Easter in Germany is AMAZING. Bread-land becomes Chocolate-bunny-land for a long weekend and not only that, you have free by law.from Friday to Monday. A beautiful long weekend to get all the chocolate you can 🍫.
As a foreigner, there are some main differences I noticed, compared to Costa Rica. Here you can easily separate the church from the festivities, like in Christmas, so is easy to feel part of the party even if you’re not religious. In Costa Rica is more about going to religious sad and slow parades, watching The passion of the Christ and Ben Hur on repeat and not eating beef.
In Germany of course there is also this if you want, but you get also the fun version of this holidays with bunnies, chocolates and even the lamb-shaped cakes that are supposed to be a representation of Jesus but are also tasty and covered in chocolate. Also, nobody cares really if you have a BBQ on good Friday, as soon as you don’t turn it into a party, cause it’s “Ruhezeit” and you should keep quiet… (or you will get to identify which of your neighbors is the annoying one 😂)
Scary, but super tasty 😋
Of course here you cannot get the gold old empanadas de piña or other traditional Costa Rican treats that I miss, but the local traditions make up extra for it and make you feel at home 🙂
Let’s get real about skin care and weather: I come from Costa Rica, a humid and warm place where all my life I kept retaining liquid and my skin behaved pretty much greasy. I’m not a dermatologist to talk about why or how, I just tell you about my experience 🙂
So all that time I was following the routine of washing my face 2 times a day with a foamy wash, in the morning using a toner of the Face Shop (Chia), then serum, cream of the same line, then sometimes primer, and then whatever makeup I had time for. (Usually a LOT in comparison to my life in Germany)
When I moved to Germany I stopped retaining liquid, as a matter of fact I get easily dehydrated and my skin went from greasy to totally dry and peeling in winter. And by skin I don’t talk only about my face, no, weirdly enough my ankles get specially dry to a point where they are itchy and look like fish scales. My cute usual creams are absorbed in no time and I had to sleep with heavy Nivea cream on my face. I went NUTS with skincare after this changes (tea tree oil, niacinamide, 2 washes a day, full chia treatment and heavy makeup remover) and my face was not so happy about the extreme care and not only got dry but had some random breakouts.
Now what I follow is only washing with water in the morning, ALWAYS using primer before whatever makeup I want to use and only do a full wash before going to bed to remove makeup and any impurities from the outside world 🙂 only then using toner, serum and moisturizer. The niacinamide and tea tree oil are now for using a couple of times a month.
In general, be mindful of having full hydrating cream not only for your face, but for your arms and ankles! Specially in winter but also in summer (and remember always to use sunscreen ☀️)
This is kind of a taboo topic to talk about, specially in an international household, but is part of the reality of being from a “third world country” and moving to a “first world country”, so I think is time we address it
As we know the division between 1st, 2nd and 3rd world was an old definition to mark the west, the east and countries not affiliated to any. Nowadays “3rd world” refers to “less developed” and 1st world to the opposite.
But hear me out…
There’s still some people that believes the 3rd world means living out of coconuts in the jungle hunting jaguars or something, when in reality, some of this countries have better informatic systems (and some of them even technology) than some of the “first world countries”.
Personally I’ve been asked some of this questions (and affirmations) while living in Germany, and some people I know have gotten some others while living in other developed countries:
Do you have cars in Costa Rica?
Do you eat lizards?
You have internet in Costa Rica?!
Costa Rica is a poor country? (here comes the image of the jaguar hunter)
How do you communicate in the jungle?
Is Costa Rica part of the US?
Is Costa Rica in Africa?
Latin America is all an extremely violent and conflictive area… *silently judging you*
It must be super dangerous to live so close to Venezuela…
Oh Cost Rica, so you lived in South America?
*Assuming you cannot speak more than 1 language, when you speak 3+, then getting surprised that you speak good english*
Are you marrying a German to get a visa?
There seems to be little geographic understanding in the rest of the world… while we are taught where Mozambique, Luxembourg, Surinam and Malaysia are, the overall of the french revolution, wars and things like this (just random examples), it seems uncommon in the first world to know much about Central America. Or cars in the tropics, lol. Of course, disclaimer, not everyone is like this, but the people who make themselves more notorious are asking/saying those sort of things.
Now, living in Germany made me realize that I also underestimated my own country. Here you get 74727485 papers for everything, rarely something is digital, and you will get it via post some day. While in my country you can get information via email, WhatsApp or other digital ways. Like, you can see you medical history in the public healthcare system app. Yes, we have an app for that. In Germany… The healthcare system covers the same but is separated from wherever you’re getting your health checked, is not centralized. You want the epicrisis of a surgery you had? You have to call the hospital at certain times and eventually they will send it to you, printed, via post.
One time I was talking with someone about something of this and was asked “Ah, but then how would it be in your country?” – Digital. It would be digital.
Another thing is credit cards. Or debit cards, any plastic money. Costa Rica is a bit behind in the use of Paypal. A bit too much. But you can pay a coffee in a restaurant by a volcano with a debit or credit card, while in a centric town of Germany (to be understood: not the country side) I tried to pay for breakfast with an EC card (not even a real card, is a card system of Germany that works only inside of Germany) and was told “We only accept cash, you are in Lüneburg”, like saying “where TF do you think you are?”… Well… The first world I thought?
Here when you add money to your bank account on a Friday, it won’t be available for using it until Monday.
You know how we always complain in Costa Rica that you cannot go to the banks on Sundays? Well in Germany you cannot even go to the supermarket on Sunday. Everything is closed.
On the other hand, transportation in Germany is LOVELY. The highways are in good conditions, the trains are fast and there is a schedule for when the bus should be passing by (approximately). You can buy train and bus tickets online or in person, go with the subterranean train and with other transportation systems available different in each region. The buses will even go down with an hydraulic system so old people and wheelchairs can get in easier. In Costa Rica if you use a wheelchair better get a car…
In Costa Rica… well… you don’t know when will the bus arrive. Can be that you know it goes each 20 minutes, but that doesn’t really mean anything. Sometimes you would wait for a bus in the city center and, after waiting some time unsuccessfully, someone tells you the stop was moved to who know where, then you have to walk and find it. Traffic on general is terrible.
The available trains are basically for 2 routes/lines and as slow as driving without traffic. And driving… I remember being in a traffic jam for 2h to go to class, 9km from home. In Germany I can go from Hamburg to Denmark in that time (+-230km).
So yeah. Costa Rica is not the paradise jungle the first world thinks we are, and Germany is not that technologically advanced country the third world thinks they are. In fact if you are a medical doctor or an IT specialist, come to Germany, we need you!.
Growing up in the tropics I always wondered about this places that have actual snow for Christmas and not that synthetic thing that some people put on the cypress trees to make it look more Christmassy… but my priority was always to finish my studies to a point where I could take care of myself and find this places on my own. Along the way I got a huge interest for Germany, the geography, music and weather, nothing huge.
Fast forward to 2018: I’m financially independent and had traveled already to Germany where I met my husband, this led to the decision that got me to this post. Do we settle in Costa Rica or in Germany.? It was easy for me to chose cause everyone had good health in my family and I had always wanted to live in a place where I could see the 4 season every year and go out at night without fearing for my life. But once you live abroad and you settle, life changes in both places and you can not be everywhere. Your parents get older, your brothers grow, your cats forget you (nah, well, my Piyu didn’t forget me yet haha) and also the scenario changes. Now you notice how living abroad also implies that you might not be there for ALL your loved ones in difficult times. When I was about to leave CR I decided to almost shut the world down and just stay at home the last days I was there watching Netflix and talking with my mom. Lost some friends for this choice but I cannot stress how important was it for me to spend time with my mom, specially since she had recently retired and finally had some free time to just chill and relax. She always worked a lot, she loved her work, but now she had free time and I decided to spend mine with her. Best choice ever. Little did we knew that the pandemic would crush my family’s trip to Germany to meet my German family but also that my mom would get badly sick. That’s why we decided to make an emergency travel and see her properly, cause the last time we saw each other we were not certain of anything. Now we are also not, but this was the last time I saw my mom, the last time we saw a movie together, the last time we hugged, talked about life and waited for the new year to come together. This is the price we pay for living abroad, specially so far away. I understand it and so does my family but it will never be easy. She just died (24.01.2021) and I miss her like breathing. So, you leave your family hoping the best for everyone but you truly never know know when is the last time you see them.
