To the attacks from yesterday evening in Paris.
First: My thinkings are with the victims, their families and loved ones and with the entire French population.
It began with Charlie Hebdo this year and I don’t want to say that this was the end. France has a big terrorism problem. But not only France. The whole world has this problem.
The refugee crisis just makes it real for Europe – there is war in the world. People are scared and leave their country, their home.
One part of our problem is that we fight back.
And we say ‘WE do something against terrorism!’ But is this true? Is this true, when we bomb hospitals? Is this true when we bomb places without knowing if there are terrorists?
No, it isn’t. We fight but we kill the false ones. And that must stop.
Because the people in these countries are scared and we scare them even more. And so they decide to flee to another country. And then they come to Europe, to Germany. But no one says ‘Welcome! You survived the dangerous journey, that is nice!’ We don’t welcome the people, we don’t help them how we should. With food, a place to stay, psychological care and a work.
We put them together in small rooms and expect them to be peaceful. But that doesn’t work. And so there are a lot of people in Germany who are scared.
They seem to be scared of everything. They are scared, that a refugee steals them their job. How could they??! They are not allowed to work here, they don’t even speak german!
Another part of our problem is that we do not listen. An attack happens in Paris, the city of lights which turns off their lights. But a lot of important buildings get enlightened at the same time in different countries. People post their compassions and prayers for Paris. But what is with the African countries where assassinations happen nearly every day? We hear about that, but it is too far away, no one does anything about it.
This is unfair! In Europe as in Africa die innocent people!
The only thing we do is to fight back and kill even more people. We are part of terrorism too. Because we sell weapons and by that, we help other people to become a murderer. But that can not be the right way.
What we must do is to try to find a peaceful way to solve the problems.

Sadly the summer holidays are over for a week now. But luckily they had a nice ending.

I spent the last week of my holidays together with other young people on a traditional sailing ship. We started from Kiel and went to the southern part of Denmark. The first day started rainy but in the afternoon we could go swimming in the Baltic Sea (what was very funny with the waves). During the week the weather changed a lot but we could sail every day (when there is too much wind you’re not allowed to).

The others were all very friendly and I had a lot of good and funny talks. Even if it was a bit exhausting to hoist the sails, we all had a lot of fun.

In the evening we went to different harbours, and one evening we anchored near the danish town Sonderborg. We also sailed to the small island Lyo (danish). Together with 3 others I made a little walk on the island. Whenever you could see the harbour you saw directly our ship (yep, it was the biggest one :D)

But we did not only sail and talk. There was also time for reading our just lying in the sun. And everyone had to cook in a small group once. In the evenings there was also time for social games and small walks through the harbour town.

I think it was a really nice trip and if you have the possibility to do something like that one day, try it. It is perfect to do something in a group and to relax on the same time 🙂 (by sailing you can calm down very easily)

And of course I made some photos. You can find them on my flickr-account

This week I went to Berlin. Luckily I could stay at my cousin’s flat who lives very close to the “Schloss Charlottenburg”. That was perfect for me, because from there you have many possibilities to do interesting things (and of course because my cousin is very nice and I really like her :))

Tuesdasy; day 1

First I went to the C/O Berlin which is a very nice museum for photgraphy. I rellay liked the pictures from Salgado, there are very impressive even if they are in black and white. We live in a world with coloured pictures and lots of electronical stuff. But in Salgados pictures you see the world more natural like it was before all the high tech.

Afterwards I went to the Ku’damm (Kurfürstendamm). But everywhere you go on a shopping street you have the same stores, that ist so boring. And I’ve been on the Ku’damm many times before so it was even more boring. But then I went to the “Bikini Berlin“. That is a small shopping mall where many new designers have a shop. So you find there lots of new stuff. Of course it’s often expensive, but there are also labels who aren’t that expensive (I bought there a wonderful pencilcase, so it isn’t only expensive)

Then I went to the “Hackesche Höfe”. It’s kind of a special shopping mall because there are many yards in which the shops are. But in the houses there live also people. And the houses a very old so it is very beautiful.

In the late afternoon I went to the “Schloss Charlottenburg”. I didn’t visit it before so I decided to go there. But I only went in the garden and made a lots of pictures. The palace (from the outside) and its garden is very beautiful. The garden has been destroyed during the Second World War but they built a new one with many flowers and a small lake. It’s a big parc where you can relax too.

Wednesday; day 2

On this morning I had much time and so I went to Kreuzberg and had a little walk. Afterwards I went to the Falckensteinstraße and had an ice cream at “Aldemir Eis”. They made soooo delicous ice cream, and in some special categories too! But there are many ice cream stores at Berlin so ice cream lovers can get very happy.

I also visited the “Oberbaumbrücke” and parts of the “Mauerpark”. There are a lot of graffitis on the Mauer and even on the coloured an beautiful ones, people wrote their name or something else. I think that is very sad, because graffitis are art and you shouldn’t destroy art just to have the possibility to say “I wrote my name on the Berliner Mauer”.

In the afternoon I met my grandmother and then I returned to my cousin.

In the evening I went to the “FHXB Museum” in Kreuzberg. There was a reading under the title “Alles schick in Kreuzberg” (which means something like “everthing chic in Kreuzberg”). Lea Streisand and Sebastian Lehmann read some of their texts. I liked it really much. It wasn’t an event with many tourists, they were more people from Berlin. The reading was in the top floor so it was very hot. But you had a fantastic view over Kreuzberg and the Funkturm in the late sunlight.

Finally to say is…

…that Berlin is a city with many possibilities for everyone. You just have to know where the good events take place. But websites/magazines like “zitty Berlin” will help you to find the right program for you. And there are also many tourist hotspots like the “Brandenburger Tor”, the “Siegessäule”,…

In the next days, there are going to come pictures on instagram, so follow me to see them! 😉

And I’m trying to post more things in the next weeeks. And there will come some new things, so keep reading this blog.

Last Saturday I went to a Holi Festival with some friends.
Holi is an Indian tradition. They celebrate it as a spring fest. On these days it doesn’t matter where you come from, how old you are and which role do you have in society. This fest is very colourful because you sprinkle with pulver in different colours so everybody gets very painted.
In Germany we “celebrate” it as a festival with music. You have to buy a ticket and the pulver. It only takes a few hours and not several days.  But there are different DJ’s so the music isn’t all the time the same.
I enjoyed to go there together with my friends. And I really like all these colours. The music wasn’t as bad as I expected but it wasn’t my favourite kind of music.
The biggest fun were the colour splashes and when you see everyone styled in different colours afterwards!
A negative part is that you have to keep lots of action because of the pulver (you don’t want it to have it in your mouth, nose or eyes, trust me!)
But the fun was bigger than the negative part!!

Me after the Holi festival

Breathing the air
and getting a feeling that you never got before
when you leave your allday life behind you
the stress, work and habits.

The feeling like being a bird and having the possibility
to see all things from another view.
The feeling like being a tiger and having the possibility
to run fast wherever you want to.
The feeling like being a bee and having the possibility
to get to small places.

Breathing the air
and getting a feeling that you never got before
when you leave your allday life behind you
the stress, the smog and habits.

The feeling you get when you
travel to foreign places.
The feeling you get when you
learn about other cultures.
The feeling you get when you
speak and understand another language.

Breathing the air
and getting a feeling that you never got before
when you leave your allday life behind you
the stress, work and habits.

You can call it like you want:
travelling, learning, flying
But exploring the world has always something to do with
FREEDOM

I like to be free. But what means to be free? What means freedom?

Is it to do what you want, without any rules? Is it to break the rules? Means freedom to don’t respect others and just do what you like, without seeing problems for others in it?

I think there are two different kind of freedom. One kind is for everybody. It is to have a government and laws everyone can live with. It is to say out loud what you think, to eat and drink what you like and to have enough food. It is to have a job and your own money without being poor. It has something to do with security. You have to feel save in your home.

And then there is the other kind. It is to break free. It is to get out and do something you enjoy. For me it is travelling, listening to music, being in the nature and meeting friends. You could call it enjoying life too. But you have to respect others to break free. You can’t hurt someone just because you like that.

There is this special feeling. You feel free and strong like you’re able to do everything you want. And that’s what freedom really is. Just because you travel you aren’t free. You just travel. But when you start to enjoy it and you start to feel free and get stronger then you are free!

…you want to see in the world.”
That’s a citation from Mahatma Gandhi (I hope you know him. If not you should search him on the internet) which inspired me during this week.
There are two questions in my head: What do I want to change? And how can I do that?
There are some things in the world which I want to change. First everybody should have enough food and a place to stay like a flat or a house. Everybody should have the possibility to practice his own religion without being discriminated or killed for that (and no one should kill anyone for his religion!). The children and the adults should have the possibility to grow up and live in peace. And the children should go to school for some years.
But how can I change that?
I can buy fair trade products so that the families get some money for their work. And I could try to buy as many local things as possible (specially fruits and vegetables so that they don’t have to travel a long way). But what is with clothes? Most of my clothes come from Asia so they are products from extreme cheap workers. I don’t like that but I can’t buy other clothes because I don’t know where to find them and they’re expensive. And it is also like that that if many would stop buying clothes for the reason of cheap workers in China, India or another country the families would get even poorer and that is not what we want.
But I can do some volunteer work like going to India or South Africa to teach children English, maths and so on. Or I could work in slums or help women to fight for their rights. There’s also the possibility to raise money for organisations which help.
That are the ideas I had until now. What do you want to change? Do you have any ideas how to do that? Write it to me and if you agree I’ll share it here in the next post.

In my post about Taizé I mentioned a group about New Solidarity which I joined during my stay. For this group I wrote a personal contribution (the brother asked us to do that). I want to share this contribution with you:

Because everybody deserves peace and kindness!

The week before easter and easter itself I’ve been to Taizé, France.

Taizé is a community of brothers which invites mostly young people to spend a week or more with them to think about their faith, life and all other kind of themes. In the morning or in the afternoon you have a bible introduction led by a brother with discussions in small groups afterwards. But you have to do a work like washing up or cleaning the toilets too. Here you can find more informations: taize.fr

I went to Taizé with an organisation and I was very stressed before I left. But in Taizé I had so much time to think about the last months, specially the ones after my exchange. There was time to think about New Solidarity because I joined a group called like that to prepare a workshop (so I had no work to do). In our group we discussed about stereotypes and prejudices. That was very interesting because in Taizé there are many people from other countries and so there are a lot of prejudices. We find out that there are prejudices who are true but there are many who are false.

But the group was only one piece of the puzzle. Because of all the people from different nationalties you have to be open. And all the people I’ve met there were open-minded and extremely kind. That made you feel like there can be peace. In Taizé there’s peace. And that’s unimaginable. You have to feel this feeling.

Another part is the prayer. During the week there are three prayers a day, on Sunday two. First I thought that could be hard. But it wasn’t. In the prayers you sing a lot. These special Taizé songs in all languages. And everybody sings not like in our church. It is so beautiful! The church is very simple and you have to sit on the floor. But you’ll calm down and you gonna know what you have at home!

And also easter. Easter is high celebrated in  Taizé and that made so much fun! The days before were a bit depressed but on easter sunday everything changed. The sun came out and there was an easter fire before the prayer. To the prayer came a lot of people (I don’t know how much bit it was a lot!). And so we celebrated with singing in the prayer but also good food afterwards.

So, all these parts made me thinking about my life. Specially my allday life with my family. And I talked to others about that (thanks for listening!). I still have to think about the questions I got in Taizé. But I also found some answers. And I calmed down.

If you’re interested in meeting people from other countries and cultures and to discuss or talk with them, you should go to Taizé. Your religion doesn’t matter, you just have to be open.

And I’m very sorry for not giving some more details about my week. But I don’t find words for what I experienced.

Hello!

Today I just want to share a video with you. I watched it yesterday in the evening and I think it is made upon a great idea and important to watch. But it is also hard to describe, so lets watch it for yourself!