Trainride

A few days ago I took a 20 hour train ride from my hometown in Sweden, to Nürnberg, Germany.

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Some trains were full, some empty. The last train was from 4.30 til 9 in the morning, from Hamburg to Nürnberg, and that did not look like the picture below. It was overbooked, so I got woken up three times by people saying I was in their seat. In the end I sat in the corridor. But all in all, everything went well. All the connections worked and I didn’t get stuck in some random german small town in the middle of the night, which was my biggest fear to be honest.

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And I managed to somehow fit my fluffiest duvet in my suitcase, which was really all that mattered. And now I guess I live here in Nürnberg. Like really live, since I have my duvet with me. Sheets and towels and even my fairy lights. My room is dreamy. I’ll show you sometime.

Good night.

Epilogue

I guess this is some sort of epilogue to my posts about Germany, because I just wanted to share:

1. This cool photo of me by the Swedish west coast, where we stopped while driving home.

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2. And these random screenshots from my phone, because we drove home and everything was beautiful and I needed to make quick sketches of the sky so I can make actual paintings of it later.

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Berlin

I feel like I’ve almost posted a trilogy about Germany, but I’ve now travelled through three cities there so I guess that makes sense.

After Nürnberg and Augsburg I went to Berlin.

Actually I met up with my dad and brother there. Walked into an airconditioned hotel lobby and saw my dad get out of the elevator to greet me, and it was weird. It’s weird when you’re not travelling with your family, and suddenly they show up in some random country. I knew they were gonna be there of course, and thank God for that since otherwise I have no idea how I would have actually gotten home, but it’s still out of place somehow, like family is isolated to specific family vacations and home.

Anyway, it was nice. We rented little electric scooters for a bit and drove through Berlin.

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And we found like the most amazing cafés. Here’s the first one, a really fancy one called The Barn, with the kind of actual good coffee that I can’t really appreciate because I want it cold, with chocolate and caramel and two thirds milk. Did appreciate the view though.

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But this one was my actual favourite. In the centre of Berlin, you turn around a corner and end up on this big, industrial looking side street. Some of the buildings around still have bullet holes in them. And then there’s this, little green hipster oasis, right there in the midst of it. I had some sort of “rose coffee cocktail” which honestly wasn’t that good, but I felt like it said a lot about the place. So a little bit pretentious maybe, but I still absolutely loved it. Sat there for like a couple of hours, writing letters and feeling cool. Hihgly recommend.

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So that ended up being mostly about cafés. But honestly, I don’t mind and hope you don’t either.

Hugs♥️

Augsburg

So, this is what’s happening:

I went to Nürnberg to check it out and see if I might want to move there. I think I will, it was pretty nice.

Then I went to Augsburg to meet up with some friends. (And Augsburg was like really cool, just a lot of fun to be honest, and good conversations and good people. Here’s photos of that.)

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Breakfast in bed

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From a field, where you could put money in a box and pick flowers.

Snapshot of Nürnberg

It was raining softly. A girl with a lip piercing and two rolled up sleeping mats sticking out of her backpack stepped out from under the cover of the station and into the grey sky. A young man rolled a suitcase next to her and an elderly couple stood waiting on the other side of the road, decked out in umbrellas and plastic ponchos over their functional jackets. A bus whizzed by. Birds flew high. And for a second the rain took a breather – letting only mist cover us – as we stepped out from the overhang we had covered under. The sky was open. Grey but bright and warm with dots of birds covering it, rainwater dripping down the spires of old church towers. Slow and eternal as the traffic lights turned green.

(This is what happened)

Monday I was supposed to go to Nigeria, I walked down to the post office and my visa hadn’t arrived.

Tuesday I was supposed to go to Nigeria, I walked down to the post office and my visa hadn’t arrived.

Wednesday I was supposed to go to Nigeria, I walked down to the post office and my visa hadn’t arrived. (They called me from the embassy, said something was wrong with my invitation letter. I sent them a new one with a few words changed.)

Thursday I was supposed to go to Nigeria, I walked down to the post office and my visa hadn’t arrived.

Friday I was supposed to go to Nigeria, I walked down to the post office and they gave me my visa. I walked home and booked a flight, put the last toiletries in my hiking backpack and walked over the ice, through the snow, to the bus. 24 hours later I was in Nigeria. (I was supposed to be part of a conference that weekend, but I was too late. They had prayed though, that I would make it, even if it was just for the last prayer. And when the last amen rung out I was there. Everyone was so excited and I was the most happy.) (♥)