It's that special time of the year again for me. When you spent most of your time on the move your inner calendar changes. New Years Eve without fireworks, Christmas without snow and you miss all your friends birthdays. The many local events you experience on the other hand make up for that so you end up having two or three different New Year celebrations a year, you wait for Eid al-Fitr to mark the end of Ramadan and so on.
Reaching the late twenties
Birthdays have never been big days for me. I like to appreciate life every day and I don't wait for New Year resolutions to make life changes. Sometimes though it's good to reflect on what happened, the way you changed and since I started cycling on my birthday exactly two years ago, this is a good a time as any for me to do just that.
So exactly 730 days ago I left home with butterflies in my stomach, because of the adventures that would lie ahead of me. For all the different scenarios I had in mind I sure as hell didn't think it would be like this. I told myself to open myself to new experiences and especially to other people, but I had no idea what that would mean.
The further I went, the more I explored, the slower I became and the more I watched and listened. This was a good thing and it was the reason I found a partner for this journey called life.
A quick recap
So let's take a quick look back on what happened:
- quickly passed through Western Europe due to too many rainy days
- took my time in the Balkans, zick-zacked like crazy (I love the Balkans!)
- had my brother with me for a couple of weeks and later my old cycle buddy Chris
- met an amazing woman in Iran and got stuck there for a while
- threw all my plans out the window and started traveling with my new mate
- explored our relationship and South East Asia for almost a year
- settled down for a while in Nepal
- went back to Iran to prepare for the next step
We've been back in Iran for over two months now. Living in a small town in Central Iran is not the place that I would choose to settle down, but it's were Hajar's parents live. After I've abducted their daughter for over a year it seemed more than fair that we stay with them for a while.
Change is good
Now those who followed along on the map, probably realized that we went back West and not down under (which would have been my original plan).
Actually we went a step further and decided to turn back towards Europe and to stay in Germany for a while.
YES, WE'RE COMING BACK.
I could talk about this for hours, but instead I'll try to keep it short and put the rest in a separate post:
- the way I like to travel, a world trip would take muuuuch more than 3-5 years
- two years of traveling are awesome, but life is all about change and so we're going to do something different for a while
- a new relationship needs a proper foundation and always moving makes that difficult
We've applied for a SCHENGEN tourist visa for Hajar a week ago and on April 21st we'll know if we got it or not. The process was ridiculously time-costly and nerve-wrecking, but it made me appreciate my German passport even more.
Wish us good luck, we sure do need it.