Luzern, Switzerland

This was travel,

This was beauty,

This was Switzerland.

When trying to describe Luzern/Lucerne in my travel journal, I was completely lost for words. What could I say? How could I describe all that I saw and how it made me feel? I was in the most beautiful Swiss city I'd ever seen with my best friend, miles and miles away from home. It was overwhelming in away, the sun was beating down, sweat gathered at my back, the beauty and the sun blinded me in equal measure. The boat trip cooled me, I could not believe the blue-green water before me. I missed my family, who I knew would all love the place as much as I did. The colours, the cleanliness, the mood, all so fantastic. I hope you all get to see it some day.

Anna x

the start of a journey

I think it's not uncommon for a member of the blogging community such as myself to want to be a writer. To have always had dreams of published books with my name on the front page. I've always been so scared of writer's block and have had months and months of my life without new poems or stories, or stuck slaving away on old work that I fear will never ever work.

Blogging is something I fall in and out of love with every month. I love that I have this platform to share my thoughts, words and photography. It's so cool that I can seriously post whatever I want, create a portfolio of me that in my real life I'm way too scared to show anyone. My real-life friends haven't read my poetry, don't know how much I like photography, don't know the side of me that you have come to know in some capacity. And that's where I fall out of love. I feel like I say too much, I'm too honest and I shouldn't let that happen. It's so easy to be vulnerable online, which is dangerous especially when people find it so easy to be mean back. And so when I fear what I might say next, I disappear for a bit, but I come back. I've never left for long.

And truly, I don't think it's appropriate to share all the highs and lows of my life with you. I enjoy so much hearing your responses and reading what you have to say on your blogs. It's a special thing we've got going. But all I want to say for now, is that I'm trying my best. I'm trying my best to overcome adversity and trying my best to be the person who will no longer be pushed back, and boy, is it hard. And the best way that I can deal with it, is to create something, I think.

About 3 years ago I started work on my first novel. It got to about 70,000 words and I was so proud of myself and I forced myself to tell a few friends and my family told their friends and I edited it and other people read parts of it and gave me advice. I worked so. hard. on it, and then when the pressure of it actually having to be good and to mean something hit me, I stopped. Like blogging, I come back to it periodically and it still means a lot to me, even if it bothers me and I'll presumably never be happy with it.

But I want to give my novel another shot. I've had feelings coursing through me, telling me to write, but all my new ideas are drawing up blanks. So my novel, code name: TTFE (if you can guess what that stands for you're probably a really cool wizard), will become my child again. And I'm saying this publicly because I don't want to give up on it. I want to work it into something I'm happy with, as best as I can be. And then I want to send it off to other people and see how they like it. Writing is scary, because it's so easy to be rejected. But I know I need to try.

Thank you all so much for listening to me and sticking by me. I'm sorry if this makes little sense! But I'm planning on posting updates about this blog and my novel and my life on instagram, so please follow me! I'd love to get even more connected with you all. It's: @annaszuhause

Anna x

Germany: Student Accommodation Room Tour // Studentenwohnheim

I've been looking forward to writing this post since way before I went to spend a month in Tübingen. I really wanted to know what a room in student accommodation would be like, and I couldn't find all that much on google apart from ads.

I stayed for the month of August in Georg-Fahrbach-Haus in Tübingen. It's a bit outside the town centre, about a 10 minute uphill bus journey. My room was on the 7th floor of a 13 floor high building. My room was across from the communal kitchen and down the hall from the communal showers and toilets. All of the communal elements of the accommodation were a bit grim. Like they needed a proper deep cleaning and a freshening up. So from that point of view, I didn't really like living there, but I quickly came to love my room.

Seeing as I was only there for 4 weeks and basically living out of a suitcase, I didn't have the chance to really personalize my room. However, I noticed it quickly felt more like home the more I unpacked and the more souvenirs, postcards and leaflets I propped up. I had shelves for each thing - shopping bags, toiletries, shoes, presents for home and Pfand (the german bottle deposit system).

The room was equipped with a single bed, a lot of shelving, a large desk, sink and wardrobe. There was underbed storage as well which I didn't use, but I'm sure I would have had I had more things and more time! My view was over a big field. Only minutes away was a forest-y walk and in the other direction a small shopping area. It was a nice balance of urbanity and countryside.

I've never had a sink in a room before, but I was so glad and grateful that there was one! Especially with everything else being so communal, it was nice for me to have a space where I could wash my face, brush my teeth and just have a water source in general. I would totally recommend getting a room with a sink in it if you know that you'll be sharing a lot of the other amenities (with 13 other people on your floor!)

The wardrobe was spacious and was lockable. I was able to keep my more valuable items there (like camera and laptop when I knew I wouldn't need them) without too much worry. I think the amount of storage space in the room was really excellent and meant that it could all easily be kept tidy.

Overall I was happy with my room. The bed was surprisingly comfortable and the room as a whole was spacious despite its small size. The huge negative about Georg-Fahrbach-Haus (and from what I heard from people living in other accommodation around Tübingen) was the lack of cleanliness. A lot of the cleaning is left to the students but no real rota is put in place and there are calendars and notices dated 2013 still up! Nevertheless it felt safe and wasn't particularly noisy.

Have you ever stayed in student accommodation before?

Anna x