Moin!!!! Which is how you say hello in Northern Germany 🙂 My internship gave me a week off to visit some friends of mine from my exchange semester. A very needed week off, the past month I found that I put too much on my plate (interning full time, volunteering part time, and doing event photography pretty much every week) and could feel burn out creeping in. However, after this trip I am feeling refreshed, grateful, and excited to return to beautiful little Lesvos.

The trip was about 7 days total, with 4 days in the UK and 3 days in Germany. First stop, in the UK I went to Birmingham to visit my lovely friend Esme.  Here, she took me on the UK food tour, including my personal favorite, a classic fish and chips.  We also visited some lovely art museums and geology museums where I learned a lot about Anglo-Saxon history (the rock museum was my favorite though... featured below is my favorite rock). And, because I was travelling in November, I got to experience the UK culture... rain. (Not included in these photos is me joining the University of Birmingham jazz choir for a day.)

Me at the rock museum (I love rocks)

A proper fish and chips

Then it was off to Hamburg to visit Luisa!! On the agenda we had seeing the Old City of Hamburg, trying traditional German food, a Christmas market, and lots of long catch up chats while walking around the beautiful city (Hamburg is an incredibly underrated travel destination).

Some cute pictures from beautiful Hamburg... including a proper German Christmas Market!!!!

Me and Luisa in old city Hamburg

Sitting at the airport reflecting on the lovely past couple of days I’ve had, I feel so fulfilled. Not only to have such close friendships that span across the globe, but to have been able to see these friends again. I said goodbye to them nearly one year ago today, not knowing if or when I would see them. And one year later I finally got to visit their hometowns 🙂

Now, it is back to Lesvos. I am feeling rested and ready to get back to work. On the agenda this week we have: sending pitches to European universities to create a volunteer network, scheduling and capturing social media content for the next two weeks, collaborating with a photographer to refresh the website, organizing the timeline of the digital archive for my NGO, editing photos for a fundraising event I photographed recently, and, if I have time, screen printing hundreds of labels for the bags. Yes, I have a busy week ahead. But thank goodness it is work I enjoy!