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It is not easy to write these lines. But life is not always a fun ride and we all need to look and move forward. I ask myself where did March go and I have no answer to that. We´ve been hanging out in our German apartment for half of February and were basically waiting for Spring to start so that we could continue with our travelling adventures. We should have been skiing in Switzerland at the moment, but instead we´re still stuck in Germany. This is probably also the place we will still be at while we should have started our Balkan overland trip in about 2 weeks. Instead we´ll have more Netflix to watch, more food to cook and more books to read. I know I know, we´re not the only ones and we´re all in the same shit. All of our plans have fallen apart. One way or the other. We of course also understand we have no other choice right now and the most important thing is to stay healthy. But still, I did have some difficulties to accept this new arrangement.

The unlucky 2020 is also a very weird for for all of us, who have chosen it for a year of travelling. Some of us are now either stuck at home with no income or stuck somewhere on the way. I really can´t say how our next months are going to look like and to be honest I´m fed up with planning. So many things have not gone as planned in the last months that I´m starting to think it´s better not to plan anything in order to avoid disappointment in the end. Anyhow, there are also some positive things about this spending time at home.

I´d trade them for my plans to come true in a second, but still here are a few. I read a book. We cleaned our apartment. We scrubbed the bathroom. We are cooking and eating like kings every day. Btw anyone else gotten fat in the last weeks as well? I´ve used the sewing machine after a long time and made five new bags, wallets and passport holders. I´ve arranged my pictures on the computer and made a back up of all the files. Especially proud of the last action haha. I also realised, again, how meaningless all the material things are to me, so I am even more determined now to invest my time and money into experiences and non-material things. I also realised it´s not important how many times we have a fight, but how many times we kiss and make up. And I cherish the freedom of deciding where, how and when I can move around the world even more now.

Because I had so much time, I´ve also written a bunch of new posts and finally finished some of the unfinished ones.

I´m so happy I managed to do A GREAT COLLAB POST about SINGLE MOMS TRAVELLING WITH THEIR KIDS. This is a very special topic for me. For this post I found 11 Slovenian single moms and did interviews with them. I have not translated it into English, so you cannot read it yet. I´ve also written 2 POSTS ON THIS EPIDEMIC TOPIC. Not very scientific ones obviously, Im no doctor or specialist in this field. I´ve written one about 20 THINGS TO DO WHILE AT HOME. These might be good ideas also for spending time at home on the weekends once this gets back to normal. The other one was a more sarcastic one. Written straight from the heart, over a glass of wine I believe. And I decided not to translate it to English. To read the first one click on the picture and it will open in a new tab.

Besides those, I also finished 3 older posts. One about our 4 days winter holiday in the GERMAN BAVARIAN FOREST NATIONAL PARK, one about our short road trip in northern Germany (SCHWERIN & BALTIC COAST) and one about our last year´s camping trip to the GERMAN NATIONAL PARK KELLERWALD – EDERSEE & KASSEL. Click on these post covers and read more about it.

When we still weren´t aware of how things are going to get, I also did a wonderful INTERVIEW FOR A GREAT SLOVENIAN TRAVEL MAGAZINE. I´m actually really happy and grateful for it. Here´s a preview of how it looks, but the 8 pages are only on Slovenian.

What to say more, I´m happy March is almost over. I´m gonna write something similar at the end of April probably, but I´m still positive about May – I hope we can all go on a short trip in May. Somewhere. Anywhere. Until then, stay healthy and strong, physically and mentally.

As the title already implifies, this will not be too much of a jolly post. If January pretty much ran by, February is as slow as the slowest snail and honestly, I can´t wait for it to be over. It started quite positive though, at the forelast January day we spontaneously decided to bring our Defender to the technical exam and guess what? We passed! Yay, we were so relieved. So the day after we drove off in the direction of Slovenia, with stops in Czech Republic and Austria. As soon as we crossed the border between Germany and Czech Republic we were greeted with snow and we spend a wonderful day aimlessly wondering the streets of Karlovy Vary, a fmaous Czech spa town I was wanting to visit for a very long time now. If you wish to read a full blog post about what you can see & do in Karlovy Vary click the button below the picture.

Since we were kind of passing by, we finally got to visit our Slovenian friends who live in Graz, Austria. Despite being rather short, it was still a lovely visit. Back in Slovenia, we were enjoying the culinary scene and hanging out with my friends again, while waiting for our French visit to arrive. Well, that didn´t last long though. Somewhere, who knows where, I cought the flu. The normal one, that is., not the Corona one. Still, it hit me pretty hard. And obviously the virus liked me, so it stayed for around 2 weeks. Pretty much the whole time we were in Slovenia. So I had more or less a crappy holiday with most of the days spent in my childhood room at my parents house, while my mom was making tea and bringing me medicine. I did manage to spend a couple of days out in the sun woth our French visit eventually. So, here are a few impressions of our February visit to Slovenia.

Just when I was starting to feel better, it was time to drive back to Germany though. And this is where we are now. Pretty much stuck in my 55m² apartment all day long, since a couple of weeks. And we still didn´t kill each other! No, that´s an achievement, isn´t it? Not that someone thinks we bought half of the local supermarket store and we sit around the apartment wearing face masks. Nooo, it´s because we are secretly starting something new and we´ll telly you more about it soon. We´re quite busy actually, on top of this new project I´m focusing on the blog and been updating it a bit. But new content and blog posts are being written too, so even if it has been a bit quieter over here lately, more is coming soon, don´t worry.

Oh and by the way, did I tell you already we bought our plane tickets for Africa? Yes! We´re taking Lu on his very first safari in August, to Kenya and Tanzania. But it´s still a long way until August. First, we need to see if we can manage to go skiing at the end of Mach to Switzerland – we have flights booked to Milan where we are being picked up and we drive together to Saas Fe with my family from Slovenia. Well, that´s the plan at least, if Lufthansa doesn´t cancel our flights to Milan due to Coronavirus. Until then, we need to also plan our upcoming overland adventures too! And keeping our fingers crossed for a healthier March :).

Take a year off and go around the world. It used to be something that only a very few got to do and even if it is today certainly still a privilege, it is not all that uncommon anymore. Send your car overr to Argentina, make a road trip from Europe to Indonesia or go continent hopping with just a backpack. I want some of that too! But we can´t do that right now. Not because we wouldn´t have the time and we´re also not out of money (yet), but there is something else. For those of you who don´t know yet, we have a 8yo at home, who isn´t able to come with us outside his strict German school holidays. So such a long trip without seeing him would not be fun for anyone. Therefore we are hopping around Europe, living between 3 countries, making some longer trips in between and trying to combine our wishes with our obligations and family life. It needs much coordination, but we are making the best out of it. We are currently in the middle of our free year, which btw might end sooner or we might extend it, who knows. More about what we´ve done with our free time so far and what are our plans until Autumn in this new post.

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New year! The crazy party until the morning hours from not yet a month ago is already forgotten, January ran by with lightning speed. A lot has happened this month, even though we spent quite a lot of time in our German home. So far 2020 has been good to us. Still under the influence of the not so positive 2019 events, but there is no other way than forward now and we have to keep moving on and don´t look back. Okay in this post we look back one more time, it was already our 7^th month since I left my job at the office. After the holidays at the start of a new year many people make new resolutions or simply start over. We´ve also made some decisions, but more about them in a new post. Soon. Also, these days this blog as it is is having its 1^st birthday! It was one year ago when I started blogging again after a very long break. Came back with a new name, new design and new energy. Thank you all for reading!

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