During winter, many of us spend our days counting down to spring like someone waiting for release from a sentence. You start looking at the calendar with more faith than ever, dreaming of that glorious moment when you can finally sit in a Biergarten, organize a Grill with friends, and confirm once again that yes, the sun still exists.
Because in Germany, after several months of slightly melancholic darkness, any ray of sunlight feels like a religious experience.
We also wait for that beautiful phenomenon when the day becomes longer than the night again. You leave work and there is still daylight outside. You do not know whether to go for a walk, cry, or simply stand there staring at the sky like someone who has just escaped a cave and wants to scream “Freedom!”
But here is the uncomfortable truth: spring may officially begin in March, but real spring does not truly appear until the end of April.
A White Lie
They say spring begins in March. Some optimists even claim that by the end of February, you can already feel the change. Technically, they are not lying. The days get a little longer, supermarkets start selling flowers, and somewhere, someone dares to go outside wearing less of a coat.
But German reality has a different sense of humor.
Snow comes back whenever it wants, the cold keeps collecting emotional victims, and you quickly learn that putting your winter coat away too early is a beginner’s mistake. In 2026, for example, snow was particularly persistent. It felt like a toxic relationship that did not understand the concept of goodbye.
And then there is April, that moody, bipolar, and slightly vindictive month.
It gives you one glorious sunny day, full terraces, and a reason to believe in life again after 4 PM. Naively, you put away that four-kilo winter coat that looked like military equipment, clean your bicycle, and think you have finally survived.
The next day, it snows.
As if Germany itself looked you in the eyes and told you the free trial version of spring had ended.
Not for nothing do Germans have a children’s song that starts like this:
“April, April, der weiß nicht, was er will…”
“April, April, does not know what it wants.”
And they are absolutely right.
Sometimes it rains, sometimes it snows, and sometimes, only sometimes, the sun shines again.
Full sport & full alcohol
Seeing the sun a little more often is enough for us to abandon our Tibetan monk phase and stop repeating the winter mantra: “every time it rained, it eventually stopped…”
With spring, our free days get an automatic update. For a while, board game nights disappear, endless political discussions as if we could actually change anything fade away, and even a few episodes of those series we swore we would finish get postponed.
Now there is life outside after six in the evening.
And it should be used wisely.
Because there are those who enter full Forrest Gump mode and start running as if they were escaping debt collectors. Then there are those national heroes who believe that hiking for five hours in the mountains counts as a calm and relaxing Sunday.
I will never fully trust those people.
At the other extreme, we find the practitioners of even more dangerous sports: going out partying and drinking everything that crosses their path.
I have personally started parties while the sun was still out, around 9 PM, and left when the sun was rising again around 5 AM.
Memorable moments.
Not healthy.
But memorable.
In the end, everyone decides how to use their time now that the light has returned.
In my humble opinion, a little of both is fine. Without excess, and above all, respecting Sunday, which was clearly invented for resting.
Conclusion
I am writing this post with real enthusiasm because, while finishing it, I can see sunlight coming through the window like some kind of divine sign. And of course, I am already making important adult plans: going for a walk, doing laundry, and organizing the menu for the week.
Spring does that to us.
It makes us believe that this time, we will finally get our lives together.
That we will lose those extra kilos winter, bread, and bad decisions left behind. That we will ride the bike more often. That this time we will truly enjoy weekends instead of melting into the sofa.
It is a season full of hope and beautiful lies.
As for me, I already have several plans in mind, but there is one I am especially looking forward to: the Carnival of Cultures in Berlin.
Because if Berlin knows how to do anything, besides charging absurd rent prices and turning every old building into art, it is organizing events where you end up eating international food, listening to concerts of every style, and watching cultural expressions that make the city feel, for a few days, like the center of the world.
And that is also part of it: looking for closer plans, making better use of what we already have here, and moving more within Germany and Europe, especially now that flying no longer feels as simple, cheap, or sustainable as it once did.
Maybe that is also part of growing up.
Understanding that you do not always have to go far away to feel like you are living something meaningful.
Sometimes, it is enough for the sun to come out, to finally put away the heavy winter coat, and to sit in a park with a cheap beer, convinced that for a few weeks at least, life makes sense again.
And so do we.
