Life lately and upcoming travels: August 2015 Edition

Last Updated on February 23, 2021

In my monthly round-ups, I am looking back at my travels over the past four weeks, what went well and what didn’t, what’s new with Globetrottergirls.com and what’s next for me. This month I am also sharing a giveaway for a weekend in Paris for two – scroll down to the end for the giveaway!

Where I’ve been

I started August in Brighton, England, and ended the month in Berlin, and the weeks in between were spent visiting family and friends all over Germany. The place I spent most of my time in this month? Berlin! And those days in Berlin were a great reminder that the summer in Berlin is almost as epic as the summer in New York.. Almost. But seriously, how lucky am I to get to spend time in my favorite cities in the world and have the best summer weather in both (and I will get to spend time in my third favorite city in the world this week – although I am pretty sure that it won’t involve perfect summer weather… more on my upcoming travels below.)?! My excellent time in Berlin let me almost forget how heartbroken I was when I left New York four weeks ago.

What I’ve been up to

I tried to relax and recharge my batteries this month, I really tried. But I also realized that spending time with my family means I barely get anything done because my nieces and nephew are all over me. Throw in a wedding for good measure, play tour guide for two good friends in Berlin, plus many catch-up sessions with friends I hadn’t seen in ages and there went my highly anticipated month of relaxation. Oh and let’s not forget about the grandiose Brighton Pride festival at the beginning of the month which took me a while to recover from. Exhaustion part 2, is what would best describe these past few weeks.I wrote  about what I’ve been up to in detail in my Polaroid Of The Week posts and feel like I would repeat myself if I listed all the fun things between Brighton and Berlin here again, so if you want to ‘get exhausted from just reading what I did’ (this is what somebody actually said to me this month), you can read all about it here:

• Polaroid of the week: Those sweet Berlin summer days…
• Polaroid of the week: Charming and fairytale-like Erfurt, Germany
• Polaroid Of The Week: Gritty meets pretty in Berlin Kreuzberg
• Polaroid of the week: A beach day in sunny Brighton

What went well

I guess everything went according to plan this month, and between attending Brighton Pride, re-uniting with good friends in Berlin and getting to spend time with my loved ones I’d have a hard time picking a favorite moment. Most importantly I didn’t fail as the official wedding photographer for one of my oldest friends – the main reason for my visit to Germany this month. I also managed to finalize my exciting travel plans for next month, which is going to be a busy month – more on that under ‘What’s next for me’.

What went wrong

Time management or: how to manage to sleep more than five hours per night. Considering that I already didn’t get a lot of sleep in July, I shouldn’t be surprised that I am constantly tired and exhausted. My main goal for September is to get back on a regular sleeping schedule. Also, I feel like my time management skills are terrible. Or maybe I am super inefficient because of the lack of sleep? Anyway, I need to be more efficient. On the upside: I got my inbox back under control, am almost done working through my backlog of emails, and the whining about my work (over)load in last month’s round-up led to a number of very promising inquiries about my assistant position. I should have mentioned it much earlier on here! But that’s one of my problems: refusing to ask for help unless it’s absolutely inevitable.

What’s new with Globetrottergirls.com

I’ve re-joined Snapchat recently and have been happily snapping away over the last few weeks. If you don’t know what Snapchat is – you can basically follow people and watch the stories they share on the platform in form of short 10 second videos and pictures. If you’d like to get the full gist of Snapchat, I recommend Buzzfeed’s useful Adult’s guide to Snapchat. As for my personal Snapchat – you can see what my day-to-day travel life is actually like and I tend to be a bit less serious on there than I am in writing. If you want to add me: mariposa2711 is my username and please feel free to snap me and tell me who you are 🙂

I will definitely share all my upcoming European travel adventures on Snapchat in real time – let’s talk about them in more detail:

What’s next for me

I thought August would be my rest month before a busy month of travel. Yeah, right. But plans are made, flights are booked, there’s no way out. I’ll be traveling all over in September: all over Europe, to be precise. Except for a trip to Iceland which I am ridiculously excited about (I’ll be taking this self-driving tour of the island), I will be traveling exclusively by train. I’ve got the Global Interrail Pass, a train pass that allows me to ride the rails in 30 European countries – so far in my itinerary: Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, England (London calling!) and I’ll be finishing the month at Oktoberfest in Munich.

This will be my sixth time at Oktoberfest, and I am beyond excited that I was able to plan my travels around it again. And since I’ve got some Oktoberfest experience under my belt, I feel confident enough to call myself an expert on all things Oktoberfest, and so I was happy to contribute some insider tips for visiting Oktoberfest to Wimdu’s ‘Expert Tips for Oktoberfest 2015‘. If you’re planning to head to the world’s largest beer festival this year, make sure to check it out, and if you are planning to visit Munich for Oktoberfest in the future, bookmark it for later.

I am not quite sure how many more places I can fit into my month but on my wishlist are the Czech Republic (a return to Prague is long overdue), Switzerland (apparently the most scenic train rides in Europe) and France.. because: A few days in Paris are always a good idea! Which brings me to:

Win a trip to Paris!

This giveaway matches the theme of my upcoming Euro trip: Leisurejobs.com is currently giving away a weekend trip to Paris! Not only does the lucky winner get a weekend trip to Paris including flights and hotel for two, but also a Michelin star meal! A great competition for anyone who loves Paris and good food – and if you haven’t been to Paris yet, even better! I don’t think there couldn’t be a better introduction to the city than a fancy Michelin star meal and staying in a posh Parisian hotel! You can enter the competition here – I have already entered it, of course! 🙂

If you could visit one place in Europe, which one would it be? Feel free to share your European dream destination in the comments below!