May I introduce myself?

MyselfDiverse
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Personal information

Welcome beautiful human!

Glad you found my photographic travel blog and seem to be interested in some more information. This page is less about me but here is a brief instruction about myself. I am a 31-year-old women born and raised in Berlin, Germany. My mom took my sister and me, when I was 8 years young, to move to Lanzarote one of the Canary Islands in Spain. We spent more than five years living surrounded by a wild ocean. This might be a reason why I feel home as soon as I am near the ocean and I am in love with water, cool wind and a far horizon.

When I was almost 14 years we moved back to Berlin where I lived ever since. Still, since starting my Bachelor of Science in 2009 I was mostly commuting. First to Frankfurt Oder for my Business Administration degree, then German wide for my first fulltime job as the assistant of an executive board member. I held this position for two years and spent almost one of those years commuting to Hamburg each week and in between to different branches in Germany, rarely being in Berlin throughout the week.

After two years I decided to make a fulltime Master of Science in Management and Marketing in Berlin and only continued working as a student assistant. Part of this program was an exchange semester which I spent in Shenzhen, China. This time was one of the best in my life. Being abroad with ton of different influences was mind-blowing. I used every free minute to explore China and countries nearby. Before the exchange I only once had a longer travel experience to the USA where I combined the visit of family with traveling for six weeks in total. In that journey I experienced that traveling on my own gives me so much that I decided to travel a few months on my own after finishing the exchange semester. I had the chance to travel almost two and a half months through southeast Asia before I had to get back to write my thesis. I really loved it and had a hard time going back home afterwards. Nowadays my wanderlust drives me even more.

Finishing my Master, I would have loved to keep traveling, but because of student depts I was forced to start working. I got promoted in my former company as a team lead responsible for two small branches in eastern Germany. Again, I was commuting this time to Dresden and Magdeburg. In this year I opened another branch in Leipzig. I really enjoy the responsibility and the learning I take away from this job. I am in this Position for 1,5 years now and I do keep growing with it. Still I try to travel as much as I can though my travels converted to extended weekends off and a longer journey each year due to limited days of vacation. I know, as a German I'm spoiled. I do have 28 days off plus the official holidays (in Berlin 10 days extra each year), but since I love to travel that could never be enough. But as I learned in my travels, especially in China and the USA, that these days are already way more than other nations have so I should appreciate it, so thanks to my home country ;)

I already have some plans for this year that will change my live drastically, but they are not official yet. So, you will see how travel and work will evolve in the future for me. Stay tuned.

Concept

Berlin, my hometown.

The concept of this page is to show you the world through my eyes. I am a hobby photographer and all the pictures on this page are either by or with me on it. Since I can remember I always had a crush for photography, especially landscape and architecture. Most of my life there wasn't enough money for traveling therefore the opportunities for travel photography where limited in my childhood and teenage years. Till my exchange semester in China I only took photos with an old camera of my mother or my phone, thus the results were unsatisfying. Looking back, I believe that you could only like these photos if you have a memory attached to them. Still I can not afford a professional camera and shoot with a Panasonic DMC-TZ81 (Edit Summer 2019: I updated to a Sony Alpha 6000) or my phone (currently an honor 9). I try to compensate it with compositions and perspectives. For sure there is room for improvement, as it will always be. Anyway, I hope you still enjoy my photography.

On this page I plan to combine photography with experiences to give deeper impressions. My hope is that this will enhance the feeling to be on a journey yourself. Till now I never published a personal text, even though I write travel journal and like to write stories inspired by real-life. I am looking forward for your feedback about this concept, even though it is not a new one, I believe that each person has their own perspective on this beautiful world and I am ready to show you mine. Be my guest.

Lots of love

Mareike