Thursday, June 9, 2011

Back Home

Flying back from New Zealand to Germany was horrible! The trip via Kuala Lumpur was extremely long. Well, when you look at a world map, there is probably no longer trip you can do. Even watching more than five films did not really help. Luckily, it was only one way.

Flying with Malaysia Airlines we could only take 20 kg + 5 kg onboard. Not enough for our equipment and bicycles. We had to mail a 11 kg parcel with gear back home what was definitely less expensive than one kg of excess baggage. There wasn't much baggage allowance left for gear. Each biycle in its cardboard box weighed about 18 kg, although we stripped things like chains and tyres. Both bicycles survived the flight! No damage at all.

When we arrived in Germany the whole family came to the airport to welcome us. That was really a nice surprise! Now we enjoy the beautiful spring weather in Germany. The sun is shining and a lot of flowers are blossoming, really nice! It feels good to be back home with our family, but of course we are sad that our trip is over now already. But with all the excitement of finding new jobs and a new place to stay, we don't have much time to be sad and rest.


Here's a short summary of the year:
  • 10 months
  • 10.300 km pedalled
  • 10 countries
  • met at least 25 new family members in Cambodia
  • met so many other cyclists, we stopped counting, but many of them became great friends
  • thousands of small, lovely encounters with locals
So what's happening now? Well, next week we start our new jobs at Lake Constance. We're looking forward to settle down in this beautiful region of Germany now and hope that the lake and the Alps which are so close, will make up for leaving the Cote d'Azur. Anybody up for a visit??