Ojalá pudiera estar contigo.***

I hope you all had a lovely christmas.

Mine was boozy, cheery and quite British. Our friend Hannah brought a massive, huge, beautiful tree from Manchester and we decorated it with tinsel and coloured lights. It kind of misses the class and elegance of the German christmas trees of my childhood, which were decorated with handpainted glass baubles, real candles, little wooden figures and straw stars, and just the right amount of lametta, which we reused every year.

This one, this year's tree, looks like a grown up version of them German ones. It's very tall. And it's dressed as if it was on its way to a New Year's Eve party. (I guess, it kind of is.) Mini skirt and glitter make up, the whole shebang. She's got a cheeky, quite lovable smile on her face.

British chritsmasses (this year's was my second), are a big party. Very fun, very enjoyable and very.... well, merry. People wear silly hats and pyjamas and are very busy constantly. At least on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve.

They're a daytime thing. Presents, big meals, all the important bits happen in the day. It's very different from the solemne and "besinnlich" German celebrations which happen in the evening. In Germany, at Christmas, we don't do anything. Nothing at all. We prepare in advance and then just sit and eat and read and light a few candles and recollect ourselves and sit around playing recorders. German christmasses are very dark, but full of little lights. British christmasses are very colourful and loud and more fun than German ones. But just not as classy. (Just not as... and I am only saying this, because I am German and used to the other sort... christmassy.)

You can't have it all, I suppose.

And then New Year, 2013.

When I was a teenager, every year around that time I would sit down and make a list of all the important things that had happened that year.

- went to concert in Zürich
- went to concert in Neu-Isenburg
- had a boyfriend for two weeks, his name was Manuel* and he was a bad kisser
- went to concert in Augsburg

That sort of thing.

Here's my list for 2012:

- Made a parkour video with Ros, which was fun
- Went to see Ani in concert at the Union Chapel in Islington
- Got made redundant for the first time in my life
- Found a new job, my first proper long term full time job, actually
- worked my ass off and learned lots about cat food and dog worming
- Spent a weekend in Trowbridge with Ros family
- Went to Bath, which is beautiful
- summer didn't come
- My grandma died
- I went to the funeral and felt weird. And have been feeling wrong ever since.
- Went to Brighton a couple of times
- I moved into 7c, sharing a room with Ros
- Spent 9 days in Konstanz
- Ros swam in my lake for the first time. Didn't think I'd ever go out with someone who it would take 3 years.
- My brother came to visit me in London.
- I got horrible illness/hooping coughs
- spent bonfire night burning up with fever at Anna and Rich's house
- Someone close to me took their life.
- Conny came to visit me in London
- Entered my late twenties via a bourlesque wrestling night in the resistance gallery
- Went to Berlin and fell in love a bit
- Went to Bristol to spend a weekend with lovely nephew Miles
- Spent a weekend in Konstanz, which was a bit like candy floss. Only better for the teeth, cause I went to the dentist there, too.
- A Very British Christmas
- Next.

All in all a rather weird year. But in many ways better than 2011, which, already, I hardly remember.

I don't think I went to enough concerts.

Next year, the plans are big ones. The weather's good.

Resolutions? Yes. I'll keep up last year's of being a better daughter, which, I can say proudly, I was in ways (I definitely wrote home more often and I called them more than they called me. So.) And to lose all the weight I gained in 2012. Which will be a challenge. Cause it's almost 2 stones.


Happy new year, everyone!


*Manuel Matzke, we went out for two weeks in 1997, which we spent sitting under a bridge** near my parents' house. We went out, because we were embarrassed to be the only two people in the group who were not going out with anyone. Don't remember anything about him, apart from his bad kissing and his dark blue track suit, which I swear he didn't take off once during the entire time I called him my boyfriend. In the end he broke up with me by means of a very dramatic letter written on Diddle letter paper.

** I went and sat under that bridge about 4 years ago. There was still a drawing under all those bad graffitis saying "I <3 Tara". Kind of sweet.

*** Oh, why this title? I am also going to learn Spanish in 2013. At least a little.

Winter Wonderland

It happens like that.

You go a place, fall in love and stay - for years! You have your ups: romatic walks, great parties, interesting discussions, passionate nights and fascination, you have your downs: lonely moment, fights, feeling lost, sad, being broke and miserable.

But you hold on and really, after a couple of years you are still in love, and if not in love, at least, you still love them. Because you know them well, at least the important bits, you respect them and you have all those memories...

And then something happens. You go some place you've never been before and you just fall, or crash, head over heals into a new romance. It's exciting. It's interesting. It's a little un-real and scary. But mostly good.

It happened to me last week, people and I never thought it would - I am totally and utterly in love with Berlin.


KACHOOOM.


I always thought it would be Hamburg.

(And to be honest, it still might be, once I give it the chance... The few times I gave it the chance it paid off, I remember cranes, prostitutes, a shaman, fires at the beach, and the best toy train show in the entire world ever.)

But Berlin is beautiful - in a very subtle, RuPaul kind of way.

It's so interesting I am going to wee myself on a regular basis. And it is cheap. Hello.

I live in London right now, where the tap water is free, but gives me a rash. In Berlin, I could occupy my own two bed room ex-bunker or ex-stasi flat for 450 EUR a month and that includes a bottle of Jaegermeister and excellent plumbing.

Only a matter of time, really.

Today we spent the day in Winterwonderland/German Christmas Market in HydePark, which is fun, too, and with 8 quid a Stein quite reasonably priced for a British Octoberfest-mock-up (which I think it must be). It's the least christmassy thing I have ever seen. But I also love it dearly. They sell paella and pizza and have a massive spook house with an even massier slaughtered (fake, I might add) shark on the roof right next to "Santa land". It is all a bit weird. They do Gluehwein, though and play DJ Oetzi. I feel right at home.





PS: I secretly love Winter Wonderland so much, it is sickening. You should all go.