Category Archives: Roleplaying

Day 23 – The southern end: Malin to Mizen

Camping in Beara was nice despite the slightly abandoned vibe of our campground. We had so much space and quiet, the kids could be as noisy as they wanted during breakfast for a change. To make it even better, Number 3 found a plastic dinosaur another kid must have forgotten. It made both kids very happy.

one last pass – Lonely Planet recommended

Beara peninsular also has a ring road (how could they be left out) but we were a bit peninsular-ed out. Instead, we only drove a little bit along the coastal road and then turned inward to take the Healy Pass to the southern side. We had a light drizzle, many clouds and a bit of fog going up. The moodiness suited the landscape a lot! It cleared up every now and then to give us really nice views of the rocks. From the actual pass you could see down to the road which wiggled through the landscape below…quite a bit of awesome road. Probably amazing on a bike. J

recovered anchor from a failed rebel relief effort by a French armada

Now following the southern coastal road, we got to Ballylickey where the Lonely Planet advertised a foodie grocer with a cafe. Of course, we had to stop there for a second breakfast. The kids and I went for the sensible option of tea and cake while Flo couldn’t resist the sandwich options. In the end, we also bought cheese and bread for the road, all of which looked and smelled delicious.

We didn’t have a real plan for Bantry. The Lonely Planet suggests the Bantry House which didn’t appeal to us. Instead, we opted for a fast charger, a bit of shopping at Supervalu and lunch at Organico, a zero waste organic place. During lunch Flo chatted up a couple on motorbikes so we had a lovely conversation about places we’d been.

Going further south, Mizen Head was our next destination. It was a while away and offered a good opportunity for me and the kids to have a nap. The night had been short and full of terrors. The Agent of Entropy had been too cold and then wet and all of it had cost the rest of us valuable sleep. So against our habit on the road, I had a nap as well. Only Flo needed to drive. I like to tell myself that he enjoyed the quiet time but he was probably also very tired.

all together now

We woke up shortly before we stopped at Mizen Head. I was still a little wobbly and disorientated when we moved into the visitors’ centre. I knew it counts as the southernmost point of Ireland as the races seem to be Malin Head to Mizen Head. However, from the visitors’ centre you could walk over a bridge to Mizen Head Station on a tiny island. So we did. It was very cool even though the bridge worsened my wobbly legs. It had the “end of the world” feel to it. Mizen Head Station is a signalling station that isn’t manned anymore these days as everything can be done remotely.

As we had gaming on tonight, we’d picked a nice campground but when we got there, we weren’t too sure anymore. It advertised its glamping opportunities but it felt unstructured, more like a side project than a tightly run business. It was expensive, had no wifi or signal and seemed to be much busier than we would have liked it to be. We were too tired to debate or move again so gaming had to be cancelled or rather postponed unfortunately.

Day 13 – Goodbye Donegal

We were ready nice and early, having slept right next to the cliffs of Sliabh Liag. The Lonely Planet suggested to drive to the upper car park and then walk for about 500m to get some nice views. That sounded like a short stop with a great photo op. However, when we got there, the upper car park was closed off. The wardens told us that it’s a 2km walk to the upper car park or we could wait until 10am and take up the first shuttle bus. Waiting till 10am wasn’t an option and Flo was against taking the bus anyway.

It would have been fun in the car …

The Agent of Entropy was carried in the baby carrier, Number 3 walked and we “hiked” up to the upper car park. It wasn’t too bad except for the fact that hiking on asphalt isn’t the greatest kind of fun.

We were the first ones up at the upper car park. The coffee and souvenir trucks hadn’t even opened yet but Flo already spotted “The sober bar” which sold non-alcoholic beers. Starting the actual hiking track was fun as most of it consisted of steps made out of natural stones. We soon realized that the views onto the cliff were best from the car park and we didn’t intend to do the whole ridge walk with two small kids. The next nice viewing area was our snack spot and then we turned around again, just in time for the first shuttle bus to arrive.

far enough for us, time to head back down – after snacks

It was lovely that we’d beaten the crowds. Bus after bus started to arrive at the car park. Since we’ve already been as high up as we’d go, we now sat down to have a tea, a cookie and that non-alcoholic Guinness that Flo had seen the night before.

Though this stop was more involved than we’d thought, it was a great one. Sliabh Liag is a cliff, going 600m down into the sea and is thus higher than the cliffs of Moher. The view onto the wall rising out of the water into the clouds was pretty amazing, though I can imagine that the views from the cliff top down are even more spectacular.

From here, our next planned stop was the beach at Rossnowlagh. But first, lunch. “The Rusty Mackerel” only started serving meals from 1pm onwards which was too late for us. Looking out for a bakery along the road, I checked the recommended cafes in Killybegs. Cafe Ahoy was recommended for its seafood chowder. That line alone triggered Flo’s taste buds so we passed the bakery and went there.

Happy to find a table quickly even if it was inside, we decided what to order. Being asked for our drinks order, the waitress told us that she can’t take our food order yet as there are a couple of tables before us. That was an odd statement without any further explanation. We sat there for 30 minutes with our drinks, without ordering food. Literally the second that Flo wanted to get up and leave, the waitress took our order. Hoping that now it would speed up the process, we spent ANOTHER 30 minutes there without any food. Seriously pissed, we finally got up and left. That was seriously shitty customers’ service…please let your guests know if there’s a long waiting time ESPECIALLY if they have young kids who will clearly starve if they have to wait for an hour.

food always imrproves the mood

An hour had passed, we still needed food, the kids were crying because they were so hungry. So we did what we should have done in the first place: We went to the bakery. It turned out to be a bakery/deli so we even had Sheppard’s pie, quiche and pasta salad for lunch and were done in 15 minutes. Cafe Ahoy, you might have been lovely but that was just not acceptable.

Finally, finally, with the kids asleep in the car, we drove to Rossnowlagh. It’s a beach along the way where you can drive your car right up to the water so it made the kids and Flo happy. To be fair, the kids were ecstatic to put their feet into the ocean again. Number 3 wanted to learn everything about jelly fish as this was the first beach where some of them had been beached.

like a dive-in movie. Extremely bizzare. Plus, everyone in camping chairs …

30 minutes later, we had to leave again as the tide was coming in. Some car owners didn’t make it quite fast enough and that their cars bathed in salt water from beneath. Not really a good thing…

But, we were also leaving county Donegal, the first county of the republic of Ireland that we’ve been to. It’s been quite a ride. Counties Sligo & Mayo are beckoning. Well, they will be tomorrow. Today we pulled up in a lakeside caravan park that was overpriced, basic and really nothing special. However, we had a long distance gaming session scheduled and needed power and reception for that.

Day 16 – Calm before the storm

We took a rest day at Agriturismo Alba. After two cities in a row, we needed a bit of a breather for the next two cities ahead of us. With this in mind, we relaxed for a day.

She’s going to be a professional climber someday

Number 3 really wanted to spend some time at the playground and the Agent tagged joyfully along. We were the only ones on the playground this morning. Bringing our sand toys with us was enough to keep both of them busy for quite a while. The Agent loved the slide though and in no time started climbing up the ladder all by herself.

Doing laundry was overdue so we put on the washing. Unfortunately, the machine was broken somehow and all our clothes were dripping wet when we took them out. The sky was overcast for most of the day, so it would take forever for them to dry.

We had a slow morning with some blogging and then a nap. Well, the kids had a nap as they alternated their time asleep: The Agent started and sleep through 1 ½ episodes of Benjamin Blümchen (audio play for kids about the adventures of an elephant who can talk) which is when Number 3 fell asleep and the Agent was wide awake again. Oh well. No sleep for tired mamas. 🙂

Like this, the madness even looks pretty

When nap time was over, Flo urged us to jump into the lovely pool. I hadn’t even seen it by this point. The sun had come out though so I was persuaded.

The pool was immaculate, blue and surrounded by a lovely manicured green lawn. I got into the water fist, which was up to about my waist right next to the ladder. That was as deep as I would go in today, I decided, as the water was really quite cold. The Agent in her pushy manner nearly threw herself in before she realized how cold the water was and refused to be put into it at all. Her screaming quickly convinced me not to try again. So we got out, changed into something dry (or baby-naked in the Agent’s case) and watched Flo and Number 3 splash around until Number 3’s lips turned blue about 10 minutes in.

The pool excursion ended, a little earlier than expected, with a lovely hot shower. Flo even improvised delicious dinner with the asparagus tips we’d bought two days ago and the potatoes we’d carried since we left home. XD

The Agent of Entropy was in A LOT of pain because her molars and a few bonus incisors are breaking through at the same time. We prepped her a little with pain relief before bringing her to bed in the hope that we might get a quiet night as another gaming session was scheduled. Indeed, we had a quiet, kids-free evening and when we went into the tent later on both kids had crawled towards the middle of the tent and were cuddling. Sometimes, the little ones just melt your heart.

Day 9 – That summer feeling

We call every day where we don’t move camp a rest day on our trips. Most of them end up being everything but. So if you imagine a quiet afternoon with a good book on the beach … not quite us. We move at a brisk pace, especially for a family of four. So we always have 5 more things to do on a rest day, because you know: We got time, right? That is on top of everything that made us stay in the first place.

Both kids enjoyed having the place to themselves

I tried to be smart though and venture a bit into multitasking. So after our breakfast, we packed a few essentials and moved to the lakeshore. I was able to finish up the two blog posts in our back-log while Number 3 (and, to the extent that we let her, the Agent, too) enjoyed the lake. We were the first ones out and had the lake all to ourselves. Small mistakes were made, but overall this was a great success. In hindsight, we just should have told Number 3 to take off his clothes all at once rather than waiting for him to get first his pants and then the undies wet. He had a blast, though, and even made new friends with the 5 and 8 year olds kids of the campers two lots down from us.

This is why we went on this trip. We get to spend so much time with our little ones – who are ever so slowly turning into remarkable little characters. Many times a day, I get this flush of emotion when realising just how much I love them and how blessed we are to get to knowing them.

A sit-on toy digger…how precious

We somehow managed to squeeze another load of washing into our lunchtime window, although naptime was a bit of a challenge, probably because of the heat. Oh, and Number 3’s digger addictions. There was a sit-on toy digger on the camp’s playground and he found it. Getting him off that playground took a serious bit of convincing.

So naptime dragged on a bit, organically transitioned into coffee time – all the while, promises about things we can do started piling up for Number 3. For the first time on this trip, we decided to split up. I am not much of a water nut, so Nina and the big brother decided to go for another (real) swim, while I took the Agent of Entropy out for a shopping run. I had added “cooking risotto from scratch” to get rid of our remaining fresh zucchini to the long list of to-dos for the day. Oh, and it was finally time for ice in our icebox – the butter demanded so, or at least that was my excuse.

Little airplane

A brief stroll along the lake later, it was now 4.50 pm, we all joined up again. Number 3 had turned slightly blue from an hour in the water while I was a bit hot from my walk in the sun. We equalized things by a minute or two of cuddle time 😀

I got to work on the risotto – and it was around that time that things turned south a bit. Our hero up to this point lied to his Mum about me having approved it and walked away from his sous-chef duties to play with the damn digger again, all on his own. When dinner was ready, tantrum ensued and he outright refused to join in the meal. Slightly soured by that turn of events, I maybe were not the most patient dad at bed time – and it had maybe 35°C in the tent – so that took almost exactly until it was time for us to hop in the car, start up discord and play our regular Friday night game.

Rest day, eh?

Side note:

– to avoid another disappointing take off, I religiously forced the car into “drive” mode every few hours to force it to charge the 12v battery. That works fine while it is charging the main or when the charger is disconnected, but leads to weird behaviour when the main is at 100% but the charger not disconnected. It seems like some software optimisation is still required. We’ll find out if all that at least had the desired effect, tomorrow –

Day 38 – Out of steam

The last two days had been full of activity. We went to bed late last night and also after having had port wine so the morning was sloooooow. With Porto off the list, I ran out of steam. Sure, we still have a couple of days left in Portugal but what to do?

In the end, we decided to hang on to the port wine theme a bit longer. Most of the vineyards for port are in the east of Porto, up the Douro valley. The pictures we had seen yesterday were pretty, we were tired from walking around so much. The solution seemed to be a scenic drive along the Douro today.

With that in mind, we went to the first big supermarket outside of Porto that we could find and stocked up on groceries. Number 3 is not compatible with big supermarkets at the moment: He just walks around three corners and you have to search for him for ages. Thus, he was confined to the seat of the trolley this time and complained about it.

So it was noon when we actually left Porto’s vicinity. Number 3 dutifully fell asleep so we drove for an hour along the river before stopping for lunch. We actually found a picnic area this time with a bit of a view onto the river.

After lunch, the drive wasn’t nearly as pleasant anymore. Baby was not happy with only an hour out of the car and nowhere near falling asleep again. Thus, our nerves started to wear thin. Flo looked for a camp ground already. Just anything to get Baby to shut up.

Finally, finally, we arrived at the next rustic camp ground. It was 1 km over a dirt road to get to a gate that didn’t really look like a camp ground at all. It looked like a vineyard. We stopped, debated if you could stay here for a night. We surly needed electricity after Porto and this didn’t look like the right place for such amenities.

While we were sitting in the car in front of the place, a woman walking two big dogs came up the drive way. She looked at us inquiringly and we felt a bit stupid so Flo got out to talk to her. She said, she had some space for a car with a tent if Flo could check if he could get there with our car? 10 minutes later he was back and super happy. “We’re staying here. It’s the prettiest place we’ve stayed at so far. Right in between the vines!”

It turned out to be the best camp ground we have had so far. Plus, the owners are lovely, Number 3 loves the dogs and the dogs are okay to be manhandled by a baby. We even got an extension cable right into our tent for access to electricity. Set up like that, we spent the evening calling our German friends and playing some games.

Day 32 – „Baby first!“

Flo didn’t catch on to my cliffhanger there. The spare part arrived safe and sound in the morning of our rest day so that we were relaxed and free to make more plans from thereon out.

Unfortunately, the night brought rather disrupted sleep for us. More crying because of teeth and more applying pain relief gel in the middle of the night.

templar church based on jerusalem temples

Thus, we were rather tired in the morning…and unmotivated to pack. Since we had two options today, we chose the lazy one: Just pack the tent so we have a car to explore Tomar and then come back to the lovely camp ground for one more night. If you like it somewhere, just stay longer. 🙂

We were in Tomar at about 11 o’clock. The sight to see here is the Convento de Cristo, the headquarters of the knights Templar. On the way in, it didn’t seem too busy but there still was a queue for tickets. In sunshine, making it rather hot. Flo decided that we wouldn’t try the “cut the line because of baby” card here as it would be maybe half an hour until we got tickets anyway. I grumbled a bit but ok.

Just when I thought that we might get into trouble with our timing “we will be too late for lunch”, “did we put enough money into our parking ticket, this might take a while”, a member of staff put his head out of the window and yelled “Baby first!” when he saw Flo, followed by a wave of the hand that we should come to the front desk and get tickets. It was quite funny actually. And while my thoughts were still in the queue, we were actually already in the headquarters.

famous window to the churches extension

I thoroughly enjoyed our visit there. However, my knowledge about the knights Templar is limited and it felt a bit like visiting a pirate ship. The knights are so prominent in media (movies, games) that I had trouble not imagining it as a set. XD

A bit more than an hour later, we moved on into the city to find a place for lunch. Tomar is a pretty small town and Number 3 enjoyed walking along the cobblestone lanes, charming everyone we passed. He had a “courage upgrade” some time ago and would now roam further away from us and around corners and out of line of sight. Despite being great, it is exhausting as it means, we now have to follow our baby rather than the other way around.

Lunch was lovely. We had a great waiter who entertained Number 3 quite a bit as well as fellow patrons who waved and smiled and played hide and seek with him.

A short stroll through the park later, we went back to the camp ground. A little bit more rest for us before we had another evening of games via skype with our German friends.

Day 26 – Lisboa 1st

Ah, the weather. The weather forecast had said that it would be cloudy…but having breakfast in outright rain didn’t get any enthusiastic reaction. It. Was. Supposed. To. Get. Better. Dammit.

Not having to pack, we were faster than usually, at least a little bit. Most of it turned into non-existence as Baby had one accident after the other. First, he fell off the bench and then, he put his hand on our only sharp knife. It was the first time he cut himself and he was not fond of the experience. Putting a band aid on it didn’t help. He just tried to get it off and it was completely soaked with saliva within a couple of minutes. By now, the cut had stopped bleeding so we just kept it as it is.

… oh this places is good, then?

At about 9.20am, we took the bus into the city centre. For 2 euros each and a bus ride of 40 minutes, we could escape the noise of two motorways and explore a city that I had really looked forward to. Just not in the rain. /complaining

We got off the bus at the end station which is Praça Figureira and, not knowing what to do first, fell into the first bakery/café that looked inviting. It turned out to be an institution in Lisbon in a great building which yummy things to eat. Most tourists queued in line to take some treats away so there were still options to sit down and enjoy a proper sweet second breakfast. Flo sampled another pastel de nata, while I chose some chocolate treats this time. Flo still fared better, I think. Tea/coffee and a bite-sized treat swiftly turns into our favourite pastime.

By then, it had stopped to rain so we decided to do the suggested walking tour today with clouds rather than tomorrow with 30 degrees and sunshine forecast. It took about 15 minutes to get to the starting point and most of it was uphill. Later, when we had a proper read of the section, we realized that a tram ride up the hill was suggested. Well, unaware, we walked. Hello Wellington calves.

we made it up!

The first point was a viewpoint over the city. We both enjoyed it despite the lacking sunshine. From here, the path was mostly downhill. We took lanes through the city, I fell into another bakery, we had more viewpoints and also lots and lots of great architecture aka tiled houses and sights. Just wandering around was a lot of fun. It is a good way of getting into touch with a city if you just keep on walking and check what’s behind the next corner.

We didn’t feel like paying fees for admission so stayed on the outside of most suggested sights. At lunch time, Flo found another great little place, vegetarian again. It’s really good to have proper vegetarian food instead of whatever waiters can think of on the top of their heads. Even Number 3 enjoyed the food and the high chair which allowed him to share plates with us. We liked it so much that we stayed for coffee and desserts which conveniently allowed us to sit through another spell of rain. 🙂

Alfama feels like a muslim medina

The one big item to see in the afternoon was the castle right in the city. We walked there expecting to actually having a look inside for once but a big sign right at the gate said “CLOSED DUE TO STRIKE”. So much for this. Good on them for striking though and also getting the city where it hurts. We were by no means the only tourists turning away from the castle.

We kept bumping into “private” guided tours. At the central praças, you can hire a guide for your own tour. Flo kept looking at them longingly…I guess we’ll try that in the next big town.

Walking through the steep and narrow cobblestone lanes of Alfama, we came upon a terrace with a view. Two guys were playing a cheerful tune, the sun had come out and it was just a really nice moment to be there.

Thus, we made our way back to the commercial district. It had been a pretty full on day with the walking tour and we wanted to catch a bus back to the camp ground around 4pm as another game with our German friends was scheduled for this evening. Due to the time difference, it starts at about 5.30pm our time. We even managed to squeeze in dinner in time.

Day 18 – A different scenery

The next morning didn’t start much better. We were unsure about where to go and what to do next. This part of Portugal is all about the beaches. Here, between Tavira, Olhão and Faro, there is a National Park just off the coast, full of sandbanks. Taking a boat to see parts of it is a thing according to the guide book. So I thought that’s a plan.

After breakfast, we headed towards the reception area to get information about tours through the park. The lady gave us one that looked promising, having an eco tour in it. She couldn’t give us any more information though or sell us tickets so we packed up (not really sorry to leave this camp ground) and drove to the marina of Olhão to make a final decision.

Daily ritual …

While I still entertained the thought of a boat ride, Flo was having serious doubt. None of the boats had any roofs or cloths to create a bit of shade. Going on a 1 ½ hour tour with Number 3 in full sunshine seemed like a bad idea. And a tour would already be the exotic thing to do: Most people opted for a ferry to the “desert island” sandbank to tan for up to 5 hours and then take the ferry back. That seemed even less of a thing that we would enjoy, least of all Number 3.

When we saw all those people at the docks, prepared to worship the sun for one day, even I changed my mind. Maybe we’re just not beach people. Or maybe we got snobby through all our travels…I just couldn’t see the appeal of sand with no shade anymore. Maybe the rugged west coast will be more our thing.

Thus, we changed course and drove inland, exchanging the ocean for the hills. Flo immediately felt better. And Number 3 was asleep in the car again. 🙂 So our first stop was to get more groceries, because food makes you feel better as well.

We stopped briefly in Salir as the Lonely Planet said, it is a lovely little village but we were still not feeling it. The tourist info was closed and none of the cafes looked too inviting. We had a quick ice cream and coffee intake and then continued.

Only about 8km further, the loop walk of Rocha da Pena started. We arrived, had a quick sandwich lunch with our groceries and prepared for the walk. The estimated time to complete the loop is between 2.5 and 3 hours. It was already past midday when we started and the sun burned down quite mercilessly. Right at the start, two walkers came back down so we asked them about shade on the path and were told, it practically didn’t exist. It would wind up to the cliffs, become a walk along the cliff edge and then get back down. Nothing big, about 160 meters in height but all in sunshine.

Only 150m up, but steep and hot

Now I had doubts. So Flo and I settled on going up for 30min and then coming back down again. And this is what we did. It was a scorcher. Even for me and I wasn’t carrying Number 3 on my back. The views were great, wild sage and thyme bloomed and made it smell delicious everywhere but there just was neither shade nor wind. All of what we saw would probably turn brown in summer, given the heat we experienced. But…we both enjoyed the walk. Finally, we were back on track with how we felt about Portugal and what we are doing.

Our next, and last stop before the camp ground for today was Alte. Agua Mel was a cosy little café with a small balcony-like outside seating area. All of the cakes and treats looked delicious. So we had another round of Portugese Gao, black tea and treats. Baby seemed quite hungry as he was really tugging into the sweets.

Alte itself was a picturesque little village. We wandered through a couple of roads on our way to the “Fontes”, walled in springs next to a small stream. The village used to come here for the washing, nowadays it’s a picnic area where you can look at the stream and count the fish. 😉

Feeling amazing, we headed towards our camp ground. When the road turned into a gravel road two kilometres before we arrived, we got excited. These camp ground out in the sticks are usually the best. As was correct again in this case. The camp ground was small, tucked away and just overall lovely.

There was a bit of a frenzy at the end. First to get back to the petrol station nearby to buy ice for our cooler and then to set everything up in time for another Skype date with our German friends. But all was well. It was warm, sunny and just the kind of quiet place we love. So a little rush does nothing to phase us on this night.

Day 11 – Drizzle, dragons and disappointment

Wow – I think we have to seriously slow down our pace. There is a certain flow while traveling that seems like it can be maintained, but in fact slowly drains your reserves. Even though we already had two double stays – that is still only about half of the rest days we did on Home to Home. We were not really resting either, but packing these extra days full of sightseeing. Within a week, we need a proper rest day – just hanging around the camp and doing not much of anything. Or more likely, doing whatever we feel like. But not today …

Today started great, with a solid breakfast and a kind fellow camper offering to pick up a fresh bread for us from the bakery. But catastrophe is never far away. In this case, it came with the very last touch of breaking camp for us: the last clasp of the roof tent. It is sort of a normal leaver lock thingy, with a latch affixed to the base hooking into the lock and then leveraged shut to keep it all good and tight. Too tight this time, as it appeared. We had issues with closing the tent before, but we thought were past it. Right when the lock shut, the latch, which is a riveted band of steel, broke at the point where it is was attached to the base plate. One lock is not enough for safe travel, obviously. One again, the kindness of strangers helped to soften the blow immensely. The Dutch travellers next to us had his motorbike with him and carried a bunch of spare tie downs. With a colour matched botch job in place of a front lock. We called the distributor in Germany and they promised to find out what they can do for us, but in the meantime ensured us the tie down will do.

improvised tent lock … grumble

It did not really quite show yesterday, but the village and the national park surrounding us was absolutely stunning. Sierra Espuña is the first of a bunch of these alpine national parks that seem almost too inviting to just pass through. On a longer trip, we would definitively want to spend 2-4 days on some hikes in the area. But not this time. It would immediately go against the bare bones of a plan that we have started to formulate.

Our idea now is to travel just slow enough to get a taste of southern Spain but fast enough to be in Portugal before May. That should give us four weeks to really take our time and do exactly these things we are now skimping on a bit and leave us with two weeks to get back via the Netherlands at a reasonable pace.

That meant skipping a whole bunch of national parks now, and even just cruising past the Sierra Nevada in a single day. We did, for the most part. Even though, we still managed to have a great lunch break in a romantically drizzly national park called Sierra de Baza.

road ahead, far on the right is Granada

We had a very specific goal in mind: We needed a camp ground within striking distance of Granada with good WiFi and at a reasonable price. We managed the first, but the mobile data speeds were at least good enough to save our plan a bit. The thing is: We are not as untethered as on our last trip. We did not want to leave our weekly gaming group hanging, so we agreed to try out playing online via web and skype. It actually worked out reasonably well, with some minor hiccups that were to be expected. 

The only thing that we did not fully take into consideration for the choice of camp was altitude. And so we ended up at almost 1000 m, with a cold evening turning into an even colder, since cleare night. The thermometer dropped all the way down to 1° C for the second time on out trip …

Sorry for my lack of talking, posting, being sociable, whatever lately. I might have procrastinated a tiny bit too long and have to force myself to a tight schedule so I’ll be done with everything in time. And I’m not even good with sticking to it. =S

Okay, what did I do besides working for uni/procrastinating/having my mind on a certain issue? Hm…well, I played D&D on Tuesday. It was great! Mat tried to kill me again. =D One round longer of being unconsciously on the floor and his evil cleric would have touched me with…whatever…killing a dying creature and getting power from it. O.o Whoa! At least one character survived a bit longer. =P
For some reason Horst had even more crap on his mind than normally so I had to tickle him a lot more than usually. He found something dodgy in everything I said. O.o *sigh* *lol* Sometimes another language is hard…you’re dodgy without intension and without even noticing…

Today, I had a lot of plans. Get up early, read a lot, write a lot, get things done. I succeeded only marginaly. First, it took me an hour longer in the internet cafe than I had calculated for it. O.o WHY do I get 22 mails on the day I don’t really have time for that??? O.o
So I went to have lunch and then up to uni…that was the plan. The moment I left the food court on Willis, a very excited Becky called me.
See, I also have to organize stuff. My train leaves on friday morning at some time stupid like 7am. Becky said it’s cool to store my suitcase and some other stuff at her place for the week. Plan was to get it to her place tomorrow morning at 10am.
Well…she called. She is evacuated from her house. O.O There was a landslide, a big one, a tree crashed into her window as well…and the city councel told them they are not allowed back in. Problem…Becky was at home when it happened…and slightly traumatized in my opinion. So I met up with her. (Breach of “only working” plan no. 1) Okay, she calmed down, she laughed, she was okay.
We went up to uni and I went to work at about 3pm.
Tina called. Twice. So I talked to Tina…more organizing. Apparently, Tina and I will climb Mt Ruapehu on Saturday. She was very excited about it…”we’ll have a guide and we’ll get those spiky shoes for climbing on the ice and…” – “Tina, how long will this take?” – ” The whole day, about 6 or 7 hours.”  – “Tina, are you aware of the fact that I didn’t bring my tramping boots?” – ” Oh, could be a problem. I’ll ask if someone can lend you theirs.”
O.o
Alright…looks like I’ll spent a day climbing. I’m so outta shape, I’ll be dead afterwards. *LOL* But Tina told me she has to work on Sunday anyway so I can snooze and slack around. =P I just think it’s great she’s so enthusiastic about doing stuff when I’m up there. =)

Back to work with me. At about 4pm, Aaron started to txt me. We somehow decided yesterday that we’ll hang out today. Very indirectly…I could just infer it from one of his statements. =P Something about me hitting him tomorrow. O.o Whatever…(but breach of “only working” plan no.2 … big one as well)
I fucked around with reading my books till almost 5pm and then stopped. There was not much point with me txting Aaron every 10 mins or so. *lol* Went back to Nomad’s, had some TimTam slams and then met Aaron. He kept laughing at me for almost the whole evening…and the worst one, I didn’t even understand why. O.o That’s a way to make me feel stupid, just randomly crack up laughing and keep me wondering what the hell is wrong. O.o =P Oh well, I decided to speak German for a while because that way I’m at least sure about what I say. =P
But yeah, good evening. =) Watched Sweeney Todd which is very disgusting with all the blood (I crinched a lot) and then Music and lyrics which made me laugh a lot as well. And get my hair into pig tails. =P But I had cats to pat, pizza, hot chocolate, chocolate and marshmallows. So I wasn’t joking when I said I’m gonna roll out of his place…feel really quite….chubby right now. =P

And now back to my laundry with me again. =)
So on Friday, I will stop being a Nomad’s nomad and become a real nomad again for a week.