Else & Ilse | LGBTIQ+ adventurers

When we were young, we only (mainly?) had books with straight characters. We didn't see any representation of LGBTQ+ characters. Luckily, we see an increasing number of queer books these days— for adults ,   for younger readers,  and  for kids . And although we aren't that young anymore, we occasionally enjoy reading a YA book. Here are three books we enjoyed: Amy Feltman's Willa & Hesper (2019) is not a typical love story. Studying Creative Writing, Willa and Hesper meet at Columbia and quickly fall in love with each other. But their love is not meant to be and soon, they break up dramatically. To mend their broken hearts, both leave on trips to find their roots: Willa goes on a trip for young Jews to Germany and visits places of the Holocaust. Hesper and her family visit her grandfather's family in Tbilisi, Georgia, and she begins to uncover her family's hidden history. What If It's Us (2018) by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera brings us romance, friends...

The Skulpturenpark ('sculpture park') is one of our absolute favorites. When we just started dating, Else told Ilse about this park that Ilse didn't know. So, for our second date, Else planned a walk including this park (we wrote about it in  another post ). 19 months later, we were back for our monthversary, after we had planned to revisit more than once. But we always found other places to explore and somehow kept postponing our visit. In 1997, the Skulpturenpark opened its first exhibition with contemporary sculptures from all over the world. The exhibitions are usually open for about two years; then, a new exhibition is curated. While most artworks are then removed from the park, others aren't—there are still a few sculptures from the very first and following exhibitions. Recently, the tenth exhibition opened and and you can visit it until 2022. While some artworks are huge and cannot be missed, others are smaller such as Lonesome George by Ayşe Erkmen, a tiny snail...

Most of us are having a hard time with the second round of lockdowns in many parts of the world. So we started to collect ideas for lockdown activities (thanks to everyone who answered our call on Instagram!) and share them with you. Here they are (and please feel free to add ideas in the comments): Go Outdoors! It's getting cold outside (at least in the northern hemisphere), but when the sun is shining (or you have proper clothes), outdoor activities are the best! We (re)discovered  our love for being outdoors during our first lockdown and try to maintain it. You might not feel like leaving your warm living room, you might be exhausted afterwards, but we always feel so satisfied after a good hike or bike tour. If you live somewhere warm (or aren't like Else who is always freezing), we recommend canoeing! Get Creative! If you can't get yourself to go outside, start crafting something. We love painting and knitting, but you could also draw, crochet, sew, cross-stitch, or ma...

Today is a very special day because it is Else's birthday! For me (Ilse) this is my favorite day of the year because I love surprising Else. I wish her birthday celebration could go on for days and weeks. Just make it an Else-year. I never thought that I would meet my soulmate on tinder when I started using the app about 2 years ago. Flash forward to November 9th 2020. Else is sitting next to me while I am writing this blog text. I never thought that I would be so happy in 2020. She makes me incredibly happy. She is the most caring and most funny person in the universe and she always manages to make me smile or laugh even when I'm in a really bad mood or even when the world seems to be going down. 2020 is a very challenging year for everyone. The pandemic is affecting the mood. It sometimes depresses me a lot and I start to worry or miss things so much. And then there is Else who never fails to cheer me up and to put me in a good mood. And now, more than ever, it is so importan...

We love movies with older people! They show that we can be happy when we are older and we love the idea of growing old together. And even if people don’t have anyone while growing old, it’s never too late to find someone. And, maybe most importantly, these movies star old(er) actors and particularly actresses who so often aren’t engaged anymore—even though they experienced so much in their lives. As actresses and as protagonists. Here are a few of our favorite movies: Something’s Gotta Give (2003) We love Diane Keaton! In this movie, her character continuously changes and develops. She is self-confident and comfortable in her body and her life. The movie illustrates that we can love and find love in every phase of our life. This movie tells a wonderfully amusing story about love later in life. The Leisure Seeker (2017) A movie about a married couple who spent their entire lives with each other—including all the ups and downs. To reminisce about their shared life, they go on their last ...

Our city's Pride parade is one of our favorite festivals each year. We can celebrate our love, be proud of our sexuality, (re)connect with old friends, get to know new people. So when all pride parades had to be canceled due to COVID-19, we understood the decision, but it also made us incredibly sad. Yet, our parade wasn't canceled, but modified and postponed to October 11 and thereby coincided with the National Coming Out Day that was originally celebrated in the US, but nowadays around the world. We assume the organizers hoped for an end of the pandemic—as so many of us did. The second wave of the pandemic currently intensifies and we weren't sure if our Pride would really happen this year. But it did. We didn't have parade floats and masses of local, national, and international participants. Instead, we had a physically distanced bicycle parade in which everyone of us participated. Starting from four different locations, hundreds of queer people demonstrated LGBTQ+ v...

Yes! Of course we are friends. We are even best friends. We know almost everything about each other. We spend more time with each other than anyone else. We enjoy each other’s company. We talk for hours, we laugh about the most stupid jokes (and some good ones as well). We can be who we really are—in the joyful moments as well as in the sad or stressed ones. We live together.  But we are so much more than what you are assuming. We also sleep in the same bed. We love each other—not platonically, but romantically. We share more with each other than we would with friends—however close we are with them. When we are holding hands, we don’t do so as friends, but as partners and lovers. And we certainly don’t kiss each other as friends. So while we would appreciate when people would accept displays of affection as natural and shareable with everyone, this is probably not the reason why people think that we are not a couple. Presenting as rather femme, we are too easily mistaken as heteros...

Last Sunday, for our monthversary, we returned to the Rheinpark—a wonderful park at the Rhine, which we had visited during one of our first dates. The park is located at the other side of the river and might be the biggest park in Cologne. To get there, we would always recommend walking over the Zoobrücke which offers wonderful views on the Dom, Cologne's iconic cathedral, and the Hohenzollernbrücke with its thousands of padlocks symbolizing love.  But even if you don't walk across this bridge, the beach in the northern corner of the park has fantastic views! And even though this beach is not in the Caribbean, it is wonderful to stay here for a while—we even saw geese and goslings! (If you want to be more active and/or have children, you'll also find a skate park and a very diverse playground here and at other places in the park.) Although walking around this park in itself is wonderful, it is also fascinating to watch its diverse visitors and find political street art. And...

"Soo ... You are lesbian now?" "What? Are you gay or straight?" "But you dated men before!” Most of us have experienced questions and exclamations like these. And although we understand that it is so much easier to put someone in a box, to have an unambiguous label, it’s not always so easy for the person who’s asked to label themselves. Both of us dated men before. Else always knew that she likes women as well; Ilse took a while longer to understand—although the signs were there. Naturally, people were and are confused. Lesbian? Bisexual? Pansexual? (Although that’s something no one ever asked us yet.) For quite a few years, Else didn’t label herself at all—it was what it was. Ilse, when she finally realized that she wants to be with women, didn’t label herself either. Both of us aren’t interested in men anymore, neither sexually, nor romantically. So at some point, we started to label ourselves as lesbian or homosexual. We also like the term queer since it ref...

Like last year, Else planned a short trip for Ilse as a birthday gift. While we went canoe camping near Berlin last year, this year’s trip brought us to Paris. Paris! Both of us had been to Paris before, but we never visited the city of love and romance together. While planning the trip, Else thought a lot about traveling in times of COVID-19 , but cases of new infections were dropping, Paris is just a three hour train ride from Cologne, France seems to be very responsible when it comes to prevention measures. Then, about a week before we were bound to leave, numbers in Europe started to rise again. What was supposed to be a surprise destination, had to be revealed and discussed. We finally decided to go, be super careful, and monitor the numbers. It was a rather stressful trip, but fun nonetheless! Probably because of the pandemic, hotel rates in the center of Paris were very low and we had a wonderful hotel with a view on the Hôtel des Invalides from our room. We could walk to the Ei...

We are addicted to traveling. So when COVID-19 put so many travel restrictions on us, we certainly agreed with the measures, but we also knew that we would miss traveling a lot.  When the numbers of new infections started to drop and travel restrictions were slackened, we carefully went on a three-day hike not too far from Cologne . A month later, we joined Else’s family on a family vacation in central Germany . And when Ilse’s birthday approached and travel in Europe seemed okayish again, Else planned a birthday present that would bring us to Paris. Yet, during summer time when everyone goes on vacations (and apparently many don’t care to wear their face masks), infections were bound to rise again.  Not surprisingly, a couple of days before our journey to Paris, Else had to reveal the destination of our surprise vacation so that we could discuss together whether we should go or stay at home: infections in France, particularly in Paris, reached critical numbers. We finally dec...

"Ever had a threesome?" "Hello. Can we have sex all three? Are you active or passive during sex?" "I reduce stress by putting my 10 inches between two sets of lips like those." As probably every other lesbian couple, we regularly meet (well, 'meet') men who objectify us, who use us for their sexual fantasies. Living in Cologne with a rather diverse population—a recent study speaks of 10.6% queer identifying people in Cologne, while just 6.9% identify as LGBTQ+ in Germany's total population—we experience this objectification only occasionally. But as soon as we leave the city and travel in regions where queer people are less open with their sexuality and gender (or left for more open cities), sexual harassment, remarks, and salacious gestures are part of the experience. Representing our lives on social media has intensified this issue. Sometimes, we don't get any obvious messages or comments in days. At other times, we get a few within a day...

[SERIOUS CONTENT WARNING: THIS IS CHEESY!] Today is Ilse's birthday and for me, this is the most important day of the year! This day celebrates the birth of my favorite person and I am beyond grateful to have her in my life. As you know, we met on Tinder  about one and a half years ago and didn't expect anymore that we would find a person we would  really like on this platform. Additionally, I had a serious shortcoming: my bangs! Ilse didn't like bangs at all, but she states that she does like them now. (I would give them up for her, though!) A couple of weeks later, we went on our first date; our second date eight days after that made it obvious: we might be right for each other. Ever since, we are inseparable. We go on the most amazing vacations (remember our posts on Portugal and Belgium ?), have outdoor adventures while hiking, canoeing, or cycling, and explore our city in the best way possible. But our biggest adventure so far is still to come: moving in together! We...

About a week ago, we went on another adventure exploring Germany and stayed in a tiny village in Hesse (central Germany). Else's mom had planned this trip as a family vacation for Else's siblings, their partners, and Else's nephews. Not far from our vacation home was the 'Lochbachklamm,' a small valley with fourteen wooden bridges. The valley was part of a shortish hiking trail of about 8.5 kilometers and our host strongly recommended it. The next day after breakfast, we started out to find the bridges. It wasn't easy to combine the interests and abilities of eight adults and three children. One of Else's sisters and her partner were taking selfies (or asked others to take pictures) all the time. Her brother wanted to get on and was annoyed about all the breaks. Her other sister and her husband are not accustomed to physical exercise and insisted that we shouldn't walk the entire trail and should just go to see the bridges. As soon as we left our vacatio...

Ever since we’ve met, we’ve spent a continually increasing amount of time with each other. At the beginning of this year, we finally decided to move in together! Then: COVID-19, lockdown. And ever since, we haven’t spent a single night apart from each other, but didn’t officially move in together.  Finding a place was surprisingly easy, despite the pandemic, despite living in a city with a difficult housing market. But we got super lucky: the house where Else lived the past two years has an empty apartment, which is currently overhauled. It’s going to be available in September. Three rooms, a big balcony, perfect location.  Else had terminated her lease to end in June, but COVID-19 has taught us that we can share Ilse’s smallish apartment. So we didn’t mind to wait a little longer for an almost perfect apartment. And now, we finally got our official rental agreement! We can’t wait to move in together (although we practically already did). We are mentally painting the walls, we...

We recently talked about coming out in general and that it is a never-ending process. There are always small(er) coming outs every time we meet new people or even when walking down the street holding hands. Kissing in public in a bar. Introducing ourselves as girlfriends at events: all of these are small coming outs. It is a process — for some people it's easy, for others it's more difficult. Some people might even have to fear severe consequences. We, in contrast, are lucky enough to not having to live in fear. But still: there are coming outs for us that aren't particularly easy. One of these not so easy moments is coming out at work. We know from quite a lot of lesbians that they feared the moment when people at their workplace found out about them being gay. You might have a good and much respected position. You're known for making a good job and people respect you. Telling them you're gay should not make a difference in your job position or the respect you'...

Three weeks ago, we talked about virtual harassment and objectification where we also cited the sentence used as a title for this post. We are aware that this sentence was supposed to be an insult and that many same-sex couples would feel hurt. But: we don't. Both of us don't want kids. There was a time Ilse thought she would have children one day, but Else never really planned on it. So telling us that we can't have a child doesn't do anything to us. At least not directly. But it still maddens us. This intentionally hurtful comment is based upon the heteronormative supposition that every woman eventually wants to have at least one child. Most of us have been told that ‘we just don’t know it yet,’ that ‘we haven’t met the right person (man) yet,’ that ‘we will see that we really do want children eventually,’ and that ‘we will surely regret our decision one day.’ No. No. No. No. We are indeed capable of making this decision. We are able to know what we want. It’s not abo...

Pride Month is almost over and we wanted to share our interpretation of the flag's colors with you! We decided to go with the revised Philadelphia version from 2017. We always believed that the six-color flag is perfect; that it includes (or, at least, should include) everyone who feels to be part of the queer community. But this last month has taught us that, although the six-color flag should suffice, we should explicitly include BIPoC who did so much for our movement, but are still discriminated, harassed, disregarded, killed. So: we'll start with black! Black is one of the two colors added to the revised rainbow flag. It draws attention to Black people of our community and their particular issues. For us, it also honors those who fought for our rights, particularly during the Stonewall riots—Marsha P. Johnson is probably the most prominent, but not the only one: Andrea Jenkins, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, Bayard Rustin, Earl Fowlkes, Elle Hearns, Ernestine Eckstein, Karleigh...

When COVID-19 restrictions slowly eased, we decided to let a new adventure begin: the Eifelleiter ('Eifel ladder'). We were excited to get away, we might have been a bit naive, but we were prepared to do this: hiking 54.2 kilometers in three days —our first hike lasting several days. The first two days were supposed to be moderate hiking trails, the last day a hard one. We were optimistic (or, in case of Ilse, just forgot immediately). And the backpacks were not too heavy. In the beginning. After a shortish train ride, we began our adventure in Bad Breisig. We had to find the symbol marking our route: a green hill, parted by a white path, a blue tower on top and a blue creek below. Or: a sail boat, as Ilse understood it. Made far more sense than Else's interpretation! It wasn't easy, at times confusing. But alas! We ran into a local hiking group of experienced women, one of them even did this hike when the route was opened! With powerful, confident steps, she too...