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(Today is the one year anniversary of when we arrived in Germany. Wow.)
18.15
Berlin
Since so many people seem interested in our future travel plans, I
thought I would just go ahead and write about it. Hopefully you’ve
noticed my attempt to shorten my travel novels into more frequent
but shorter accounts of my globe-trotting life.
As you know we bought a 1985 VW van recently. After we finish a
long list of things that need to be organized, and finish up our
work here in Berlin, we plan on leaving around Aug. 1st.
The general plan is to drive north to Denmark, and then cross into
Sweden via ferry. (We don’t really know where we want to go in
Denmark or Sweden, so if anyone has any suggestions/contacts please
let me know.) We’ll then drive south into the Netherlands and down
into Belgium. Joel would like to see Paris (he never has) so looks
like France will get tossed in there too. After that we’ll meet up
with my father and probably drive through little towns (and of
course a couple of must-sees like Florence and Venice) and who
knows exactly how far south we might head. Then, over to Spain,
mostly the Pyrenees but maybe Barcelona and Madrid, and then back
up through Germany, sell the VW and then fly to Australia.
***Actually our exact destinations around Europe are quite
un-defined, especially in Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and Italy. If
you have any suggestions, contacts or whatever, I would really
appreciate some input! Hey, maybe you´d even be interested in
meeting up with us? We would like to drive around in order to get
out of the city and experience nature again, small villages (I’m
especially interested in doing this in Italy) and get to see cool
places off of the beaten path a bit more. Of course some cities are
nice too. Our van has a bed and cooking area, so this will help
keep the cost down so that we can accomplish such an ambitious
traveling goal.***
I don’t know how long we’ll be in Aussieland, maybe a 1.5-2 months,
if we can, and then continue our completely non-direct flight to
Kauai. (So basically we are heading to Kauai via most of western
Europe, possibly Asia, and Australia.) No, we’re not jet setters
or anything.
Berlin is certainly a summer city. Although my original desire had
been to leave for our European tour in spring (to see the flowers),
monetary issues made it logical to stay here and work longer. (We
have a lot of places we want to see, and intend to arrive in Kauai
with some set-up money.) It’s turning out to be pretty nice with
the summer weather and feeling here (the weather is nice, but
strange since it dropped from 31 C to 20 C in only one day), the
World cup and so on. So, it is nice to still be in Berlin at her
best…but I can’t say I'm not looking forward to not working so
much, not constantly nit-picking every grammatical error that
anyone makes (I hope I can stop when I'm not teaching, but it's
kinda hard!), and not being in such a fast paced city. (Did I just
win an award for using the most negatives in a sentence?) Wow....some
times I just have to catch myself and try to slow down.
My last little blurb for the day is about the daylight. As crazy
as the long, long, LONG hours of darkness were in the
winter...well...it's almost as weird during the summer but in reverse.
Now we sometimes see the first light hues in the sky if we go to
bed late, say around 3:30am. The sky is fairly light after 4am.
Luckily I am not ever up early enough to tell you when the sun
actually rises.
Unfortunately, since I can never see the horizon (surrounded by too
many tall buildings), I can't actually say when the sun sets
either, but I do know that it's still light out after 10pm and not
fully dark (if ever, hard to tell with the light pollution) until
after 11pm. It's been weird for months trying to feel hungry for
dinner when it seems to my body as if it’s mid afternoon.
Ok, well, off to German class and my never ending and fruitless
attempt to conquer my to-do list. I hope this finds you feeling
content and appreciative for everything wonderful in your life!
Love,
Timory
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