Villa Blogpost March 2024
Spring is here, warm temperatures are back and so is my motivation to go outside.
At the first team meeting of the month, we established in the Medienwerkstatt that the last week of March is going to be a holiday for everyone here, and the office will be closed. The whole event was creatively nicknamed ‘Easter Extended’. My first thought was to go back to Hungary but the traditional Easter celebrations over there are not my favorite - just going around for the yearly visit to relatives’ houses - so I decided to go on a solo trip to the north of Germany. Not like I had money left over or anything, but so far during the year the furthest place from Leipzig that I visited was Grünau so it was time to explore.
I settled on Flensburg, Lübeck and Schwerin, during the course of a 3-day-trip, so I started my journey one morning with an 8-hour train ride, during which I had to transfer 7(!) times. But in the end Flensburg was finally reached, which is maybe the northest city in Germany, right next to the Danish border but most importantly; on the seaside. It was still March at this point, and the Baltic Sea is only at swimmable temperature for like 2 days in July, so I didn’t take a dip, but it was still a great experience going on a run along the coast. The border to Denmark was a cute little wooden bridge, maybe 15 meters long, and people were just casually walking their dog there, to another country technically. In the evening I walked around a bit, had a döner, then went to sleep.
The next morning I traveled to Lübeck, which ended up being my favorite destination of the trip. The old town used to be a fort I guess, because it’s surrounded by man-built hills and water, making a little island of the city center that you can only access through bridges. The buildings are all made from exposed brick, which really gives off a Nordic and old-timey feeling when you’re walking around on the cobblestone streets. There were many people in the parks and in the center, and also so many cute little shops, so I just spent my whole day taking in everything that I could. The best recommendation that I got for the city was the Niederegger marzipan store; even for people who don’t like marzipan it’s really a must to visit. They have cakes, chocolate and of course 50 flavors of marzipan out of which I definitely tried maybe 10, and they were amazing. But after that feast I had to go for a run to feel a little less guilty, so I explored some other areas of Lübeck, outside the old town. It was already the evening when I finished with that, so I walked around a bit, had a döner, then went to sleep.
On the final day it was raining unfortunately and Schwerin’s main attraction is a castle, that is of course… outside, so I changed my plans and headed to Berlin to visit some clothing stores that you can’t find in Leipzig. Nothing spectacular happened that day, I didn't really find anything nice to buy, so I had döner then went home. All in all I was satisfied with how my mini holiday went, sometimes I had a feeling like ‘What am I even doing at these places??’ but I’m very happy to have experienced this.
There were also some important events that happened in the Villa in March. We had a spring cleaning day that I participated in, and everyone that knows me well knows that I love throwing things away so this felt more fun than work. It was still a huge amount of work and I was completely tired in the end, but still. The garage in the Villa backyard was full of old wood that needed to be cut to pieces, then we made three rounds to the junkyard with a transporter car to dump it out. I got to spend time with colleagues that I usually don’t talk a lot with and we also made some pretty funny pictures of our struggles. At the Medienwerkstatt we made some nice progress with our projects. We finally reached a point with our educational board games that they could be tested with bigger groups of people, so it came in handy that all my fellow unsuspecting volunteers gathered for a feedback meeting one morning, and I could force them to have a good time with our games. Of course they had an amazing time, some people were crying from laughter and happiness and they learned so much too. Jokes aside, I truly felt like they enjoyed it, and I was the one facilitating the game which I haven’t done before, so it was a success in the end.
So these were the highlights of March, my storytelling wasn’t as comprehensive as before, now I was just trying to focus on the stuff that will stay with me as the best memories. Thank you for reading and see you soon!
