The Tour de Germany (September 3rd) and October 8th 2022

Our experiences have been stretched into new territory. In the last few weeks we have been exploring health issues, doctors of all kinds and the biggest part of learning to learn that there is nothing to learn, some things just don’t want to be known or named. Giving "it” a label/name so we can say: Aha! Now we know! Comes with a (false) sense of control. At least we were able to squash some physical symptoms with medication and are able to continue our tour just peachy and without problems.

It’s been a while…..

I’ll continue here on October 8th after a month of late summer warms and beautiful connections with friends and family in Berlin.

My father would have been 90 years old on September 22nd that sunny day. Here in front of his grave with my uncle (his brother) and aunt.

With my father’s sister.

With my Carolin

With cousins, uncle and aunt.

Fall has announced itself with most refreshing temperatures, frequent rain and beautiful colors. 

For me - though nature is astounding all over again- I feel a bit of a panic: the sun/light doesn’t join us long into the evenings anymore, the ground stays soaked from the rain, the laundry takes forever to dry and the tent gets packed away wet after a cold night (rain or not.).

We are heading south, chased by shorter days and the promise of winter.

I am writing in a cozy WS apartment at the outskirts of magnificent Dresden. Our arrival yesterday pretended to be summer. Eating lunch, facing the Elbe -behind us buildings loaded and swollen with history and the sun stealing the panic for winter right out of my mind. Relax…it’s all going to be ok!

Frauenkirche

What can I say? After a wonderful month in Berlin, the road has us back and it is good. We were send off with a “pot”of the best home made bean soup from Carolin. 

We left my beautiful home city behind and I couldn’t help but notice how lush, how green and juice Berlin itself and it’s surroundings are.

Now experiencing the former East German side for real and  for the first time up close and personal, it is surprising to me how remote, how isolated the country of “East Germany” still is.

The woods deep and mysterious (especially at night)

invited us to spend the night. Soon after getting settled, heated up the soup the rain POURED down on the tent - made the situation even more cozy and grateful.

“There is a bakery around every corner in Europe” didn’t apply in the  "east” part south of Berlin. 

After 32 years of the fall of the wall, Germany is still divided.  Hard to believe, but it’s true! My family and friends in Berlin, when I suggested to meet in a Cafe they don’t  know: 

“ I am not driving/going in the East”  they all say …often with a sheepish smile.

Gives me the chuckles every time, because I thought I was ignorant and didn’t keep up with the times and the changes. 

And yes, it is not easy for me either, finding myself lost in the “east” basically right close to a street where the wall used to be and as soon as I go a pedal stroke  “west”, I know again were I am. Weird stuff! But I have an excuse: Haven’t been here in 4 years and before that only every other year a few weeks, sometimes only a few days at a time. 

Fact is, the invisible wall is harder to break than concrete!

Rainbow spanning from east the west over the “left over”wall