Category: Blog Posts

In collaboration with Duitslandnieuws.nl

Congratulations—your daughter has been born. How was the birth experience different here compared to the Netherlands?

In my case, that doesn’t quite reflect how things are done here, because—going against the German trend—I chose to give birth at home. Since I’d given birth at home twice in the Netherlands, I really didn’t need to get involved with the medical system this time either. Giving birth at home in Germany is quite rare; nationwide, only 2% of women do so, and in Berlin, 3%—which apparently is already considered a high percentage. There are also very few midwives who assist with home births—about 380 nationwide—which is surprisingly few for a population of 82 million.

My days are packed. For the new show Rbbum4, I’m on the road for a whole week once a month. Every day somewhere different, every day with different people, every day learning new things, asking silly questions. Seriously, I’ll keep saying it—it’s just a really fun job. My only constraint: Filming between 9 a.m. and noon (and definitely no later than that), then finding a spot (preferably with a nice lunch, a power outlet, and of course a table and a chair). And then editing until 3 p.m., because that’s my deadline.

The leaves lie in large piles throughout the city and are soaked with rainwater. After weeks of sunshine, blue skies, and the trees’ magnificent display of purple, red, and orange, it’s now getting dark.

The branches are already nearly bare; after the drought, it’s now raining cats and dogs every day, and the first real fall storm is forecast for tonight. The dark days leading up to Christmas start unusually early here—by five o’clock in the afternoon, it’s already pitch black.

It’s always the same. You live in a city where there’s so much to do, and your list of things you want to see over the next few years actually gets longer every day. But last weekend, we managed once again to leave the dirty dishes for a bit, hand the kids over to the babysitter, and hop on our bikes. Because we wanted to learn a little more about Franz Biberkopf. Who’s that? The main character of the book that journalist Antoine Verbij is holding up here: *Berlin Alexanderplatz*. (And we were going to get some meatballs to go with it, so yeah, that’s definitely worth a little bike ride.)

It’s been a great week with some new tech gadgets. Filming with the iPhone is still “uncharted territory” for me, but Sabine Streich is a mentor of sorts who can teach you everything there is to know about the technical side of things. Trained as a photographer, she was there at the dawn of video journalism; now she teaches journalists at Deutsche Welle how to shoot segments using SLR/DSLR cameras—but these days, not just as a VJ (the German term “camjo,” short for video journalist), but also as a MoJo (mobile journalism). And she even does this in Namibia, where the young journalists don’t have computers at all and therefore edit directly on their phones.

It’s a cliché. Farmers mostly stay on their land, and no horse could get them into the big city.

Not necessarily true, as I now know.

Since yesterday, I’ve met a potato farmer who dared to make the long journey from northeastern Groningen to Berlin. His farm is in Roodeschool, which isn’t just in the northeast of the Netherlands, but also in the northeast of the northernmost province. And it’s the last train station in the Netherlands. That’s where everything ends. (Okay, there’s also Eemshaven, but for the sake of convenience, I’ll leave that out of this column for now).

“Boo,” I say as I walk in through the heavy wooden door. Seven faces stare at me in bewilderment from the seminary living room. One of them belongs to my former colleague Michael. “We’re actually in the middle of a moment of reflection.”

In contemplation, in contemplation… What on earth is that supposed to mean, I wonder. And I realize that, with my three bags and my good intentions, I’ve walked in a little too early. I’d been promised a beer—a nightcap after four days of work. But a quarter past nine is too early. “It’ll take until about a quarter to ten; I’ll let you know when we’re done.”

It was -12 this morning. And a clear blue sky.
So the light was beautiful—a perfect reason to go outside.
For the kids to go sledding on a thin layer of snow.
For me to take pictures.

We’ve already come a long way.

Time is flying by; we’re trying to keep up and are picking up the pace.

Gosh, where do the days, weeks, and months go? I really have no idea.

It was summer just a moment ago; then the leaves suddenly turned orange, and now the streets and parks are littered with everything that was just hanging from the trees.

And we’re busy with school.