Link to the previous page this is how it began – e
NOW – what we’ve wanted to do for a long time…..
…… with a steam locomotive through the beautiful Westerwald to Hachenburg (approx. 130km). Including a tour of the Hachenburg private brewery.
It’s done!
On March 20, we went to the notary to sign the purchase contract. Now there’s no going back!
06. June ´18 ….The visa is here
Hello lovelies,
It’s been almost a week since our farewell party, I can hardly believe it… We would like to thank everyone who was here and for all the good wishes, especially the friends and relatives with their children, some of whom traveled from far away by plane, train and car: from Bremen, Cologne, Koblenz, Leipzig, Mühlhausen, Berlin, Heilbronn, Düsseldorf, Dillenburg a.D. Alzenau is not that far, but it is still in Bavaria.
Special thanks also to Federico, who was such a great help and often helped me out of my chaos and, incredibly, always knew where to find what. Thank you. Although we totally forgot to take pictures, we will keep the beautiful farewell with all the lovely people in our hearts (now I finally know how to write like that). It was especially nice to see my sister again after almost 20 years.
I would like to apologise to my neighbours if they have felt neglected, but I haven’t seen many friends for a very long time and luckily we still have you for a little longer and I have heard that we are having an internal farewell party last week which we are really looking forward to.
Apart from that, things are progressing steadily and I can now part with things that I couldn’t have imagined a short time ago and I’m glad that I didn’t put myself under pressure, because with time it works itself out, things that I would only have given away for (probably too much) money some time ago are now coming away from me all by themselves. Gerhard has also stopped making me nervous with his concerns that I would never manage it. Hello, we have to leave on 24 June, no matter how, we’ll go to Berlin first and then fly to Sydney on 15 July with a week’s stopover in Dubai.
Yes, there’s also the matter of the bikes. Just when Gerhard breathes a sigh of relief: the bikes are staying here, cycling in Australia is crazy, I find the best guided bike tours that are so well described that you can do them on your own.
Concerns: don’t take the bike, too inconvenient. Then I learn that the airline will pick us up from anywhere, well, how comfortable do we want it to be?
Talked out again: in Australia you need completely different bikes! Good argument.
Then I get the book ” Weltreise” 4300 days travelling on 5 continents.
I open Australia and it’s hard to believe: the man cycled all over Australia on his bike !!!!! With a normal bike, ours look much more outback-ready !!!
I can’t imagine what else there could be to do without it now.
It’s like when others have to leave their dogs here, and if you look at “the emigrants” it’s quite an ordeal and how they feel in Africa, Norway or somewhere else. I’m sure our bikes are much more relaxed about it.
But now let’s go
The last time in the house was a horror and there was a lot you couldn’t imagine, I think outsiders saw it coming more than I did. I thought that in the end everything that was still there would just be thrown in the rubbish. Hello, what rubbish? There’s a small bin, you’re only allowed to put a bin bag next to it and you just don’t suspect that there’s so much rubbish. What would I do differently? Nothing, because you can’t even imagine it. The only thing is to bring children into the world in good time, who then say go on, we’ll take care of the rest. Because it’s only when a lot of things no longer come under your eyes that you don’t care what happens to them. And then there are all those things that you wanted to decorate, sew or do handicrafts with, where everyone else would say, what rubbish, because they can’t understand your creative ideas. It’s always easier to order a container for other people’s things than for your own, but I think everyone can understand that. Then you realise with horror that you haven’t even looked in some drawers, but suddenly there’s no more time and no more bins. Or the many things I really wanted to take with me but there was no more room in my suitcase. Oh well – forgotten.
So off we went on Sunday 24th June. We left the big suitcases and another load for Berlin, which 
we couldn’t fit into the car, with friends, then off to Berlin with a fully packed car. We spent 7 days near Gerhard’s mum, distributed things to Gerhard’s son, who was happy about a lot of things and Gerhard stored a lot of things there, left the very best things to my sister, sold the car. Then finally to a really great hotel right on the Spree via Travelzoo where we could finally relax for 7 days. Rented a car, bought a larger suitcase. The things just didn’t get less although we left heaps of clothes in every accommodation.
Back to Frankfurt, picked up my suitcase and spent 3 days in a hotel that was not quite as great as I had expected, in a total wasteland in Griesheim, absolutely nothing nearby, neither restaurant nor café – just gardens.
After the last 3 weeks and 5 accommodations in Germany, some great, some not so great and 5 times repacking my suitcase, I finally managed to get down to 108 kilos of luggage including hand luggage after repacking countless times. I always left something behind until I had one more jacket and then the amazing thing, during the last repacking to better distribute the weight, I had 6 (written SIX) jackets from Gerhard in my hand. Stunned. With a lot of persuasion, he parted with two of them. You’ll forgive me if I tease him about this more often, because it was with a very heavy heart that I parted with my second jacket. He then put on one of the four remaining ones on the flight so that he would look “tidy” when he arrived in Dubai at 38°.
But we still had the opportunity to have a farewell drink at the airport.
even the longest journey begins with the first step
DUBAI
Arrived in Dubai in our 100 m² apt. we could now fully relax.
We strolled through the old quarters and like everywhere else where hardly any tourists come, we enjoyed the friendly welcome and the excellent food in one of the simple restaurants. We visited the big fish market and enjoyed excellent food there.
Dubai has only one drawback: due to the unbelievable friendliness and helpfulness of many inhabitants ( Dubai’s inhabitants come from over 200 !!!!!!! different countries / didn’t even know there were so many ) and you can do what you want, you belong to the “ please take a seat “ age. You get on the train and immediately someone jumps up, sometimes they looked like they needed the seat more than I did after a hard day’s work.
Dubai is already very fascinating with the insane skyscrapers, the highest one had 174 floors and it costs almost 500 EUR to drive up there once and – the shopping malls and everything tax-free and no more room in the suitcase…..
It’s just that the amount of plastic they use is unbelievable.
I can’t imagine what they do with all the rubbish and plastic or how they get all the water, and then there’s globalisation, butter and eggs from Denmark are commonplace and often you can’t find out where they come from, and when you look for local products even the sellers don’t know.
