In my mind, I’m always traveling: I have photos from Paris and Croatian beaches on the walls of my room, and a picture of the Irish coast as my desktop background at work. My mind is always racing, looking for new places to dream of, planning trips I might take someday. It’s not that I’m not happy with my everyday life, but I still like to dream myself away every day…

For the first time in a long time though, I feel intellectually challenged with what I spend my days with: I get to read and study all day long, I learn something new every day. I look at medieval art and comprehend more of the Germanic medieval languages on a daily basis. It only takes 30 seconds to walk down the stairs from my office to a heavenly equipped library full of medieval goodness. I literally work in geek heaven. And the other day I even noticed that do actually travel everyday — through time! Nonetheless, I miss the vacation mode, I miss the excitement of an upcoming trip and an unknown destination.

The only thing that really helps is looking through my new adopted home town Göttingen through the eyes of a traveler. As summer season is rolling in, I even spot international visitors in town every once in a while — and sometimes I just pretend to be one of them. I still have plenty to explore here, and sunny spring days make it so much easier to be entirely charmed by Göttingen.

My favorite activity right now is exploring the farmer’s market on the weekends. It’s the kind of thing that I would do on a vacation: In Rome I fell in love with the Italian cuisine all over again while sampling oils and spreads at Campo dei Fiori market, in Madrid I learned about the art of Spanish tapas at Mercado de San Miguel. In Germany however, there are not too many new foods to discover, but taking my camera out on a sunny morning to photography strawberries alone already puts me straight into vacation mode.

Holding a camera, always ready to photograph pretty flowers and coffees is something “Vacation-Julika” would do. By becoming my vacation-self on a regular Saturday in Göttingen, I can take a break from all the thoughts and fears of missing out that haunt my everyday life in form of friends who travel the world sharing photos and stories all over my social media platforms. I’m exploring my little pretty part of the world, and I’m satisfied with where I am right now. Of course, in my ideal world I would take an international trip at least once a month. But who knows, I might get there some day. And until then, I’ll try to be a tourist at home, taking my camera for a stroll on sunny May days…

Which one is your favorite photo from my sunny Saturday morning at Göttingen’s farmer’s market?