Northern Lights and were told to go to Grótta in Reykjavik, on the West side of the city, near a light house. This was, according to the receptionist, a very popular place for tourists to go see the lights. He also told us not to pay for a Northern Lights Tour, as we would be paying for something we could do ourselves.

Day 6:

This was our Golden Circle day. We chose a few spots along the road that had attractions we wanted to see (Thingvellir National Park, Gulfoss waterfall, the Geysirs, etc.) and made our way onto our next adventure.

By the end of the day we drove 45 minutes into Reykjavik to an Airbnb we had booked for our last two days in Iceland.

The first thing we noticed was that our host was absolutely crazy. 30 seconds into our arrival she had told us all kinds of stories (funny and deeply personal), including that she is a professional Northern Lights photographer. However crazy she was, she gave us some very useful tips to seeing the Northern Lights:

1. Be patient. Sometimes it takes hours for you to see anything at all.
2. The Northern Lights need to be active for you to see them. On vedur.is you can see the Aurora forecast. There is a scale from 1 to 9 that indicates how active they are. Anything from 3 upwards already means you have a chance.
3. The sky needs to be free of clouds. The less clouds there are, the better you can see the Northern Lights. The cloud activity is also shown in the Aurora forecast.
4. You need darkness. That means no industrial lights and no car lights, which is something some tourists at Grótta don’t seem to understand. The car needs to be turned off!

Following her advice, we went up to Grótta and waited in the car, fully dressed in thermal clothes and ski wear, between 9pm and 2:30am to see some Northern Lights.

Once again, odds were in our favour…

We saw the lights at around 10:30pm and they lasted for about 45 minutes. We, however, only realised 30 minutes into their appearance, that we could even capture them on camera (after the strongest lights had already finished). The ones pictured above were really light ones that came after the “main attraction”.

As you can see, the light house also tried getting in the way of our picture, but the lights are still visible and that’s what matters here.

Day 7:

Happy we had seen the Northern Lights the evening before, we decided to do some city exploring on our last day in Iceland.

From our Airbnb, which was situated at the South of Reykjavik, we walked up to the North of the city, where all the tourist attractions are.

The city was pretty, however I can’t recommend a trip to Iceland jus to see Reykjavik. There just isn’t that much to see.

We finished our day with a visit to the Blue Lagoon, which is as beautiful as they say, except when the winds are really strong and water is constantly splashing into your face (that’s just my luck).

Day 8:

Day 8 was our departure day. Our flight was at 6am, so we woke up at about 2am, as we still had to drive an hour to the airport, drop off the car, etc.

Funnily enough, we almost  got stuck again just hours before our flight. This time in the mud, nearby the gas station were we had refueled the car. Luckily, however, we managed to make it out and catch our flight.

Never had we been so happy to come back home after a trip abroad.

Somehow it’s really difficult to believe that half of my first placement is already over (or a quarter of my entire placement year). Weeks seem to pass by so quickly and somehow it’s suddenly almost 2019 (seriously, when did that happen?).

The last few months have been a lot more exciting in terms of work. While I’m still doing a whole lot of project management (there really is no way around that), I have been getting to do quite a few translations, proofreading of other people’s translations and a bit of supplier invoicing management. At this point I can genuinely say that I do look forward to coming back to work next year.

Now that I have postponed this blog post (which was supposed to come out at the beginning of December) for so long, there is a lot more to tell, but I’ll promise I’ll be brief.

The last two months have been mainly about making the most of the time I still have left in Germany with the people I have met here. We have gotten around to see nearby cities, such as Stuttgart (definitely recommend), where we stuffed our faces with burgers, cocktails and gluten-free pastries (not in that order):

We also went to Constance and Würzburg to the beautiful German Christmas markets and drank more Glühwein (mulled wine) and ate more Flammenkuchen, Currywurst and fries (not chips, fries!), than our hearts could ever have dreamed of.

Towards the end of November, one of my closest friends from the UK, Elina, came to visit me for a few days and together we explored Zürich, Luzern and Zug in Switzerland and the thriving city that is Friedrichshafen (not).

There were also a lot of events, organised by a group of people at the company, with the aim to bring together all the interns that work there. One of those events was the Culinary Evening, at which I got to proudly represent Brazil, together with all the other Brazilians, that I finally hung out with sober. For this event, we were supposed to cook a few dishes that were typical to our country, such as pão de queijo, coxinha de frango or brigadeiro. Somehow we managed to make all these things and they even tasted amazing (or at least better than they look in the pictures)!

December also blessed me with a birthday I will never forget. My amazing group of friends surprised me by going out for dinner with me and even made a cake for me. Anna also gave me a guide to Spain for when I’m there next year, so that I know what places are worth visiting and what to do or see in each city.

The day before I came to Switzerland for Christmas I also went to the Thermal Baths in Erding, the biggest ones in the world, if I’m not wrong. That was a truly needed day of relaxation after all the hustle of the past few months. For anyone passing by Bavaria, I’d definitely recommend a quick visit there or even a whole day. They also have slides, just saying…

Now I’m in Munich where I’ll be celebrating New Years with family. Soon I’ll also be visiting my family in Frankfurt, which I haven’t done for a really long time.

Knowing that I’ll be going for a trip to a new country in February (which one, I will reveal a bit closer to when I go), will be living in Barcelona from March and be back to the UK (I have to admit, I miss the UK so much. Why are stores not open on Sundays here?) in October, it looks like 2019 is going to be a pretty awesome year.

Four days in one city with six people and one Chihuahua sharing one apartment is an equation waiting go to wrong. Except it didn’t…

So, as previously mentioned, me and five of my closest friends here went to Budapest last week for about 4 days. We left Friedrichshafen at around 6:30pm and drove about 9 hours, all the way to Hungary.  At around 3:30am we arrived at our Airbnb ,which was located right in the city center of the “Pest” side (the city is divided into “Buda”, on the left side of the Danube River, and “Pest”, on the right-hand side). Wanting nothing more than to sleep, Kevin and I first had to figure out the (not so) complex parking system on our street, which, to our very luck, was only explained in Hungarian. After a good 45 minutes of google translate and some questionable research, we found out the parking would be free for all the four days we’d be there. Knowing our creepy-looking, 9-seat Van would be safe for the next four days, we eventually went to bed at around 5 am.

Day 1: Sightseeing like a proper tourist, pub crawls and a whole lot of food

On the first day I insisted we’d do the most touristy thing you can think of: the Hop On Hop Off bus. This was the best way to see both sides of the city whilst getting a bit of information about Budapest (even though I’ve got to admit: I do not remember a single thing). We saw the Hungarian Parliament, went to the Buda Castle and all that is nearby it (the Funicular and Fisherman’s Bastion). All well worth seeing!

From a list of restaurants I had previously put toghether, we ended up going to Smokey Monkey Bar-BQ first. This was supposed to be a fast-food kinda place with loooads of meat (ya girl likes her meats). However, it unfortunately was only that. Other than a rather sad-looking sandwich with tonnes of meat and a bit of coleslaw, there’s not much you can eat there. For us, specially, accompanied by our darling gluten intolerant Philip, it was sad to see how limited he was in terms of options. I can’t say I’d go back there, to be honest.

On that night I also signed us up for a pub crawl with Pub Crawl Nation Budapest. I’ll start off by saying that the pub crawl itself was very disappointing. You are promised 9 drinks, 5 drinking games, 4 bars and one club within one night. Well, we did go to one club and it all took place within one night, but the 5 drinks we got in 3 bars and the one lousy round of beer pong we played really left room for improvement. The club, however, let me tell you! This one club is made up of 3 floors, each with about 4 different rooms that are playing different types of music for all kinds of tastes. And…wait for it… there’s a pizza place INSIDE THE CLUB! I would definitely recommend Fogas for a night out.

What I also noticed about Budapest, is that there are a gazillion bars and clubs within one street, each one more beautiful than the one before and there are sooo many places to eat in between those clubs. Pizza, Döner, Langos (fried dough, shredded cheese and sour cream plus any topping you choose to add), you name it. Sometimes even open until 6am. And this was on a holiday where everything was supposed to be closed.

Day 2: Mazel Tov, the Citadel, a boat cruise on the Danube River and vegan males

Day 2 started with all of us sleeping until midday, after having gone out the night before. The only reason we did leave bed at the time we did (or even at all), was food. Following a recommendation of two Hungarians which are part of my family, we booked ourselves a table at Mazel Tov, an amazing restaurant that combines Middle Eastern food and ruin bars, making it a great spot for lunch or dinner.  I’m not gonna lie, when I saw the place from outside I thought 2 things: “What the hell is this?” and “Isn’t this literally where I went out last night?” Exactly! This beautiful restaurant, which looks like an absolute shit-hole from outside, is right next to Fogas, the club we had been to the night before. I absolutely recommend you try this place if you ever go to Budapest and either like hummus, falafel, meat or pita-bread.

Now to the food we had:

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After eating all the calories you’d need for a day, we decided to go to the river and take a boat to Margaret Island. Maybe destiny didn’t want me to go there or maybe we were just a group of young, unorganised people, but we didn’t make it to any of the rides. At the end, we took a cruise around the river with someone telling us what the different buildings along the river were and the history behind them, which is another thing of my trip that I wouldn’t necessarily recommend.

Before the tour, however, we went up the path that leads to the Citadel on the Buda side of town. That I can recommend. From the top and even on your way up there you have beautiful views of the city at night.

A little side story to the missed boat rides to Margaret Island: after missing the boat at 4:30pm and not being able to get into the next two after that, we quickly went to the Hard Rock Café not far from the dock, for two people to buy some t-shirts. To the annoyance of the male half of our group, us girls were approached by this vegan guy, who was organising a protest against animal slaughter (by protest I mean 7 people standing in a circle, wearing masks like the hacker group Anonymous and holding laptops that show scenes of animals being slaughtered). We had a really good conversation with him about meat consumption, the necessity (or not) of eating meat, etc. This, however, almost caused us to miss the fourth boat that evening, leading to us being ignored by the guys for a good half an hour (it seems that for them, the most offensive part of it all, was that the guy who approached us was vegan?).

That night we also went to a ruin bar, Szimpla Kert, which is super touristy but very nice. You get some lovely LED lights and plants hanging around everywhere. What I can’t recommend is the food market right next to it, the Street Food Karavan. Although it was the first place that had an all-vegan place to eat (this only brought up the issue from earlier that day), it was terrible in terms of options and I paid a fortune for the most basic Langos, which just tasted so bad, even though I was rather tipsy and my standards for food were quite low at the time.

Day 3: Gluten free Bakery, selfies on the road, the Great Market Hall and Széchenyi Thermal Bath

Day 3 was our designated chill day (yes, you need to define these things). We woke up and Philip and I went all the way to Free Bakery, where you can find tonnes of delicious pastries and cakes, all gluten-free. Budapest in general seems to have quite a few places for gluten intolerant people, such as the restaurant Drop, that only serves gluten-free food.

After a failed attempt on going to the Frida Kahlo exhibition in the National Gallery (the queue was so long, we wouldn’t have made it in time), we decided to take some pictures… right on the road.

For lunch we went to the Great Market Hall, a touristy food market that seemed to be mentioned in most “What to do in Budapest” websites. Let me tell you now: there’s a lot of things you should do in Budapest. Going to this market is not one of them.

Even though the food did look delicious (as you will see in the pictures below), most food stalls didn’t have any pictures of the foods next to the names. This means that we just saw loads of interesting looking food and had no idea what it was or how to order it. It was also super busy and people were walking past you constantly, not making it a comfortable place to eat (which we didn’t; we went to the little park opposite the market).

After digesting the ridiculous amount of food we had consumed that day, we made our way to the Városliget Park on the far right of the Pest side. This was also the first time we used the underground in Budapest, which, even if you don’t take the underground, is totally worth seeing, simply because of how beautiful it is. Once there, we made our way to the Széchenyi Thermal Bath, which, as the name suggests, is a bunch of thermal swimming pools (both outside and inside) as well as different types of saunas. They also have a Spa there, where you can get a massage and even something called a Beer Spa (whatever that entails). Even though this is one of the most touristy things to do in Budapest and might therefore sounds unappealing to some people, I would definitely recommend going there. Specially at night, when it’s already dark outside, the outside baths look beautiful when the old building is lit up.

Day 4: Dohány Street Synagogue, brunching and going home

On our last day in Budapest, we decided to go for a walk around the city and see the Dohány Street Synagogue, located right in the Jewish neighbourhood of Budapest. I did have a few restaurants/cafés I wanted to try there, such as Café Noé, a Jewish pastry shop, and the Rosenstein restaurant, but didn’t have the time to.  Maybe the next culinarily curious person there can go and try those for me. I must admit, I wish I had spent more time in the Jewish neighbourhood and done some more exploring, because it did look super interesting.

The lovely walk past the Synagogue and the National Museum ended with us having some lovely brunch at Cafe Brunch Budapest to end the trip on a high note.

Even though my second month in Germany isn’t technically over yet, this post has to go up today, as I’ll be on my way to a little trip abroad with 5 friends and one Chihuahua on the 31st. More to that later on.

The past month here has been both great and really exhausting. While work has been quite stressful and even frustrating at times, 5 people have made my days here unforgettable:

• Anna Maria: a Spanish/German girl that can drink beer like you’ve never seen it
• Elvan: a sassy girl that’ll tell you exactly what she’s thinking and doesn’t take any shit from anyone
• Philip: a super happy German guy (my gym bro) who has to suffer through my gluten intolerance jokes on a daily basis
• Lukas: the most relaxed guy you’ll ever meet, who looks bored most of the time but will also shush random people when he’s drunk
• Kevin: a ridiculously tall guy who is definitely from Bavaria but won’t admit it for his life.

Since being here I’ve done things that I wouldn’t usually do in the UK. At the beginning of October, for example, we had a holiday in the middle of the week, so we went to another town to go clubbing the night before. There was a whole event organised around this and the clubs were literally open until god knows when. On that night out we started with going to a concert at 9pm in one club, went to another 4 clubs afterwards, as well as one English pub. We then took the first train back to Friedrichshafen at 7am, eventually got home at around 8am and fell asleep at like half past 8, just to wake up at 12:30, because our internal clocks are screwed up from waking up early every day of the week.

We also went to Neuschwanstein Castle on the weekend, which looks to damn breathtaking in autumn, when the leaves are turning brown.

After a few eventful weeks together, we decided to make the most out of an upcoming holiday on November 1st and go to Budapest together. Now the planning of this was everything but easy, with different people wanting different things, but we did eventually manage to agree on how we’ll get there (we’re driving), as well as which Airbnb we’re staying at. Me being me, my first priority, once everything was set in stone, was to research places to visit and most importantly: FOOD! Whoever knows me, knows I love food. So I did some digging around in the good ol’ internet and found myself some restaurants and food markets  that I can (and will!) visit in Budapest. I will most likely make a separate post about Budapest and what we did, what we saw and what we ate, once I’m back. I’ll make sure to put down the names of the restaurants we went to and mention if they are worth visiting.

This week has also been super eventful. On Wednesday I went to a wine tasting in Hagnau with a group of 35 interns from the firm I work at . The most important thing about this wine tasting, is that I was not supposed to go. Even though I was one of the first people to sign up for it, a random selection system they use, put me on the last spot of the waiting list (because that is just my luck). After repeatedly annoying the organiser of the event and trying to bribe him with all but my first born baby, enough places were cleared for me to come. Now I’d love to say that I have a newly developed knowledge of wine that I can show off at Christmas dinner, but unfortunately I must tell you that I just got drunk and ate a lot of bread. Two guys on our table also broke some glasses, so I can’t see us being invited back there any time soon.

And as it always happens to me, in my drunken state, I met a new Brazilian guy, who also works at the firm. Seriously, why am I always drunk when I meet new Brazilians? I somehow also managed to be drunk on Friday during a cocktail making event we had where he was also present. And then again, on Saturday during our beer pong tournament (for those who know me: yes, I drank beer. It still tastes disgusting), I met another 3 Brazilians and guess what? Drunk. I have, however, managed to get their numbers and we are planning to make some brigadeiro (a Brazilian dessert) during an international cooking event in December. Chances are, I’ll be sober for that.

In the meantime we’ll be counting down the days til we go to Budapest.