Joy Check Top c/o Earlgreyparty, Kyar wrap skirt in black c/o Earlgreyparty, boots from Guangzhou, Hair styled with Surf Bomb Sea Salt Spray c/o Original Mineral. Photos: Shane.
Welcome to my home for the next couple of months, guys! I thought it’d be nice to sit down and do a proper introduction / house tour post before I launch into all the touristy things that I will inevitably do.. because I am a sucker for touristy things. Art museums and landmarks here i come!
Anyway, as most of you know, I’m here on student exchange. My term was actually scheduled to start in March, but they realized we dont know any German somewhere in November so we had to come up two months early to do this intensive German course that cost a total of.. about two thousand dollars. I feel like im hemorrhaging money you guys. The good thing is, I get to spend more time living in Europe, which I’m sure I’ll come to remember fondly in the future. It’s also winter here, which I’m very excited about, but it’s persistently refusing to snow, which is a bit frustrating. 0 degree mornings and 4 degree afternoons is what we’re talking about here. We also got the option of choosing a home stay vs dorm room option, and I really recommend the homestay option to anyone considering Winter Semester in Germany or any similar model of educational exchange with other schools!!! I’m staying with the sweetest German couple in this gigantic wood house. It’s gorgeous, but also very far out. Takes me about an hour to get to school everyday, which means 6am mornings. The title of the post is technically not correct- I stay in Filderstadt, which is a town 13km to the south of Stuttgart itself, but they’re joined by trains and buses.
Meet Hans-Peter and Dorothee Freund! & yes, that’s a glass of champagne on the table in the middle of the afternoon. What are we celebrating, you ask? Well, the fact that it’s the afternoon and the sun is out. Yay!! (We’ve got a wine cellar in the basement.)
Anyway, reasons why I recommend the home stay option:
– It’s essential if you want to feel like you live in a country and arent just a tourist there, and it’s especially helpful to live with a local if you’re in a country where you’re unfamiliar with their mother tongue. I really feel like i’m in a home away from home here- Dorothee makes me breakfast and packs me lunch in a ziplock bag how adorable is that?!?!
– You get to try all sorts of legit german food, not just the tourist spots. I mean, it’s not like you’ll be able to order from a german menu so chances are you wont know where to go/ what to order. Dorothee has been cooking all sorts of amazing things, and we get to partake in german family culture too – how they have these amazing breakfasts on Sundays, with their kids coming back home (they live in other cities now) for sunday breakfasts.
iphone snaps because im usually too hungry to take proper shots with the dslr hahahah
– I also feel like I actually spend less money than i do in singapore, because my host family keeps feeding me so i dont keep spending money outside on food and such. It’s quite unexpected. And of course, i’m expressly forbidden from cabbing because apparently they’re really expensive, so I save a lot of money on that.
– It’s quite the experience, living in a huge house with so much space. My housemate is a hyperactive puppy (more on him next time), and I feel like im living a completely different life from the one i led in NTU, waking early and trekking 15 minutes to the train station with actual, hot, breakfast, coming home to a puppy’s kiss everyday, selecting wines to go with dinner while cooking and so on. It’s very different from what I’ve experienced cozying up in a tiny room in NTU, though I love that too. It also helps that the house I live in is so damn gorgeous. I’ve got the whole second floor, while Dorothee and Hans-Peter live on level three. Ground floor is the living room and kitchen, and there’s a mega huge game room, laundry room, and wine cellar in the basement.
this is the living room where I sometimes curl up with my laptop to work and laugh at the turtle because i can
The living room also leads out to our backyard, where this was shot:
The girl is crazy! Dorothee said when I hopped outside in this. But the lengths one must go to for instagrammable photographs, am i right. It was about 4 degrees out but there’s no point hiding an outfit this sweet under a coat. The Joy checkered top is slightly sheer under bright light, which also consequently means it’s incredibly comfortable and lightweight. I find it a constant challenge to find semi dressy long sleeved tops that don’t cook you in singapore weather, so this was a godsend – and the color is incredibly photogenic! & the skirt is the Kyar Wrap skirt I mentioned in the last post, this time in black. I’m wearing my glasses because it was a sunday afternoon which I originally intended to dedicate to snuggling under the covers and reading, but then I realized im not usually home while it’s bright out, so I changed out and took these photos before running back inside and curling up by the fireplace.
So yes, this is what my life for the next couple of months will look like! It’s been good so far, though incredibly tiring, this waking up at 6 everyday thing. They give homework everyday, can you believe it? Anyway. Praying for snow sometime this month, but besides that, I’m pretty happy with everything now. (See, i did say i’d be back with a new post within the week.) Will make an effort to update regularly, but meanwhile you can follow me on instagram where I’m much more active!
For now – Tschüss.
See, now you know how to say bye in German too x
x
♥jem