Updated on April 29, 2024 by Angelika

1. As a child, I wanted to marry Tarzan (at that time there was a Tarzan series on Saturdays with Ron Ely as Tarzan on television. Does anyone still know the series?). In preparation, I knitted with a knitting dolly a vine (actually a relatively thin woolly worm about 12 m long), with which I wanted to abseil down from the third floor - where we lived - from the window sill. My father came into the room at the last second and saved me from jumping off.

2. I have been writing short stories in a literary workshop for over 20 years. For a while, we published a book every year.

3. When I was a child, I first wanted to be a teacher, and later a journalist or a writer.

4. Although I had the worst school grades in mathematics next to physics, I later worked for years as a project controller and loved getting to the bottom of the numbers.

5. I'm almost always late for appointments, except when I'm traveling and dealing with important authorities - then I can be on time.

6. Accordingly, I find it particularly annoying when visitors arrive too early. That completely throws me off and bad things can happen with the food on the stove.

7. I cannot lie,but can remain silent.

8. I've moved house 15 times in my life.

9. When I was 22, I moved from Stuttgart to Bremen for love.

10. In Bremen, my daughter was born - the best thing that has happened to me in my life 😍.

11. At 24, I had a husband, a baby and two teenage stepsons. It was challenging.

12. I got divorced when I was 27.

13. After returning to my home town of Sindelfingen, I worked for a global IT company for 27 years.

14. I had professional assignments in South Africa, India, California and a number of European countries.

15. At the Liliesleaf-guesthouse in the north of Johannesburg over breakfast in 2005, I met Arthur Goldreich, a former Nelson Mandela's comrade-in-arms,who had bought Liliesleaf farm together with Harold Wolpe - another ANC co-founder - in the early 1960s. He told me that Nelson Mandela had gone into hiding here disguised as a gardener, showed me where the anti-apartheid fighters had buried their weapons and told me about his (Goldreich's) escape from prison. This experience moved me very much.
    
    By the way, you can find the best travel tips for South Africa at travelbuddieslifestyle.com.

16. As a child, I didn't like rice pudding, semolina porridge or warm milk. It's stayed that way to this day.

17. I am a qualified foreign language correspondent for English. I have communicated in English in all my jobs (i.e. for 37 years) and worked in international teams for many years. The contact and constant exchange with people from all over the world was the best part of the job for me. That's why I set up this blog bilingually 🙃.

18. In my mid-thirties, I (then a single mom) embarked on an evening course in business administration, which I successfully completed and which opened a few doors for me professionally.

19. I wasn't particularly good at English at school until I was 13, when I became a Beatles fan and enthusiastically translated all the song lyrics with the help of the dictionary (this was long before there were computers). My English grade improved from 3 to 1 within one school year.

20. When I was 11, I taught myself to type in the 10-finger system on my mother's mechanical typewriter.

21. When I could type, I supplemented my pocket money by writing address labels for advertising mail for my father's employer. I got 7.5 pfennigs per address.

22. With the money from typing addresses and a vacation job in the complaints department of the local bank, I was able to finance a three-week language trip to London.

23. During my stay in London, I and two like-minded girls managed to get through to George Harrison's fortress-like secured castle in Henley-on-Thames .

24. We returned from Henley-on-Thames so late that our host father had alerted the police because we weren't home in time for dinner.

25. I loitered with the same group of fans in front of Paul McCartney's house in London until his adopted daughter chased us away.

26. London was also the first time in my life that I became acquainted with McDonald's. The food there tasted so good that I ate five hamburgers, three portions of fries and two apple pies in one afternoon. The next morning I was so sick that I couldn't go to class.

27. Today, I would only eat at McDonald's if I were on the verge of starvation (which is unlikely).

28. I love coffee and cake in the afternoon, and I treat myself to it almost every day.

29. "Sport is murder" was my motto for a long time. I've been doing yoga regularly since my rehab in 2018 and it's good for me!

30. I've been doing intermittent fasting since 2019 and only eat from 12 noon - except when I'm traveling, when I like to treat myself to a sumptuous hotel breakfast.

31. When traveling, I almost always have a travel iron in my luggage.

32. My luggage is usually overweight. That's why I've had to leave a lot of travel irons behind at airports.

33. My friend Paula, with whom I often travel, lives in Australia. We met on a Garden Route tour in South Africa in 2005.

34. Despite what I thought was my perfect High German, I was identified as a Swabian by everyone during my time in Bremen.

35. In the beginning, I felt like a foreigner when shopping in Bremen. Because there, Fleischwurst = cooked sausage ("Gekochte"), Lyoner = Mortadella, Salami = Mettwurst, smoked belly = striped bacon, pork neck = neck cutlet, etc. pp. It was very frustrating.

36. My first single was Nutbush City Limits by Ike & Tina Turner,my first LP Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles.

37. As a kid, I had fun climbing up on the garage roof and jumping down from the top onto the concrete yard.

38. I like to explore cities on foot. When sightseeing, I can walk 20 km in one day, which I otherwise don't feel like doing.

39. The first trip abroad with my parents and my sister was to Poreč (then Yugoslavia) - with a borrowed house tent and an old Simca.

40. My first long-distance trip was a visit to my school friend in Florida in 1993,together with my then 6-year-old daughter.

41. My first safari I did in 2003 with my South African colleague and her husband, who traveled with me over the weekend from Johannesburg to the Pilanesberg National Park. I've been infected with the Africa virus ever since.

42. I only recognized during the pandemic recognized how worth seeing Germany is, and what there is to discover here.

43. At 56, I had a burnout and as a result gave up my job.

44. I only started blogging at the ripe old age of 60. It's never too late for a fresh start!

45. I only want to do things that I really enjoy. With blogging, I can combine all my hobbies - traveling, writing and photography .

46. During the pandemic, I started posting about my travels on Instagram. Before, I wasn't interested in social media at all.

47. I never want to stop learning new things.

48. My first car was an old VW Beetle.When it rained, water always collected in the footwell.

49. At the age of 12, I took a judo course and have never forgotten how to roll properly when falling. This has literally saved my head many times - I'm quite scatterbrained and sometimes trip over my own feet.

50. I drink black tea in the morning, green tea at noon, cappuccino in the afternoon, and Rooibos tea (or red wine) in the evening. I don't like fruit teas and flavored teas at all.

41. I hate cumin 🤢. For three weeks while working in Chennai, I ate cheese toast and fruit juice for lunch, muesli bars (which I had wisely brought with me from Germany) and a snack in the hotel bar in the evening.

52. In 1979, I visited Berlin with school.In Bernauer Straße, we were able to look to the other side over the Wall . As a young mother, I watched the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 on television. Somehow it fills me with awe that I have already experienced so much history.

53. I need absolute silence when I sleep and therefore always sleep with Earplugs.

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