Traffic marmalade

Ok, so I'm in Berlin and this blog is now officially misnamed. I've just come from Hamburg, having spent 4 wonderful and busy days there.  

I spent my time in Hamburg with Marina, a friend of my mother and aunty’s from many years ago, when they were all travelling through Europe together, just like I am now. I really enjoyed staying with friends, as opposed to staying in a hostel and being a 'tourist'. Marina made me feel so welcome! I'm incedibly grateful to have met her and spent that time in Hamburg. If she's reading - HI MARINA! Haha. I feel it was a good start to Germany, and it also allowed me to learn a practice a little Deutsch before heading to Berlin on my own. 

 Here's Marina and I in her amazing garden! I think I definitely came to Hamburg/Germany at the right time - spring is in full swing, all the flowers are blooming and the sky is (mostly) clear. 

Marina took me sailing! The weather was a little bad in the morning (overcast, light rain), but then in the afternoon the clouds opened up and we got some good wind. We sailed along the Elbe River for most of the afternoon.

Other things:

I’ve packed too much, I need to throw some stuff out. I don’t want to, because the items I’m thinking of throwing out (my winter coat from London, for example) have sentimental value to me. On the other hand, I really want to throw them out, just to force myself to break this ridiculous hold that these objects have on me. They serve no purpose now and are quite literally weighing me down. Also personal possession related: I'm stressing about the boxes of stuff I've sent home to Australia from London because I forgot an important form and now they may be getting sent back to London. I'm sure it'll work out, but I'm also prepared for the worse case senario: I'll just have to get my landlady to resend my stuff and pay for it all over again myself. I hope the customer service rep at the company I'm shipping with shows a little (more) patience. *crosses fingers*. I just wanna sort it out, so then the rest of this trip can be as stress free as possible.

Money-wise I think I need to set myself a budget. I might make some time for myself either tonight or tomorrow morning to sit down with my diary and my bank accounts and work out how much I will be spending/have spent on accommodation/transport, and the work out from there how much more I can spend on this trip. I’m trying to think back to my trip to New Zealand 3 years ago to remind myself how to be frugal, as I did really well on that trip spending-wise. I find food is my main downfall. If I find something that’s vegan and looks delicious, I buy it regardless of price/hunger because I reason that I may never come across it again, or at least elsewhere on my trip. This generally leaves me eating too much food, and with not enough money in my wallet. 

Here's a question: what's the difference between a tourist and traveller? To me, tourist = bad, traveller = good/genuine. I have a few ideas, and perhaps in thinking about this question while being a tourist/traveller myself, I'll find some specific answers. I'll share them in a later blog post :)

Until next time...

Cathryn :) 

Ps. Just realise the title for this post needs explaining. My first morning in Hamburg, we were all sitting around the dining table having breakfast, and I was explaining to Marina how jam and marmalade are different things in Australia. Someone - I can't remember who, but it was either Marina or her husband - then made the observation that since jam and marmalade are different, you could not use the term 'traffic marmalade' in place of 'traffic jam' and have it mean the same thing.  I thought it was very funny at the time, and it's amusing in that it's the kind of joke that would only come up between people who speak different languages. :)