I was going to start out writing that February is the month of love, but I don’t actually think it is (and a quick search of Wikipedia confirmed my suspicions). But while February may not be the month of love, it does contain the day of love as well as a lot of other reasons to show it some affection. The thing I love most about February is probably that February is Chocolate Lovers Month at Dunkin Donuts.  This is the only month of the year where they bring out the mother of all muffins- the TRIPLE CHOCOLATE MUFFIN (served warmed!). The second thing I love is that my beautiful sister has her birthday this month. This year marks her golden birthday as she will be 22 on the 22nd. The third thing I love is that February is only 28 days and this means it will soon be March and the end of winter. And the last thing I love is Valentine’s Day. I loved Valentine’s Day when I was single and I love it now that I’ve found the love of my life. People might complain about how commercialized it’s gotten in recent years, but aren’t all those complainers out there missing the point. The fact of the matter is that it’s a day to celebrate all those we love and recognize love for being the most powerful force on earth.  No matter who you love (or even if you only love yourself) it’s a great day to appreciate all those who matter to you.

I am lucky enough to have an amazing Valentine who made the day extra special by whipping up some homemade sangria and having bacon wrapped dates ready when I got home from my German class. We drank sangria, talked, played games and then enjoyed a nice dinner out at a restaurant around the corner we’d been meaning to hit up for awhile. He got me flowers, I bought him a backpack he’d been eyeing. Nothing too out of the ordinary for us, but still a wonderful opportunity to reflect on how our much our relationship means and the importance in expressing that to each other.

Another thing I love is visitors and we were able to host two amazing ones the first week of February. Jessie, who has been one of my best friends for more than a decade, and Steph (one of her best friends and one of my new favorite people) stopped by Berlin before heading out to travel around Eastern Europe. We had fun walking around the city, doing a bit of touristing and eating lots of delicious food!

The weekend after they left I came down with a nasty stomach flu that had me out of commission the entire weekend. I took Monday off as I needed a little more time to recover and was so happy I felt better by Tuesday because we it was the big Fasching/Karnival celebration at Phorms. Fasching is a huge party in Germany and everyone dresses up- the school celebration was reminiscent of Halloween in the US, just with more food! It was a lot of fun to try some of the traditional foods (Pfannkuchen) and see everyone decked out in costume.

This past weekend we took it pretty easy. Had a delicious dinner with Saskia, Matthieu and two of their friends from Canada on Friday and then enjoyed a walk around the neighborhood and a slice of cake yesterday. Hope everyone is having a relaxing weekend and had a fantastic Valentine’s Day.

Much love from Berlin- Daverian