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  • Day 14

    NEW YORK day 1

    June 20, 2022 in the United States ⋅ 🌙 15 °C

    An absolute highlight and proper ending destination of my south, central and north America journey.
    I did not expect to see so much of the USA, but in the end I saw quite a part of the east coast.

    As we arrived on late monday evening with a short overlay in Washington, where I did spot the white house out of the plane, Mikaela picked us up with her grandfathers car from the airport.
    First thing to do was having a slice of Artichoke Pizza in Brooklyn. From there we drove 1,5 hours to her grandmother's house at the beach of Long Island were we could stay the next two nights by ourselves.

    The next morning we parked the car at the train station of Ronkonkoma and drove into the city where we stepped out at Penn Station in the middle of Manhattan.

    We strolled around the astonishing skyscrapers and took th Highlane pathway to Chelsea market. The Highlane is an old railroad wich goes uplifted through Manhattan and is completely planted with trees, bushes and all kinds of flowers.

    After lunch at Chelsea Food market we made our way to Times Square were something magical was about to happen.
    It was World Yoga Day and there were different kind of yoga classes given in the middle of the Times Square throughout the day.
    Online all the classes were booked out but I had the luck that I still could register for the last class of the day right on site. They gave me a mat and I sat down next to hundreds of like minded people on this breathtaking spot in the middle of the most vibrant cities of the western world. As we began the rain stopped.
    The instructors were on a big screen and their voices got projected through big speakers all over the place.

    It started with a grounding breathing meditation where all the noises went to the background. It was a unique feeling of connectedness to myself the people, the city, the world and everything beyond. All my life made perfectly sense. I cried out of joy and relief.
    The flow itself was super nice and well instructed by two different guides wich gave wonderful cues.
    In the end we even could keep the mats and I fell into Julian and Mikaelas arms wich watched the spectacle as hundreds of others from the outside.

    Day one was done we took the train back to Long island and I went to bed like a happy baby 👶
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  • Day 13

    Miami

    June 19, 2022 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    Miami! 1,5 hours from our west palm beach home. We had the Sunday left to check it out real quick and we made the best out of it.

    We met Sebastian at the district of Wynwood, where he had a tennis date.
    Wynwood is a artsy space in downtown Miami with lots of graffiti, street arts and beautiful people. A huge Hispanic community aswell. You could hear Spanish on every corner.
    After a delicious Ramen lunch we headed down to South beach, wich accordingly to Will Smith is bringing the heat 🔥

    Ferraris, Lamborghini's, Maybachs driving a round the beach strip next to packed restaurants and bars. On the other side around 20 volleyball courts with three different kind of levels. Firsts almost professional players, second decent competitive 2vs2 were Sebastian and me joined and third more casual 4vs4.

    We lost 2 games against a german girl from Hamburg and her boyfriend from Israel, both living there for years. After the loss we headed to dip into the sea where we saw two Stingrays swimming around us 🤯

    Enjoying the awesome coloured night sky, we called it a day and drove home.

    Flight to New York City waited for us on the next day 🗽
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  • Day 7

    West Palm beach 2 & Everglades

    June 13, 2022 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    Life in West Palm is good I gotta tell you. I like Julians life over there. Working with soccer can be physically exhausting, training different kids the whole day in the sun on the pitch can be physically exhausting, but keeps you mentally happy.

    One day we took care of Mikaleas little brother Vic Junior, wich was very funny. We went to different beaches and he even asked me to do yoga, so we did at Jupiter beach, not for from tiger woods home. Donald Trump also doesn't live far away and we crossed his home once or twice.

    Whenever someone was free he or she took me to a nice place, like the Everglades wich were only 1hour drive away.
    We drove around the mangroves in a hovercraft and got so lucky seeing 3 Alligators in their free habitat.
    When we stopped one got so curious that she swum directly to our boat and (no joke) swum right before me and looked straight into my eyes 👀

    We had a great night out with Julian and Sebastian. There were several Restaurants and Bars that turned into clubs, packed of people dancing.
    The streets of West Palm center look unreal. Just missing that they're paved with gold. Everybody is super dressed up and chique like most the venue's around.

    Mikaela who is originally from New York went there for a wedding and asked us to come too. She has family there and we could sleep at her grandma's place in Long Island.
    After we missed the wedding we decided to book anyways from Monday to Friday.
    And here I am on the plane to fucking NEW YORK CITYYYYYYY 🤯
    I didn't expect this to happen so short before my return to Germany but it's actually happening and I am sooooo excited. A dream comes true.
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  • Day 4

    Greensboro North Carolina

    June 10, 2022 in the United States ⋅ 🌙 14 °C

    We started the road trip at 5 in the morning to be at our hotel on Thursday evening, so we could enjoy the spa area.

    I have to admit that I completely slept the way out of Florida and then slowly woke up in Georgia were the landscape changed into Germany like forrest's. Also the cars weren't that big anymore :)
    Mikaela packed a huge bag full of snacks for the ride and for full American experience I cannot leave these candies and chips next to me uneaten, right?

    We had 3 games on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The winners would play in the national finals in Seattle.
    Unfortunately we lost all our games, but still won in experience 😊
    It was still a great time for the whole team including their parents, being this whole weekend together at this beautiful hotel spending quality time as a team. I indeed got the honor to give the girls yoga sessions after the game at this amazing grass field under the moonlight.
    At first they were giggling around, but then got more into it and could actually relax their minds and bodies in the end.

    After the final game we got invited to the team dinner at a Italian restaurant where we were around 40 persons with players, parents and some friends. A beautiful night wich also ended coach Julians era for this team, since he switches clubs next season.

    On our way home we made a stop at Duke University wich is one of the leading colleges in Football and Basketball. They have gigantic stadiums there for there students and everything looks a bit like Hogwarts 🦉
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  • Day 1

    West Palm Beach

    June 7, 2022 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    As I walked out the airport, to the Tri Rail Train Ride to West Palm beach where Julian lives, this humidity hit me right in the face. The weather forecast predicted rain and thunder storms every day, wich turned out to appear only occasionally.
    It was a complete different world from what I experienced the last 5-6 months.
    After an hour drive in this air conditioned train with WiFi, Julian picked me up in a black sports car when we drove to his home in this gated community wich also had a gym and a big pool. He lives together with his girlfriend Mikaela (25yo American/Puerto Rican) and the three other roommates Sebastian, Marvin and Sarah in this beautiful 3 floored house, where I got a place to sleep on the big living room couch.
    Mission was clearly discover the all American experience and dive completely into this culture.

    In the evening they brought me to two of the biggest Supermarkets around (Costco & Target) where they invited me to pick EVERYTHING I want to try. The markets were just massive and the selection was endless. Fully loaded we couldn't pass my first American Slice of Pizza wich was 🤤

    West Palm beach is just as the name suggests full of palmtrees, nice beaches and CRAZY CARS. Car models I have never seen before in my life. Tesla's are just a normal thing over there and these huge trucks wich could pull 100 cows are also all over.

    Mikaleas parents live next to a golf course, were we went quite recently. A huge 18hole course with in the middle of this pretty wealthy neighborhood.

    Julian is a soccer coach wich trains several teams and in the off season he gives private classes. It was just about off season when I arrived, but one of his under 14-girlteam won the league so they played in the regional playoffs wich took place in Greensboro, North Carolina.
    Julian, Mikaela and me decided to drive there 11hours by car through Georgia and South Carolina so I could see the landscape.
    We got a room in The Grandover Golf and spa resort wich was completely payed by the club. I got smuggled in as the designated Yoga & stretching instructor...
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  • Day 45

    Mexico City

    June 3, 2022 in Mexico ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    During the Aztec period, Mexico City was initially built over a lake, the Lago de Texcoco. Aztecs built an artificial island by dumping soil into the lagoon. Later, the Spaniards erected a second Mexico City on top the ruins of Tenochtitlán. Tenochtitlán was founded in 1325 A.D. by the Mexicas.

    Because of its construction on that lake, Mexico City is constantly sinking slowly. Some areas of the city have dropped more than nine meters in the last 100 years.

    I didn't feel the city's sinking, though the high altitude, since its elevation is on ~2.200m wich made it harder for me to breath.
    Cesar picked me up from the gigantic bus station and showed me around the city center.
    He is professionally organising hiking and climbing trips, so he asked me if I wanted to go on this trip to the highest volcano in the region. Porqué no, I said to myself and even asked my friend Silvana to join us.
    In the end we were 5 people driving 3 hours to Nevado de Toluca.
    The special was that we hiked the Vulcano at night to see the sun rising from the top (~4.400m). We wore warm jackets, helmets, headlamps, sticks, gloves and good shoes (wich I bought in the afternoon at decathlon for ~20€), so the adventure could begin.
    We walked in a constant tempo up and made breaks every now and then. It became harder and harder to breath since we came up higher. The sky was full of thousands of stars and you could see the milky way very clearly.
    At 4 in the morning and after around 3 hours of hike I started questioning myself: "Why do I do this? I always hated these walks! Can we please return..."
    Somehow I managed to fight my lack of willpower and kept on fighting. At some point we came to path were it was a more climbing than walking what I liked more and from there it was only a half more hour to the top.
    We made it right on time and found ourselves a windproof cave in the rocks. We unpacked our sandwiches and watched the sun rise.
    An undescribable feeling, being there on top of the world. We could enjoy the view for half an hour until it got too cold. It was under 0* C and the wind was whipping our faces, so we started our way down, wich aswell wasn't very easy.
    It was amazing though seeing the landscape around us for the first time after the complete darkness.
    After 4 hours up and three down we made it to our car and drove back to finally get some sleep 🥱

    The next day Silvana took me with her and her dog Lobo to see the beautiful districts of Coyoacan and Roma Sur/Norte.
    We strolled all day around had all the different kinds of street food.

    On Monday, my last day in Latino America, I met my friend Melody wich was one of my first yoga students in Puerto Escondido and we did a session in a park in La Condesa.
    In the evening Cesar, Silvana and me went out for dinner and had RICO Mexican cuisine.
    When we brought Silvana home, I had to pee strongly so I facilitated myself next to a tree, when Cesar suddenly screamed: "NINO, STOP! STOP!"
    I stopped, but it was too late and a police car saw me there....
    Two cops came out, searched all our stuff, mumbled something from a fee of 3.500 Pesos (175€) and that I had to come with to the police station.
    It was already late 1:30am and I had to be at 4:00 at the airport to catch my flight to Miami, so definitely no time for a police station visit.
    Silvana tried to convince them with all she got, when Cesar noticed that they smell like alcohol. He told us in a Quiet moment and when one cop requested me for the 5th time to now get into the car, Silvana turned up and told them: "Either you take us to the station and I will tell your supervisor that you drank in your shift or you take these 500 Pesos (25€) and get the fuck out of here!"
    After short consideration they reluctantly took the money and drove off. 😅😅😅😅😅
    We couldnt believe our luck and drove home happy af.
    I packed my stuff, took an UBER to the airport and got safe and sound into the plane were I had a hole line of seats for myself. So I slept the three hours like a baby until I wake up in the United States of America 🇺🇸
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  • Day 43

    Puebla

    June 1, 2022 in Mexico ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    After a nice 5h ride through the Mountains and desert of central Mexico, Miguel and his girlfriend picked me up from the bus station.

    So funny to see him after all these years, he had so many nice memories from back then.
    The family wich also knew my family welcomed me warmly. Miguel and his mother still are fluent in German, but I also could understand and speak Spanish with the father.

    Next morning Chari (the mother) made us some scrambled eggs and a fresh mango smoothie before we started our tour to the city. First we drove to the formerly biggest (surface) pirámide of Mexico, where now a church was build on.
    Most churches I saw during this trip got me feeling angry and sad because I know that underneath each of them lie the walls and dead bodies of the former cultures (Aztecs, Mayans, Incas etc.) wich got slaughtered by old white European colonisers.
    I always was to lazy to cancel my church membership in Germany. I also thought that some parts are good because they SOMETIMES also support socially, but actually I have to get the fuck out of this weird ass merger.

    Anyways, we went on to see the beautiful old town of Puebla when we arrived at the oldest bar in town where we ordered this classic shot called "Pasita", wich has a piece of cheese and a raisin on a toothpick in it.
    Chari kept on ordering, so we ended at having 4 in a row 🥴.

    Mexico city was now only 2.5 hours away and Cesar my fellow student from Istanbul provided me a place to sleep.
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  • Day 42

    Oaxaca city

    May 31, 2022 in Mexico ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    With a little night snack stop somewhere in the mountains I slept almost the complete 10 hour night ride to Oaxaca city.

    I decided not to stay there a night, but continue the same day to Puebla. I still had half the day to discover the city wich was actually one of the most beautiful ones I've seen on this trip.
    It was not too big so you could walk everywhere by foot. I saw 3 different neighborhoods with these beautiful coloured and painted houses everywhere. Also I visited a huge market where I finally got myself a Mexico national team jersey. Now I got one from every country I've been to, except Costa Rica.

    Not so much more I can tell here. Let's move on to Puebla city where I spent two nights at Miguel and his family.
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  • Day 35

    Puerto Escondido pt.2

    May 24, 2022 in Mexico ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    Arriving back home at Limbo community we were again 10 people living there. The next day Juan and two girls from Germany would leave though, why we made a little farewell party.

    From next day on my beloved routine returned: Working in the morning till noon, preparing lunch, siesta, taking the collectivo bus down to the beach side where I always first check into la Punta Hostel to see if people are attending for the 8:30pm yoga class. From 5pm the more competitive 2vs2 "king of the court" start on the beach volley ground until 6:30 when more people would come and 2 more courts would be set up for the 4vs4 games.
    You would get to know so many people there because teams would always be switched.

    After playing until the sun went down I would come back to la Punta Hostel to do the class wich by time got better and better. In the second week I even earned my first money through yoga by doing the class donation based 🤑 With that I could feed myself easily and had almost 0 expenses.

    There were different events during the week like open mic night where I met all of the yoga and beach volley people again. Such a sweet community!

    At some point the rainy season started and it would rain in the evenings why I couldnt give any classes on the rooftop anymore. We did our private flows with Chelsey and the Limbo Family at home though.

    On the 30th of Mai we got the Info that a hurricane would hit Oaxaca. We didn't know what to expect so we bought food for several days and saved everything on the outside.
    There were only 5 of us left: Lito the one in charge, Kasper, Chelsey, Lærke from Denmark and me.
    It was literally the quiet before the storm. You could feel the changes of the air from warm to cold in very short periods, but still no big storm. We made it very cozy, cooked spaghetti al olio, played X-Box on a huge projector screen, had pancakes and just waited for it to begin.
    Nothing happened as we went to bed.
    At 4:30 in the morning I woke up by wind howling, the dogs barkin and the cocks crowing. All the animals got nervous and so did I... I stood up tried to calm the dogs and myself and went back to sleep. Next morning around 8 I woke up again went out and saw that nothing big happened. There was just a lot of rain, wich also dripped through the roof into our room. Ok first wave survived 😅

    Kasper had a bus ticket for Mexico city, but all the public transportation was shut down he realised. Even the internet didn't work in the whole area. So he came back and had to change his flight.
    To the evening the weather got rougher and the streets got flood, when we curled back into storm mode.

    Nothing happened!
    The next morning was super calm when I got onto the roof and sang R.Kelly's - The storm is over 🌪️🎶

    I brought Kasper to the Bus Terminal and got myself a night ticket to Oaxaca.

    The 21 day stay at my happy place were over and I was ready to start my last month of travelling. I am looking so much forward to see all of you guys again 💚

    But first 10 hours Bus to Oaxaca city then 5 hours to Puebla (where I meet Miguel, the person who did a language exchange programme with my cousin Tim when we were maybe 12? Caro please correct me 😋.

    From there I will drive to Mexico city where I am meeting old friends: Cesar, who did Erasmus with me in Istanbul. Silvana wich I met partying in Berlin. Alice a friend of friends wich I also met in Berlin. And Nico a fellow student of Mario.

    On the 7th of June I will fly out to Miami to stay at my old class and roommate Slotty, who lives in West Palm beach for the last 3-4 years and works as a soccer coach there.
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  • Day 33

    Ecstatic Mazunte

    May 22, 2022 in Mexico ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    David, a german guy I met at Casa Punta Hostel booked a 4bedroom apartment in Mazunte for 5 days and asked me if I wanted to join for a few nights. I already visited Mazunte once, loved it + there was an Event ongoing "ecstatic dance Sunday" wich a friend recommended strongly.

    Kasper and Vitalij i met in Palomino, Colombia where also in Oaxaca so they also joined for the Mazunte trip. Kasper and me where in contact, when he decided to join our community living in Puerto Escondido.
    Vitalij who also was part of the Palomino crew was per accident also in Puerto, what we realized when David and me sent him a selfie as we found out he's our one common friend on Instagram.

    We had this sweet apartment right in the middle of the center, wich is exactly one very cute street with restaurants and street souvenirs.

    The ecstatic dance Sunday was soo good. No phones were allowed, no Alkohol, no talking on the dance floor.
    Imagine everybody (~100 people) dancing like nobody's watching or judging.
    The dancefloor was under palmtrees and the DJ booth had a water sprinkler on top wich randomly spreaded water where everybody came together to cool down from the 32 degrees.
    There was a pool were water therapies were given. A twerk workshop in the beginning to brake all restraint. Kids running around, many people were just naked... A complete different vibe.
    We danced, from 2 to 7 pm with some food or cacao breaks, when the the singing mediation rounded up the whole day.
    All the people were sitting in a circle around a guy wich lead the mediation with singing different tones and connecting ourselves to ourselves, our parents and ancestors. Pure magic.

    We highjacked the next day to a nudist beach were we were laying all day under palmtrees and skinny dipped into the water.
    Mangotrees with sweet fruits everywhere. Breathtaking sunsets, soccer and yoga on the beach, bumpy busrides and sweet returning to the "Limbo community" in Puerto where Vitalij also could join.

    In the meantime Chelsey from the yoga training also arrived at Limbo 😃
    She was supposed to fly with me from Cancun when she lost her Passport AFTER security control and therefore couldn't enter the plane.

    Kasper showed me the HUJI App wich shoots analog-like pictures and brought back my passion pure shooting fotos.
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