Inside My Berlin Apartment!

Hello, guys. Welcome to another fabulous video shot in
my apartment here in Berlin. I thought, since we never really talked about
it before, I would show you what an apartment in Germany looks like, or at least, what my
apartment in Germany looks like. Depending on where you are from, you might
notice that some things are super different and some things are pretty similar. Ask yourself, why have I moved to fabulous…where
is it? Berlin, Germany? Number one, I think the culture here is super
cool. I love the street art. I love how many awesome free things there
are to do. I love that it’s such an international cosmopolitan
city. And I just think, its tones of fun and the
people who I meet here are really cool. Now, the thing is, this city and this apartment
are really affordable. I’ve had rent in here in shared apartments
as low as €275 per month all in, so that’s enough reasons for me. I have lived in this apartment for about a
year. It has taken me this long to make this video
because it’s taken me that long to actually furnish and decorate this apartment. One other thing that was really important
to me was that it had some character. So this is actually a converted attic. I love that the windows have these unique
shapes. I love that I have skylights. This apartment basically had everything that
I wanted and needed and I just love it more with every passing day. I have a friend who jokingly says that this
room looks like it belongs to an 80-year-old woman. And I just think it’s really exciting that
things like this are available here. So, yeah, I did get really excited about furnishing
my place with a lot of old-looking things because to me, that’s very new. Basically, this entire apartment is fully
market furnish, and that is for three big reasons. One, I think it gives it so much more personality
than it would have if I just bought everything from right here and it looked like everyone
else’s house. Number two, I really like stimulating the
local economy that way and it’s much better for the environment. And number three, the second-hand stuff in
Europe is so cool. I actually had so much fun furnishing my apartment
and I did it for not a lot of money. This is actually probably my favorite thing
in the whole place, I absolutely love this couch and it has a matching chair as well. And my second favorite thing is this photograph
above me. This is by a friend of mine here in Berlin. He’s a local artist named Anthony Kurtz and
he reimagined Delacroix’s, “Liberty Leading the People,” and I just think it’s a really
cool statement, so that’s why I have it in here. I’ll show you some of the details. This is actually a photograph that he did
and spent a bunch of time editing. And all of these people are various volunteers
that he had as part of the shoot. I like the V for Vendetta mask and the statements
that he’s making here. I’m just gonna have to cover her up, am afraid,
but this beautiful model is a representation of the modern world. I am realizing now how many nipples I have
in my apartment. I’m all about, “Free the nipple,” but I don’t
know if YouTube is. This room actually has a lot of different
uses. When I’m entertaining, I’ll have people over
and we can sit on the nice comfy couches in here. And also, the first piece of furniture I ever
bought, the very first was this owl-oak desk here. Tell me that you can resist an oak desk with
wooden owls on it. I could not. So, you saw my owl-oak desk, you know that
this is where I get my work done. When I’m not going out, riding my bike or
going to pole dancing class or jump, which I’m super into here in Berlin, I roll out
my mat in here and I do paladins. And I use two bottles filled with tap water
as my hand weights. All right, this is basically my little storage
unit. I’m a big fan of this one, it is a globe of
the moon. Think it’s from the ’60s. When I saw it at the same flea market where
I’ve bought pretty much all the stuff in here, I was like, “That’s mine.” So this is my bedroom. Remember in MTV Cribs when they were always
like, “And this is where the magic happens,” well, there’s not a lot of magic happening
in this room. Unless they mean sleeping, then there’s a
lot of magic happening in this room. This is the room that made me want to live
here so badly. Come inside, I wanna show you why. Okay, I absolutely love all the windows and
natural light in here. This is what made me wanna live here, I just
thought it was so beautiful, the way that the light pours in here in the morning and
I love just hanging out in here and having a very clear separation between my office
and my bedroom. That is something that I learned the hard
way when I was on the computer way too much and just going a little bit crazy because
I was not separating my life and work enough. Freelancers, you know exactly what I mean. This little nick here where I usually do my
makeup, these are my very important house shoes. And this girl here, who is on my closet, this
is the first thing that I ever bought on my first ever trip by myself, which was when
I moved to Taiwan when I was 21 and it’s been with me ever since for the last 10 years. This is pretty special item too. My mom actually bought it back when she went
to Indonesia for work in the ’80s. I asked her really nicely if I could have
it, so it’s gone from Indonesia to California to Germany now. And so a lot of the stuff in here has traveled
a long way. This is my special little meditation corners. These pillowcases are souvenirs of mine from
China. Anyone who has been to Southeast Asia might
recognize this pillow. This mandala little rug here is pretty cheap
internet purchase but just really tied the room together. This is where I get clean. Well, actually this is where I get clean. You’ll notice that there is no shower curtain. I’m not really sure how when you have a slanted
roof you install a shower curtain. I actually love that it’s so open and again
that I’ve got so much light coming in from the Skylight. Also, since this room is where there’s a lot
of water, just like to have a little reminder of home here. These are some cool things that people have
given to me or that I’ve just kinda picked up along the way that I liked to have. That’s the bathroom. Right, welcome to my kitchen. I actually spend a lot of time in here. I absolutely love cooking. I love having people over. I love making use of this kitchen. Believe it or not, it’s very uncommon when
you move into an apartment in Germany for it to have a kitchen. So most of the time you actually have to buy
the kitchen when you move into a new apartment which is a little bit crazy to me. So I got really lucky that this came with
the apartment when I signed the lease. I really like this little detail here, I like
to keep my veggies down here. These are a hand-me-down from my friend Susie. This is a free market find, I bought it for
eight euros and I use it to keep my kitchen utensils in. Another feature that you will notice in a
lot of Berlin apartments is a small refrigerator. So it’s got this tiny little freezer and then
this is the space for all the food. Something that I think is really nice about
Germany and their main culture, it’s a very green Country. They’re super into recycling here. It’s actually something that people take really
seriously here. Another nice thing is I had the option of
signing up just for green energy for this apartment. So the electricity is all wind and water generated. Makes me feel a little bit less guilty about
all of the flights that I take. Finding an apartment in Berlin is not the
easiest thing, it takes most people about two to three months. I looked for a place like it was my job. So, it took me two weeks. I was just really responsive. When I showed up, I looked as presentable
as possible. And I just really put a lot of effort into
finding a place that worked for me. I am here on what’s known as a freelancer
or Artist visa. I will leave that in the show notes because
I know a lot of people have questions on how I’m able to live here. I also have one huge announcement that I wanna
share with you guys. Over the past few years, you have often asked
me, “How I can come with you to this place?” “I don’t really wanna travel alone for the
first time.” “Is there a way that I can ease into it more
easily with a tour or something like that?” Now, the answer is, “Yes”. Over the last month, I have been working tirelessly. I’m talking like hours and hours every day,
working on the ideal itinerary in Peru. I cannot wait to share this with you guys. We are gonna swim with sea lions, go deep
into the Amazon, staying at an Eco Lodge and see pink river dolphins and all these other
super, super amazing stuff. You can learn more in the show notes. I cannot wait to see you in South America. If you liked this video, don’t forget to give
it a thumbs up. Don’t forget to subscribe for new videos every
Wednesday-ish. Can’t wait to see you guys next week. Bye.