And then, it is over

We are home. It is winter in Frankfurt. The pile of mail is about 30cm high. The cars drive on the wrong side of the road. The mobile mailboxes still have funny messages on them. Winter boots can be found in a moving box deep down in the garage. The air is fresh and clean. Leberwurst and proper beer can be bought around the corner. The jetlag wakes us up at 6am. But apart from that: it seems like we have been away for only a second. It also feels like a second, until you open Picasa and look at thousands of pictures.

Thank you for traveling with us! We hope you discovered a few places you also want to visit one day. We for sure were excited about every reader.

To all who want to see more pictures that the roughly 2,000 we uploaded over the past weeks. Come and visit us for a dinner or simply invite us - we will bring the netbook ;-)

Take care!


Ah, you're right - PS: Project status update:
The "Natural Tan" album followed us along our travels. 215 pictures document how we have changed over 126 days on the road. The three below not only mark the happiest days of our travels (guess why ... ;-) ) but definitely define the highlight of our tan.

Von Natural Tan

Von Natural Tan

Von Natural Tan

My travel diary (project "stranger") is full and will provide an everlasting memory to all the wonderful people we met on the road. Thank you for sharing your wishes & thoughts with me.

Memories

A quiet day like today is perfect to take a break and look back. Our apactravel journey started on September 27, 2009 - about 3 months and a little bit ago. So far we have visited 5 countries, 4 are still to come until our return to Frankfurt on Jan 31, 2010. We have seen cities, lakes, mountains, caves, villages, animals big and small, people (mostly absolutely wonderful, some weird), cars, trucks, trees, glaciers, islands, bikes, boats, campgrounds, hotels and many more. We have lost only 2 cameras and did not experience any theft or serious injury. And in addition to all of this there are so many fantastic news from home to keep up with!

Looking at the pictures - we have roughly uploaded 1,000 pics already (about 20% of the pics we actually took) - most of our days were simply packed. Just wondering, how do you keep the memories of a journey like this?

One way might be my little red travel diary which by now holds wonderful stories from all the travellers we met along the way, I even have collected some handprinted pictures. The actual "travel-diary-ing" though is a tough job to keep up with. Ever tried to write a diary really every day?!

Another way could be our "Natural Tan" project which by now holds over 170 pictures and shows how we changed along the more than 40,000 kms we have already travelled. What do you think about the progress we made so far?

Von Natural Tan

Quite relaxed for an average moving speed of 101 km/h, isn't it ;-)) ?

For sure it is a day like today or our days on the Fijis where we simply did nothing. Apart from breathing, maybe. And as the Fijis were just wonderful we have added a few more pictures to the Fiji album.

 Do you remember the best day of your life?

Project report "Natural Tan"

If you have followed us along you are aware of our little project called "Natural Tan". Although this idea already has quite a long beard in the www- and youtube-world we still wanted to do it as a memory for ourselves. We take 1 picture of us everyday. This will add up to around 250 pictures after 126 days of travelling.

The goal is to be able to see how we transform from

Sep 2009-office people

(as in ... pale, hotel rooms, deadlines, commuting, long office hours, rainy weather)

into Jan 2010-holiday enjoyers

 (as in ... tanned, campervan, "campground reception closes at 7pm", "it is only 350km on the road today!", "11:45 pm: I quickly put those last pics on facebook", "Thank God, we bought the Icebreakers").

 You see there is a small big difference ;-)

So far we have gathered a collection of 136 pictures and uploaded 30 new pictures today.

The truth is: Smiling portait pictures somehow all look the same. And the transformation is not obvious if you see yourself every day. The pictures even prove that there are days where you simply don't look like yourself. If you are lucky you look like your brother or your mum. If you are not so lucky or the weather is too awful for too long you simply look ... äh, let's say ... "a little off the track" with a weird face, awful hair/beard-do or amazingly tourist-style socks (I am not tagging these, go search for yourself ;-) ).

Also a truth is: We haven't been to a beach with bikini weather since Nov 27, 2009 as it turned out to be winter again in NZ. So, please could everyone send a little sun down to New Zealand? Thank you!

People's stories

During our Sailing trip to the Whitsunday Islands one of our little projects grew quite a bit. Sharing the boat with 25 other people provides a lot of sources for stories, sayings, travel advice, life advice and foreign characters written into my red travel diary. (Though it doesn't quite look like it, I am very excited about this!)

By now I have collected thoughts and well-wishes in Chinese, Hindi, Farsi, Korean, Dutch, Swedish, French,  Australian, Maori, German, Swiss German, Bavarian, and, of course, English. The topics range from travel advice to folk music to life advice to surgical insights as well as direct orders from "commander fun". Thank you to everyone who contributed - it is so inspiring to read from you. As promised I will read out all your pieces of wisdom on New Years Eve somewhere on a Fiji beach. For those who did contribute a song, I will sing it, whatsoever (perhaps I should give Philipp Oropax for x-mas ;-P ). All those who also want their words to be read in Fiji on New Years either book your flight now or post something into the comments.

When I was a little school girl we had these books that were supposed to hold poems or little drawings from your class-mates - mine was blue with flowers. If you were very brave (or an absolute geek-nerd) you would also ask your mean English-teacher to fill one of the pages. She did ... with the poem below, which left me wondering what she wanted to tell me for weeks. I was scared!

There was a young lady from Riga,
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger.

They returned from the ride
  With the lady inside
And the smile on the face of the tiger.

Another poem proved itself right so many times already:

The crossroads of life don't come with any directions.
(Translated from the German "An den Kreuzungen des Lebens stehen keine Wegweiser")

Especially these days it puts a little smile on my face, considering who wrote it into my poem book about 25 years ago. Thanks, Mum ;-)


Our own (travel) story currently takes a rest in Sydney. We enjoy a few days with no big plans before we leave the country heading to New Zealand. Our Whitsunday pictures are online now. Check out the album to see all pictures from this beautiful place on earth. 3 days on sea also brought our "Natural Tan" project a few steps ahead. Martina proved that 30+ sunscreen actually works - IF you are capable of applying it properly ... And Philipp decided to go for the "Natural T-Shirt" version. Glenf and Sören of course are way ahead in terms of coloring. So far, so wonderful ;-)

Safety first!

We are in the Blue Mountains for 2 days already - stunning mountains, very green forest and steep canyons/stairs, not so much blue though. More green, brown and yellow. We are staying at the Flying Fox Hostel in a "room with a view" ;-). Very nice and fun place with a lot of people to meet and share stories with.

We learned today that the New South Wales Police offers free-of-charge PLBs to hikers in NSW, especially in the the Blue Mountain area. Guess who was thrilled to take along another gadget ;-) But although the Federal Pass along Katoomba does not really require special security gadgets it still is a great service, I think. Especially if you pass by so many FlipFlop-Tourists along the way trying to hold on to the handrails while "sliding" down 50m steep stairs. Luckily we didn't meet any of them while hiking down the Dry Canyon - incl. gravel road driving, 2 hours hike through bushland and quite some rock climbing through the canyon.

Sometimes safety is as much as hopping into your car, considering that a Red-bellied black Snake just passes by your car. Or putting on sunscreen 50 which actually works too well as the "Natural Tan" updates prove.

We came across this ad yesterday - can anyone eyplain what this means? Thank you!

Tomorrow saftey for us means making sure we don't fall asleep or kill a kangaroo/wallabie/wombat/human being while heading quite a few hundred kilometers further north. Brisbane, here we come!

Online again!

After 2 days on Kangaroo Island with no mobile and/or data connection whatsoever we are back to old habits: sitting in front of the PC at 2am in the morning. Well, finally we uploaded a bunch of pictures to the China album and the new Australia album. Also the "Natural Tan" project was updated.

Speaking of a project: Also my other little project "Stranger" was started. I have asked people we meet along the way to contribute some words in their language or from their culture to my travel diary. So far I have received wonderful stories, advices, poems in Chinese, Hindi, Farsi, German and of course ... English. I am looking forward to more.

Btw: Thank you for all the Birthday e-mails and notes. It is great to hear & read from you ... and have an excuse to sit in front of the PC until, well ... now it is 2:40am in the morning. Good night!!!

Pics, "electric shadow" and a new layout

As you may have noticed, today was "re-modelling" day on our blog. That happens when it is rainy outside and the colorful fireworks all around your appartement are your inspiration. The first (and next) pics are up - see links on the right. Also we have cut our first "electric shadow" (chinese for movie) from our dinner at the Teppanyaki place yesterday. Thank you, Christoph, for taking us there!

Burning Banana, here we go ... Feuer!

Project Nbr 1: Natural Tan

We have the idea of doing something that is absolutely not new, but still we think it might be fun. We try and take 1 picture of us every day while travelling. We will post the pictures to a Picasa album. I am just curious if you can see that the tan is getting better with every day.

I also hope that Philipp does not grow quite such a beard ;-)

The gift of giving stuff away

It is amazing - I have lived in my area of Munich (Nymphenburg) for a little bit more than 4 years. I share a building with 15 other appartments - most of whose inhabitants I have never seen. I wouldn't even know if someone belongs there ... that is the sad part.

The good part: when I started giving stuff away during the past weeks I have met so many nice people - and their story, a part of their life. Meeting people is just so exciting! It makes me like the area I used to live in even more. Not so smart to move away then ...

Today it was an excited father of a 1 week old who still didn't seem to grasp the wonder he created 10 months ago (being evil: mabye he didn't? ...). And a completely disoriented twentysomething who figured he could pick up the cupboard he wanted to buy with a bike (it was cool one, though) and no money (no, the look was not worth the cupboard!) ... well, some lessons are hard and/or heavy ;-)

Is there a job where one can give away stuff as a job (and still earn money for a living)?
Or maybe we could just try and believe that the endless powerpoints, point of views, teleconferences, meetings are something like "giving stuff away" - as in: my ideas, my time, my brain (hello, anyone up there?) ... I probably just need to work on the reaction of the receiving part. Well, that goes to the todo list for April 2010 (this feels great!).

Actually, early this year Philipp and I had a small project where we collected Best Wedding Wishes from complete strangers for Timmy & Ulrike in a little black book. A text and a picture of every contributor. People we haven't met before so freely - and amazingly happily - gave away their thoughts, wishes, advices to a couple they haven't met - and in most cases unfortunately probably never will meet. That was the same feeling. Meeting stories, meeting experiences, meeting wishes and giving people an opportunity to tell their story. Apart from being a very unique present it was the proof that engineers actually are able of spontaneous human interaction (well done, sweetheart ;-P ).

I am thinking of doing that again, when we travel. 1 stranger a day ... no wedding wishes this time, but 3-5 weird questions (todo!) to someone we meet on the street. Let's see if Australians are also happy to give away their stories.