After our last blog post I felt overwhelmed and touched… I felt fulfilled and got very sentimental at the same time… So many of you wrote us such lovely emails or left messages on our blog or Facebook pages… It made us realize again how many of you have been following our journey and also your words and responses made us recognize and appreciate even more what a special and unique trip we’ve had… We want to thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, some of them making me laugh others even bringing tears to my eyes…
So I left Bangkok with a smiling and a crying face… On the one side we feel so happy and grateful knowing that the time we’ve been able to share was something we’ll always remember as “one of the coolest and best things we’ve done”, but naturally my heart also feels a little heavy and sad knowing that this time is coming to an end…
We chose the long way to get to the U.S. and it was a trip that proved once more how incredible the world is… You get into a plane in one world and get off in a completely different one… And of course there’s all the in between time, where you are in the air not belonging here nor there… Alone with your thoughts of the places you are leaving behind in anticipation of what is waiting for you on the other side… I love being in this in between world and I think I even “need” it… For most people being in a plane for ~10 hours would seem far too long, but I can’t imagine not having this transition phase preparing my mind a little to get ready to let go…
But let’s back up a little first.
We left Bangkok on a night plane and landed in Abu Dhabi in the Emirates about six hours later. Already we had to turn the clocks back a few hours resulting with the first confusing feelings for our bodies and minds that come along with that… But oh what a different world we had landed in! We felt we had left the world of crazy traffic and street food stands behind us and had entered a world with fancy, luxurious and expensive hotels, restaurants and malls! There was no chance of mistaking it with home though, because it was almost unbearably hot! And men wearing white dresses and scarves on their heads and women covered up completely in black sometimes only showing their eyes walking the clean streets lined with modern skyscrapers giving this place an Arabic feeling and creating a very different atmosphere that we had seen over the last few months…
We spent two days in Abu Dhabi, enjoying our nice hotel, discovering the city on a hop-on hop-off bus…
And we even had time to drive into the desert! A memorable and very new experience for all of us!
The next plane only left at 2 am, so we were already tired before setting off! But of course the middle of the night wasn’t really the middle of the night for our bodies anyway, but already some time the next morning… It was all starting to feel very confusing! But the next plane took us to a completely different world… We were heading for Frankfurt, Germany and had another layover there! Crazy to be flying right over our home…
What an unreal feeling, enjoying a Schnitzel in the spring sun just hours after watching the belly dancer in the desert! We got up at 4 am for our next travel day, but by that point the time on the clock didn’t really mean that much anymore 🙂
After a short flight we touched down in Amsterdam and even got a peak of little Dutch houses from our plane windows… And before we knew it we were in our last plane on the way to Portland! Contrary to most people all three of us still get excited about plane food and our own little individual TV sets…
The more than 10 hours flight just “flew” by, getting great views of the North Pole
… and soon we were hugging Grandma and Grandpa, Finley more excited than ever!
A little drive later we were already holding our new little nephew Lincoln in our arms, Finley got to play with his cousin Xavier and they looked for Easter eggs together…
After a lovely dinner together with Auntie Jen and Uncle Mark, we set off for our final leg of our four day trip to drive to Grants Pass! And have done a lot of sleeping since then!!
So here we are… It all stills feel unreal and hasn’t completely hit me yet!
How can we have been eating Pad Thai in Bangkok a few days ago? And since then seen the desert and one of the world’s biggest mosques… Been back to Germany, heard even a little Dutch in between, seen the ice of the North Pole from above, and now we are back with our American family! Isn’t life crazy? Isn’t traveling and flying amazing? I am writing this bundled up in a warm sweater after sitting under the cold air conditioning just two days ago, listening to a CD with Buddhist chants that we bought in Nepal…
We haven’t seen a lot of America yet of course, but it all feels so normal again already… Normal bathrooms, drinking tap water, understanding the language, disciplined driving…
And Finley had his first night back in a bed and room by himself!
April 19 – 24, Â 2014
three lykes on the road again 