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Part one - Preface

I now live together with my SO for almost 4 years. I told her about my TG-ing even before we started our relationship and since then she was interested, supportive and even encouraging about this. And we often thought about going out as „female couple“ one day.
But with the family background (she has one daughter and I have two kids from first marriage) we rarely had time for us alone, as one of the kids were always around and we haven‘t outed my TG-ing to any of the kids. So far we did not really had the opportunity to do a femme-vacation so far. Just once we had a walk and once we visited „Café Venus im Pelz“ near Nurnberg - that was all we could manage in the past almost 4 years.
Now the opportunity appeared at the horizon, that just we two can go on vacation for the first time, and (even I had this already in mind…) she asked me, if this wouldn‘t be a great chance for me, to live en-femme during our vacation. I guess you can imagine, what my thoughts were, when she brought up this topic…

Part two - Planing

It was quite easy to agree on a place we like to go for the vacation. We both thought about Berlin, as it is known for being open-minded and mostly friendly to any kind of Trans-People. Beside this there is a lot of places and events we can visit there.
On the first look we had bad luck with the timeframe. At end of August there is the big consumer electronics fair (IFA). So we shifted two weeks earlier. Well… unfortunately there will be a huge sports event then (IAAF World Championships in Athletics). So the first attempts revealed, that most hotels were booked or too expensive (most hotels have higher rates during big events and fairs) - and we prefer to spend money on events, leisure and shopping instead of hotel rooms.
But with Google and sites like „BGlad“ and „Purple Roofs“, I found „Pension Elefant“ right in the center of Berlin in the Gay Quarter. Public Transport (U-Bahn) and locations like Ku‘damm, KaDeWe etc. are in reach within a five minute walk. The rates are very reasonable and the hosts (a gay couple) seem to be very friendly and supportive („you are not the first having her premiere“). As we did not like to have a shared bathroom, we booked one of the apartments they offer. These are just a few meters away from the hotel.
Berlin offers a „Berlin Welcome Card“ that includes public transport, a road map and discounts on exhibitions for a period of 3, 5 or 7 days. As the tube is just in reach of the apartment it will be easy to visit all the interesting places in Berlin like „Brandenburger Tor“, the governmental area, the wall (or what is left of it), Sony Center or the famous „Unter den Linden“ street.
Most contacts to other T*, who live in Berlin, (I know them through german transgender sites) encouraged me a lot, as they told me, that we are welcome and people in Berlin are mostly transgender friendly or simply do not take care. So I do not need to be afraid of being en-femme in public. Of course some quarters of Berlin (one named „Neukölln“) are less open minded and of course I should be careful with situations, when even genetic women should be careful. Obviously - unsuitable appearance will cause problems - when one look like a whore, she will be treated like one, regardless of being trans* or not. Well this is common to all places all over the world...
Of course, part of the preparations is to think about my outfit. I had to sort out some stuff, that simply do not fit anymore. In most cases my arms are too long for most items (I guess you know about this problem…). It was long overdue to put some of this stuff to trash - lol.. even it hurts a bit. On the other hands my SO gave me several items, she does not wear anymore or at least borrow me for this vacation. This will save expenses on shopping - at least before the trip...
In addition to this I have to get make up items. As I rarely went out en-femme (and when, then for a short time or at night) I did take less care about e.g. my beard shadow. Now I might be en-femme and out for the whole day and maybe in the evening too. Well this will require more care and preparations with make up. I guess I have to go shopping for those items...
Now I am looking for events, exhibitions and places we might like to visit. My SO suggested to have a professional make-over. This would be really great, esp. as I might get a lot of hints about applying make up and of course what colors would match me the best. Of course shopping will take at least one day - lol… let‘s see, who is more patient… lol… Beside this there are a lot of musicals („Dirty Dancing“), shows („Blue Man Group“), classical concerts, opera, LGBT parties, etc. …

What do I feel and think about the forthcoming challenge and opportunity? At the moment I am quite cool, organizing the trip, look for events etc. There is a mixed feeling of enthusiasm and concerns. Of course I feel happy that I will get this chance and much more, that my SO is so supportive and encouraging - and even more worth, to have her with me. The imagination of being en-femme during most of the vacation might be funny and it gives freedom and life to the woman inside - but it also might be a too big challenge for me. I hope the concerns about passing and somehow feeling exposed and unsafe will drop during the next two weeks and I can feel comfortable with being out en-femme during the vacation. So it will mostly become a vacation off my male self.

I am sure - we will have interesting times… and i will like to update this thread as report about my first femme-vacation…

Sounds promising, Jabbela.

I hope you can get some enjoyment out of it, instead of worrying. And I hope your SO has an equally good time with you.

Sounds like a great Vacation. I am sure that you and your SO will have a great time. Make sure to take a lot of pictures and share them with all of us.

Over here we have a Travel Agency that sets up TG Cruises. Girls from all over along with their SO's gather, board the ship en fem, and have a wonderful 7 days visiting various Islands and places. The whole time the TG is en fem.
They have been doing these Cruises for almost 10 years now. There has never been an incident on any of these Cruises. Most of the other passengers do find out quickly and a few have openly come up to some of us and struck up conversations. There is always a crowd when the group picture is taken at the beginning of Formal Night.

I am sure that your vacation will be great.

Know the first time I went on vacation totally as Denise, i was nervous yet delighted.

I was well aceepted any place that I went, and any concerns that I had were to no avail.

Have a great time and we will be looking to hear from you as to how it went when you get back home

All the best

Denise

Jabbela it sounds like you have some great fun coming up. Just relax and do it and everything will be ok. You look great and you have a supporting SO.

Enjoy and have fun. Make you you do lots of things that she likes doing.

Due to workload in the office I haven‘t been able to continue about my preparations for the trip before we left for Berlin - so I continue with my report now after we returned from the vacation a few days ago.

Part three - last preparations

On Wednesday I had my last working day before the vacation. On my way home I stopped in the nearby city for some shopping. As mentioned before I was in need of some make-up items. Most important was Camouflage to cover the beard shadow. Fortunately there is a drug store near the railway station selling Camouflage from Artdeco. I also bought some tools for applying make-up and a fixing powder for the Camouflage, that promises to make the make up waterproof. I really was in doubt, that this will work when sweat pours…

After I got these items, there was about half an hour left, before the next train home leaves. I decided to go across the street to a big store for bras. Over the past years I gained some weight. But this does not only have back-draws as my breasts also grew a bit - well, of course less than my belly. My intention was to find bras with pads or push-ups that visually gives a reasonable cup size without the need to wear breast forms the whole day. Of course my „real“ bra size (german 90 AA) is not even manufactured, so I looked for the next smaller size (german 85 A or B), but these are also rarely offered. After a while I found three bras and went to the fitting room to try them. The push-up one looked too unnatural and the second one was too tight, but the third one (a 85 B with full cups) was fine and gave a reasonable look - and with summer sale discount I got it for 4 Euros. No-one gave a remark or a strange look (at least I couldn‘t sense one) on me as male going with bras to the fitting room or waiting in the queue at the cashier desk. I had to hurry for my train - but I got it just in time and i had a nice shopping experience.

On Thursday I already had a day off for the last things to do before leaving. As we booked an apartment I went shopping for soft drinks and some food we can have during driving and especially as a basic breakfast before we leave the apartment. Beside this, I was shopping for shoes - to be true… this was my main intention.. lol. Of course, there are not so many shoes offered at size 8.5 to 9, but this improved through the last years. I didn‘t hurry and tried several pairs and after about an hour I left with three pairs - two pairs of sandals (I couldn‘t decide which pair to prefer - so i bought both… lol) and one pair of comfortable moccasins. After the summer sale discounts I paid about 60 Euros for really valuable items and again had a nice shopping experience. No remarks or strange looks - just one of the sales persons gave me a smile, while I was walking with several candidate pairs. I did not have the feeling that she smiles because of making fun about me but maybe sensing, that I have fun with shopping for shoes…

The day ended with the general tasks like packing the suitcase etc. No need to mention, that this was the first time, my items took more room in the suitcase, than the items of my SO. Well - we needed our big suitcase, as I took mostly femme stuff, but also male stuff with me - just in case… One of the hardest task was to store everything into my small car.

On Friday morning we got up and left early, in order to circumvent the rush hour around Nuremberg and we reached the apartment in Berlin at about 2 pm. The hosts Rainer and Ole gave us a hearty welcome. Both live in a legal marriage since several years. Rainer is mostly taking care of the „Pension Elefant“ while Ole works as Psychologist and he had started the transsexual program in another region. We learned about this just by chance during the talks we had. After having a nap we ended the day with diner at a mexican restaurant with several cocktails.

*to be continued*

sorry again for the delay... but here is my fourth part of the report...

Part four - the days en-femme

To be true - Saturday started with getting sober - obviously we both had too much cocktails. Still in male mode I went to a bakery for breakfast and a pharmacy store near the KaDeWe for some Aspirin. After breakfast I started with my preparations. This time it took me almost 2 hours for shaving, selecting the outfit and applying make-up - esp. the Camouflage for the first time. Then the great moment arrived - we left the apartment.

Of course I was curious about these first steps in public and I was a bit surprised, that I just felt comfortable and natural. We went the few minutes to the U-Bahn station. I did not have the feeling that other people watching or even staring at me and also my SO did not have this impression. We had a 20 minutes ride with the U-Bahn till Alexanderplatz and then proceeded with Tram to Volkspark Friedrichshain, where local NGOs held an LGBT Open-Air party with two live bands, several DJs and lot of booths. Most people there were lesbian, gay or bi - I just saw a few trans-people there - and many of them seem closer to the Drag-Scene than to transidentic people. Anyway we felt fine there - obviously almost everyone there was open-minded in any direction and I think this was a good starting point for my first femme experience - except my feet were hurting, because I had no chance to wear my shoes more often before. But I was really surprised, that the Camouflage really is water resistant and it did last the whole day, even it was really hot in the U-Bahn.

On Sunday we started with having a brunch at the „More“ bar, which is quite close to the apartment. I have decided not to apply too much makeup to have my skin recover a bit. Some of the pictures in my Berlin album were done this day. After having a walk back to the apartment, we went to a cinema at the Potsdamer Platz and watched a movie just to relax a bit.

On Monday, except shaving (which already was hurting a bit), I did not apply any makeup. So a closer look would reveal my beard shadow. I was also wearing femme denim trousers. I guess this outfit and look was too androgyne - I had the feeling, that more people were watching me and I think they did so, as the first glance did not give a simple result (male / female) and the people had to look twice to get it. It was obvious that I am not a woman and also obvious that I was femme - for sure they recognized, that I am a male-to-female transgender. Anyway I felt fine and I also had some fun with fooling those people a bit.
We visited the Dali exhibition near the Potsdamer Platz, proceeded to the Holocaust Memorial, the Brandenburger Tor, Unter den Linden street and after having a coffee-break we did some shopping at the Alexanderplatz. In the evening we returned to the Brandenburger Tor/Pariser Platz and watched a live performance on the Kulturstadion stage, which was open during the Word Championship of Athletics.

On Tuesday we went shopping again (I had to return a bra, which was done without a problem). My styling was a bit more femme, but still without makeup. We also wanted to go up the „Fernsehturm“, but again the queue was too long. In the evening (now with makeup - which just took me 30 minutes then) we went to „Sonntagsclub“ where a open group of Trans* and Friends/SOs in our age meets in a comfortable round. This was the first time we went to such a meeting. After a while we had interesting and funny talks about being/living as trans* in any flavor, good and bad experiences, problems with job, health insurance etc. This gave us an interesting insight into problems we did not thought of before (and might not face in the future), we got a lot of answers to questions we never asked - and those answers had driven to more questions. So we had a lot to talk on the way home and for the future. The talks, thoughts, questions, answers and impressions gathered during this evening for sure will help to discover and understand myself better and to find my way.

Wednesday was my last en-femme day and we started after breakfast with visiting an exhibition showing photographs of Herlinde Koelbl at the Gropius building, where also the Bauhaus exhibition is located. Outside the Gropius buildung there is one of the largest central left-over of the Berliner Mauer, giving us a small impression of this sad place, separating the eastern and western part of Berlin, where some fugitives were shot when attempting to cross the border to West Berlin. Watching these 200 meters of the wall, I can really understand why they had to tear down the 160 kilometers of the wall, the most visible and hurting symbol of the cold war. It was not just a wall with a death zone behind, it was a deep cut through and around the heart of Berlin. More hurting than the border between East- and West-Germany, which was built in a similar way.

In the evening we had diner in the „Viel Harmonie“ cocktail bar, close to the appartment. This was the relaxing end of the day and of my femme vacation. On Thursday we returned home and the post-vacation tasks kept us busy on Friday as well.

*to be continued*

Hi Jabbela--
I had not seen this post until today. That is a real vacation, when you get to change both location and gender. Thanks for writing about it. I was interested in the talks you attended at the Sonntagsclub.

Wonderful, Jabbela!

Now that the vacation is over and you're back home, you and your SO must have some interesting impressions. Can you sum up how you both feel about how it all went, and how it felt to do this?

And are you looking forward to more such "en femme" vacations together in the future?

Love, Robyn Katie

@ Robyn Katie:
Sure I will - I already started on it, but I haven't finished this part yet. But I am sure, that this wasn't our last femme vacation...

@ Anita:
Most woman there were TS and we talked about there problems, like their health insurance paid for the SRS but rejected to pay for hair removal. Another transsexual had finished her legal transition and is now waiting to get the SRS done. We also talked about the relationship between her and her (female) SO. This was very interesting, as her SO fell in love with a man, who is now in the transition. Her SO is very supportive but she wasn't lesbian, which can give implications. I wish them both the best.
Then we had different topics and I have reported about my way so far and the status quo. Some small things came up as well, like one mentioned, that a lot of people in IT-Business are trans* in various ways. Also regional differences in accepting T*-people. Berlin is really very open minded and it could be the headquarter of LGBT in germany, but the place we live - a small town Bavaria - is not that open minded, but more conservative, catholic...
It is really hard to recall all the topics, but everything left a very intense impression on me and my SO. We discussed a lot of things since then and we thank the "Dienstags-Treff" im "Sonntagsclub" for the warm welcome.