Well, how to begin after such a long time?! I guess I have been a bit lazy these last few months but after all, this is a travel blog and we didn’t do too much travel at all. Saying that, we are back on the road again and I am writing this from Venice, but more to that later. In short, we spent time in Berlin, Schenefeld and Langholz during summer. That’s it.
More importantly, we are all healthy and well, and had an awesome summer in Germany. So let me try to summarise what we have been up to over the last few months.
Our last update was from the end of June when we finished off our epic Germany road trip. Next stop, Berlin and a long overdue visit to Jennifer’s family. All in all we stayed for about 3 weeks and we managed to visit most of her family. As everyone else had to go to work for some reason, we spend the days doing some sightseeing in Berlin (or doing nothing) to then catch up with family and friends later on.
We stayed at my sister’s flat which is easily large enough for all of us and is ideally located close to the Friedrichshain Park. Great place with a large loggia, ideal for BBQs and hanging out with friends and family. And that’s it for Berlin really: summer, family, friends, way to many beers and yummy food – a great time all around!
Next stop for us was Cottbus where we visited Jennifer’s dad and his partner. We stayed for about a week and went on bike rides and paddling the Spreewald area. Great area to visit really.
After seeing so many people over the last few weeks, we thought it would be best to go into 2 weeks of self-isolation before seeing mum again, and there is no better place than our family bach in Langholz for that. Right at the Baltic Sea, it is hard to beat this place if the weather is good. Well, it turned out that the first two weeks the weather was good, but then it turned pretty much to perfect weather for another three weeks! So we stayed for 5 weeks, tough life I know. We all picked up a new hobby, stand up paddle boarding, or SUP as it is called by insiders.
My sisters visited and after the Corona all clear, my mum came to visit us a few times as well. My cousin and his family were holidaying just down the road for the first few weeks and later my uncle and auntie took over. We met our neighbours with their kids again which was nice and what can I say, time is just flying by when you are having fun. Certainly didn’t feel like 5 weeks. At last the weather turned bad and we headed back to Schenefeld. For my sisters birthday we headed into the Lüneburger Heide for the day, just about at the right time when the Heide was in full blossom.
After a week of tidying things up, it was time to head back to Berlin. This time we visited Potsdam, did a boat tour (Brueckentour) we didn’t manage to get done last time, and of course caught up with friends and family again. A week or so later we had to head back to Schenefeld to change our rental car once more (long story). As the weather turned nice, we threw in a few more days in Langholz and then it was time to get back on the road.
The Corona situation in Europe is changing all the time, first we wanted to head to Southern France but it was declared a “risk area” by the German government. Planning ahead just doesn’t work, so in the end we decided to head to Italy. At the time of writing, only Italy and Greece are areas in Europe which are not risk areas but this might change any day. Still crazy times!
More shockingly, our gap year is coming to an end already. Plan is still to head back to New Zealand by the end of November, so it was time to think of things like finding a job for me, looking for a house, finding a school for the kids, … Well, there is much more to do but at least my CV is up to date now and I actually have applied for a job. Fingers crossed things will come together in the next couple of months.
