[Bio] When in Germany

I was 27 when I first stepped foot in Germany.

It is kinda weird that I have always felt a special “connection” with this country. I was in 3rd grade when I first had an encounter with it when my classmate brought her aunt’s German language book to school. I was so fascinated by the language that I tried to make sense of it on my own based on the illustration (this was pre-internet, of course. I couldn’t Google things yet). I even borrowed it and brought it home with me only for her mother to dash my dream of interpreting the language. She saw that we were looking at it one day while I was visiting and she gave us a scolding. She said that we shouldn’t touch it because it was super expensive.

In university, I had this yearning that I want to do my Master’s degree in a university in Münster and I don’t even know why. Mind you, I don’t even know to this day if there is a university there that offers a master’s degree in Geology but my mind was so set back then that it would happen. Apparently, there is a word for this in German which is really fitting, “Sehnsucht”. You just yearn but as to why, no one really knows.

And when I met a German guy and eventually ended up dating him, I thought that was the clearest sign from the universe that Germany was my destiny. When he first sent me a photo of the Hohenzollern Bridge in Cologne, I told myself that I will stand in front of it one day. And surprisingly, not even a full year after he sent that photo, I found myself right in front of it.

That photo overlooking the Cologne Cathedral and of course, the Hohenzollern Bridge

It was April 2022 when I first stepped foot in Germany. My plane landed in Cologne and I felt a sense of belonging immediately. I soaked everything around me, tried currywurst and even watched ferries in the Rhine. Everything felt right and it was as if I was living the life of the many protagonists I have read about. It was as if history was flowing right through me.

inside the Cologne Cathedral COVID times

currywurst!!!!

I spent a lot of time in North Rhine-Westphalia. The name of this state alone gives me goosebumps to this day because it sounds so regal, so official and European to an Asian like me! I have come to love the very romantic city of Aachen with the Aachen Cathedral serving as the domineering backdrop of the city and of course, the Rathaus itself. I couldn’t believe that I was able to walk the very same street that Charlemagne once roamed. I have been to Bochum, Essen, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Bonn and of course, Hattingen. The latter being a place that was once quite dear to me.

outside the Rathaus

inside the Aachen Cathedral

somewhere in the Aachner Wald

overlooking the Tranchot-Obelisk in Lousberg

I forgot which Eifelsteig this is in Nationalpark Eifel

Monschau

On a trail in Stolberg

Düsseldorf

Kaiserpfalz Kaiserswerth

Inside the House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn

Hamburg

Aachen Rathaus

At Burg Isenberg

Historische Altstadt Hattingen

in a field at Witten

I remembered how I travelled across Germany in the summer of 2022. Deutsche Bahn introduced the €49 ticket around that time so I took the opportunity to make the most out of it. I travelled from Stockholm to Copenhagen for 10 hours via FlixBus and spent another 4 hours travelling from Copenhagen to Lübeck. We crossed the Fehmarn Belt and it was kinda surreal seeing the Danish flag behind and looking towards the fast approaching German soil in front of me. I felt so alive during that trip! I met interesting people along the way, one of which was an Afghan national that escaped Afghanistan with the Danish embassy personnel when the Taliban took over again after the US left their country.

During the ferry ride taken by the Afghan guy

That FlixBus ride dropped me at the heart of Lübeck, a city in Schleswig-Holstein. My mouth was agape when I first saw the Holstentor! This imposing gate would be the first thing one would see upon arriving at Lübeck. At that moment, I knew I made the right decision despite travelling for that long. I fought so hard to plan this trip because everyone thought that I was being ridiculous travelling for 14 hours from Stockholm just to spend two days in that city. But my mind was set, I wanted to see Lübeck. I wanted to see the “capital” of the Hanseatic League in the olden times.

HOLSTENTOR!

Around this time, I already knew that I was going to Bergen, another Hanseatic “city”, so I have this desire to tick off all the main cities (key historic cities such as Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, Gdańsk, Riga, Tallinn, Visby, London, Novgorod, and Bergen among others). I am quite whimsical like that.

that little devil himself up close and personal

 The Devil's Stone

A statue honors the local legend that the devil helped build St. Mary's church after being tricked into thinking it was going to be a wine bar.

Stadtverwaltung Hansestadt Lübeck

if you like Marzipan, this is the place to go

I spent two days in the historically-fulfilling and gorgeous-looking Lübeck. Afterwards, I have spent another 18 hours or so travelling across Germany. First it was from Lübeck to Hamburg, then Hamburg to Bremen, then Bremen to Osnabrück, Osnabrück to Dortmund, then Dortmund to Düsseldorf and finally Düsseldorf to Aachen. That was a painstakingly long ride but my eyes were satiated by the things I have seen and experienced along the way.

photo after surviving the long trip from Stockholm to Aachen

The last time that I set foot in Germany was the summer of 2023. I did a tour in Koblenz then as one of my main activities on that vacation. It is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate and I have really wanted to see it for quite some time. I walked across that city as if I belonged there and took a lot of photos at the Deutsches Eck. There, I was trying to memorize all the 16 Bundesländer of Deutschland which were gracing the wall of the Memorial of German Unity as I need to know it for a future citizenship exam.

Historiensäule, Koblenz

inside the Kaiser-Wilhelm Monument, overlooking the Deutsches Eck

inside Ehrenbreitstein Fortress

view from the Biergarten Festung Ehrenbreitstein

Deutsches Eck

coat of arms of North Rhein-Westphalia

I remembered how I was surrounded by friends and loved ones at the Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in Bonn. They took me to one of those screens where you can try out some questions from the German Citizenship Exam. I only got 3 mistakes then and everyone was cheering me on. When the time comes, they laughingly encouraged, I will definitely ace it.

That summer, I was so sure of my life path. I love and enjoy Germany and I know that I can thrive and even grow there. I was readying myself for the final move after Norway since the former has always been the final destination. But while hiking in Stolberg, I saw one of the final cracks of this illusion. Sometimes, even when someone claims to love you, they would still do things that make you realize they actually don’t. They wouldn’t watch their words and there will come a time that you would just feel numb and dream that everything will be alright in the end. But that was just a dream, an illusion of a life you want to live and so you are forced to move forward.

Stolberg castle

birthday picnic then 2023

Germany is now a distant dream. I know I can always go there to relive a past self that longed for it but I am now a different me. This current self still dreams about travelling the Romantic Road and visiting Trier, walking across Berlin and having a day tour in Chemnitz. I am still Aileen but no longer that self that dreamed about belonging in Germany.

in memoriam of that past self who dreamed of making Germany her home

[Ramblings] The Void

I don’t know how to explain what I’ve been feeling lately. The last few weeks were definitely stressful and suffocating that I didn’t have the time to write purposefully at all.

Soulless in snow

My thoughts were comparable to a cluttered room where one can’t easily make sense of. There was seemingly too much to do with so little time or maybe just enough time with a lot of things to do in mind. Either way, it wasn’t really the most ideal situation for me. As a planner, and a self-proclaimed efficient one at that, I noticed how ‘hurt’ my brain has been through everything that I’ve experienced. Nothing seemed to fall in place. The plans scheduled never materialized and timelines were definitely missed. Within me, I felt this gnawing sense of resentment and discontent. To whom or to what is not even a question to have since I know for a fact that there was nothing to direct these negative emotions to. It’s just how it is and I have learned to accept the circumstances I have been in and accept whatever the results or consequences are. 

There were nights when I felt like a child that was so afraid and lost in a big and scary world. Everything felt so uncertain, frightful and foreign all of a sudden and I found myself gasping and whimpering. The confusion and insecurities made me restless and it felt as if there was no end in sight. I usually just ended up hugging and crying myself to sleep as I tried to navigate and process all the fears and anxieties I was having. The decades of experience that I have living in this world seemed so insignificant and useless. I was somehow helpless.

I guess this is the human experience. Sometimes, you just have to go through things and brave it all the way through until the ‘grand scheme’ reveals itself. On the daily, if I am going to be honest, I just try to gaslight myself to see things through. I try to make myself believe that everything will get better even if I don’t have the complete confidence that this is the case. I guess you just have to believe because after all, it has definitely gotten better for me. 

No lessons here or whatsoever. Just utter rawness.

[Ramblings] Nietzsche's Nihilism

I have a lot of pent up anger lately and it’s kinda funny that it is being masked by either languishing or isolating that I’ve been doing. There is this passive rage that has been building since the beginning of autumn and now it is a full-blown exasperation that makes me want to kill myself just to leave it all behind. 

It’s not that I am angry at the world. Far from it. I like the world, its landscapes and ever-changing facades, but not the people in it. I know, I know. Perhaps the latter came out rather strong but that is usually the first thing that comes to mind whenever I try to describe what I have been feeling inside.  I have been asked time and time again if I am a misanthrope but I also hate that term. I think it is a rather extreme term and somehow boxed me in and what I am feeling. I think, just like most human emotions, my hatred is rather fluid and dynamic. It has a range and more often than not, I am apathetic to everyone. Besides, I don’t necessarily avoid human society. I mostly enjoy the ‘society’ but I can definitely pinpoint what should be eradicated, removed and/or added only in a small dose in order for it to be palatable for myself.

For the most part, I like kind and calm people. They seem so innocent, so angelic, almost not a part of this world. Although intrigued, I refuse to mingle with them because I don’t want them to be ‘stained’ or ‘corrupted’ by whatever ‘worldly’ vibes that I would exude. So, just like a sensible person, I try to just stay in the background and admire those from a distance. It’s also a good thing for me because you should never, and I am saying NEVER again for emphasis, meet your heroes. It will just ruin the image that I have of them. BUT, if I was given the opportunity to be inside their sphere of existence, I would definitely take pleasure in it to the fullest. I’ve met several of these gems and I would say that those were my starstruck moments still.

I like the highly intellectuals too. These are the most fun to hangout with, especially those with no airs on them. I indulge in the titillating conversations, the witty banters and this energy that although they know that they are freaking smart, they are also demure and very much down to earth. The world would be a better place if these people are ruling it.

As for the kind of people that I don’t like, I think it’s not that simple now that I think about it. I don’t believe that there are inherently ‘bad’ people because there seems to be two types of that. I also think that there is another group that seems to be in a gray-area because you don’t know what to do with them and their stands and beliefs. I know it’s not really cool to categorize people since there are a lot of variables to consider when one is faced with a decision or a choice and all of us have varying convictions and stances and surprisingly, morals, when we are looking at situations and/or the result of the said choice. Given the former, I still think that there are people (1) who choose to be bad (make bad choices just to save face, pretend that they know things for their vanities, doing things just because and in order to show people that they are in-charge, those who exploit and take advantage of people freely and deliberately, those who treat others with disdain, etc.) and those (2) who are unaware that they are being a dumbass and hurting other people because of their actions. The latter is forgivable because it’s no one’s job to make everyone happy and there is always gonna be a party that will get hurt at the end of the day. Those who belong to the first type are abominable and would probably suffer in the fires of hell if that exists.

And for some annoying reason, I’ve been encountering the ‘bad’ people more frequently than I want to. Those who exploit and take advantage and those that pretend that they are smarter than they actually are for their vanities to be precise. Of course those who belonged to the last-mentioned have a range from ‘just annoying’ to ‘deadly’ depending on the situation (it can be just a friend that keeps on insisting that her reasonings are right which leads to poor decision-making for others to people choosing to sail even though there is an overcast in the news). The first one though? Simply despicable. Entitled people think that just because they have money, they can own a person. 

As for myself? I think for the most part I belonged to the ‘gray group’. I am mostly apathetic, riding on the flow sometimes and thinking for myself. I have convictions, strong opinions and stances but I choose to just seeth inside. I would just simply leave if the situation doesn’t suit me or my interest. I refuse to die on any hill unless it can impact my life significantly. Most things in this life, if not all, don’t really matter. You can just simply walk out of everything, people included, when it’s not susceptible to your growth, development and happiness anymore. There are not a lot of things in this life that are worth pursuing, truth be told.  

[Ramblings] Essay: Being Ready

It feels like it has been ages since the last time that I’ve written anything. Too many thoughts already passed by and languished but from time to time, a couple vestiges remain. Whether they are bothersome truths, late night realizations or engaging fantasies, I’ve kept them all in for my entertainment (and possibly to yours).

Bergen in Autumn

I have someone who I consider to be a really good friend. The connection we have is rooted from a drastic case of trauma bonding. I feel like our journey towards self-realization is simultaneous but they are probably a bit ahead of me. Which is not a problem, by the way. It is actually an opportunity for me to gain more wisdom from their experience and thoughts and to reflect on my current situation and worldview. We were talking one night about love and relationships and how, albeit unfortunate, there is no such thing as ‘the right person’ for us. That, contrary to this popular opinion, there is only the right “US”. 

That statement opened up a dialogue in my head. Countless hours of ruminations broken only by activities that I need to accomplish right away. Inwardly, I keep on asking myself if I am the right ‘me’ now but asking this question is rather counterproductive. I think if I keep on just asking myself if I am now ready, better, doing well or even just surviving, the answer would always be a resounding ‘maybe’. Feelings change, same as our thoughts and beliefs and in general, even our physical form. The only thing that will remain rather constant or solid is our personal and dire conviction.

And I have conviction. No matter how shaky or unstable it feels sometimes, I am upholding it. To me, entering a relationship, whether it be romantic or platonic, is a huge deal. Now that I know better, I almost never enter one with my eyes closed. Gone are days where I can just haphazardly say that I’ve just fallen and that’s it, I just have to deal with it. Now, even with an overwhelming sense of fear, I jump with utmost intention and consent. Regardless of the outcome, I am all in. Besides, I’ve learned early on that all human relationships end in pain. That is the ultimate consequence of being able to love. 

[Ramblings] The Absurdity of it All

It has been quite awhile since the last time that I was able to write an entry. Aside from the fact that I’ve been very busy with spring and all the related events associated with that season here in Bergen, I can honestly say that happiness has shun away the brooding writer in me.

Random candles for y'all

There were some thoughts, of course. Thoughts that I decided to just mull over and not put on paper. It wasn’t because they were not good enough as subjects to begin with, rather, they were just so personal to me. It’s like a whisper from the subconscious that I couldn’t even make sense of fully. And if I couldn’t understand a thing, how am I able to write about it? I’ve never been a good fictional writer and I even barely lie in real life. Something that I am equally proud of and annoyed about. I wish I were more imaginative in a colorful way. Don’t get me wrong, I take pride in how sensibly I write and express my thoughts. Everything was researched, structured and I took great pains in connecting everything so it will tie up nicely in the end. But, yeah, they seem to be quite cerebral and philosophical, quite pretentious even if I actually believe in all of them.

So, the quest to be imaginative begins. I believe I am living a rather exciting life and I just do things whenever I feel like it (NB!: As long as it is still bound within my current beliefs in relation to morality and the sovereign authority of the country I am living in). With that in mind, it still doesn’t mean that I am ‘exciting’ as a person. I think I am rather dull. While on this journey, I confirmed something about me: I am uptight as shit.

I take the same path whenever I go hiking. I take photos of the same view while running or cycling. I sit on the same bench, on a specific spot, whenever I am on a walk. I pick up the same type of black pen whenever I am writing because otherwise, it will be an eyesore in my notebook. Speaking of notebooks, I have a ‘scratch’ notebook and a ‘final’ notebook because there is a great urge within me to scratch my eyes out if there’s a single erasure in the ‘final’ notebook. All the fictional books I own go to the side of my bed while the classics and philosophy ones should be on my study table. My cosmetics are separated based on their types, then their frequency of use and if they are used or new. Clothes should be folded nicely, otherwise I won’t be able to sleep. Judas, I sure sound like a psychopath. Fortunately, that wasn’t really the case. I mean, I am just taking control of the things that I can actually change or do something about. It was this innate desire to put everything in order as to how I see it fit. The anxiety to have everything ‘perfect’ by our definition was taking over me. It made me bored and boring. I thought I was chill but I am in a seemingly eternal state of perturbation. 

I have accepted that life is absurd but I haven’t embraced the fact seemingly. I try to keep things in order because of the delusion that it can make me feel like I am in control of something. I balled my hand, grasping on anything that I can and could, as a consoling mechanism. I hold on to things that I can control and haphazardly handle things that I couldn’t. Imbalance ensued and creativity was drained. Apparently, what makes life beautiful is to not take a lot of things so seriously and some things a little bit more carefully. Attachments are attachments regardless of how seemingly fleeting they are. It’s counterproductive to see things and people based on how ‘temporary’ they feel. To always prepare for sad partings and to just be heavily focused on the mundane don’t really give us the full experience.

Now, I find myself disengaging with heavy thoughts. Beautiful flowers are just beautiful flowers. Proses give tightness in my heart but I blink and life is beautiful again. Hugs and kisses are momentary delights but I carefully store the memory of them. Scalding words hurt me but tomorrow, they were just a remnant of the past. The people in my life might just be passing by but I deal with them with utmost care and curiosity. The mundane is just the mundane and experiences, no matter how fleeting they may seem, I cherish how it made me feel.

Currently, I am trying out new music and food. For several days, I have been picking up books that are not really within my acceptable genres. I have been uncomfortably putting myself also in situations that I would usually refuse to be in. I have been saying, ‘no’, to a  lot of things that I would usually just agree on to save face and saying, ‘yes’, to things that I would probably scoff about. And right now, I am just writing about something that I haven’t ‘prepared’ for. Just a random piece on a random day in an absurd world.

[Stoic Meditation] Trust, But Verify

“First off, don’t let the force of the impression carry you away. Say to it, ‘hold up a bit and let me see who you are and where you are from–let me put you to the test’....”

Epictetus, Discourses, 2.18.24

Oh, dear God. There's probably a lot of things going on in my mind lately that writing eludes me. Usually it comforts the chaos within me, makes sense of the inner turmoil, but right now, it’s just not happening. I guess everything really does come into a territory sometimes. 

I have been trying to write about ‘Trust’ since last night and apparently I couldn’t. When one truly doesn’t understand something, it makes it difficult for one to expound on it and communicate it to others. I literally have to pick up Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” to get some inspiration, (It’s a book addressing female writers or maybe writers in general. At least, that’s what I get from it) and thank God, I did. This curious appeal marked me: “I am asking you to live in the presence of reality, an invigorating life, it would appear, whether one can impart it or not.” So maybe that’s the problem. I am trying to just write for the sake of it without actually living something out first. Focusing solely on the abstract definition of the word is one thing but it doesn’t give life to an already intangible concept. 

Trust is such a difficult noun to grasp. Just like most intangible things, it is something that you probably know what it is but not completely understand. And when you turn it into a verb, it gets even more complicated. As emotional beings, with years of experience and knowledge of the world plus subjective prejudices, stereotypes and assumptions, “trusting” is almost always never objective.

Personally speaking, I have conflicting thoughts about trusting people. It’s like I want to be more open to the idea of it but fear hinders me from doing so. Previous experiences made me wary of it and I feel like it’s more important to protect myself than to improve social connections and/or relationships. BUT, of course, I acknowledge that this is going to be a big problem of mine in the long run. This fear of trusting others can be an isolating shackle that inhibits me from enjoying life to the fullest and for having meaningful connections. And as a 20% hedonist, that would be a gargantuan dilemma for me.

The best way I can describe it is like this:

Imagine if our ancient ancestors just decided to stop exploring the idea of fire and what it can actually do after a particularly painful encounter with it. Let’s just say that one Australopithecus sediba, let’s call her ‘Erica’, just happened to come too close to a wildfire. She and her family (or friends, or commune, or whatever), live near or within a dense forest in the now continent of Africa. She was so fascinated by the fire because it was her first time seeing it. Being quite curious, she came close and felt that it was warm. That was delightful for her so she came even closer. She was so excited so she just decided to go and dive in. Fist and arm, point blank period. You can’t blame her though because (1) it was her first time so she doesn’t have any prior experience on it and (2) she just has a particularly small cranial capacity.

As you would expect, she got a third-degree burn. She went running back to her friends to show her white and charred upper limb, bone showing even. For some reason, she didn’t die. Maybe out of luck or sheer goodness from an unknown celestial being. So now, there was this walking Australopithecus sediba with an injury from the fire for all to see. What happened to her spread like wildfire (no pun intended). Not only to her species but also to the emerging Homo species in town. The H. ergaster were in utter shock, just like their Spanish cousins, the H. antecessor. They swore amongst themselves that they will stay away from the fire because they could be that poor Erica.

The fear passed through evolution and the now emerging H. erectus believes the same. Their elders, the H. ergaster, indubitably claimed that fire is bad news, that they shouldn’t dabble with it. (I know that there are still some debates whether H. ergaster is a separate specie or just a sub specie of H. erectus but for the sake of this illustration, let’s just follow the Geologic timeline of their emergence and carbon dating of the ‘human’ fossils). AND so, the controlled use of fire never came to be. NOTHING HAPPENED. No cooked food, no smelting. The Industrial Revolution was just a distant dream.

That was quite fun to write and I got a little bit sidetracked there. The gist of that whole narrative is this: sure, you’ll get stitches and burn when you trust someone but it doesn’t mean that you should stop doing it altogether after getting hurt. There are a lot of things that you won’t enjoy in life if you just isolate yourself because you’re afraid of getting hurt again. First and foremost, not all people, and in extension–experiences, are the same. You can’t always assume that the same thing will happen because you’re just inviting bad shit in your life. As a scientist, it baffled me that a lot of people subscribe to the idea of a “Law of Attraction” when it has no empirical evidence. Even using “Law” there is rather arbitrary because it means that it is true, no question about it, proven and tested. But I guess the proponent is not really talking about how we can attract superficial things such as wealth and fame. I think it’s more about how one wields the power to change everything around them because of sheer will and internal desire to be positive. It has something to do with vibrations and energies. That your thoughts tend to attract similar results. That is something I can agree with. You attract the good things because you are only focused on seeing the good things.

Trusting is a tedious thing to do. It forces you to be vulnerable, literally opening yourself up to the possibility of pain and suffering. But I think we just really have to do that leap of faith if it makes sense. Of course, I am not saying to just trust blindly. That’s just dumb. You have to ‘verify’ if what’s in front of you is worthwhile and whether or not you're just afraid or the person/situation is actually bad news. You need to have that discernment that comes from experiences you have already contemplated on and what the thing in front of you is consistently showing you. At the end of the day, we just have to believe this famous adage of Theodore Roosevelt, “Nothing worth having comes easy.” Everything has a price and you just have to decide if you want to pay it because it's worth it.

The real Alpha