Yeah, don’t be surprised or anything, but after submitting my thesis I managed to stay in the good old home country for not more than 11 days. I went abroad….. again, trying to see and travel the world, as glorious as that might seem. It was the first real summer holidays in 11 years.. where did all those summers go? I know I saw a lot of fish and seafood for six summers, a lot of burgers and fries for two summers and helping elders for five summers.. in other words – some summers I had two jobs. So, I felt that I deserved one summer of freedom and traveling before embracing the future as a 7am til 3pm worker status.
So; what was a better idea than travel all through Europe – to discover the beauty of our continent and to meet up with some of the greatest people I have ever gotten to know?! I started planning the trip in my thesis writing breaks – emailing people and ordering Interrail ticket and booking flights… and then June 15 came. I was at Sola Airport, Stavanger – freezing from the cold, even though wearing long pants and leather jacket. My first destination was Germany.
After a few hours transit in Copenhagen, I finally arrived at Düsseldorf International Airport. When I finally got out, I met a wall of heat – I felt the déjà vu from when I arrived in Indonesia – though that was about ten times worse. Well, that is how it is when you come from a country where brother Fall and Winter reign 80 % of the year. But it was just to let the Summer’s train hopping begin. About an hour later I arrived at Köln Hauptbahnhof, finally reunited once more with one of my best friends, Carolina. First three relaxing days in Köln, before taking on the adventure.
Here days were spent eating, shopping, drinking coffee, eating, drinking coffee, meeting up with local heroes – Sara and Sima, and not so
local heroes – Mr. ATM (or should we call you Machete now?), Kiki and Rafa, drinking Kölsch and going to the “beach” for drinking coffee and Dixit with red wine. As you might figure from the above, we appreciate eating food and drinking coffee very very much 
Good that Köln has a lot of good places to offer.
Let’s study these few facts. We start with the coffee shop. I did unfortunately not get the name. Caro just told me that it was one of Sara’s favorite cafes. At the moment I entered, I noticed why. My comment “This place look like a temple” was followed by laughter, a phone call to Sara and even more laughter! Candles, exotic plants and a big BIG Buddha as the main center piece. Good coffee they had too!
Great food! Another side to Köln is the diversity of the food culture – on the corner you can buy a Döner or a Bratwurst – further down the street you can find an Indian restaurant, a Thai restaurant… or as we ended up, at a Lebanese/Arabic restaurant. Here we met up with Kiki, Rafa, Mr. ATM/Sanschete (aka Sascha Klapper – see photo for further information).
For the last day, we went to the beach – or what we would call an artificial creation along the Rhein; Sandburg Mühlheim! The perfect relaxing and chilling hangout place with friends. Having fun with photography, girls gossiping and coffee, it was an awesome place for us girls.
It was lovely day together with Kiki, Caro and Sara 
And it all ended with 3 cooks and 1 photographer making a mess in Sara’s kitchen, but some great food came out of it though. And the introduction of the fascinating game of Dixit! The rules are simple: each player get 5 cards each, all with different pictures, the dealer pick one of his cards, and make a word/sentence association with it, and the other players have to find a card amongst their cards that fits this description the best. Afterwards it is all about guessing which card belonged to the dealer in order to prevent the dealer from getting points. In the end, the winner is the one with the most points when you are out of cards. 
This game really test your knowledge of other people’s way of thinking and your own imagination. It is all about saying the non-obvious. And the game went more like this “TIME!”, “The king ran away”, “Foot prints in the snow”, “TIME!”, “Hide-and-seek”, “TIME!”, “If Portugal falls, then Spain will follow”, “It used to be there, but now love is lost”, “TIME!” and the too obvious card “Monkey doing maths”….. followed by never-ending laughter! The madness our brains can create with just a few cards!
The next morning, my days in Germany was over, at least for a few more weeks. It was TIME to start the train jumping through Europe. First destination: Rotterdam, The Netherlands!
See ya!
She was the last person I saw before leaving my beloved home country to go to Indonesia, and yet, 6 months later, a reunion could not be denied anymore. After a loooong bus ride, dragging my big ass suitcase through snow and water, I finally reached my destination – the world that St. Paddie would have loved, Kiwi Grønland, where everybody is dressed in green. After walking around the grocery store for about ten minutes, not finding what I was looking for, I decided to ask one of its green inhabitants. Shortly after, I heard running steps and another green inhabitant breaking around the corner and screaming – “TRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE!!! Weeeeeeee!! You’re early!” Well, considering I took the early bus in other to make it for the festivities of the evening in time, and spending six splendid hours in the bus – I would call it to be on time.
A quick sightseeing trip through the main city and a beer run, and then it was to prepare for another night of craziness. This evening pirates, some nerds, Napoleon (convinced of the existence of cash machines when we all know that they are called ATMs or cash points) and a Mexican. Morning after even more tired, and another member to join on the last night of craziness: Hello, Tita 
