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Our first view of Berlin.

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My little brother turned 17 today. 

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"He told us we could walk to the end of the world before it got dark. Left and then straight on, pass the first dike and then to the second. It was a long, straight road, at first still some houses, but after the first dike there was nothing on both sides of the path, just here and there a lonely scarecrow made out of plastic bags. It was a stormy day and at times we got almost blown off the muddy path. The cold wind cut on our faces, making our cheeks and ears bright red. Our noses were dripping, our toes and fingers numb. We didn't talk much, but the snot dripped from our noses and got taken away by the wind. We didn't care. On the endless fields next to us were leftover potatoes and we could see ourselves walking here after a long day, picking up potatoes to bring back to our family.
When we finally got to the second dike, we suddenly felt extatic. We ran and half-crawled up, fighting the strong wind. We had hoped to see the sea, but saw nothing but emptiness. And it wasn't a disappointment, not at all. We laughed loud, shouted, spread our arms, let ourselves float in the wind. And then we ran, not to the sea, but to the darkening emptiness of the end of the world. Down here it is suddenly pleasantly quiet, just the faint laughter of our friends above us. We sit, lay down, and I'm happy."

One of the happiest moments of my life. Also a pleasant note: I passed the first module, we all did.
Second pictures is taken by Matan with my camera.

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I am writing fairytales about my life with castles and princesses. 

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After walking around the garden, I didn't think it could become any better, but it did. We were let loose in the house with the freedom to touch everything, open every door, read every book, do whatever we wanted. The endless amount of rooms were all filled with books, art and a million interesting things. At first I was too impatient, ran from room to room, because I wanted to see everything at once. Walking through the house,  you'd bump into people on the stairs or in the hallways, unaware of one another because we were too mesmorized by the beauty of the place. But the walk to the house had been long and the overwhelming amount of information had to be processed. The rooms filled themselves with sun and slowly we all started to let ourselves sink on soft couches and beds, listening to music, reading or writing. It was almost strange to feel so at home in a house that I'd only entered a few hours ago.

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More pictures of the garden. They designed everything themselves and there are many different eras in the garden. It was huge and you probably will always find something new when you are there. There were little secrets hiding everywhere, things you wouldn't expect. Like kissing heads, or a small bridge over the water, or a bench made out of plants. I walked around with my mouth open, muttering oohs and aahs every few minutes.

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Garden house.
I didn't capture it all, because I was too amazed. There was a small pool, hidden by plants. There were strange installations and sculptures, visibly touched by time. It was dark, and the little liht that came in, made it all the more beautiful. It wasn't big, but it felt as if there was a hundred years worth of beauty to discover there.

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There was a dead bird on the road, I lay it down by the grass and on our way back it got a graceful funeral.

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I wish I was here. 

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In Berlin we spent a lot of time going through suitcases with old pictures, untill our fingers were so frozen that we had to stop. At times I wondered if every single German was at least a little bit transsexual. 

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this is a real starfish. happy 2012 to all of you :).
And then you say something about the past year. I guess it has not been the best year, but there were some  wonderful moments of course. I visited an insane amount of beautiful places, of which I'm very grateful. And I had a lot of wonderful adventures with friends and my hair has grown. And I saw a real starfish.
I spend last night in Amsterdam and I didn't get killed by a bomb, so that's also very positive.
Next year I'm visiting London and Frome which I'm super excited about, and hopefully I'll also go to Sweden and Germany and some other place, something I haven't seen before, like Iceland or Russia or some small town here in the Netherlands where I'll meet fascinating people. We will see. I have some other big plans for the new year, which I won't tell because then they can go wrong, but maybe, hopefully they will come true.
I wish you all the very very best for the next 364 days. With love. From my toes.