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I can hardly believe it, but I guess we are really stepping into May tomorrow. Weirdly, my days have been longer than long this month but then again, at the same time, April just rushed by. According to our initial plans, we should have been somewhere in the Balkans right now, on our way to Greece or maybe even Turkey. We had planned 2 months time for this, we should have been back to Germany around the beginning of June. Instead, we are of course still in Germany. Mostly at home, sticking to the rules. But to be honest there are more and more moments where it´s all getting a bit too much. Definitely lots of mood swings and ups and downs in our house haha. Anyhow, we´re lucky we are allowed to go out, we are also allowed to drive to other places but not to the coast or other tourist spots. Just because it´s a little bit funny, here´s a line I wrote on Jan 27^th: “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.” Hah! No comment.

To be honest, I don´t know exactly what we did this month. The dates and days are all a bit blurred up. Basically not much has changed since the end of March though – schools are closed, we´re still not working, we´re getting fatter every day and we possibly drink too much wine on some days. In the mean time, the nature is wide awake, colouring our neighbourhood into yellow-pinky-green shades, which is quite nice actually. Between all the cooking, eating and blog writing, we´ve surely gone out a little bit too. To our town centre, to the park, to the fields around. Realising it is not all that horrible here, but as I always say – pictures are one thing and living here is another thing. It´s a nice collage thought, isn´t it?

I am more than happy to have this blog, I have to mention it here. I´ve been writing like crazy these past weeks and to be honest it feels very good to do so. I guess it is because this is pretty much as good as it gets in terms of doing something intellectual and feeling useful at the moment. I think I´m also starting to miss a real job routine, since we are not travelling. I never had this feeling the past months, but now that we´re stuck at home it really sucks to do “nothing”. Anyhow, I am very happy so many of you are reading this blog, it gives me the much needed motivation to go on. I have posted 8 NEW POSTS THIS MONTH, 6 of them in English and Slovenian and 2 only on Slovenian as they were collaboration posts. So let´s see which ones I´m talking about, maybe you have missed one or two.

I´m very happy for these 2 special posts which were made with a huge help of sother Slovenian travellers. One is about TRAVELLING IN THE TIMES OF QUARANTINE and the other one about BEST DESTINATIONS FOR WILD CAMPING. As I said, they are only in Slovenian, btu you can still brows the pictures for some inspiration by clicking on the pictures below.

And because we are constanly thinking about food right now and also cooking lots, I made a great food post and called it A CULINARY JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD. Because we love ti eat also on our travels I´ve gathered my favourite dishes from different corners of our globe. By the way, are you already following on Instagram? Lately we´re posting lots of food related things too, since we can´t travel. You can follow @placesandnotes and check out the “cooking” highlight. Click on the picture to read this post.

After 9 years of living in Germany I´ve finally posted a post about BEST HIDDEN GEMS 6 SECRET SPOTS IN GERMANY, including over 15 lesser-known places in the country which will surely impress you. It ´s a good read if you haven´t read it yet. Since I feel my time here is Germany is (hopefully) soon running out, I´ve decided to post a bit more about my current homeland, while I´m still here. In this sense, I wrote about the HARZ NATIONAL PARK which is very close to where we live here in Germany. Read both posts by clicking on the pictures.

And for a good dose of TRAVEL INSPIRATION I wrote a cheerful post about THE BEST SPOTS TO SEE BEAUTIFUL SUNRISES IN THE WORLD. From USA to Australia and much in between. Check it out by clicking on the picture below.

And since nobody still can´t say for sure where and when we will be able to travel in the summer months (I´m relly hoping far away will be an option, but you know, have to have a plan B these days), I´ve put together 2 POSTS ABOUT NEARBY DESTINATIONS. Now, this was meant more for my Slovenian readers obviously, but possibly the rest of Europe can visit these parts soon again too. One is about KRANJSKA GORA & AROUND, a great mountain area in the Julian Alps, and the other one about WHY WE LOVE CROATIA AND WAHT YOU CAN SEE AND DO THERE. Read them by clicking on the pictures.

I prefer not to think about the fact it has actually been the 10th month since I left my job already. I rather keep my fingers crossed we will still get the chance to do some of the things we had plans for this year.  Hopefulyl already in the summer.

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.