Specials Archives - sateless suitcase

Life Snippets of 2019: What Remained

I've been writing and rewriting this blog post for exactly two years now. No matter how often I tried to find the right words, I just couldn't. Sometimes I would try to appear strong and make sarcastic jokes -- sometimes I sounded too whiney (especially in comparison with the global sh!tshow that the last two years have been with so many people going through so much tough stuff). But my emotions were (and still are) all over the place. Oscillating in-between sarcasm, self-pitying, and recounting traumatizing experiences with a hard-nosed neutrality is probably the most authentic I can be. So, [...]

By Julika|2022-05-31T12:01:54+02:002021/12/22|Categories: Specials|Tags: Germany, Göttingen, Lower Saxony|0 Comments

Life Snippets of 2019: The Before, the C-Word, the After

I was sitting outside the doctor's office waiting for my husband who had an appointment upstairs. It was an unusually warm February day and I had taken off my winter coat to soak in the early spring sun. Steffen was supposed to get some test results back. He had been having strange pains for a couple of weeks. At first I had thought he was just making up excuses to get out of our Sunday morning yoga class routine, but as the pains got worse I asked him to get checked out. It was taking long. Too long. I rolled [...]

By Julika|2021-12-12T17:45:57+01:002019/09/19|Categories: Specials|Tags: Amsterdam, Austria, Bavaria, Europe, Germany, The Netherlands|7 Comments

Life Snippets: The Second Half of 2018

Again, I'm more than several months behind with my biannual life update. You know very well that blogging hasn't been a priority in my life lately throughout the last years, although I certainly sometimes miss my regular writing routine. I've often felt bad for neglecting the audience I built with this blog. But to be honest, since the beginning of 2019, blogging has barely been on my mind at all. Sometimes, life is just so much bigger than social media updates. I will eventually write about how my life turned upside down since the beginning of 2019, but for now, [...]

By Julika|2021-12-12T17:57:54+01:002019/07/26|Categories: Specials|Tags: Europe, Germany, Montenegro|2 Comments

Life Snippets: The First Half of 2018

I had always been hesitant when it came to answering the question "Why do you write a travel blog?", because the commonly used phrase in the blogosphere "I just want to inspire people to travel" never sounded like the right answer to me. Deep down I knew the reasons I originally started blogging were boredom, procrastination, and escapism. But even that wasn't true. Looking back at who I was at six years ago, I understand now that my self-esteem was basically non-exsistent: I felt lost and incredibly lonely, I didn't know what to do with my life, I had lost [...]

By Julika|2021-12-12T18:16:51+01:002018/11/06|Categories: Specials|Tags: Austria, Berlin, Croatia, Europe, Germany|4 Comments

Life Snippets: The Second Half of 2017

Well, I've most definitely run out of good first blog post sentences to excuse my terrible habit of barely keeping up with the blog after almost-not-blogging for two years now. But as I explained in my last "life snippets" post: I still have so many photos lying around and it's just sad to not at least edit my favorite ones and present them somewhere. Thus another diary-style blog post with a collection of my top photos from the second half of 2017. Yes, we're four months into the new year. Yes, I'm fully aware that probably no one cares about [...]

By Julika|2021-12-12T18:35:39+01:002018/04/15|Categories: Specials|Tags: Germany, Iceland, Switzerland|2 Comments

Life Snippets: The First Half of 2017

One thing I could never wrap my brain around when it comes to travel blogging -- and blogging in general actually -- is how narcissistic it is. Do people really like reading an abundance of first person pronouns? Does anyone really care for random selfies in front of famous buildings? And yet, while being extremely aware about how self-absorbed the act of blogging is, I found myself wanting to share personal updates online for all these years. As you may have noticed though (I mean, who am I kidding here), I've cut back on my blogging output immensely throughout the [...]

By Julika|2021-06-01T00:04:06+02:002017/09/05|Categories: Specials|Tags: Berlin, Europe, Germany, Latvia, London|5 Comments

The Lasting Changes of 2016

2016 was the year this blog became shockingly quiet. I had been struggling with finding balance in-between working, traveling, blogging, and maintaining a social life ever since I started working back in 2013, but my struggles have gotten worse since. Maybe not actually worse, but my priorities shifted more and more as the years passed. I'm constantly amazed by people who can make time for working, blogging, maintaining relationships, and yet still work out, cook, and read a ton of books. However, I'm not one of those people: I can only focus on a few things at a time. I need "empty [...]

By Julika|2021-12-13T21:27:06+01:002017/02/27|Categories: Specials|Tags: Denmark, Germany, Italy, United States|7 Comments

A Lesson on Happiness from 2015

Although the New Year is already a couple of weeks old, I'm still thinking about how I love the nostalgic last days of the old and first days of the New Year. As someone who over-thinks even the smallest words and gestures for decades, I'm glad it's justified to cling to memories from the past year on the days before New Year's Eve -- and be hopeful during the first days and weeks of January. I'm usually more the pessimistic realistic type, but the idea of a fresh start never ceases to motivate me. In many ways, 2015 was a year [...]

By Julika|2016-01-30T18:28:56+01:002016/01/30|Categories: Specials|Tags: thoughts|3 Comments

Around the World in Coffees: The 2015 Edition

It's the most wonderful time of the year! And by that I mean: I get to look back on the last year through the coffees I drank! Ever since I wrote my first blog post about traveling and coffee, my yearly coffee round-up has become an article I look forward to writing the entire year. I love how a collage of my coffees always tells stories from my kitchen table in Göttingen to far-off places all over the world. The changing of scenery, light, cups, tables, or sweet treats on the side are always part of my favorite memories, because with [...]

By Julika|2016-01-03T15:57:24+01:002016/01/03|Categories: Specials|Tags: Berlin, Europe, Florence, France, Germany, Hamburg, Italy, Jordan, London, Luxembourg, Middle East, Paris, Turkey, UK|15 Comments

On Three Years of Blogging

I remember when I was younger, I kept stumbling across phrases like "once you're in your late twenties, you'll be less insecure" all over the place. I don't like clichés like that, but these days I feel like it's actually true: With age comes confidence. A few years ago, I was constantly thinking about what other people thought of me. I've always loved wearing black clothes for example, but I couldn't stand the comments about my appearance and questions like "has someone died or why are you wearing dark clothes all the time?". I spent weeks feeling uncomfortable in bright and [...]

By Julika|2015-10-01T09:07:43+02:002015/09/29|Categories: Specials|Tags: thoughts|20 Comments