When I was a little girl, my grandfather called me Trina. He didn’t like the name my parents gave me and would have prefered a traditional North German name. I hated the name ‘Trina’. It seemed to represent everything I didn’t want in my life: homeliness, tradition and boredom. I wanted to have an exciting life, I wanted to see all the big capitols in this world, travel around, meet interesting people and, if possible, settle somewhere far away from home like New Zealand, Australia or South Africa.
The place I was born and raised in, Lüneburg, is nowadays a lively and interesting university town, full of architectural treasures. In the 60ies and 70ies when I grew up it was much smaller and more quiet. Everybody knew everybody else, at least by sight, or so it seemed to me. As soon as I finished school I found a place as an Au-pair near Washington DC. I loved it. I visited New York, and Baltimore and the East Coast of the US and found it fascinating and inspiring. However, I didn’t want to spend my life as an Au-pair, so I returned to Germany to study social sciences. At that time one couldn’t choose one’s university but was placed by a regulating chamber (ZVS – Zentrale Studienplatz Vergabestelle). I ended up in Bamberg, a town only slightly bigger than the one I came from.
As soon as I finished university I moved to Hamburg. Finally I had arrived in a big city. By then I was married and not soon after moving to Hamburg my sons were born. My husband and I decided to settle in Hamburg and we found a nice apartment in one of the livelier quarters, with old Jugendstil buildings, small shops, bars and restaurants, where people of all ages and with all sorts of backgrounds mixed. We agreed that we would travel as much as possible as soon as the boys had grown up.
Life didn’t turn out as planned, my husband and I split, and after living happily in Hamburg for almost fifteen years I decided to move to the countryside with my new partner.
The first years in the countryside were busy. There was a house and a big garden to look after, the boys needed me as chauffeur and due to commuting every day I had much less time than before. Then the boys started to move away to go college. I turned 50 and slid into a kind of ‘midlife crisis’. I regretted having bought a house instead of spending the money on travelling and I began to miss the diversity and liveliness of the big city, Because of personal circumstances moving back to Hamburg was out of the question and I grew more and more discontented and frustrated.
After being unhappy for a few years I decided to stop complaining and to start looking at all the good things in my life, instead of moaning after the things I felt I missed out on. I started to take a closer look at the places and people around me and found a lot of unexpected and interesting things. Slowly I began to realise, that an interesting and fulfilling life does not depend on the place you live in, but on what you make out of it. Wherever you live, it is possible to find inspiring and interesting people, places and events.
Of course I would still like to see the world. I am dreaming about travelling to Hong Kong, Sydney and Tokio. To Canada and South Africa. And who knows, maybe one day I will be able to see all these places.
In the meantime I am living in North Germany and I have decided to explore the area I live in and the area I come from and to get involved in the life and community around me.
I have just started out on this journey and I would like to share my experiences with you.
I will show you places I visit and I will tell you about everyday life here in North Germany.
My articles reflect my personal views and feelings, some things I write about might be trivial and superficial, but I hope I will give you an insight into (North ) German life and the things tourists usually don’t see.
Trina's North Germany 
Hi (Trina),
I`m quite impressed about your blog. It`s nice and outstanding. Your recipe has watered me the mouth. I haven`t already read everything, but I like to do it. I have set me on your list.
I also have to know more about Hohenlockstedt.
Hi Trina, love;y to meet another German here. I am from the south though near Stuttgart but live in London. I only have been once in Hamburg as a teenager. Thank you for popping into my blog so I could find you! Have a greatr day and enjoy blogging!
Thank you as well for having been on mine. Nice to meet you and I am looking forward to following your blog. Positive thoughts are food for the soul and I love food!
Hello!
Thank you for following my blog. I know how many interesting blogs are out there and feel honored that you picked mine to follow. I hope my stories entertain and inform and my photos bring you joy and wonderment.
I did not like my name either….until I found out boys liked it.
I travel mostly local but try to always find interesting places. I have lived in several different places and dig through my archives of photos to bring glimpses into places I have been. Sometimes I post a recipe because food tells a lot about culture.
I am not a professional photographer, so my photos are sometimes a little fuzzy and there are telephone poles and wires and other things along with what I was photographing. The older photos are 35mm, the newer are point and shoot digital and a few are Samsung Smartphone.
I am new to blogging so if you have any advice or critique please drop me a comment.
Thank you again for following and to quote Mark Twain: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” – Mark Twain
Iris the Wanderer
Hi, and thank you for your quick reply. I do like your photos a lot, I don’t feel photos have to be “professional” to be nice. It is more important to me to get a feeling about the atmosphere of the places shown. I have been blogging for more than a year now (I got another blog in German), but I am posting once a week and sometimes only every second week, as I am very, very busy with my job and commuting, therefore the weekends always seem far too short to get everything done. Have a nice day!
I look forward to reading your blog. I’m not very familiar with northern Germany so I am excited to be one of your followers. I was born in Stuttgart but moved to the US when I was 3.
Thank you,Trina, for visiting and deciding to follow my blog. I look forward to exploring yours as well. I grew up thinking that Germany was “the enemy” — I am that old! — and it has taken some time to realize what a wonderful and vital country it has become. I’m sure I will be learning a great deal more about it from you and “Trina’s North Germany.” 🙂
Thank you for telling me how you once felt about Germany. It has changed a lot especially since the late 60ies, but still, I feel that we should never forget our history. We can be proud of all the great thinkers and artists and our economical achievements, but we must never forget how easy it was to lead our whole people into believing a cruel and absurd ideology, and committing or quietly accepting the most gruesome crimes during the 3rd Reich. By remembering and understanding the often subtle ways of manipulation and the workings of propaganda and brutality, as well as recognising the many faces of racism, we can develop an awareness of our personal responsibility to make this world a peaceful and good place for everybody.
I hope I didn’t carry on about this too much, but I feel it is important to be aware of our past. Knowing myself as the person I am I am not sure that I would have belonged to the courageous who fought the system at the time. I myself might well have been someone who turned the head away, and therefore it is all the more important to not forget and to remember where turning a bling eye might lead to.
I think you are sufficiently courageous to have written this reply, especially as my generation is nearly gone now, and what you are referencing really is “history.” One more thank you for your thoughtful and sensitive “carrying on.”
I am happy to have found your blog. It’s a long time already that I don’t live in North Germany anymore but it feels more and more like it’s my real home every time I go back. I hope you have many more posts coming up to remind me about all the great things of the North.
I will do my very best! Which part of the North are you from?
From Hannover, just where we still think that we are from the North while those further up wouldn’t consider us to be so.
Ah, I am from Lüneburg living in Schleswig Holstein, and Hannover has always been part of North Germany to me! Your blog is great, by the way. Am just having a look at it right now.
Thanks a lot! We used to go to Schleswig-Holstein for vacation when I was a child and I fell in love with the Nordsee there.
Hi trina! It’s been a while since I’ve spent a lot of time on WordPress, as I’ve been recovering my health, and I’ve missed travelling with you around your Northern Germany. It’s fun to see where we both get to on our weekly travels – you over there and me downunder in Australia, at the same time!
I was impressed right from the start by your attitude to make something good out of your place. We are people who think alike. So Happy Trails in 2015, Trina. Best wishes, CC
Thank you! I am looking forward to reading you this year, too and hope that your health will stay perfect the whole year round!
Hi just to let you know that I have nominated you for a blog award 🙂
I finally got to your English blog! I am going to enjoy discovering Germany through your eyes 🙂
Hope you will enjoy it! Have a wonderful day!
Trina, thank you so very much for your blog. I, too, have spent a lot of time creating my blog based on our assignments in writing101 but now am ready to get started with the real thing. I love the way you started your about which is once where I wanted to start but decided to do some other things that kind of lead me in a different direction. I thank you for getting me back on course. My granddad called me Anzree, which is the family nickname for me. I will be following. Have a great day.
Thank you so much for your kind words. I am glad you like my blog. I am very much looking forward to reading more from you. Wish you a beautiful week!
Impressive blog, I hope to read more.
Nice to meet you from the AtoZChallenge.
Ich wohne auch in Deutschland.
Thank you! Where in Germany do you live? I found your blog and you cover very interesting topics. I will be back!
I Live in Wuppertal, the city with the Schwebebahn. Very close to Dusseldorf
There is a woman blogging about the Schwebahn, maybe that is intersting for you: https://rose1711.wordpress.com/
Wish you a nice day!
You’re from North Germany and I am from Northern California. Germany has always fascinated me. For that matter, all of Europe. Me? I’m just an old California girl going gray. Visiting from the A-Z challenge
Thanks for your visit and it is great to get to know you. When I was 15 I had a terrible crush on an exchange student from California, and for a long time afterwards I dreamed about going to California. One day I will! Wish you a great day!