Long-distance Relationship · Travel Life · Author's Life
January 6, 2024
Almost 100 Years: A Tribute to my Grandpa.
"You klutz," is what my grandpa used to call me when I would leave some sawdust on the floor after a construction project. Or when I forgot the garden chair cushions outside and they got wet. Or even when I was just 15 minutes late for our coffee time in his living room.
This time I am not fifteen minutes late, but 26 hours late when my cell phone rings shortly before I leave the USA to fly to Germany. It is my dad. And it is seven in the morning. My dad never calls at seven in the morning for no reason.
My grandpa had been in and out of hospital for six weeks. During the last few days, things began to look worse and worse. As I hold the ringing cell phone in one hand and my suitcase in the other, I already know: my grandpa is gone.
November 26, 2022
Experience Tent Camping - Heaven and Hades.
I'm crawling around on the small balcony of our Airbnb in Seattle to pack up the tent and rain fly we had laid out to dry overnight. All of a sudden, my boyfriend comes into the room looking like someone just blew off Main Street. "We're really in deep doodoo," he says as his face provides the appropriate caption. "The tent poles aren't in the car."
I listen to his words trickle through my head like the water in a broken toilet flush. The tent poles… Not… In the car?
While my boyfriend goes back to the car to pretend there's still some sort of hope, I crumple the now completely
useless tent fly and throw it against the wall.
"Aaaargh, I hate camping!" I exclaim.
Camping—tent camping in particular—is love and hate. Sunset and heavy rain. Freedom and Whatthefuck. Come along to the most beautiful and most horrible moments of camping and laugh with us—because sooner or later that is what we always do ourselves.
May 10, 2020 / updated November 3, 2022
SquirrelART: My Landscape Photos from my Travels.
I admit it. I squirrel away photos like other people now do toilet paper. Though not just since Corona, but since ever. Interestingly however, it is that this little asshole of a virus led me to check out the numerous yellow Windows folders on my computer. Where photos of night expeditions to the stars, sunrises in deserts, and snow-covered mountains were just languishing. Images for which I traveled far and wide, got up awfully early in the morning, scratched my knee, and shivered with fear so great that I sprouted three new gray hairs.
So after almost three weeks of ten-hour shifts, it is done. So now I can present my little shop of wonderful moments and places for you to take away.
May 15, 2022
You can go Home now! How to continue after a Sabbatical.
People who come home from a long trip or finish a sabbatical sometimes collide with everyday earth life as if they were space junk: They are packed with stories and experiences that seem to be out of this world and they crash into their listeners’ lives without asking. Returning after a long trip or time off can feel like a warm piece of chocolate cake that suddenly gets grabbed out of your hand by reality. This is a report about thoughts, struggles and chances that come along with the end of a great trip, sabbatical, or gap year.
November 28, 2021
"Are you gone again?" - The Truth about Frequent Traveling.
"What? Four months!" my dad exclaims in horror as he nearly hurls a piece of tarte flambée at a duck. It is the autumn of 2016, and we are sitting in a beer garden and I have just booked my very first long-term trip. At this moment, four months seem as long as four infinities to both of us.
Traveling often and for long periods of time not only changes you, and the people around you, but also changes the way you live, the way you travel, your sense of home, your circle of friends, and your view of the world. l will try to offer you a little insight, with practical tips, for anyone planning a longer trip.
August 22, 2021
What the Book!? Suddenly National Geographic Author.
"You should write a book sometime," they said. Right. I should write a book. Sometime. Or play the lottery. Or see if I can throw a chair through a closed window without causing a significant increase in my heating bill.Three and a half years after I opened my first Word document to meet this challenge, my story is now rolling off the presses of National Geographic in Germany. Angst ist keine Ausrede – 13.000 Kilometer solo durch die USA. Which translates to Fear is No Excuse - 13,000 Kilometers Solo Across the USA in English. Although currently only available in a German version, my book is now a reality. How did that happen and where can you buy it?
June 16, 2021
Age Gap Relationship: The Story of Dino and Squirrel.
"My boyfriend was in Vietnam," I say.
"Oh, we were there last year, too. Was he backpacking?" the young couple asks.
"Nah, he was in the war," I say.
Bam—I am good at conversation killers and surprising blunders.
My partner and I not only have a long-distance relationship between two continents and two cultures (Germany – USA), but also a large age difference.
How we got to know each other, why we almost never admitted what we feel for each other, what the others say (spoiler: Who cares?), and how we come to terms with the idea that we can never grow old together.
February 14, 2021
Challenges in an Intercultural Relationship.
I am in an intercultural relationship. That term always sounds like you need a master's degree in social and cultural anthropology simply to explain to your partner how to vacuum the living room again. We are not even Swedish-Sri Lankan or Canadian-Cameroonian, we are only German-American, but that is enough to cause various verbal bumbles and cultural bewilderment. So now let me tell you a bit about the everyday life of an intercultural relationship.
February 6, 2021
Happy Hippie Hair: What really matters when you are 30.
At thirty you get grey hair. A certainty. At least so thought my fifteen-year-old self. You will have had a career, bought a home, turned prissy and were close to death.
Thirty is a great number and a lot of people do care a lot about it. It is like a yardstick: did I manage to grow up? Did I meet anyone’s expectations? I say: who cares! The only dream you should fulfill is your own. You should be brimming with joie de vivre, great memories, and courage. Here is what really matters when you turn thirty.
January 23, 2021
Long-Distance Relationship: 5,000 Miles and one Love.
"I was in a traffic jam for an hour yesterday trying to get to be with my boyfriend!" complains one of my Facebook friends. I laugh.
If I want to see my
boyfriend, I must spend at least 17 hours in transit on three separate airplanes, sit multiple uncomfortable airport chairs, burn around 700 Dollars and race 5,000 miles through 8 time
zones.
I am German and my boyfriend is American. We have been involved in a long-distance relationship spanning two continents since 2018. In those two years, we have been through a lot. So, let us talk about a long-distance relationship – what it is, how we survive and why love always wins in the end.
December 31, 2020
2020 in Review: A huge Mess with Colorful Sprinkles.
Looking back, this year seemed like I did nothing but slip on unicorn poop: It was something that no one should have to experience. But was it?
Who could have known that I would have to escape like a shot to Canada one night?
Who could have known that in a world without apparent boundaries, it would suddenly be illegal to see your partner living in a different country? Who could have known that instead of traveling to
glaciers and giraffes, I would end up driving 2,500 miles alone across Germany and later going to the Caribbean where I hung out with pink flamingos? This is my personal, dramatic, and
thoughtful review of the year 2020: A huge Mess with Colorful Sprinkles.
November 13, 2020
US Elections: Can you People just stop being so nasty?
It is November 7, 2020. We sit on my boyfriend's veranda and celebrate. Four days after the election, Joe Biden has been announced as the new president of the United States. The election was like a thriller. A really bad thriller. A thriller where the perpetrator shoots himself in the knee and the police are less intelligent than six feet of a dirt road.
I have so many thoughts at once. About a country that has become my second home. A country In which so much seems to have run amok in recent years. But it seems the lack of control is not only occurring here in the USA, but somehow worldwide as well. And I wonder: Can people just stop being nasty to each other?
September 25, 2020
LDR and Covid III: Third Country Route Caribbean.
My face feels as wet as a dripping sponge because I've been wearing a mask for 16 hours, the shrink-wrapped cheese roll on my dinner tray looks like it's about to run away, and I'm sitting on a broken airplane for the second time today. I am on my way to Aruba. The reason of my trip: As soon as I am out of Schengen area for 14 days, I can enter the USA to see my boyfriend. At least that is how several other couples have done it successfully.
However, because of the almost universal border closures in the world, there are only a handful of countries which would allow me to enter
for these 14 days. One of them is Aruba. Horrible - a trip to the Caribbean! Joke. But what actually turns out to be horrible, however, is my flight. Grab your popcorn and enjoy...
August 21, 2020
LDR and Covid II: Reunion after 4 Months Separation.
There is a strange sentence in my obituary: She died of a Corona-induced heart attack. From the time this evil pandemic was given a
license to kill like James Bond, it is no longer fun for many people, especially for international unmarried couples. The borders are unyielding; the governments feel that a relationship without
a marriage certificate is “not essential”.
My boyfriend lives in the USA, while I live in Germany. Then I found the fantastic Facebook group, “Couples separated by Travel Bans”. This gives me the first hint that there may be a loophole.
Croatia.
And then of course, all
hell breaks loose again shortly before departure. Here comes - again - one of my crazy love stories. With everything Hollywood can offer.
April 5, 2020
LDR & Covid I: Border Closures and Escape.
Traffic is humming on the street. I am sitting next to my dad in the car. It’s four o‘clock in the afternoon as I turn on the radio in the car. “Germany is now closing its borders with the
neighboring countries of Switzerland, France, and Austria,” says the announcer’s voice.
In a week, my boyfriend and I are supposed to meet for a two-week road trip in
Iceland. He is American. I am German. But then came the coronavirus. And it was getting closer. Every day it crept just a bit closer.
An hour later, I am home. It is dark. I tear my suitcase out from my closet, applying for a Canadian visa online within 20 minutes, and then book a flight to Vancouver, Canada.
December 1, 2019
Life writes Drama: Generation-House with Grandpa (95).
It is a couple of days before Christmas in 2018. When my uncle tells me that he's not going to his chemotherapy anymore. The side effects are just killing him. "And now?" I ask. "Nothing," he says. A little word. That means everything. It is May when I stumble into a motel in Montana, USA, after 30 hours on three airplanes. It is two minutes before midnight. I log my phone into the WiFi. The first message I get is that my uncle just passed away. It was this situation that ultimately led me to the decision to sell my Tiny House again after only nine months. To move in with my 95-year-old grandpa. Life. A roller coaster.
May 5, 2019
Tattoos: A Living Picture Book.
"You will never be able to get rid of it again!" The way they look at me. It's like I just slipped through wet cement. Admittedly, tattoos aren't for people who are unable to make radical decisions.
I drew my first draft when I was 14. Since then ten more motifs have been added. They are all telling a story about me. My life, my travels, my personality, my values. They are not only art and expression, but also memory, warning and encouragement - against fears, death, for dreams and as a book that is only finished when I am finished.
April 24, 2019
Shit: Diagnosis Ulcerative Colitis.
I am laying on the floor, my forehead pressed against the cold parquet floor, trying to not lose control completely. One cramp in my abdomen goes after the next. "I have to send you to the
hospital now," the nice doc says. Three days are following in which I mix up the hospital by being high from the gastroscopy, looking out for wifi desperatly and making the entire ward
laugh.
Then the diagnosis: Ulcerative Colitis. The little sister of Crohn's Disease. Lifelong chronic bowel inflammation. Crying? That's something I can do when I'm dead. How I got up from the floor and
started to fight my disease.
December 31, 2018
2018: From Self-Doubt to Self-Employment.
It's January 1, 2018. I'm sitting at the kitchen table drawing a melancholic picture of a cat next to a dripping candle. I don't have a job, nothing works out and I feel like shit.
Today is December 31, 2018. I have my own company, I have traveled for 11 weeks, broke up with my long-standing relationship, I have moved, I have found my soulmate. And only a few days before Christmas I bought a tiny home, into which I will move in early 2019. My euphoria-level is close to LSD. Who could have know that!? A chronology of madness.
December 24, 2018
Walking Paris at 3 AM: A surprise for Love.
It's a quarter to three in the middle of the night when my phone rings. It's my normal wake-up tone, but it feels like someone is screaming "LAST CHRISTMAS!" next to my ear. My friend from the
United States arrives at Charles de Gaulle Airport at 7 and I will surprise him there. I made a crazy poster and planned to take the metro to the main station and then the train to the airport at
about 5. Did not work out.
The result was a 2-mile-walk through Paris at night - with encounters of the third kind.
June 24, 2018
5 Years without you: My beloved Grandma and Inspiration.
I can see a brimstone butterfly in front of me on the gravel path, before everything is going to be blurry. It couldn’t have been a more perfect funeral. For a woman who inspired and changed my life forever with her courage, her dauntlessness, her love, madness, wanderlust and finally the silent goodbye: My Granny Erika.
April 7, 2018
One Year after my Solo Trip - How it changed my Life.
I wish I could pack my bags immediately and go back on a plane. Or lock myself in my house to write a book about my adventure. But things like these are only possible in movies. In reality, I was surrounded by bills for my health insurance, my rent and worries about my CV. Only few people asked “How has your trip been?” anymore. Most of them wanted to know: “What are you going to do now?”
A story about a hard way back from adventure to everyday-life.