We wake up early at the michi-no-eki, and it is dry. It’s actually pretty scenic, tucked away in the corner of our parking lot. On the side of the onsen is a huge water wheel/mill (waterrad, in Dutch, and our crappy connection won’t let me look up the correct translation right now). It feels like we’re taking forever packing the tent and all our things. I guess we still have to settle into the routine…
Rain We wake up with a steady trickle of rain on the tent. Ugh. We try to wait it out for a bit, but one look outside tells us that it probably won’t stop raining anytime soon. At least it’s a steady drizzle and not a full-on downpour, but it will stay with us the entire day as we slowly cycle the 40km or so to the city. I pre-loaded this route to my gps…
Taking a bike, let alone two, to the airport and in an airplane is always hectic. We arrived there by train, and then had to disassemble our bikes, fit them in the boxes picked up at the airport (mine barely fit, I had to cut a hole out of the topside to let my handlebar poke through) and then navigate pretty much the whole length of Schiphol with two huge boxes on a cart. Fun…
Our house is littered with things that either need to be packed in our panniers or packed into boxes for storage. Clothes that need sorting, electronics that need sorting. A harddisk full of e-books that needs sorting. And most of all, a racing mind that needs sorting and chill the fuck down, but the excitement about this trip combined with the stress of arranging everything before departure make that hard. I don’t want to complain…
The other day I downloaded one of these guided meditation apps on my phone, desperately in need of some peace and quiet after another night where my brain just wouldn’t shut up about money or the lack thereof, the future, me being a sad sack for living with my boyfriend’s parents, how I should really go for a run tomorrow, etcetera etcetera. Because we all have those nights, right? Right, so I downloaded the app. It carefully let…
For many travellers the adventure starts with a map. Spread out on the floor we dream over destinations with names we can’t pronounce. We follow rivers or mountainranges with our fingers, place little marks on places we want to visit. We have maps with pins that proudly display the places we’ve visited. I am a map geek. That’s why it’s weird that I only now made a map with an overview of our trip. I don’t…
Birthdays are reflective moments. So when I turned 28, last June, I sat down and made a list of things I want to accomplish in the next year, before my 29th birthday. Which is almost 30, after all. Damn. I’m not going to share all details on the list because it’s not all your business, but among things like “Find another job” and “Read at least 25 books” there was also “Write & publish one…
We are cycling and night is falling. One by one stars appear in the sky and the full moon rises on our left. Our hands hurt from squeezing the brakes as we’re riding downhill at only 10km/hour. We are looking for a campsite. It is not easy in the mountains. There is a wall, a narrow road, and then the cliff going down. We planned to camp on top of the pass, but the howling…
Yesterday I flew from Amsterdam to Valencia. After check-in and security, I had another 45 minutes to spare before boarding. I sat down in a comfortable chair and looked around. I wasn’t travelling to go on holiday. I wasn’t travelling for work either. Here I was, moving to a new country, with a backpack full of clothes and notebooks (and ok, five pairs of shoes), but without a home, a job, or money. Enough reasons…
So many thoughts, so many feelings, so many memories. We finished our trip two weeks ago and only now I begin to process all the experiences this trip has imprinted upon me. Like a treasure covered in a fresh layer of mud, it is best to wait for it to dry before slowly chipping away at the edges to uncover what’s beneath. When I first travelled – a month long solo train trip through Europe – I thought…