🇪🇸 May 16th, 2023: we hike 300km on the Way of St. James 🇩🇪 June 13th, 2023: we spend the summer in Germany ✈️🇸🇬05. November 2023: our journey continues 🎉🎉

We will fly to Madrid on May 16, 2023 and then take the train to Irun. We are armed with a backpack, hiking sticks and hiking boots because we have decided to hike the Way of St. James via the coastal path/del Norte towards Santiago. It's the first time for one of us and at that point I still have no idea how I'll suffer here and there 😂🥾

We hike a total of around 300km on the coastal path. Made tons of contacts, had lots of nice encounters and met even friendlier people. Most hike alone, some in pairs (like us) or sometimes in a group. Everyone at their own speed, some even with a handicap (I take my hat off to them) and everyone has a story to tell. How, why, why... There are many reasons to hike the Camino. For some it's just a big party 😄

I 🙋🏼‍♀️ suffered a lot along the way, laughed and cried, but when it came to the end I was incredibly sad. Unfortunately, my feet were causing me more and more problems every day. I had blisters on my feet and at one point I even had pain in my feet due to incorrect strain, so we had to take a break for several days. At some point the day came when things couldn't go any further. Deer tallow cream didn't help either 😆

It was over in Llanes. We called it quits for a good reason, but I was deeply sad. Chris had to persuade me and I knew he was right about everything.

At the same time, we also wanted to gradually return to Germany. A family member was going through an unpleasant time and we couldn't travel through world history without any worries. This realization hurt on the one hand, but it was also clear to us that it was the only right decision. We are not stopping our journey here, we are just interrupting it. 🤝

We flew from Madrid to Barcelona on June 13th and then to Cologne/Bonn.

We were back indefinitely for now. 🇩🇪 somehow we could hardly believe it ourselves. It was like a dream. It took us a few days to realize it. To organize our thoughts. Clear to come. Easy is different. Laughing and crying eye.

We celebrated my 🙋🏼‍♀️ mom's 60th birthday at the end of June and I started working 25 hours a week in my old company again. Somehow it's still totally absurd when I think about it, we had imagined the year to be so different. But nothing happens without a reason. In July we celebrated my godchild's birthday and my brother got engaged. He bought a house and renovations began in August. This is how the weeks and months passed at home between mastering everyday life, doing sports and lots of quality time with friends 🫶🏼

When the family member started to feel better at the end of September/beginning of October, we made travel plans again. Because everything was tingling again at the thought that we would set off again. Thoughts were racing: where do we start/where do we end? When are we leaving? Is there a plan this time? No, of course not ☺️ we once again listened to our gut feeling - and that drew us back to Southeast Asia.

We booked an open-jaw flight for November 5, 2023, first to Singapore and then to Bangkok. From here on, we left everything open again. The anticipation grew with each passing day. We sorted out our stuff again in Germany: I 🙋🏼‍♀️ quit the job, deregistered the car, we deregistered, canceled the health insurance, took out foreign health insurance, and and and.. ♥️