Instagram Jul & Aug: It Should Have Been Summer

This time I won’t mourn over the past two months and how time flies and this and that; we’ve entered September so it means New Year’s is just around the corner, and you canot neglect that fact. Moreover, it’s my birthday in few weeks and to be honest, it’s hilarious that I’m turning 26 and I’m still being asked for my ID when buying... ummm, when entering clubs. :) So, if you’re living in Europe, this past summer was probably one of the worst you’ve experienced – weather-wise. Actually, did I just say summer? I don’t know what was wrong with it, but it was summer for maaaybe ten days. Two weeks? Apart from the beginning of June, Germany was cold. I was looking forward to going home to Serbia, wholeheartedly hoping it would be warmer there because hey, it’s in the south, right? – but nope, Serbia bailed on me. I mean, okay, I did experience some sunny days and a few were even hot, but rarely would it exceed 30 degrees Celsius. Which is fine if you ask me, but it’s not normal for this time of the year! In Serbia we’re usually swimming in our sweat during the whole months of July and August, so excuse me, but this sudden change is not normal, no matter how convenient! And back in Germany I had to admit that the fall was here – not later but in mid-August. How awful is that?!

Of course, I did try my best and continue capturing precious little moments on Instagram, so here they are. I noticed that these two months on my Instagram could be described in three words: Serbia, Berlin, in-between. Or four words?! Anyway, here are the photos. If you like what you see, make sure to follow me here!

There we go – above: a collection of Fernsehturm in various postures. Ummm... am I obsessed? I don’t know, but I do know that I’ll be the happiest person alive when I come back to Berlin next year in March and see it for the first time. Hopefully I’ll manage to find a place to live in Berlin, instead of Potsdam, so that I avoid the hassle with trains – keep your fingers crossed, it’s not too early, it’s never too early!

I did turn into a person who posts airplane views on Instagram. How pathetic?! Well, I know, but there’s something in me that just cannot resist. I mean, those clouds are always so pretty. And the fields are pretty seen from above, and so is the sunrise (unfortunately this one was faaaar more beautiful than my phone could’ve captured it, so if you’ve got a chance of flying early in the morning, go for it, you’ll get some sleep once you land!). The sunset (second photo) is not from the plane though, it’s from Petnica Science Center where I spend a couple of days and gave a lecture on lateralization of language function (meaning where the language is, left hemisphere vs. right one and how so and how we know it and stuff like that) to high school students... truth be told, I think I was the one most interested in my own lecture. Or the students were just plain tired. Yeaaah, let’s all agree on that.

Then comes lovely Belgrade. I had amazing few days there and I think it developed pretty much in the past year I wasn’t there! I kept telling everyone how wonderful it was and how happy I’d be to live there again, but they kept reminding me I was on a vacation, so I’m missing out on the usual everyday bad things about it that annoy everyone and had been annoying me in the past. Fair enough. O, by the way, the photo of the mural in Belgrade’s hip neighborhood Savamala was featured on Serbia Travel facebook page. :)

More Belgrade moments. River, bridges, artist at work in the city’s main pedestrian area, street art featuring Nikola Tesla and a combination of different decades’ architecture.

But what would a trip home be without some Instagram photos of my hometown? My favorite is the one with the hackney coach. My hometown used to have more than 100 of these back in the day; now we’re only left off with one and it’s more of a touristy thing. But it’s totally possible to have a ride in it and I’d been planning to take my friends from Belgrade along as soon as they visit. Then I moved away, so... we’ll se what the future holds for me. And them. And the hackney.

Then there comes the ’in-between’ part. I’ve turned into a huge berries fan over this past year. I mean, I’ve loved raspberries all my life (raspberries are a big thing in Serbia, we were the largest exporter in the world for a long time, now we're second hehe) and strawberries ain’t bad either, but then in Finland and Germany I got hooked on blueberries. Before moving abroad I had only tried them once in my life, but apparently they’re a big thing here (and even bigger in Finland), so hooray for that! They’re also veeery healthy, so it’s a win-win situation. The second photo is of my first 1 (the best grade in Germany)– it’s my grade in German language and yes I’m totally bragging about it. Actually it’s fun because it’s the worst grade in elementary and high school in Serbia. The poster says something like "I spent a semester abroad and all I brought back with me was this T-shirt, 1000 different experiences, 43 new friends, topic for my thesis and another T-shirt for my dad". See? That 1 is well deserved! The last photo was taken on a summer day in Potsdam this year... haha joking. I was watching The Snow Queen movie (one of many) and it reminded me of Finland. Oh, what fond memories.

More of Berlin. I did the Walking tour and the first photo shows a monument dedicated to Georg Elser, a carpenter who was the first man to had attempted Hitler’s murder. The second one is a mural of GDR pioneers that I found quite interesting because pioneers are something very Yugoslavian in my head. Apparently they’re just very socialist. And the bottom pictures show snippets of GDR museum in Berlin – a pioneer’s shirt and scarf and the results of a quiz I took. Well, you can read what I am like above.

My alter ego! I haven’t been to a German Starbucks for some time and I totally forgot that they’re unable to hear my name as it is. I will remain Diana in this part of the world. I’ve actually got to terms with it, so the next time I went to Starbucks the answer to ’dein Name?’ was ’Diana’. If you can’t beat them... The second photo shows one of the best afternoons I’ve had in a while. Three friends from uni decided to busk one day in the center of Potsdam, before we all part our ways (not all actually, but yeah... you don’t want to hear the details of my program’s mobility plan for everyone, no one knows it, only we who have to live with it). So Gabriele is well-versed in busking, he’s been doing it in Australia for 8 months and lived off it, and now he recruited Dimitra and Chen-Hong and we had suuuch a good time! The rest of us (not-so-musical-but-loving-music) were the audience and it wasn’t awkward at all because there were a lot of people stopping to hear them! Eventually they made 64 euros (Gab says it’s possible to earn even more, but to me it sounds like an enormous pile of money) and took us all for drinks and burgers. How sweet of them?! The third photo depicts two buildings in the Dutch Quarter in Potsdam – slowly getting ready for my next moving abroad... yep, to Holland. The last one was taken pretty randomly and unexpected. I missed my bus stop and ended up pretty much in the woods.

Berries – self-explanatory. Another opportunity to show off with my knowledge of German – ’give every day a chance for it to become the best of your life’. But, um, honestly, this is just passive knowledge... as soon as I’m asked or told something I wouldn’t normally expect (like ’Is this chair free’ instead of ’Hello, would you like to order?’) I freak out. And turn into a scared girl mumbling ’mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut’. Roamers – a nice little coffee shop in Berlin where I spent an afternoon reading. Reading the book that you can see here – the one my friend Dušica from Helsinki sent me from Ljubljana. It’s called Letters from Germany and it’s by a Serbian writer from 19th century – she wrote me she was wondering what I would think of it. I’ll let her know when I finish.

Spooky! No, actually, this was the only way I could have made beams of light piercing through the woods look half as decent. In the second photo you can see some smoothies – I’m crazy about smoothies even though they’re rather expensive. I’m actually wanting a blender so badly, but on the other hand I try not to buy too many things because of my constant moving and changing countries... well... I might reconsider that. I actually have one back at my parents’, but it doesn’t really fit in a purse... you know. Berlin underground map is just another ’i-love-Berlin’ photo, and Vogue actually makes sense because it’s Italian. I posted this one the day I bought my ticket to Rome. I’m so happy and I cannot wait to get to Italy. This is my first solo travel ever and I’m beyond excited.

Back to where we started. I took a stroll down the East Side Gallery last week – I’m preparing a post about that too. And I tried currywurst!! I felt that it was a big achievement because I’ve been refusing that for so long, but it did taste a lot better than I had expected! Another proof that you should never ever refuse to eat something just because (you think that) it looks bad. I told you guys before that I’m not a ketchup person, but this one in Curry 36 chain is really good and I could taste tomatoes! That’s also why I liked french fries with ketchup – usually I would never eat that, I prefer them on their own or with mayo – but this was good! So learn from my mistakes and just try the food. And don’t forget to love someone. Then it’s really nice to stumble upon an old garden table that says ’I love you too’.

Have a great day everyone! Btw, Italy related recommendations are still on – I believe that you’ve got some super duper tips! Leave them in comments!

Love, Tihana