Fämily and friends

So there we were… back in Münster. The next days were filled with visits with friends and family and we were sooo happy. There will be no high quality pictures and no pictures of family and friends here, but we are happy to share what we felt when we were back. My parents were more than happy to see us back especially since we had a long night of playing cards (Doppelkopf of course) and nice dinner in a Westphalian restaurant. Linda left to her mother the next day and it was the first time in seven months that we did not sleep in the same bed…. It was kind of weird but at the same time it felt good to miss each other again. In Datteln Linda visited the Sauna with a good friend and met by accident her former boss….which better place to catch up than the sauna? 🙂 After meeting more friends for coffee and beer in Münster and after spending time with my sister and nephew who could not even remember me, since he was too small when he saw me the last time, I took a train to Datteln as well to visit Lindas mom, sister with niece and nephew and brother. It was all a family gathering and incredible to see as well how Lindas niece and nephew have grown in our time in South America. They were always kept up to date about where we are and which animals we see, so the first meeting obviously consisted of us showing the animals we saw on our trip in their books. It felt incredibly cool. 

Our cat Mine lives with Lindas mom during the trip and she was a little more careful. Normally when we come to Lindas mum we pick her up for a car ride, what she does not like at all, so she naturally hides from us and is more careful. But after a few hours she recognised me and was curly up on my chest and purring as if we were never gone. I was never a big pet person at all, but I had tears in my eyes when Mine was purring and happy to see that part of our little family back again as well. 

Over a currywurst in Recklinghausen we met an old friend of Linda and felt immediately like back in the Ruhrgebiet, also thanks to the guy that runs the imbiss, since he symbolised the Ruhrgebiet perfectly as a person. Loud, curious, friendly and straightforward.

After visiting my Grandma, another long Doppelkopf night with my parents and visit to the zoo with Lindas nephew, our time at home ended. It was not too long and not too short. We met al lot of good friends and spent real quality time with the family, exactly how we wanted it.

We packed our backpacks and took a train to Berlin. It was weird to arrive there…. Back home but not back home. Our flat is still subrented so we had to crash with our best friends in Berlin. Many years ago Linda and me met the first time at Moritz and Annas wedding and they are always our anchor in Berlin and the most important people we have in that city. We were really grateful to be able to sleep a few nights in their flat. We wanted to be extra cautions, because they – unlike us – still had to go to work and had their daily routines, with which we did not want to interfere…too much. A little bit yes, but not too much. We also had to organise a few things. There was stuff we still had in our flat, that we needed and also stuff in our storage box, so we had a few trips ahead of us to visit our flat. That feeling was incredibly weird…. We were guests in our own flat with our furniture but the girl that is renting our flat is incredibly cool and so easy going, that it was not problematic at all to get our stuff together. Of course we had to chip in a visit in our favourite asian place in our neighbourhood (to be fully honest we went there two times).

At the same time we enjoyed Berlin. The sun was already out and the weather was perfect, which is not normal for Berlin end of February. 

We also spent a full day in the Vabali spa, and alto it was in the middle of the week, we had to wait in line….the real Berlin experience I guess. It is the coolest sauna I know and we had a really relaxing day….but we both agreed that we were pretty relaxed anyway and the real relaxing effect can be felt way more intense after a few stressful work weeks… That was a good sign I guess….

Also we visited the famous museum of science which was on our list for a long time. A huge and really impressive museum. At the same time we had an incredible time with Anna and Moritz. We had nice balcony breakfast, long and open evenings with discussions about pretty much everything. We went together to Markthalle 9 for good food & beer, we had Thai food on the floor in the living room, we went to a swing music concert in a small pub and had open discussions about our lives in coffee shops. Linda read three books in that week and played a lot of backgammon games with Anna. It was a great time…. maybe the best time we ever had together, the four of us. It felt like a shared flat and it felt good. It gave me the feeling that I want to come back to Berlin…. as long as these two are still there…. ah and of course I had high class table tennis matches with Moritz that made us feel like we were real professionals. In real life we might move like slightly out of shape middle aged man, but in my mind I still see Moritz flying horizontally in mid air while smashing a physically impossible shot on the plate….All in all it was a perfect time and Linda and me want to say thank you to Anna and Moritz for that week.

Here the story could end and we start back in our life in Berlin, but that is not possible and we also did not want that. We are back in Europe, but the trip is not over. The second half was about to start. We will explore Europe now and this might become the most direct South America – Europe van life comparison, because it was our plan to pick up Rosi and continue directly into the mountains. We really wanted to still catch some snow in the Alps and the hot days in Berlin showed that the summer was already coming in big steps.

So the last action we had to do, was to pick up Rosi. She arrived (of course about a week later than planned) in Hamburg and I drove there by train. Our agent picked me and the swiss boys up. We had to wait in the cold Hamburg weather and after some time we were allowed to open the container…. As tight as Rosi fit in, as tight she was driven out of the container…. again with four people standing on the rear bumper. I filled the tires with air, checked with customs and said goodbye to the swiss brothers. That I drove Rosi back to Berlin, where we repacked, enjoyed a last night with Anna & Moritz and that drove off towards the mountains. Let the second half of the trip begin!