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Renting until you are broken – the new city life?

Renting until you are broken – the new city life?

Can someone explain to me why rents are increasing as if there’s no tomorrow?

I mean, honestly, I understand fully that a landlord is not giving away his house/ flat for free and wants to earn some money with it. Some money, enough money to be able to maintain everything plus money on top for their own, I got this. What I am not getting anymore is why people who rent are seen as a luxury income. Hey, and I’m not writing about deluxe apartments or big mansions, I’m writing about normal flats, houses for families.

You can argue now that it is my very own fault if I decide to live in Munich and yes, you are partly right with it. Partly because I accept that everything is a bit more expensive here than in a small countryside city, but what I do not accept is that you pay a fortune for nothing.

I am checking offers since a couple of years now and the market is truly insane. People offer for instance a house which is in the state of the 1980’s, the bathroom is a disaster, kitchen not available (means you have to bring your own), carpets everywhere also from the 1980’s, the garden not maintained at all. The size is 110 square metres and they ask for either a monthly rent of 2300 Euro (without gas and water) or if you want to buy the price is 980.000 Euro.

If only I could tell you that this is a joke, but they are indeed serious.

What should a family earn in order to have a nice family home to stay in?

As a family we are willing to pay entry for the zoo, we love to go and eat outside, grab ice-cream on the way to the playground, buy local and support smaller shops in our area, we love the “hood” we are living in. But all of this would be impossible when we move to a bigger place because of these ridiculous prices.

Our current living situation is tiny, our place is small but we live where we want to live. Of course we wouldn’t mind to have more place and a garden, not at all, but not if we have to cut our visits to the museum, eating out or summer vacations.

Are cities only made for the rich?

Are only the top managers allowed to live here? Is it the newly rich clients you are looking for to spend their money here? A city will lose its spirit like this and a city will not have any more stories to tell.

Apart from ‘normal’ families, has anyone ever thought about the elder people? A 82-year old widow who would love to stay in the flat where her husband died but cannot afford it anymore. A 90-year old man who is half blind but knows all the ways he needs for his daily life by heart. A couple married for 60 years and rooted exactly where they live. There is a saying that you cannot plug a tree out of the soil and plant it somewhere else, the same counts for many of the elder. It breaks my heart if I see them shattered because they don’t know where their life will go on. I even forget about all the young ones (us included) because we could make it anywhere, still.

Munich has a history, like every other city, there are biographies of people who lived here and brought something with them. There are statues all over the city and every single one of them tells a story. We will not write further history like this. A city lives through the personalities and if these are all forced to move outside the city spirit will slowly disappear.

Every even little personality surely was not rich and famous by the time they left their footprint in the heart of this city. Some where, some were not, it has always been a good mixture and that is how it should be.

Greedy is the new normal especially when it comes to living spaces within a city. Who has the newest building, who has the best view, who is in the most expensive area,… Shouldn’t it be: who can help neighbours when needed, who can support the homeless, who smiles at strangers because life is a wonderful thing?

Instead of greed let happiness rule because it doubles if you share – at the end of the day that counts more than the number on your bank account, does it not?

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When days go by so fast…

When days go by so fast…

Here we go again, the time of being apart has started and we have to jump back into our second routine.
It’s quite interesting to discover that we are leading kind of two lifes.
Whenever we are together we have our routine, the time which belongs to us although we have several things to do throughout our days. Whatever we do, we think about what’s best for both of us.
And then the time follows when we are apart and lead different life’s, I stay and my husband goes back into another country, onto another continent which is so far away from what I know.
I grew up safely in Europe and sometimes start to wonder how he can stand it all.
It’s always good to hear that he arrived safe but there are also always incidents which are beyond my imagination. Roads blocked completely by rebels or people who fight for 1000 of different reasons. I have the feeling as if he is only safe in his house and even this thought is quite childish. I close my eyes and am invisible? Surely not.
I try to live my normal routine and hate it more and more as I love the together time so much. I’m not made for being alone, I found my other half and we should be together. We both know that we are lucky as we found each other.
It’s ridiculous but I’m not doing many things I usually love to do when we are together like for instance writing on this blog, I hardly find the time to just sit down and read a magazine or watch stupid things on TV but do I want him to leave just to have time for it? Not at all – I could say easily I put all these things back as long as I have my husband around – he’s the most precious to spend my time with!
On the other hand we both know that our routine would change if we knew that we are permanently together, there will be another routine one day inshallah. For the time being we just try to soak in every second.
It’s been five weeks and now we are back alone – these weeks were wonderful but flew by like a lear jet – now it will be weeks of waiting which will crawl by like a snail.
Weeks with lots of what’s app and Skype, weeks where we are exhausted by these stupid web connections, weeks where we miss the touch of one another so much, weeks where we have to sleep in beds with an empty half but also weeks where we still know that our love is greater than the distance and which let us look forward to the day we drive back to the airports and close our arms tight around our second half.
Nobody said it will be easy but we are confident that it is exactly the right thing we are doing – love leads the way and opens new facets of life where we weren’t even aware of their existence.

Hey, and being back blogging feels good as well 🙂
Take Care!

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Do I have to explain my life?

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Do I have to explain my life?
I recently asked me this question as I found myself in the situation of always explains that it’s not like that, that it’s different, that it’s not as they think…
What was it about. It was because I met my fiancé who’s not German. Even worse, he’s also not fitting into the European picture as he’s from the unknown continent Africa. Mystical stories about people there are in the heads of the common German or even in the heads of the common European. And for my story it’s even worse. Not only that he’s not European, he’s also a Muslim. All cliches existent, you can be sure I heard them already.
Where is he from? From Libya. Oh god, you will soon be sitting completely covered on a camel in the desert. Yes, that was exactly what I planned for my life was my answer. You can only reply in a sarcastic way to stupid comments like this.
But what I realized in myself was that each time I was asked about him I was already answering in a defensive way. Yes, he’s from Libya but he doesn’t want to marry me for a residence permit. Yes, he’s Muslim, but he’s open minded and it’s ok for him that I’m not religious at all. Yes, he has a big family in Libya but they will not influence him not to marry a non-muslim.
I saw myself acting like this and questioned myself. Why am I answering like this? Am I thinking the same way, are these my hidden fears? Definitely no. We talked hours over hours and are both completely aware that we led different lives up to now. I’m living on my own since years and was raised so freely. He was always close to his family and surrounded by them. As long as you are unmarried it’s normal to stay with your family whereas for me it was normal to leave when earning the first own money and to start a life on your own. Religion plays a big role in his life, which is even bigger as we are at the moment within the holy month of Ramadan. Whereas for me religion was present in an easy way from childhood into the teenage years and as adult I decided that Christianity is not my path and I signed out officially. So I am without any religion at all.
But, and this is what we realized very quickly, even if it seems so different from an outside position, we are not too different. My family is so close to me. We are not living together, not even in the same city, but if we don’t hear from each other like we are used to we feel incomplete. There are never more than two days without contact and news or changes or questions are discussed with my family before anyone else will know. And for the religious part, even if I don’t have one it doesn’t mean I’m unbelieving. I have values in my life, which I’m believing in, most of them already taught by my parents, who still are Christians, but I see them as values of life itself. Being honest, truthful, good to others, not cheating, not stealing, not lying, never harm anyone, don’t kill, don’t do something to others which you never want for yourself, and, and, and…
These are common values in life which also exist in each religion.
He met me like this, I found so many good things in different religions but I also found parts in them, where I cannot say that I agree on them. What I try is to live in the most valuable way I’m able too and to find inner peace with myself. Wherever this way leads to, I will see. And he is completely with me as he knows that I’m not worse than one with an official religion. You will find good and bad people everywhere, this is no proof.
He is him and me is me and we are happy that we found each other – so more more explanations why, how, when and where!
Maybe I write some day sitting on a camel, who knows…
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I have a tattoo and am not a bad girl

I have a tattoo and am not a bad girl

Believe it or not: Not all tattooed people are possessed by the devil.
It’s fashionable to have a tattoo recently. Many get new tattoos to be in style or feel like a rock star.
You see them printed in almost every magazine and it’s almost uncool to be without.
But is that the right reason to decide if you want one? I don’t think so.
It took me thirty-three years until I decided to have a tattoo.
I was thinking and thinking and thinking because even if the news want to assure you that celebrities change their tattoos like their underwear, it’s not easy to remove one if you don’t like it any longer.
I’m happy that my parents gave me the gift of judging wisely so I’m not having the tramp stamp which was so common in my teenager years and also no butterflies on my body or hearts or, beware, names written on my skin.
My first one is my design as well as my second, so it’s unique as nobody has my handwriting compared with my thoughts.
If one then it should be unique, that was the most important part for me.
Also important, as I’m a working woman, was to be able to hide it during business meetings or when it’s inadequate.
The only person knowing the deeper sense of my tattoos is me, I’m not explaining what exactly was on my mind while designing them and also no one has to like them as long as I’m happy and I definitely am.
Shortly after I had the first one on my skin I met my fiancé and realized that our culture, or let’s say the western culture, is easy going with tattooed people but it’s not common all over the world.
His first question was if it can be removed.
No, it cannot and I was thinking about how to explain him that this will not be last one. The second was already planned to kind of finalize my personal artwork.
He was rubbing my wrist and told me that he doesn’t like it all and me having a second one was one of our first fights.
It took me so much time and thoughts and changing and over thinking until I knew exactly what I wanted just for me and now the first part of the two part unique tattoo was on my skin and the second had to follow.
That was me and even when he wasn’t understanding it, if he wanted me as woman he had to accept it.
Take it or leave it, my decision was made before he stepped into my life and I’m not canceling the second part now. I felt incomplete as the meaning for me wasn’t finished yet.
I was convincing him that it’s not the devil in me, that I’m not possessed or insane, that it will not change me as person with him, it will change me as I’m doing it for myself and that I would feel complete afterwards, it is as if you have a part of your life lived and now it’s time to move on with this first part in a locker or in my case inked under my skin.
The sense should be present in my life as it’s part of me. Not to be forgotten, to be remembered and as a reminder for myself.
As I wrote, there’s even a more and deeper sense which I won’t explain and which would only be understood by a person which walked the exact same path I walked – so nobody else than me.
Harsh sentences and tears rolled but in the end I did what I needed to do.
What I liked is that we were fighting in an emotional way, which meant we cared.
The first signs of emotions going deeper than we imagined.
Nevertheless he was ignoring it first and didn’t want to see it at all. That was not too complicated as we were only communicating over Skype. The long distance between us was not only bad, during this time it was OK.
It’s easy not to show it but we were already planning and booking our holidays on Cyprus. If not before, he would see it then as I wasn’t planning to cover it for the rest of my life.
What happened then while we were together is that on the first evening when we undressed to get rest after long flights and travels I tried to avoid him seeing it. I was just tired and exhausted and starting another discussion was the last thing on earth I wanted that night.
He got a glimpse on it as I put on my sleeping shirt and asked me to show it completely.
My fear of a fight instead of relax into sleep was within one’s reach.
“It’s really nice, honey. And not as big as I thought it would be. You don’t have to hide it from me. I’m the one who loves you, you don’t have to hide anything, never forget that.”
So how to unwind differences?
Don’t leave your main path in life. Sure you can step to the right and to left and make compromises but always stay yourself. Being honest and authentic is important because it makes you the person you truly are.
Keep the faith!

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