An Opportune Moment

  • Who We Are
  • Where We’ve Been
  • Get in Touch
  • Who We Are
  • Where We’ve Been
  • Get in Touch

About

  • Who We Are
  • Where We’ve Been
  • Get in Touch

Subscribe to New Posts

Topics

The Past!

Looking for Something?

  • Berlins and Outs

    Der Spargel in den Zeiten der Corona / Asparagus in the Time of Corona

    April 23, 2020

    Apparently, spring is my favorite season in Berlin. In general, fall is my favorite season, but I was traveling outside of Europe for several weeks in September 2018 and October 2019 so I haven’t spent as much time here during the fall. Conversely, this is my third spring spent entirely in Berlin, and… I’m pretty disappointed to be spending it inside. Obviously, I’m happy to protect myself and others by staying home. On the list of issues caused by this global pandemic, missing spring is a minor inconvenience. But it’s my minor inconvenience, so I decided to acknowledge it with a blog post about something that makes spring in Germany…

    read more
    Emma 2 Comments

    You May Also Like

    Bikes, Beers, and Beautiful Sunsets

    May 29, 2018

    What makes a new city feel like home?

    August 1, 2018

    Righteous Fury: Thoughts on Politics and Religion

    October 30, 2018
  • Berlins and Outs,  Feeeeelings

    Do other people’s life decisions ever make you question your own?

    November 21, 2019

    A blogger I’ve followed for years (and met once in person) just announced that she and her husband are moving back to the US after two years in Italy. They moved to Europe with their dog and young daughter just six months before E and I moved abroad. When we announced our move on facebook, she commented, “Welcome to the fun side of the pond!” It was just one small comment, but I did feel welcomed — to the Americans abroad club by someone who had gone before me. Earlier this year, a college friend who moved to Berlin a couple months before us left for a job in Toronto.…

    read more
    Emma No Comments

    You May Also Like

    Residence Permit Problems

    May 15, 2018

    100 Days of Learning German!

    July 17, 2018

    What makes a new city feel like home?

    August 1, 2018
  • Berlins and Outs

    One Year in Berlin

    March 28, 2019

    One year ago today, we landed in Berlin with 4 suitcases, 2 backpacks, 1 visa, and nowhere to live. Our first night in the city, we got dinner at a beer hall down the street from our hotel. We ordered half liters of beer, pretzels, a cheese plate, and Weißwurst (white sausage). I later learned that Weißwurst is a typical Bavarian breakfast food — no wonder the server gave me a weird look for ordering it at 8pm. What’s changed in the last year? Well, we don’t make as many faux pas when eating German food. As our friend, Ramona, puts it: going to a Bavarian restaurant on your first…

    read more
    Emma No Comments

    You May Also Like

    Bikes, Beers, and Beautiful Sunsets

    May 29, 2018

    Traveling During the Pandemic

    December 1, 2021

    Thoughts on One Month of Living Abroad

    May 1, 2018
  • Berlins and Outs

    An Ode to Peanut Butter

    December 4, 2018

    At first I thought it was just one badly-branded jar of peanut butter. It was rife with US stereotypes. The Statue of Liberty, an anthropomorphized peanut wearing a cowboy hat, and a color scheme reminiscent of the American flag covered all but a few inches of space. Most damningly, the brand name was “McEnnedy.” I thought it was such a bizarre mash-up of American-sounding name conventions. It reminded me of “Häagen Dazs,” the ice cream brand whose nonsense name is meant to sound Danish, but is a decidedly American invention. Of course, E and I bought a jar of McEnnedy brand peanut butter and ate it all. It tasted… fine.…

    read more
    Emma No Comments

    You May Also Like

    Let’s talk about depression and bicycles

    September 1, 2018

    My Biggest Travel Mistake

    June 26, 2019

    Mundane Cultural Differences – Berlin vs. Boston (Part 1)

    July 24, 2018
  • Berlins and Outs

    To Make “Local” Friends or “Expat” Friends, That is the Question

    November 13, 2018

    People tend to want to make local friends when they live abroad. Spending time only with people you could have met at home creates this bizarre sense of failure. I remember it from when I studied abroad in Barcelona – I hung out mostly with the other Americans in my program, but it was a point of pride for me when I spent Halloween teaching a couple of Catalan women how to play Kings. That was my go-to I-hung-out-with-the-locals anecdote. It was a fun evening and it makes a pretty good soundbite. But “I want to hang out with locals” is kind of an odd, potentially tokenizing way to look…

    read more
    Emma 4 Comments

    You May Also Like

    One Year in Berlin

    March 28, 2019

    100 Days of Learning German!

    July 17, 2018

    Have Fun and Be Safe

    March 20, 2020
  • Berlins and Outs

    A Whirlwind Summer in Berlin

    September 25, 2018

    It’s officially fall, which means it’s time to reflect on summer. Doesn’t everyone do an end of the season reflection and make a short video of what they’ve been up to? Just me? Okay, well… A lot happened during our first summer in Berlin! Our friends Eben and Laura came to visit! It was their first trip to Europe and they were here for 4 weeks using Berlin as a home base. We did a lot of sightseeing around Berlin with them and with our friend, Ramona. Ramona also took us on a day trip to Dresden. And camping on the Ostsee (the Baltic Sea)! We spent a lot of…

    read more
    Emma 1 Comment

    You May Also Like

    Mundane Cultural Differences – Berlin vs. Boston (Part 1)

    July 24, 2018

    Righteous Fury: Thoughts on Politics and Religion

    October 30, 2018

    Residence Permit Problems

    May 15, 2018
  • Berlins and Outs,  The Great European Adventure

    Berlin, Revisited

    September 18, 2018

    As you (probably) know, I did a lot of traveling around Europe 6 years ago. Gosh, it pains me to realize that trip was 6 years ago. This feeling is only going to get worse as I get older, isn’t it? Sometimes when I travel, I have to assume I’ll be back again someday. Otherwise I drive myself mad trying to fit in as many experiences as possible and lamenting all the things I don’t have time for. Three years ago, E and I took a vacation to Barcelona and a couple days into the trip, I was in tears because I realized there wasn’t time to show him everything…

    read more
    Emma 1 Comment

    You May Also Like

    One Year in Berlin

    March 28, 2019

    Keine Familie ist illegal

    July 3, 2018

    My Biggest Travel Mistake

    June 26, 2019
  • a podcast about watching tv in another language

    We made a second episode of our dubbed Star Trek podcast!

    September 11, 2018

    Good news! After an overwhelming audience response of “… wow, you really didn’t know much about Star Trek, huh?”, Emma and Ian are back with a brand new, very exciting episode where we struggle to understand the plot of an episode of television older than we are that’s been dubbed into a language we don’t speak! Admittedly, this episode is slightly more straightforward than the wonderfully mystifying Farpoint Station duology that we covered in the first episode … or maybe it’s that Emma’s German skills are improving! Will the crew cure the mysterious horny illness that’s going around? Will Emma’s German class pay off and will she laugh at a bunch of…

    read more
    Ian Burnette 2 Comments
  • Berlins and Outs,  Close to Home

    What makes a new city feel like home?

    August 1, 2018

    A couple of weeks ago, I said to E, “I don’t miss Boston, not exactly, but I do miss knowing a place well.” It was a weekend evening and we were trying to figure out what to do with ourselves. I ended up saying, “what I really want to do is go to Aeronaut.” Aeronaut is a brewery in Somerville, MA that was a 5-minute walk from our old apartment. Their beer is good, but that’s not what I was missing. What I was missing was knowing where to go. There are plenty of breweries in Berlin, but we don’t have “our place” yet. I had a level of familiarity…

    read more
    Emma 7 Comments

    You May Also Like

    Mundane Cultural Differences – Berlin vs. Boston (Part 1)

    July 24, 2018

    Traveling During the Pandemic

    December 1, 2021

    An Ode to Peanut Butter

    December 4, 2018
  • Berlins and Outs

    Mundane Cultural Differences – Berlin vs. Boston (Part 1)

    July 24, 2018

    Emma and I moved from Boston to Berlin almost exactly 4 months ago, and there have been a lot of huge changes. We’re far away from family and friends, I’ve started a software development job, Emma’s just finished the second draft of her book, we’re both working on learning a new language … it can be a bit overwhelming when we think about it all. That’s not what I’m going to talk about in this post, though. In this post, I want to talk about the strange minutia that we’re already starting to take for granted, the little things that make us pause and go, “Huh. I guess that’s not…

    read more
    Ian Burnette 2 Comments

    You May Also Like

    What makes a new city feel like home?

    August 1, 2018

    Everything is Different Now

    April 22, 2018

    Have Fun and Be Safe

    March 20, 2020
 Older Posts
Copyright © 2023 - Emma Holliday
Ashe Theme by Royal-Flush