When I last took stock of our son’s language skills at 20 months – almost a year ago – we were expecting a language explosion starting any day. After all, that is exactly how it happened with his sister. Well, let me just say that we probably should have had learned by then that each […]
10 Fun Facts about Hamburg, Germany for Kids
In northwest Germany on the banks of the Elbe river lies the city of Hamburg. With almost 2 million inhabitants, it’s the second largest in Germany – surpassed only by Berlin, the country’s capital. Read these fun facts about Hamburg to learn about the city which its locals claim to be “the most beautiful in […]
Top 5 Posts of 2018
In 2018, this website has continued to grow despite my ongoing struggle to find the time to turn ideas into blog posts with an introduction, core, and conclusion. Hopefully, soon I will manage to actually write a decent post that explains why I’m all of a sudden short on time! In the meantime, let me […]
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8 Reasons Why My Daughter Wants to Move to Mallorca
“Mommy, can we move to Mallorca?” my 4-year-old quietly asks while I tuck her in bed. Ever since we are back from our beach holiday on Spain’s largest island at the end of September, Birdy has been trying to convince as to return there ASAP. “Why do you want to move there?” I ask. As she starts […]
Prenatal Care in Germany Part 3: Preparing for Birth
Welcome to the third and final part of my prenatal care in Germany mini-series! Part one was about visits at the gynaecologist’s office and part two was dedicated to midwife’s services. This post is about preparing for birth, including birth classes and choosing the place where you want to deliver your baby. Birth preparation classes If you want to […]
Prenatal Care in Germany Part 2: the Midwife
The first part of the prenatal care in Germany series covered everything related to going to the gynaecologist: appointments, ultrasounds, and tests, trimester by trimester. This part is all about the second pillar of Germany’s great prenatal care system: the midwife (aka Hebamme) who will guide you through the ups and downs of pregnancy, childbirth, […]
Prenatal Care in Germany Part 1: at the Doctor’s Office
When I decided that I should write down my experiences and observations about the prenatal care system in Germany I naively thought that one post would suffice. By the time I had written up the first paragraphs I realized that, unless I split it up, I’ll end up with one super-long post. And who has […]
My Germany Bucket List – 10 Things I Want to Do
At the end of the summer, it will be 11 years since I moved to Germany and, believe it or not, I still have a long list of things that I haven’t done! Here are 10 things that I still want to see, do or experience in the country that I currently call home. My Germany Bucket […]
Parenting German Style: the Beach Edition
As a child, I spent many glorious summers on the Latvian Baltic Sea coast, swimming, building sand castles, and fighting a losing battle against turning lobster-red. Bringing my own kids to the seaside in Germany, I couldn’t help but notice that Germans do a few things differently. For one, I cannot believe how much stuff […]
Celebrating Midsummer in Latvia
Have you ever experienced the magic of the shortest night of the year? Some of my warmest memories are of celebrating midsummer in Latvia: lighting a bonfire on the beach, spending the short hours of darkness singing and dancing, and watching the sun rise over the sea. Just like the winter solstice, the summer solstice […]