A Day in the Life: Expat in Small Town Germany.

A Day in the Life: Expat in Small Town Germany.

“A day in the life” posts have become really popular on Imgur (an online image sharing community); people all over the world have been taking photos throughout a normal day of their life and sharing them.  The Imgur blog said the following about this idea: As we go about our daily routines, we rarely stop to consider how fascinating our lives may be to others. Our homes, the commute to work or school, what we have for dinner, and how we […]

Walking Along the Wall of Rothenburg ob der Tauber. | My Meena Life.

Walking Along the Wall of Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

The stairs were uneven, the path was narrow, and some portions seemed on the verge of crumbling, but I loved it nonetheless.  Walking along the wall of Rothenburg ob der Tauber may not be for the faint of heart, but it’s a rewarding experience that is worth the possibility of risk.  The city of Rothenburg will gift you with sights of half-timbered homes, stretches of green valleys on the horizon, and peaks of the inner city between rooftops. As my […]

Berlin, I Love Your Trash Cans.

Berlin, I Love Your Trash Cans.

We were walking the streets of Berlin, surrounded by history and beauty, and yet I was looking for trash cans (and bears).  Thankfully they aren’t all that hard to find given their bright orange color.  I thought they were so entertaining that I started taking photos of them about halfway through our weekend there. Why should you love Berlin’s trash cans, too? Because they represent Berlin well. This one is fitting because there are 149 embassies in Berlin (not counting […]

Coming Home to Schweinfurt.

Coming Home to Schweinfurt.

How long does it take for a new place to start feeling like home? Probably not long if you’ve only moved across town, but it took seven months for me after we moved across an ocean. I wasn’t sure that Schweinfurt would ever feel like home during the 13 months we planned to live here, but yet I started having unexpectedly warm fuzzy feelings about going home at the end of a long train ride back from Berlin. Perhaps the […]

"Why Would You Wear Lederhosen?" and Other Things We Don't Say in Germany. Photo by Joakim Johansson via Flickr.

“Why Would You Wear Lederhosen?” and Other Things We Don’t Say in Germany.

There’s no denying it; living in Germany has been hard.  Unbelievably hard at times.  But it comes with so many rewards that we don’t (or at least we try not to) spend too much time complaining about it.  But sometimes homesickness will sneak up behind us and slap us in the face, and that can be very startling.  This happened recently when Mr. Meena turned to me on a Sunday afternoon and said, “Let’s go to Wal-Mart.” I started bawling. […]

About the Schweinfurt Volkfest and Our Next Coaster Trip.

The Schweinfurt Volksfest and About Our Next Coaster Trip.

I’m not going to pretend like Schweinfurt’s Volksfest was impressive, because it wasn’t.  At least not after we’d already been to the larger ones in Würzburg and Nürnberg.  I was also a bit upset when I realized the people running the Schweinfurt Facebook page were using photos of the Volksfest from the previous year (without stating that they were doing so), which led me to believe there were different rides available than there actually were. But it’s not every day […]

The Way of Reflection in Bad Kissingen.

The Way of Reflection (Weg Der Besinnung) in Bad Kissingen.

Bad Kissingen is a small German town that’s only 20 minutes down the train tracks from our own.  The Bad in the mean means ‘bath’ and it indicates that the town has natural hot spring (sorry, there’s no ‘Good Kissingen’ anywhere).  Bad Kissingen has been known as a spa town for an impressive 500 years and (I’ve been told) it’s a magnet for seniors who like to wear matching pant suits. We had lovely spring afternoon to spare while my […]

More Photos of the Nuremberg Volksfest.

More Photos of the Nuremberg Volksfest.

I’ve already shared about our experience at the Nuremberg Volksfest, but I had so many more photos of it to share.  I mean, it had pretty much everything you could ever want… such as a mouse coaster. And musical rides. Plenty of Disney characters. A colorful place to sit and drink beer. A place to get turned around, literally. Cigarette vending machines… Because one in four Germans smoke, you know.  They have these suckers about every few hundred feet (I mean, uh, […]

Foreign Words and Currency: Trying to Pay My Bill in Germany. Photo by Christian Benseler.

Trying to Pay My Bill in Germany.

Dealing with money is quite different in Germany, and trying to pay my bill in a restaurant is no exception.  I have to access my money differently, I spend it differently, and I struggle to keep track of the cash flow.  I’ve been able to use our US credit card in more places than expected, but frequently I only have the option of using our German debit card or cash.  In the US we almost never used our debit card (since it […]

The Berlin Bears.

The Berlin Bears.

Unlike the Schweinfurt pigs, I didn’t need to work hard in order to find the Berlin bears.  I saw four in my first ten minutes in the city after dropping off the car.  In the end I photographed 24 of them, although I saw a few more than that. The Buddy Bear movement started in Berlin in 2001 during their Buddy Bear Berlin Show.  The idea behind the bears was to welcome people to the city with raised arms, which are […]