2012 in Review!

JANUARY. 2012 started with a big move - I sold all my furniture in December and moved into Jendrik's apartment in downtown Hamburg. Suddenly, I was in the middle of everywhere and within walking distance to the office, the city center and the Reeperbahn. 

Books from boxes

FEBRUARY. In Western Germany, there is a 5th season of the year: Karneval! Jule, Alex and I celebrated Karneval together in Frankfurt. It was freezing cold but definitely fun. Thanks, Alex for hosting!

Pippi Longstocking, Maverick & Toucan!

MARCH. In Venice, Inna and I escaped the German winter and enjoyed the beautiful Italian city at 20° C. Venice is definitely worth a trip - we walked and walked and walked through the narrow alleys and could not get enough of it! Coming back another surgery awaited me: I had to have the metal in my left arm removed. Although being in hospital is no fun at all, I am glad I had the surgery as I have regained full mobility and do not feel any pain anymore when moving my arm. 

Planning the day over breakfast

APRIL. Another move. Jendrik decided to come back to Hamburg and I had to move again. I found a beautiful apartment - with a balcony above the water - and a lovely flatmate and realized: I am too social to live by myself! At work, I started to shift from purely Biz Dev to Public Policy and suddenly my previous degrees in Politics and Social Sciences and my internship in DC turned out to be useful after all...

Guided tour of Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie

MAY. Axel Springer invited Gunnar and me to his 100th birthday which was a great event where we mingled with many fancy and famous people. I also flew to England after not having been back for three years and discovered that London and my favorite neighborhood Shoreditch have changed - for the better. When I tried to enter the UK, I encountered a small hiccup when the border control officer took away my ID card and send me straight to the German embassy to issue a new one... After two crazy days in London, I went North to Harrogate to visit Nina who was teaching at a school there.

Greeting from Harrogate

JUNE. This was a busy month. I met with my former MBA classmates at the Hamburg Media School Alumni Summit, the Eurocup was very exciting (Germany almost won again), glutenfreiheit.org was featured on TV (Hamburg1) and I spent a week in San Francisco to work out of our headquarters.

View from my gluten free Airbnb listing in Dogpatch

JULY. I met for the first time with Julia who is a ZONTA member and offered to be my mentor on a quarterly basis. Her advice helps me to reflect my actions and focus on my overall career and life goals. On the weekends, I enjoyed the summer at the German sea in Sylt or Wangels with my friends.

Sylt beach

AUGUST. V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N, finally! After seven (!!!) years, I took my first two-week-long break! During the first week, I visited Mia in Copenhagen and spent some time with Gabi in Lomma near Lund and in the second week I flew to Palma de Mallorca with Raquel. It felt so good to spent time with my girls and visit these beautiful places.

Living on a boat in Copenhagen

SEPTEMBER. Two big events happened in September: Airbnb hosted the Local List event in Berlin to celebrate the recommendations of our community. It was the biggest event I ever helped organizing and luckily it turned out to be a huge success. One week later, I headed down to Munich to celebrate the Oktoberfest - sporting my own authentic dirndl dress which I bought in a thrift shop in Copenhagen.

Behind the scenes

OCTOBER. In October, I changed some things that I intended to do do for a long time: I focused on my work-life-balance, signed up for a gym and met more regularly with new and old friends. Also, the subscription of a gluten free Kochzauberbox clearly improved my cooking skills.

I found a school bus in Altona!

NOVEMBER. San Francisco for two weeks - meeting with the new international Public Policy & Legal team, watching the Giants winning the World Series, celebrating Halloween and following Obama winning the presidential elections. Perfect timing!

Obama O's - Airbnb's DNA.

DECEMBER. Back to SF again. Celebrating XMas with 500 colleagues in a Vodka distillery in Alameda and planning 2013 with my team. 

XMas photo booth

Finally, I would like to thank you all for your company, entertainment friendship and support throughout this exciting, tough and fun year! I am really looking forward to all our adventures in 2013! 

All the best, Kati x