< SWITCH ME >
When love moves Europe: story of an ordinary transnational couple
Written by Veronica Pozzi |
| Photo: Matthias Ripp; Licence: CC BY 2.0 Love for all
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Being in a love relationship can be at times complicated, right? Besides the ups and downs of a "regular" story, those who are in a long-distance relationship may find it way harder to overcome misunderstandings as well as to share nice moments. Broadening the topic,we wanted to go deep inside the feelings and thoughts of a young European couple currently split up into two different places, unveiling their fears, their struggles and their hopes for a future together. E&M's Veronica Pozzi tells the story of Marta and Johannes, an Italian-German couple who have grappled with national stereotypes and modern technology as part and parcel of their relationship.
"I was terribly late. It took me a while to get from my flat to the underground station and the way to get there had been quite weird, featuring a soldier from the German army who paid my bus ticket as I had run out of coins. After getting lost and adding more minutes to my already huge delay, I managed to arrive at the place. And he was there. With his blond hair, drinking a rather big beer. Looking very German indeed. Without taking my eyes off him, I started to talk to an Italian friend, who arranged the evening together, and as I was talking to her (read: very loud and with lots of gestures) I thought I must look truly Italian. And then the show began".
The memories Marta tells us are a strange but clear mixture of funny and sad bits. Her willingness to be abroad brought her to Germany, but she never thought that she was going to be so involved with that country as she is now. She was in that situation when you are not really on the look-out for a new story. But the guy she met there impressed her a lot and the dates that followed made her feel so comfortable, interested and happy that she felt she didn’t want to miss out on him. So, almost two years ago, their relationship started – more as an emotion-driven decision rather than a totally rational one. But here they are, and, in these two years, they have gone through quite a lot.
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Photo: Tobias Melzer
An English classic, brimming with Eastern promise |
Move over Harry and Sally, there's a far more interesting new pairing in town! E&M's Frances Jackson shares a recipe for a bold and romantic take on the classic Victoria sponge – delicately spiced with cardamom and rose water, sandwiched together with a pistachio and pomegranate cream, and just in time for Valentine's Day.
There is something about cardamom – its dominant, almost mint-like aroma; those citrusy notes, paired with an unexpected sweetness – that transports me, even in the depths of winter, to warmer climes and balmy nights. Rose water, on the other hand, is perfumed opulence, an alluring drop of summer, distilled to perfection in a technique said to have been discovered by Persian physician Avicenna in the 10th century.
Whether you're making this cake for that special someone in your life or as a treat to enjoy with friends, don't stint on the spices: the almond sponge is just a pencil outline, the cardamom and rosewater your colour pigments. The filling too should be positively studded with pistachios and pomegranate seeds, shining like gems in the ermine of the cream. Even if seduction is not on your mind, you'll find few able to withstand the temptation...
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| Photo courtesy of Alice Baruffato
Lichtgrenze over Berlin - Alice Baruffato, December 2014 |
As a part of E&M's commitment to multimedia content, our magazine is glad to announce that the Italian illustrator Alice Baruffato will be sharing with us cartoons drawn exclusively for E&M. She works as an archaeological illustrator but she will be also be contributing specifically to E&M, so stay tuned and enjoy some of the most significant European issues being turned into thought-provoking drawings on a monthly basis. To find out more, E&M's Veronica Pozzi has interviewed her about her work as an archaeological illustrator and her life-experiences in Europe.
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Alice Baruffato. If you feel you are already familiar with the name that's because she is not new to E&M. Last November, together with two friends, she wrote this article on her experience as a volunteer at the Berlin Wall. But the months she spent in Germany's capital are not the only European project in which she has participated. In this interview she shares those experiences as well as her personal views on Archaeology in Europe and the related job market.
E&M: Where does your passion for drawing come from? And how have you nourished it throughout the years?
Alice: My parents had a stationery shop. I remember I started drawing when I was a kid: I've always had this passion and, thanks to my parents' shop, I had access to good quality pencils and everything I needed. I took only one drawing course in my life, it was about cartoons but very short. For the rest, I just kept on drawing following my passion and as a self-learner.
E&M is looking for new editors to join our exciting and innovative online magazine and help us redefine European journalism.
About the magazine
E&M is Europe's first online lifestyle magazine created by young Europeans for young Europeans. We believe that modern, connected Europe deserves a modern, connected form of media. With this as our guiding mission, we publish transnational writing across a broad range of topics, from politics and identity to travel and sex. We aim to "make Europe personal" and want your help in doing so.
Editing E&M
We are looking for passionate, inventive and committed editors to join our editorial board and help guide the project either as editor of one of our five magazine sections (Brain, Heart, Diaphragm, Baby and Legs) or of our blog Sixth Sense. You will:
- Pitch, commission and edit five articles for each quarterly issue (magazine editors) or at least one article per week (blog editors) by authors from our international network
- Contribute to decision-making in the running of E&M through editorial Skype conferences
- Develop projects beyond the magazine such as workshops, debating events and journalism prizes
In return, you'll get to play a leading role in a magazine with 27 published issues, over 4,000 Facebook likes, 100 writers and a Charlemagne youth prize to its name. You'll meet like-minded people from across the continent, gain valuable experience in running an international publication and have the freedom to pursue your own journalistic ideas and ambitions.
More...
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Photo: Christian Diemer
Failure of a thousand-year-old past: the empty middle of Korosten', Central Ukraine (August 2013) |
In the sixth part of E&M's exclusive series on current developments in Ukraine, we find our correspondent Christian Diemer in the city of Korosten', where he gets into the spirit and celebrates the deruny (potato fritter) holiday like a local.
"Korosten', the city of the Drevlyans, welcomes you", says a wooden board somewhere in the town. "Korosten' is a city of bandits", says Sasha, the cab driver.
Korosten', is certainly one of the best connected cities imaginable. A place of some 66,000 inhabitants that not even all Ukrainians would know, yet with direct train connections not only to L'viv and nearby Kyiv, but also to Uzhhorod, Kharkiv, Odesa, Warsaw, Chişinau, Sofia, Minsk, Saint Petersburg, Moscow. The endless rattling and clattering of trains resounds from all sides. It doesn't even seem connected to the railway lines at all; placeless, ubiquitous comings and goings float around the lonely car garages, one-storey huts, scrapyards alongside the empty streets. The barking of two dogs chasing each other slices through the dawn. Other dogs answer, their howling from afar and near merges with the rattling of the train, or was there even a train? An early bicycle bumps by. A radiating sun rises, shooting its beams onto slab buildings.
I have found the centre. It is the negation of a centre. A vast square, surrounded by faceless tower blocks. Some seem to bear mysterious decorations. One carries an aerial. It is nothing. Every notion of meaningfulness in individual parts of the centre is negated by the utter emptiness of its whole. With seven lanes, the road running through seems improbably large. Once in a while one Lada howls by.
Good Reads – From the cocktail bars of Italy to the mountains of Albania
Written by Frances JacksonIn this week’s edition of Good Reads, E&M's Frances Jackson shares a few online titbits that caught her eye over the last few weeks: prepare yourselves for a whistle-stop tour of current European hotspots, both culinary and cultural.
Frances, Diaphragm / Baby editor
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FORGOTTEN EUROPE, BRIEFLY REMEMBERED
This is not only my first Good Reads of the year, but also my first as a magazine rather than blog editor. I suspect that the festive season is still preying on my mind though, because I am very much in the mood to indulge myself and shall be shamelessly tailoring these picks to my own personal whims and interests. Some readers might recall that I have previously used these pages to argue that Western media outlets suffer from a chronic lack of interest when it comes to Albania. In general I stand by this point, but I was at least pleasantly surprised to see the country getting a couple of mentions in recent days.
The first, which even spent a little while trending on the website of the Independent, was connected to Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s decision to arrange three coloured pencils like Le Tricolore in his lapel pocket for the Charlie Hébdo demonstration last Sunday. The author is right to highlight the fact that Rama is himself an artist, yet I do feel that he misses a couple of other important points. Namely that the politician used to live in Paris, and, perhaps even more significantly, is now leader of a European country that – however secular it may be – does have a Muslim majority.
My other discovery was a travel piece about the mallësori, a mountain community in the far reaches of northern Albania. Amongst the sweeping and evocative descriptions of life in the mountains, there are perhaps hints of the strain of orientalism identified by Larry Wolff in Inventing Eastern Europe, but for the most part, I found the author to be fairly even-handed in his judgement. In fact, for me, the main effect of the article was simply to unleash a certain nostalgia for the country that I called home for a few months back in 2013. All I can say is read it, and go there. Seriously. Albania is a wonderful place that does not deserve the oft-unsavoury reputation it has acquired.
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What form would the ideal European superhero take? |
For a Diaphragm feature in Issue 28 of E&M, we're going to be creating European superheroes and need your help in coming up with the designs.
Many of you will by now have probably seen Matt Shearman's interview with Nicolas De Santis, creator of Captain Euro, but we're not convinced that the high-kicking hunk offers everything that Europe needs in a superhero and want you to help us come up with some alternatives.
What would your European superhero look like? Would he or she have a day job? Maybe a side-kick too? What kind of superpowers would come in handy? And what about the all-important outfit? Would it be blue and star-spangled like the flag of Europe or a hotchpotch of all the colours of countries in the continent?
If you've got an idea for the perfect European superhero, please send your written suggestions (max. 250 words) by email to the Diaphragm team, who can be contacted via frances [at] europeandme.eu and rike [at] europeandme.eu.
The best entries will be turned into cartoons drawn by the wonderfully talented Laura Hempel and published in the April edition of the magazine.
Deadline for entries: 2 February 2015
They say a picture paints a thousand words, so we've set out to discover what photography might be able to tell us about today's Europe.
Here at E&M, we don't just want to know what young Europeans think about Europe, we also want to find out how they see and feel the continent. Sixth Sense plays host to a photo competition called Europe Through a Lens and we regularly publish a selection of our readers' photographic work. All you have to do is submit images that you think best represent our European theme of the month.
To give entrants more time to create their perfect image of Europe, we have decided to start running the competition on a bi-monthly basis. The theme for the January / February edition is "European landscapes" and entries could be anything from breathtaking coastal views to sight of the dawn peaking out behind snow-capped mountain ranges; we want you to show us the extraordinary scenic variety of this continent we all know and love.
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