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Psst.. Can’t talk - I accidentally fell into paradise and stumbled across the perfect Lost Place… (hier: Catllar, Cataluna, Spain) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8zQY1nKbKO/?igshid=qmuhn3lkz56n

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Bielefeld

Bielefeld, to be honest, is kind of special to me. 

My whole family stems from around here. Grandpa and Grandma on my mother’s side used to live around Ubbedissen, parts of the family are in Schildesche, parts in Lemgo. My grandpa and Grandma on my fathers’ side, funnily met while both living abroad in Poland, during the war, with his name being Gregor and hers being Gröger, kind of seems like a good fit from the start, doesn’t it?

During my childhood and teenage years, we went to see my grandparents in Ubbedissen once to twice a year; it’s a long drive, I see why we didn’t go more often, partly also due to personal reasons, I suppose, too. 

We used to mostly go to Ubbedissen then, my grandparents on the mothers side lived there, and we rarely went to see those relatives in Schildesche or Lemgo. Nowadays, in Schildesche there’s only one aunt left, in Lemgo there’s still an aunt and uncle I have not seen in years, both my cousins are gone, I don’t know where the one lives - the other is still in China with his wife, so far. And my other uncle on the fathers’ side moved to Thailand a long time ago, and unfortunately, died years ago. It saddens me that he and I never developed a closer connection - everytime we met, he tried, but I was young and had different stuff in mind, and now I see the sensitive soul he was and am sad to not have spent the time to talk more.  My dad himself is not the warmest family man, and so we went to see my fathers’ relatives every now and then “because that’s what you do”, but ended up mostly spending our days in Ubbedissen.

I have a lot of memories there. The big house, my grandma living in the lower floor, with my uncle and aunt living above, I remember eating Lippischen Pickerd, 

Butter-cake, and vanilla pudding the way my grams made it, and no one else’s appple sauce tasted ever as great as the one my Grams made from the apple trees they grew in their front yard. I remember the glass house my Grandpa used to grow his tomatoes in and as someone who doesn’t actually like tomatoes, I actually liked his, they were sweet and juicy and strong flavoured, as opposed to those you buy. I remember the smell of cigarettes from the guest toilet out on the “deele”, where he used to secretely smoke and then vehemently deny that he did when Grams got mad, and I remember how much my Grandma loved to sing and the way she spoke, sometimes the way my mom or brother sound reminds me of her tone, as well. I remember playing with the neighbours daughter, and I remember how we built a parcour on the back yard and jumped over chairs and stuff, and the dance off we had to some CD by East 17, back then. We spent a lot of time on the meadow in the back, the small forest theyd planted aside the field and the electrical plant humming behind the fences we weren’t alllowed to cross (but still tried to), I remember playing there wwith the kids, and helping my grandma tend to the vegetables they grew there back then. I know, before we were born, they even grew pigs and used to slaughter them themselves, with my mom helping, but by the time my brother and I were around, it was only plants. 

I remember how they tore down the plant patches on the street in front of the house, how they rebuilt the whole street and bridge, back then, but I lalso still remember how before, it used to smell of the camomile plants that were growing all around the area, back then. I remember visiting the neighbours with my Grams and having coffee and pie there, or seeing distant uncles and aunts, when I was little, and I remember bottles of Wippermann (herb schnapps), and waaaay too much beer everytime we’d see them, and of course, liquor to no end. Funny that I in my everyday life actually don’t drink much, with exceptions. 

Funny to think how we waddled across those floors on the Deele as kids, then later on my own kid, with my Grams on her knees right next to her. I remember how my Grams seriously broke down laughing when she saw with what an appetite my 8 months old used to eat and finish a glass in under 3 minutes, and how getting her to sleep was a process that at the time took me like 10 minutes.  And I remember how a boyfriend I had at the time who was around Hildesheim then, came by and took me on a ride on his bike, and dropped me off afterwards and what she said to me then. 

When I grew older, I started to take more trips into the city and found my own favourite things. Like, look at that typeface: 

It’s apparently a club now, but it originally stems from the 1920es, I was told, and was a café back then, and the typeface itself is so typical from the Art Nouveau / Deco area., it’s amazing to still see around. 

I love the typical buildings around here, but also all the green everywhere you look. 

And the mix of old and new

Look - you can’t really deny there’s a lot of industrial and factory buildings around here, Bielefeld has been a city of manufacture and industry for a long time, and you see remnants everywhere you look. 

But with all the change and growth and modernisation I feel it’s also apparent how they made preservation a priority too, the old lamps alone, the whole area around the old theater and rathaus, and the old city I feel was preserved and renovated nicely. 

And I have rarely seen as many painted houses and places as here, just as I am super happy to see so many colorfully painted houses as well.

And I think of all the stories I have heard, my favourite was how my cousin told me, when they built the new Rathaus as a modern building, next to the beautiful old one, they ordered a statue for the place, and it’s an amazing sign of self directed irony to put up a statue, that would face away from the new building to look up to the old as though they were saying “What the hell did they do?”

And, I’m not really a good restaurant critic, as I don’t eat enough to really be a good judge of that, but I think Bielefeld does have a charming culture regarding that, as well, like an old Straßenbahn repurposed as a bar, 

and I actually had a nice Curry on the roof in a bar called The Bernstein (which I would not have assumed to be a bar from the outside) which you reach by a lift, and the coffe was good too, which is always a priority for me. 

Honestly.. I actually have quite a bunch more photos, some I don’t know what to do with - funnily most of them around Bielefeld and despite having spent most of my childhood and youthin Ubbedissen, I have not been there, this time, nor have I taken any in Schildesche nor have I even been to Lemgo - I think, that I still have to do, and maybe there will be a follow up. 

And I have not even mentioned the people, have I?

See, I grew up in Southern Germany, and I know my parents, or especially my mom, as super open and always looking for connections, she’s super outgoing and i don’t know many Schwaben like that, but the more up north I get, I feel people get more open, too. Or maybe it’s just me - who knows. 

The thing is, I’ve only had this mobile home for about a month now, and there I arrive on this spot where you can park and refill and dispose of old water and stuff, and I stand there among only a few others, and immediately, I get all kinds of help. One of them, I will call him H, instantly makes me his scholar and teaches me all sorts of on the road stuff, drives me to the next department store to get stuff I need, and opens up about a lot as well. He tells me about his life, how he gave up an incredibly well paying job for this life and only now really knows what happiness is, tells me about people in his life, and what they have taught him, and I am grateful to have met him, even though I likely won’t ever see him again. He invited me too for a bike ride with him and his biker friends, which I had to cancel because they ended up going on the one day I felt sick, which I very much regret, to be honest.  Another day, I went to do my laundry in a laundry parlor. Never having done that before, a man who was there waiting for his laundry, showed me the ropes, and we started chatting before my aunt, who had taken me there, even left, and he barely let me go until I severely had to, to meet my cousin. It’s kind of funny how much you can learn about a person in such a short time, by just listening, and I don’t only know the facts about his life, when he was with which girlfriend and lived in which apartment where in the city, what subjects he stiudied, what jobs he took, and why, what his dreams and hopes and fears are, and what he yearns to complete before he dies, I know his age and what he has had to give up on, but also what he gained and learned in this life, and what his beliefs are, and in some ways, I know how he thinks, and by the end on the conversation, could predict his thought patterns, which I find personally, is an incredibly beautiful thing to understand about a person.. So when in the end, he said goodbye with tears in his eyes, and almost wouldn’t let me go, I felt truly happy to have had an encounter like that, even when we agreed to disagree on several things, and I felt severely drained as well, after the conversation. 

Still, I hope for many more of that kind. That is what I was hoping for.

Although, I do have my own theory about these kinds of encounters by now, and why they always go this way, for me, and I hope to be wrong, for me, and partly to be right, for them. But, we will see, won’t we. 

Until then, have a good one, 

XOXO Lily

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Paderborn

Guys, on my way to Bielefeld, I stopped by Paderborn. Always wanted to check it out and so I stopped there for a night, to check out some of the city and drive on the next day. And I have to say, I really liked the spots I got to check out. 

It’s mostly a city like many others, especially shopping areas, but I’m kind of in love with the details. 

Like, the colorful row of seats in front of a church, or the streets where there’s colorful signs with pictograms hanging between houses, indicating the kinds of shops and places you can find in those according places. There’s so much greens and nature inbetween the houses, and the powerboxes which I know as boring grey boxes in the southern area of Germany, are all painted here, some with really marvellous paintings, to be honest. I don’t think those were bored kids, it seems like someone was paid to paint them, or at least allowed to, due to their skills. 

There’s a bridge which is plastered with paintings and grafittis, and most of those are pleasant to look at, it’s really cool to just walk around and check out all the ways people have painted the city. Even things written on walls are rarely offensive or aggressive, but speak of beauty, art and freedom of many sorts. 

The latter though is actually something I find you often come across in University cities, as it tends to be a notion familiar to college students, adolescents and youngsters. 

Maybe that should give us something to think about, politically.

All in all… I will come back here. One day is rarely ever enough to check out a city, and to start conversations with citizens, is it? So, see you soon, I suppose ;)

Cheers

XOXO

Lily

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Heidelberg

First time I ever slept in my car all alone..

And this was my view, back in Heidelberg ♥

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Göttingen

When we got that caravan for me, the first destination I went to was, of course, Koblenz. I was still living there at the time and still finishing cleaning out the apartment, getting everything ready and it was very ppractical to get it there, considering the few final days we had an empty apartment and had we not had the caravan with a really nice bed to sleep in, we would have had to sleep on a cold wooden floor..

My next destination was the Black Forest as that’s where my postal adress is, now, then Heidelberg, for a short last hug, and then I rode off to visit my brother in Göttingen.

Unfortunately this first visit only lasted a day, so I cannot say as much about the city just yet, but I will drive by there again, I think.

It’s kind of beautiful there, though, and it’s noticeable that it’s a city with a lot of students - university cities tend to have their own kind of athmosphere, don’t they. They’re somewhat young, and you can sense a specific kind of mindset and spirit as well, which you don’t necessarily notice in other places.

Much green, too, and I easily got into little chats with people living there.

Always a bonus ;)

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A sunset pic because pretty n shit

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It’s Spring! ♥

Makes me happy, so there ya go.

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