We’re on our way…

Several factors (such as a new job opportunity, insufficient space in our one-bedroom apartment, the wish to move on, the dream of a long trip around Europe, Yana’s current age, only having one child, etc) have come together and lead us to pack up our belongings and head off on a big trip around Europe. Currently we are travelling around Germany, somewhat as a trial-run. In August and September we will hopefully move on to Switzerland, France, Spain and finally to Britain.

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting inside our campervan on a campervan-carpark on the outskirts of Hanover. Yana is sound asleep in her bed and Lindsay is a good boy, doing the dishes. This is our trip log so far:

After a couple of days in Munich doing organizational tasks, we headed off to Nürnberg, where we stayed with our friend Silke for a night. It was a very hot day and we biked into the city centre to have an ice cream. Yana enjoyed her first bike ride ever. The following days were spent in my childhood home-region visiting friends and family. Our night in Cologne turned into a very late one. We sat outside our campervan together with a middle-aged Irish couple, who was very hospitable and friendly. They kept topping up our whisky and brandy glasses without even asking us and we felt obliged to empty them. At around 2am we managed to escape into bed. Of course Yana was oblivious of the fact that we had had such a late night and cheerfully woke us up at 7am as usual. After a day of running errands in Düsseldorf, we started making our way over towards Berlin. Our first stop-over on this long journey is Hanover. When we arrived this afternoon, we still had enough time to go for a bike ride along the Mittellandkanal (a canal).

Yana is enjoying the fact that we are both there for her at the moment. We have been trying to keep the amount of driving down and keep a regular routine for her feeding and sleeping times, to make it easier on her. She is very cheerful and chatty at the moment, managed to get her fifth and sixth teeth without any problems and stood freely for about 5 seconds today for the first time.

Tomorrow we will have to find an Internet café so that we can post this blog entry. Check out a few photos of our trip so far and tune in again soon, when we continue our trip report…

A few piccies so far...

Yana enjoying swinging herself upside down under the campervan table :-)















Yana reading while we drive
















Yana doesn't really enjoy our bike rides much, but she did enjoy playing in the sand on the bank of the Elbe river.















Hanging out with Dad in Königslutter am Elm (small town we visited for a night)















Yana loves swings...
















Despite objecting to our dragging her on bikerides, she soon cheers up when we stop!