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Just Have a Little Faith-Part 2

I am very proud that my first country (outside Germany) that I had an opportunity to travel to is……. Iceland! The land of ice and fire! It is indeed come as a surprise not only to myself but also to all my German colleagues. Is Germany not cold enough so I had to go to Iceland? 😉

I was on Facebook, saw an even posted on Girl Gone International group about traveling to Iceland. Started to save some money, paid the deposit, balance of the trip, added additional activities, shopped some proper clothes and biatch it’s expensive! But well, it’s Iceland, once in a life is really enough sooo…. be it! take all my money!

The GGI tour started on 30th Oct, me and Anu arrived few days earlier but save that story for later 😉 We started our first tour in the evening for Northern Lights. We got picked up after dinner (9PM) and went somewhere up hill, still in Reykjavik though, just need to go far away from the city center because we can’t have lights around, let’s say we were in the middle of nowhere.

Our tour called @nicetraveliceland (it’s their instagram, go for it, they lived up their nice name!) parked the car, went out, starred at the sky hoping the lights will come out. Ten minutes passed by, nothing happened, sky is still dark, cold wind is all around us. Another GGI group that started one week before us saw nothing, I kind of lose hope (a bit). However faith keep me going, come on….. it’s only ten minutes let’s keep staring at the sky and faith indeed showed up! Lines after lines are coming!

Our guide from @nicetraveliceland, Magnus set up his tripod and started to take picture of us one by one. It is actually hard to stay for the picture as he was taken it with exposure so we have to hold still for 8 seconds, no blinking! But the result though, amazing!

Btw the lights keep moving hey! so at first I had 1,5 lines but it faded away to only 1 then it moved to other side, the lines are getting bigger, just WOW! Still can’t fathom about how spectacular is that! Of course having a professional camera made the green is greener but look at this video made with a mobile phone! I think it was Dana’s Iphone but can’t remember it anyway the point is it’s pretty clear too!

We are reaaallllyyyy far from over it heyyy! Thanks God we had Tracy, @tracyrusso (her instagram, she took professional pictures too!) She already practiced how to take Northern Lights pictures, we literally had no idea how much she tried to get such a perfect one! She was like, I can only do silhouette because my skill is not there yet… just wait… her skill is really there! BAM!

We stayed for 2 hours outside, being totally impressed with the sky, the cold doesn’t bother us no more.

Does the light really green? yes it is green not that neon because the camera can take more clearer picture than our eyes. So how does it looks like then? Well, see below pictures that Erin took with her mobile phone on a different minutes. This is how our eyes see it or maybe one level below this aber trozdem it was green enough for me.

As if it’s not enough, we saw it on the second day too 🙂 The weather was very very very terrible on our second day, I thought I know what windy is, nope! I was completely mistaken, I had to come to Iceland to know what is the real meaning of windy! I wanted to go to Sun Voyager statue but can’t do it anymore so we decided to head home, waited on the bus station and this is the moment where just a little faith is what we need. We saw the Northern Lights in the city center! Kimmy was the one who recognize it and whoooaaaaaaa all the girls were shouting happily about it! However, since it’s city center so the neon green was super light because we have many lights inside the city. This is how it looks like, imagine if we went in the middle of nowhere too, then we can see it crystal clear, or should I say…. neon clear 😉

Erin took this one with her mobile phone too, still pretty green right?

We can’t stop talking about it during next day trip where we went to do our Golden Circle Tour with our guide from obv @nicetraveliceland, Christina. We finished our tour quiet late at night around 8PM then she did the unbelievable, sudden break, van stopped, said “let me check something” we were tired at that point, don’t have any energy to give a damn about what she’s checking. She came back with a smile on her face followed by a sentence “you guys are the luckiest group so far” showed us the picture from her Xiaomi mobile phone, it’s the Northern Lights again!!!! Whoooaaaa shouting all over, running outside the van, jumping like hell! We can’t believe that we saw it 3 days in a row!!! I think we stopped there for almost one hour or so 😉 can’t stop me from this!

Scroll up to the part where I wrote @tracyrusso only took silhouette photo? Not this time 🙂 she took a front photo, booyyahh she really got the skill! Erin helped as our lighting by shining a flash light for few seconds to us and slowly moved back and in the end we all took picture hoping some car will passed by to give us the light we need 🙂

It’s really hard to put into words about how I feel seeing these amazing Northern Lights for 3 day in a row! I am simply just grateful, imagine if I join the tour a week earlier, I wouldn’t see any of it and imagine if all the girls were not stay for a solid two hours, I wouldn’t have seen how the light moves.

Sometimes having a faith that things will works out for you is really what it takes, even when it’s just a little 🙂

Iceland is nice!

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Angels & Demons

Let’s shift to Hamburg’s red light district, the famous Reeperbahn! and Sankt Pauli (for some reason they always go together, at least to what I am aware of). Christian warned me to not go there in the evening, as an obedient child, I followed his advice. I registered myself on a walking tour in Reeperbahn at 20:00 it should be for 2 hours, I’m pretty excited for that. Sad story, it got cancelled due to now many participants, I thought we are still in pandemic need to abstand halten?! Na ja…. 🙁 what did I do? I went there on day time where everything is still not yet operating.

Besides the sin city, there are some interesting place such as the famous German police station called Polizeikommissariat Davidwache because many movies apparently shoot some scene there, Beatles-Platz and Sankt Pauli Fan Shop… well at least those are the one that is interesting for me. Until I saw that Sankt Pauli Fan Shop is rather scary! with skull, black and white color oh noooooo!!! I don’t want to sell my soul to the Devil! I don’t even want to get in there…sorry Sankt Pauli fans but your symbol scares the $h!t out of me #spooky! 0.0

I agree that this area is something else, it’s like a really different part of the world, I was not comfortable of staying there too long so I took myself back to the other side 🙂

Hello from the other side #Adele is here. Btw, I really meant it. The other side from hell is heaven, demons is angels, now you are getting into it, I am talking about churches. Here are the main churches in Hamburg:

Look at this magnificent St. Michael! what is that? so big, so marble white, so wow!

Neck to neck to St. Michael is St. Nikolai Memorial but the church is not there anymore, only remains. What I like most from St. Nikolai is the lady statue called “Angel on Earth” – Take my hand and let me lead you back to yourself! BAM! how powerful is that?!

Then St. Jacobi, for some reason the Alpha and Omega candle is really appealing to me 🙂 When I went there on Thursday, they had the organ concert for 30 minutes, ohh how beautiful!

Not far from there is St. Peter church, nothing special except they have “mistletoe” in the middle haha <3

Last one is St. Catherine 🙂 I like the church that is white and to me it looks like a mini version of St. Michael #cuteee!

Well well well I think after all the churches, I am back to the safe side again 😉

Thank you Hamburg, I really enjoyed you 🙂

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Boats Boats Boats!

Boats boats boats, ahoy, captain! Those were my first impression about Hamburg #inspired by how i met your mother obviously but it is sooo true! There were many bridges and water all around, mir gefällt das!

At first I really got confused with the topography of Hamburg, it didn’t come easily for me, too many bridges, too many districts with different character. Speicherstadt, Hafen City, Reeperbahn and Sankt Pauli, Sternschanze oh oh! Marlyn was overwhelmed! O.O However since I spent more of my time in Speicherstadt and Hafen City, I kind of get the bit out of it in the end and mir gefällt das noch 🙂

This is at the most most must visit, Speicherstadt. All the buildings are this bricks looks #my favourites! then come the water and bridges.

Not far from there there is a “small port” I would say, not sure if it’s still operation like a real port but there I can see some small boats so kind of an “open-air museum” or whatever haha it’s just some nice path that you will go if you want to visit Elbphilharmonie. It is a Konzerthaus, when I saw on their website it cost 2Euro to go to their 8th floor, I didn’t buy the ticket online because I don’t know when will I go there and since it’s only 2 Euro I prefer to buy there direcly, I went and it kostet….nichts?! heeee, it’s for freeeiiii! The escalator kind of took us directly to level 6/7 because it’s such a gigantic and long escalator! It is really nice to just relax, enjoy the wind (because it’s quiet big up there) and just see the boats sailing 🙂

Then I come back to the land… Landungsbrücken, passed through Elbe Tunnel (such a cool Tunnel) went to the famous Brücke 10 food stall for their fishbrotchen but since I don’t eat fish soooooo….. this is important place sadly become unimportant mwaha.

What impressed me the most is the Ship Museum called Captain San Diego, it was a real ship that sailed throughout the year but now not anymore (that’s why it became a museum duh) I never ever ever know the engines from a ship and boahhh I suddenly have a claustrophobic because all the stairs etc are too small! even for my feet! I remembered the scene from Titanic where all the workers become panic and tries to run away oh yeah that scares me off!

All in all, Hamburg is so good, I’m glad I went here and I’m sure I barely scratched the surface of what there is to explore 🙂

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Pinky Promise No More

In June 2018 I made a pinky promise with someone, we agreed “no matter what and where we are, we will meet each other again”

But first lets not go to that point yet because we need to pull back to the beginning of 2018 where I had a new intern in my office 🙂 I was so happy finally it will be a girl other than a (normally) French guy, you know stereotype of French people yeeahhh don’t even try to go that direction, nothing positive coming out of it haha

I picked her up from Pudong airport, I haven’t met her before but it wasn’t so hard to recognize a Dutch lady right? Screened through a coming passengers, excuse me! Are you Oda? Jackpot! Took one guess and bingo #detective

Oda was our intern for about 4 months, I was really happy to finally got a friend in the office! We even watched Breaking Bad once when our boss is not around (or twice or haha who knows how many times) both of us were so addicted and in love with Jesse Pinkman!

She also joined me and my archery guys for an almost all you can eat Laksa day, however we both were too stupid to wear a white top, we need to take care not to spill it! We also joined the evening where Hungover Games won the award! And not only our sport won, we also won free lunch! our friend Rich won this raffle but he gave it to us, since we were both broke we took it without hesitation, thanks to him we can eat like a king! 😀

One day around CNY I was sick, I asked Oda to came to my apartment, scratch my back with a coin haha! I showed her how my back supposed to look like after she scratched it, oh boy she was in shocked! Haha thanks to her I came back healthy again, even able to go to April’s home and celebrated together 🙂

However, her internship come to an end, time to say goodbye is just around the corner, we had dinner at f.r.i.e.n.d.s cafe. Its a serious thematic cafe from TV series friends. After that dinner before we parted ways we made our pinky promise. We don’t know when or how but somehow we believe that we will meet again.

Oda and I are not the type who keep contact all the time, oh please we got life! haha we are not even do it from time to time but thanks to social media we can still have each other and somehow update about what the other side is doing. First attempt was to meet her in 2019 where I went to Amsterdam but it didn’t happen. Aahhh so close yet so far away.

Then the Universe heard us, Oda and Philipp moved to Hamburg! I was about to visit Hamburg in July but why should I? I can just wait for her in Sept! So we can fulfil our pinky promise!

The wait is now over! After 3 years and 3 months, we met again 🙂

I dont have the very first pic of us together but she still remember that I brought her to Bar Centrale to eat pizza too! First, Italian food is never wrong, I don’t want to give her a culture shock, she just landed yo! And second, the wifi is good there so she can let her family and Philipp know that she’s safe!!

I met Oda every day after her work or during her lunchtime but on Friday and Saturday we got the full day, maaaannn…..I feel like we both on work because we walked for full 8 hours! From 10:15ish to 19:00

On Friday we joined a walking tour from Sandeman with our guide Umut. He explained us so many interesting stories like “Why we have Swan-father (people who protects Swan) in Hamburg?” because we believe that Swan brings prosperity to the City of Hamburg. He explained that (almost) only in Hamburg that citizen are more important than the emperor and it shows from the Rathaus that they put citizen statue (normal people with normal jobs) above their emperor statue. The running gags why Hamburg and Bremen don’t like each other because Hamburg is the door to the world (as it’s where the Port are) and Bremen said “yes but Bremen has the key to open that door” Umut showed us in Deichstraße where the fire began and by the end of the road it’s finished. We also went on a 1,8 Euro “cruise” boat haha! to “Portugal” 😉 , Elbphilharmonie and Landungsbrücken.

On Saturday we had brunch with Philipp, went to Dialogue in Silence, shopping, failed to eat at KFC because DB changed my train.

Oh noooo time for me to come back to Dortmund! now we dont need pinky promise anymore, rest assured that you and Philipp are always welcome here 🙂

Weekend in Dortmund is calling!


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Calum Scott

Nope it won’t be about how star-struck I was when I met him because I didn’t, I wish I was <3 It’s about his song “You are the reason…..” aaaaaaaaaaa fits perfectly fit with what I wanted to say about September month! He is always my fav month, first, simply because I exist in Sept #no doubt about it and second….. well, I just found out the second reason this Monday when I’m back to office.

I (and all 300 NW employess) got a voucher on their desk, because it’s NW 5 year anniversary in Dortmund! And with this voucher I can buy a book consist of “Restaurants deals” or “Free-time deals”

I chose “Free-time deals” ha! surprise that I’m not even tempted by eating activity this time 🙂 rather I will have something like going to cinema, laser-tag, sport etc and it’s valid until 2022. It is for whole region in NRW, I don’t have car but it won’t stop me! I will use it to the max, life is getting more and more awesome these days! Btw I was surprised when I received it because the voucher book is soooooo small but fits with my belief “good things comes in small package” 🙂

Thank you Nordwest, looking forward for more anniversary to come! Please make it yearly 😀

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I Like To…

Move it! especially to a waaaayyyy nicer Apartment located almost in Downtown Dortmund! I don’t like to move it move it, just one time move it is enough 😉 I thought I have a minimalist style until I had to packed, only then I realized omg Marlyn what have you done?! I am dead beyond measure when I had to carry my stuff from 3rd floor to 3rd floor and this was already with a very very very big help from my squad! Stefan and Julius were the two who carried my Kallax and my Sofabed. Me, Julia and Claudia carried other small stuff like TV, boxes, table, chairs etc and we already as sweaty as a pig, can’t imagine what the guys went through!

As the phrase “Rome wasn’t build in one day” so does “Moving wasn’t finish in one day”. Before my moving day, me, Claudia and Julia went to apartment to do some paintings. Claudia were so prepared with painting equipment and ladder, we even went to Hornbach to buy additional stuff. We painted my Schlafzimmer for like 3 hours, I’m sure it’s already white enough but Claudia said “Hmmm on top is not, let me do it” and trust me it feels like I had a pull-up session, my arms almost fell off! Julia also came prepared by wearing a real painting clothes! haha so professionals! But me and Julia just do the one that so obviously different from white so we were faster and I will just hide some parts with some decorations 😉 #smart

Okay, back to my moving day. I have never feel so hungry after going back and forth carrying my stuff. To my surprise, Julius said “it was the fastest moving he’d ever done, only in less than 2 hours it’s all finished” Julia said “Marlyn, all the stuff that you have now is basically all the stuff we have in our Keller” In the middle of my process to die, I feel relieved that the Germans thought my stuff are very few #phew

One of the reason for me to move out is I’ve been one year in Germany, I felt it’s time for me to get out that tiny apartment to grow and start living. As usual Julius always have a final word “Marlyn you’d better stay, I don’t carry all the way your Kallax and Sofabed so you can just move out from Germany” haha don’t worry, I will! Thanks to all of you, my squad!

I had a bitter sweet moment with my small apartment, the place I called home for a year. My small, broken heating, broken switch, broken washing machine, crazy landlord, it’s all sounds bad but at least I had stories I can tell about my first experience living in Germany and for that memories, I thank you 🙂 However, I need to move on.

Cheers to a new life ahead!

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The (Non)Fairy Godmother

Remember Silvia? The crazy “Italian” lady from my German class who I just figured out that she is actually a Swiss-Italian rather than an Italian, oh well, nothing is as straight as an arrow with her 😉

I wanted to go to her place for the weekend, this is the second time we tried to make it happened. First time it was cancelled due to Dortmund City found a potential bomb around her area so everyone living within the parameter got evacuated. Second time is this weekend, we finally made it happen…..wait for it…. We met up at the City Center, it has to be always there otherwise Silvia will lost!

But she carried another bags with her..hmm.. I know she was somewhere before so maybe she didn’t go back to her apartment yet. I told her “Let’s go to put your stuff and mine into your place and get out again” because her place is exactly in the City Center. She said “Actually there is something I would like to say, we don’t go to my place” I thought OK then she can stay in my place, then she added “I already booked a hotel for us, it’s around here” I was drop-dead shocked “Whattt?? what the hell do we need to stay in a Hotel in Dortmund? Where both of us live in Dortmund?” She told me that she tried to cook a steak on her new electrical stove however it caused an electrical splash on her socket, smokes comes up from the cable, activated her smoke detector, in the end power went off.

Long story short, she booked a hotel just 5 mins away which means still in the City Center and she can’t cancel it soooooo I’d got to stay in a hotel too! Wohoooo a surprise Staycation in Dortmund 😀 really not bad eeehhh!

The hotel were just right in front of the Football Museum and this was my first time staying in the hotel since forever I forgot that I need to insert the key to have power on…pfffff… don’t know how to behave haha!

After checking in, entered our room, got ourselves refreshed, we went out to…..the City Center duhhh and had dinner in Maximilian Cafe. I went there before and I sooooooo like the BBQ Chicken Wings, it’s an antipasti but more like a main dish because it’s big!! I feel something weird that night, something like really good to go out, eat in restaurant, not worry about not catching the bus back home, just chilled and enjoy the day! I think this forced or surprise Staycation is not a bad idea after all, perhaps I will do it too but ofc not in the City Center where my apartment is located haha somewhere else 🙂

The next day both of us woke up really late, already at brunch time haha and we did a lot of stuff on that day! what a productive day! We’ve done 15K steps! where and what did we do? Silvia bought me a mug due to I moved to a new apartment so this is the present for my not yet “housewarming” party. When I opened it I really like it because the mug is so me! the color etc, love it love it love it! Thank you Silvia!!! She also said that when she saw this mug it reminds her of me <3

As you can see, first stop is my place, then we went to IKEA due to I need to buy 3 drawers for my new Kleiderschrank that wasn’t available last week. I surely need help because one drawer is 6kg, I carried one hihi and Silvia carried 2 haha She had 5 kids before so for sure as hell she can manage 12kg 🙂 During our bus trip to IKEA we passed by my office and my old apartment that was our “sightseeing place”

Then we go back to my place to put the drawer and back to our hotel yes! one last Staycation day! We had dinner again in the City Center but this time I felt sore not only on my legs but also on my shoulders due to the “weight” that I carried. No weird feeling this time, just tired. Nevertheless, we had a nice dinner, Spaghetti! Italian dish is never wrong!

I brought my laptop because Silvia said she will study German and do her homework but she doesn’t have the age anymore (quote from her) so she just watched some series in German and went to bed #bloody woman!

All in all, it was a funny weekend, I like and enjoy it! We don’t have a terms of “Godmother or Godfather” in Indonesia but if we have it, it should be her. We talked a lot about each other during dinner and brunch time and I’m really lucky that she was one of my classmates who become my friends and again… if I can choose, I’d like her to be my Godmother, regardless fairy or non fairy 😉

Merci beaucoup Silvia!

P.S: Don’t be afraid if I tried to come to your place for the third time, I’m looking forward of what will happen next! haha #devils laugh

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The Thousand and One Nights- Part 3

We can’t overlook the tragedy that happened in Berlin especially when the wall was there. At first I thought the wall is just a straight border but I was totally mistaken, the separation from the wall was just unbelievably uneven. This part of the story I named it “Marlyns realized what strive is”

For me, visiting the debris of the Berliner Mauer is a must. However, since the wall was everywhere, means it’s not located in one single long space but it’s splitted into many parts of Berlin. I only went to Berlin Wall Memorial in Bernauer Str and visit Topography of Terror.

To begin with Berlin Wall Memorial, it seems to be “only a wall” until I joined Berlin-Unterwellten Tour where they explained more about what happened to Berliner during the Wall time and get ready, it is a tragic, sad, touching, full of emotional journey.

In Bernauer Str they built some memorial monument for the victims of either World War or Cold War and part of the walls still stands there. The victims are mostly younger than me and ended up losing their life 🙁

Then, I visited Topography of Terror, they have inside and outside museum mainly tell the story of how slowly Hitler’s gain the power, in economy, politics and army-wise. How he and his troops put a disgrace on hippies, homosexual and Jews. It is really sad for me to read how they turned homosexual in and force one to put a conflict to his or her partner. Nothing much to say about this place, it is a must visit but at the same time I become very upset because of what had happened to them in the past, how come such a sick mindset man gain so much power. What makes me even more upset is not all ex-officer got punished, especially the one who considered as “accessory of the crime” meaning someone who ‘just’ built the gas chamber but not the one who turn on the button, this people don’t get any punishment, what a fair world. They know for sure what the purpose of it but yet not found guilty of a crime.

I just want to say that Thanks God right now Berlin is one of the city where homosexual can express themselves as they truly are and not stuck in past’ mindset.

Another very touching story is the one I got from Berliner Unterwelten Tour. About how 4 peoples built a tunnel illegally to save people from East to West, the remarkable Tunnel 29 and 57, where they saved 29 and 57 people through unstoppable 5 months of digging for 145 meters long. These 4 heroes inspires other engineer, real diggers to also dig some tunnels and rescue their loved ones, very rarely succeed.

This is really sad and extreme scary of how people tried to escape, they would write a message on a paper, put together a rock and throw it over the wall hoping someone would read and prepare something to land on the other side. They would just jump from a rooftop, if the other side prepare a matrass or anything to land it’s good, if not… either they got injured or die. The border patrol will just shoot you and leave you bleeding to death for 3 hours at least and then moved your body and on and on and on.

The very touching and emotional part from the tunnel diggers are mainly they want to be together with their family again, the wall had separated them from their loved one for decades and the tunnel had showed me how they never gave up on each other, how they strive against all odds.

I can’t go on, Berlin’s wall history is really beautiful, it is so beautiful to the point that I can’t take it anymore. Berlin is really really must visit and can offer you 1001 things to do.

Thank you for the experience Berlin, we definitely see each other again. I can’t let you go yet, not ever <3

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The Thousand and One Nights- Part 2

The Clash has London Calling and Berlin has Marlyn calling 😉 This second part of my Berlin story I named it “Marlyn invited herself” as she starts to call her friends that might be available by the time she’s in Berlin. Lucky me, I got to see them all!

First, contact Nico! He has a brother that lives in Germany, I can’t remember where exactly in Germany but Nico made it so clear last year he said “Whenever you go to Berlin you need to tell me and I will tell my brother” Booyah!! Supporting reason to visit Berlin 🙂

Sebastian is really really cool guy, I like him and he looks exactly 99,9% like Nico! People definitely can see they are brothers, had Nico didn’t spend so much time in the sun, people will think they are twins haha. Sebastian chose a restaurant called “The Big Dog Berlin” what the hell is that? what a name for a restaurant 😀 I told him I wanted to have a Berliner wurst so this is the place.

Surprise surprise the place was closed! with no announcement what so ever, Sebastian was so upset, he complained to JW Mariott (because it owns by them) and JW Mariott just say “yeah, not so many people today so we just close” pffffff but kein Stress, we will figure somewhere else. We walked through Potsdamer Platz and Sebastian said the traffic light here was the first traffic light in Germany, oh cool! a bit of a history haha he wasn’t sure if it’s the first in EU but bestimmt in Germany. We went to Sony Center and in the end we had Obatza and Schnitzel in Paulaner 🙂

Then, I asked Radite-my highschool friend who studies in Landshut, he has many Indonesian friends like Christo for example. But more importantly (not that Christo unimportant heyyy), he connected me with one of my high school friend that I haven’t met for 14 years, Gita! Little that I knew she is heavily preggo now! what an amazing surprise!

Radites sister gave him a “wide angle” thingy for taking a selfie, because both of our iPhone is not the latest one so we don’t have this function but thanks to this thingy we can have something similar to that. We were so dedicated to test it at first but since the difference wasn’t so big and it’s annoying so we ditch it right away haha

When I’m with him, we had mainly Asian as a big meal but we also have Western breakfast, snack or brunch whatev. However, best of the best is Indonesian food! whoaaaa the taste really close to home! Thank you Nusantara for bringing our food to Berlin! We went to Gita and Budi’s house and ordered a Vietnamese food. We met with Christo and had Japanese food.

Of course I am a member of Girl Gone International Facebook group where I got to meet empowering ladies that lifting and supporting women. I joined a couple of GGI Zoom movie film meeting. The organizer named Trish from Ireland just moved to Berlin in July. Heyyyyy, Carlos also has a friend, why don’t I met her too? I actually already met Fabi one time on Carlos bday so just ask him for her number, easy peasy 🙂 We had a brunch at The Father Carpenter, this place is really good! Waited for one hour due to it was so crowded on Sunday but it’s ok, we have time 🙂

Last but not least, I contacted my online German teacher, Michael. I wanted to meet him because when you see someone all the time through a monitor, you feel like he is a movie star so you got to meet him haha. At the beginning, I can’t meet him due to the time doesn’t fit in his schedule, but one thing lead to another, good that DB Train has a streik and didn’t operate so I had to prolong my stay in Berlin, in the end I can meet him 🙂

I met him for a early coffee before I came back to Dortmund…..and….. being a German he said “He won’t smile on the picture” and he did it 🙂

Berlin is very very very international, we can meet all people from everywhere here. Reminds me of Shanghai, I miss my Shanghai people so much though XO but life goes on and I’m doing well in Germany 🙂

I like Berlin already and now I like Berliner, double thumbs up! Until next time, peps!

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The Thousand and One Nights-Part 1

I got the inspiration for the title from what we know of 1001 Nights because it represents of 1001 things one can do in Berlin! Julius also support this when I asked him what can I do there, he replied “1.000 Sachen!”

And this is only the first part of it, I named it the “Marlyns first try to conquer Berlin” 😉

When I get off from my ICE, read the sign “Berlin Hauptbahnhof”, breathed the air, I instantly feel “I’m in Shanghai”. For Germany, this Hbf is really big! It has 4 floors, many shops and places to eat but among all of that, there is one that really caught and got my attentionnnnnn, it was the Ampelmann shop! I have been wanting to visit this shop ever since I saw my Hermano Binbin wore an Ampelmann shirt while we were on Moganshan back then in 2018. He said he will get me one when he go to Berlin, no need Hermano, I’m getting myself one and few other stuff from the shop 🙂

Visiting scheduled already planned, no deviation allowed, first and foremost what else other than Brandenburger Tor! As expected, there were so so sooo many people there, regardless of cloudy, rainy or anything it will always packed! Thanks to my sister, she’s able to photoshopped all other people behind me so it looks like I have the Tor all by myself ha! thanks sissy!

Right next to it is a Holocaust Memorial, a place of remembrance to more than 5 millions murdered Jews during World War. It is stand on an uneven ground with many columns of different heights that was designed to make us disoriented, confused, dizzy and just hopeless. When I walked through in between those columns, it makes me feel so small and nothing. Not much to say about this memorial but it is a must to visit and to experience. Please pay some respect by not stepping it.

Still on the same area we have the Reichstag, unfortunately I didn’t get the appointment to enter. Then I visited Charlotten Burg, it’s already close by that time so I just stay in the Garden area.

Next sightseeing are Siegesäule (the Victory Column) and Charlie Check Point, but I only walked passed and visit the shop. I already buy the ticket but I’m saving it for the rainy day and I meant it! I only enter museum when it’s rain, can’t waste a sunny day in Germany, as it is a solar eclipse phenomena 😉

Ooopsss how can I forget Museuminsel and Berliner Dom! I got a WOW effect on this area, the Dom is so magnificent, the Museums are all awesome! Wait for a mega geil 360 degree view of Berlin from top of Berliner Dom!

Then, a very different area where East Side Gallery and Oberbaum Bridge located, as you read from it, they are on the East part of Berlin. I have a mix feeling about this particular area, a bit of a punk but at the same time I found it really cool too! I need to found the famous “Mein Gott, hilf mir, diese tödliche Liebe zu überleben” wall, I’m glad it’s not on the far end of the wall 🙂

This is my first time in Berlin and my first impression about it is really cool! I like it! Definitely there is much to see in Berlin, need to figure out about the people, food and history much more… but so far… Berlin got my thumbs up!

Follow my lead, we’ve only just begun 🙂