Oh, Berlin. I’d been dreaming of visiting Germany ever since my parents brought me home my first pair of lederhosen in 1983. In high school, four years of German language classes only left me wanting more. So when we booked a Blogcademy Berlin workshop, I jumped for joy. When we arrived, it was everything I could have hoped for — the old buildings, new street art and curiously international mix of food tempted me to throw caution to the wind and spend the entire summer there.

We held our class at a very hip co-working space called Agora Collective. Tucked back on a stone walkway full of apple trees, the venue was full of dozens of oversized plants, whitewashed walls, huge windows and a very unique kitchen with rotating chefs. Germans are known for being industrious and our area featured a tree branch re-imagined as a floating coat rack. Basically, this building housed the coolest office on the planet.

We kicked off our class with a very international mix of ladies from Germany, Canada, South Africa, Belgium and Switzerland!

The plant situation in Agora was completely out of control…and I loved it!

One of the topics we repeatedly circle back around to is the myth of perfection. It has the potential to hold us back from what we really want to go after. We make a point of sharing how cringe-worthy our blogs were in the beginning because there’s nothing worse than thinking someone got from point A to point B overnight. It’s important to keep it real and provide you with a realistic outlook.

Sarah is so stylish! Her blog is fantastic, too — check it out!

Big smiles all around!

As usual, our still life activity was my favorite part of the day — it’s so interesting to see what our ladies gather up and how their compositions all come out so differently from one another. If you’re in need of some tips, we also offer a Home School module on the subject!

Stay inspired, stay curious and keep an open mind. Go out and live your life…and then blog about it. If you’re sitting at your desk waiting for your next brilliant blog post to come, chances are slim that it’s ever going to happen!

The easiest way to become the teacher’s pet? Hand-deliver gourmet chocolates from Switzerland!

I was so sad to say goodbye to this class.

Thanks to our Berlin sponsors for the lovely goodie bag mix: Tattoo transfers by Hello Harriet, WordPress for Beginners books by Reeta Krishna, sparkly ears by Crown and Glory, branded pens by Go Promotional, tattoo transfers by Pepper Ink Vintage, paper decor by Strange Case, no-snag hair ties by Mane Message and notebooks by Veronica Dearly .

The rest of our 2014 classes are nearly sold out but don’t fret, 2015 dates will be launching soon! Thanks for coming along with me on this Berlin adventure. I’ve been preparing a little travel guide (with tons of photos!) for later this week — stay tuned!

Venue: Agora Collective.
Photographer: Shell de Mar.