One Week Ago: Ready to Go

It is not only the cancellation of a trip I prepared throughout months. It is not the letting-go of an idea I aimed for since summer 2018. It is frustration, insecurity and disbelief.

The corona crisis throws me back 1 – 5 years, depending on its duration. If not questioning my entire business: Will I be able to continue my preferred work as a freelancer? Will I keep my apartment? Not to think of my (already far from being splendid) pension assurance… Hard to trust politicians way beyond science, copying more or less blindly the reactions of other countries and with no estimate of neither duration nor impact or recovering. Meaning the impacts on moral, society, culture and economics, left alone those on general health.

Yet, this is a travel blog, so what about the planned voyage? The 3-months-sabbatical, finally rewarding me for years of hard work and of several cancelled vacations? Well…

Roadmap, Culture, Literature, Camping, Timing – Prepared Options for some Destinations in Scope

If and When and Where I will travel this year is not clear. Instead of carrying the prepared piles of luggage into Hector, I will store them properly in my wardrobe. The Sri Lanka trip (backpack holidays with surfing and three weeks of travelling all around the country) will be the easiest to re-activate one day. The France + England part is different: The idea was spending plenty of time, much more time than usually. Drive and park and stay and move on. See and taste, relax and be active. Who knows if I will get my chance for such a sabbatical at all… It depends upon the economic development of the next months.

Innerhalb von drei Tagen war die allgemeine Reisefreiheit Geschichte. Ich erschrecke darüber, wie es so schnell so kommen konnte. Was sonst würden wir noch alles stoisch hinnehmen, wenn es jemand als “beste Lösung” verkauft? Ich befürworte zügige Maßnahmen (warum ist kaum jemand auf Isolations-Ideen gekommen, bevor alle vom Faschingsurlaub zurück in Schule und Büros gingen?), aber die geschlossenen Grenzen, die Ausgangssperren in einigen Ländern, der Stillstand… lass jetzt bloß kein Feindbild dazu kommen.

Three days. That is all it took to turn our world from multi-culti-travellers into closed borders. The speed of development and some facets of it are frightening. I appreciate quick reaction to a severe crisis and would have appreciated it even more two weeks earlier, when hesitation paved the way of thousands of families back into schools and offices. Good friends and good spirit are on the positive side of our recent experience. Let’s focus on solutions and well-considered actions and hope that nobody will come up with a concept of an enemy.

Running out of plans. Sri Lanka? Blocked. Instead, go to Portugal? Blocked now, too. Marokko? Stopped all ferries or other traffic. Italy? Anything further south and passing by Austria? Forget about it.

So here I am, running out of job & income and nowhere to go. Difficult news for a travelblog. Hoping it passes by soon and will not impact friends and family.

18 months planning… 6 months preparation + booking… weeks of anticipation… counting down the last working days until the job ends and I will live from the air that I breathe and the joy of travelling. Then the headlines turn up seedy.

While I usually try to find positive approaches to upcoming obstacles, the corona virus development is a real challenge. I am yearning for my holidays, for sun on my skin and waves around my body. Thanks to a couple of dentist appointments, I even got my bikini shape just in time. It is not only about me, but includes friends from abroad: Linda will join, coming from another country with different rules or risks and with the plan to spend her holidays in good company (that would be me :-)).

So, what to do?

Of course, I have made up a plan B. And a plan C. D and E as well. F and following letters might enfold when needed. Yet, it is a question of time and money: If the planned holidays cannot be realized, a similar opportunity will come up not earlier than a couple of years later.

I will keep my fingers crossed for a world-wide calm-down of illness in general and of corona in particular. I will keep an eye on the travel limitations of my destinations (stop-over-airports included). I even might spin the prayers wheel that I got from Nepal. And I will be careful of what I am wishing: Mostly, my wishes come true, so I hope for the best!!

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Sometimes I wonder: What if I plan less? Be more open for spontaneous action, new encounters, unplanned adventures?

The conclusion is: No. Less plans would lead to more sports (one for the good), but even more, it would lead to more duty-fulfillment. Like last week: I could have used some days off for senseful things. Take care of my car and my flat. Clean the windows, get more of a view!

Truth is: Making plans for any kind of travel makes me see more of the world than perfectly transparent windows.

So I had a great time with my sister during our yearly ski vacations, we had adventures with closed ski lifts, stormy weather and strange people. And we had such a great time together!

I will continue to plan holidays, travels, jobs and financials. And I will take my dirty windows as a proof for the right priorities.

 Play it loud, play it proud!

The calm days are over! The cliché of surfer-vanlife that hung temptingly in the back of my head now developped into sonic impacts: I proudly present my Ukulele.

From now on, it will be easy to check out which of my temporary neighbours are petty bourgeois (complaining about noise) and which are cool and open-minded to instrumental-experimental sounds.

Learning something new is fascinating: At first, you don’t know nothing and an instant later you take your first steps, shifting your abilities a 100% up. Try out unknown terrain, fail, try again, get further. Meanwhile, my hands and muscles learn moves that develop from funny sound to recognizable music. My brain learns to read scrum schemes and chords and my whole body learns to differ between hands (playing the strings) and head (singing).

Imagine my Surprise when it Turned Out that I Can Actually Sing! (Here: My Famous Last Christmas Video with Greetings to Linda)

Thanks to the best guitar/ukulele teacher in eastern Munich (Echo Music School), the 2020 Hector trip starts on a much higher level than I had imagined. Now, wherever happy tones float through the air, something like “Here Comes the Sun” or “I’m Yours”, it is highly probable that great little Hector is near.

Mostly Harmless when Stored in the Bathroom, More of a Show when Played Outdoors