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  • Berlins and Outs

    Wrocław, or Emma Tries to Convince You to Visit Poland

    July 2, 2019

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Poland should be on your European itinerary. When I backpacked around Europe six years ago, Krakow was one of my favorite stops. I met awesome people there, learned a lot about the city’s history, and ate so many delicious pierogi. Why Poland? The thing that drew me to Poland in the first place was my mother’s family. If we talk ancestry in terms of percentages, I’m mostly English, but if we talk in terms of cultural heritage, I feel most connected to my Polish roots. I called my maternal grandparents, “bopshe” and “jaju” (Americanizations of the Polish babcia and dziadzio), we…

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    I Never Expected to Learn German

    May 22, 2018

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  • Berlins and Outs

    My Biggest Travel Mistake

    June 26, 2019

    E and I forgot something really important when we went on vacation recently. It was worse than the time I arrived at London Heathrow Airport without a return flight booked. The UK doesn’t like to let people in without knowing when you’re leaving and the only thing that kept me from being detained was white privilege. Our recent mistake was even worse than the time I ate questionable samosas in India and got violently ill on an overnight train. Okay… that one was pretty bad. I should have known better and I suffered the consequences. But the most recent mistake E and I made was practically unforgivable for a couple…

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    Emma 2 Comments

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    Keine Familie ist illegal

    July 3, 2018

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    October 20, 2019

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    January 9, 2019
  • Feeeeelings

    We owe one another our attention

    June 14, 2019

    Today is the eight year anniversary of my dad’s death. I’m happy(?) to report: it doesn’t hurt the way it used to. The last couple years, I’ve been struck less by how much I miss him and more by how much he has missed. I notice big things he missed, like my wedding, and smaller things, like books he would have enjoyed. Since his death, I’ve traveled on five continents, my brother and I both moved abroad (in opposite directions), and my mother retired. I also spent several years in Boston working at the Museum of Science, and my dad would have thought that was the absolute coolest job. I…

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    Emma 2 Comments

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  • Berlins and Outs

    Getting to Know Schöneberg

    June 4, 2019

    The temperature reached 94 degrees (Fahrenheit, obvi) yesterday, so it seems safe to say summer has arrived in Berlin. Temperatures that high are actually kind of an unpleasant anomaly, but, in general, it’s warm and sunny here, and we’ve been spending more time outside as a result. We’ve started jogging in the evenings after work. There’s a bike path that runs alongside the train tracks, and we can follow it to a nearby grocery store. On Friday night, it was warm and humid and just starting to rain when we finished our run and went into the grocery store. The air had that amazing wet asphalt/ozone scent. We picked up…

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    Emma 2 Comments

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

    July 24, 2018

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  • Feeeeelings

    This is a post about Paris and the things fire takes from us

    April 25, 2019

    I wrote most of this post last week, and our news cycle moves so fast that it almost doesn’t feel relevant to post it this week. It feels wrong to keep talking about Notre-Dame when more than 320 people were killed on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka. Tragedies, great and small ones, happen every day. Miracles, great and small ones, do too. I’m sharing this not because I think it’s the most important topic to talk about at the moment. But because I want it to be okay for us to pause and acknowledge the things we’re thinking about even if they aren’t the day’s most pressing issues. Paris was…

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    Emma 2 Comments

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  • 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…

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  • Travel Inspiration,  Uncategorized

    We Went to Kenya! Kenya in Africa!

    February 19, 2019

    Our landlord texted us earlier this month. She wanted to see how we were doing and ask us to look into something at the apartment. E messaged back that we would do that when we got home and added, “Just returning on the S-Bahn from the airport, back from a trip to Kenya.” Her response was quick: Kenya?? Kenya in Africa? We told her yes, and sent a couple photos. We like our landlord a lot. Her reaction was amusing, but, when I think about, not so surprising. It’s kind of a big trip to drop casually into conversation. We travel pretty often, and we really only keep our immediate…

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    Emma 6 Comments

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    March 8, 2013

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    June 30, 2012

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    August 31, 2012
  • Berlins and Outs

    “Maybe We’ll Spend Christmas in Berlin”

    January 9, 2019

    Before E was even offered the job that brought us to Berlin, my mom and I started daydreaming about it. 2018 had just begun and I was experiencing some new year’s melancholy, and my mom commented, “maybe next year we’ll spend Christmas in Berlin!” It was a nice daydream, and I told her not to jinx it. She didn’t. Obviously. But it still felt kind of amazing when the holidays rolled around and we were actually here in Berlin. My mom came to visit for three weeks — starting in mid-December and staying through the New Year. And my brother and his partner arrived two days after Christmas and stayed…

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    May 29, 2018

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    October 30, 2018
  • Travel Tips

    Podcast Recommendations for the Holidays and Beyond

    December 12, 2018

    If you’re doing any traveling this holiday season and looking for something to listen to on planes, trains, and automobiles, boy, have I got some podcast recommendations for you. As you probably know, E and I have dabbled in making our own podcast. So, it should come as no surprise that we also listen to quite a few podcasts. I give podcast recommendations to my friends and family pretty regularly, and I decided it was time to collect them all in one place. The Best and Only Holiday Podcast You Need: Hark! I can’t make a podcast list without a little nepotism. Especially this time of year. Hark! is the…

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  • 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.…

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    Emma No Comments

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    June 5, 2018

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