Campering – 4ofusontheroad

July 29, 2018

Some improvements

People, after 6 weeks on the road, we have some improvements to propose in the way things work. We need to make business cases, issue RFPs and get to work. Soon.

1. Toilets that empty themselves, as Martijn suggested earlier. Come on, we can go to Mars nowadays, something should be possible from a technology/ automation perspective. We are open to solutions with reasonable prices.

2. Hammocks that move themselves. We all now how extremely annoying it is when this moment comes that the hammock stops moving and you still haven’t fallen asleep. Unacceptable. We need a solution soon. Something like the mechanism that rotates the lamb in the Greek Easter, adapted for hammocks. Just saying. All proposals accepted.

3. (This is very innovative and needs society mindset change): We need silencers for kids. The kids can still scream, if they want, they will just wear this special thing in their mouth so that the noise level decreases. It is impossible otherwise.

(Citing an average dialogue with Gioia, occurs some million times a day:
Gioia: says something very loud
Sissy/Martijn: ‘Less loud moppie, we are not alone’
Gioia: continues in the same volume
Sissy/Martijn: ‘Shhhh, less loud, we need to respect our neighbours.’
Gioia: ‘Why?’
Sissy/Martijn: f*ck, there we go with the ‘why’ story again.
Gioia: goes on in high decibels, nothing changes
Sissy/Martijn: (with sweet voice, though starting getting nervous): Gioia, I am next to you, you don’t need to scream
Gioia: notices some irritation from dad and mom, but continues making het point very loudly.
The next scene has Martijn and Sissy banging their head on whatever surface is available.)

Healthy people come from healthy families, and you can’t have a healthy family without sane parents. All proposals accepted.

4. We need a smart vacuum cleaner for the campers and the area outside. Something that can be smart enough to know if it is dust, or sand, or food or liquid, that can lift the ladders and the bags on the floor when cleaning and can make a nice ‘beeep’ when done, so you know you can enter your clean camper again. When working outside, the supercleaner needs to evaluate the wind situation and work accordingly. Meaning: if the wind insists on blowing in the same direction with the same power, either do nothing and try again later (no point in cleaning), or keep cleaning and recleaning like a maniac, as per a certain user setting.

5. We have many trees growing in very unhandy for the camper positions. We need a way out – literally. We propose horizontal and vertical saws, placed on the top and sides of the camper that cut what whatever is on the way. We imagine weid landscapes where a square shape is left behind between trees, but we believe people will get used to it and might even like it eventually. High priority.

6. Washing up. We have no clue how to solve this, all options are good options. We are open to suggestions.

July 10, 2018July 14, 2018

About driving

We are three weeks on the road and I can officially state that driving is nice (technically I mean: sitting next to Martijn, who is driving, is nice). Martijn just laughed when he heard me saying this. Because I usually, if not always, complain about how bloody boring it is. (Here comes a discrete ‘ugh’, I mean..’ugh’ again, it is boring in HOLLAND!) If you drive in NL you need a ton of caffeine to not fall asleep. You go on automatic pilot mode, the landscape on the right is exactly the same as the landscape on the left, and this goes on for kilometers long. Ah wait, I see a cow. Ah, another one. And a wind turbine. Gezellig!)

So I mean: ‘driving in beautiful routes with changing landscapes, is nice’. On one condition: that the kids are asleep. Sigh.

You don’t want to know what happens when they are not. One of the following:
– Gioia sings. Not like normal cute childish singing. She is screaming so loud, in either Dutch or Greek, she is saying stories, agreeing and disagreeing with herself and giving us headaches. We need to increase the volume of the music often, because this can go on for very long
– When she gets bored singing on her own, she tries to engage Alex. Well, he is 6 months old, so his capabilities are limited, but he can chip in and add to the craziness. So, Alex produces all types of ‘a-i-o-b-p’ sounds and can also laugh a hysterically when Gioia plays with him and sings TO him. The result is two kids laughing and screaming beyond acceptable decibel levels. Paranoia. And this is not even the worst scenario
– Approximately half an hour before we arrive to any destination, the crying starts. Not sure how they know there are 30 min left, but they are very precise doing this. Next level paranoia. Sometimes Alex gets deeply red from crying and we cannot immediately stop. Not fun at all.
– (Just happened): Gioia wakes up, because of a sudden break stop. Well, better this than ending up killed – see post ‘bella Italia’, on the bottom for driving conditions.

When the kids are asleep Martijn and I can talk. Yeaaaah! So unique to be able to talk to each other! Or we can be silent listening to music! Yeaaaah! So rare to be able to not talk! Earlier we listened to a song (Sandman, from America) that we listened to a lot last time we were in Italy with Martijn’s VW bus of the 70s). Nice!

Live broadcast from the camper:
Gioia: ‘Mooooooom?’
Me: ‘Yes sweety’
Gioia: ‘You said when we were at the waterfall, that you would buy me Chupa Chups’
Sh*t, I said that, when she saw the lollipops she eats in Greece. Crap, I totally forgot.
Me: ‘I forgot it moppie. But we will be soon in Greece.’ Smile from Gioia and we continue driving in peace. *THANK GOD*

July 5, 2018July 5, 2018

Lazy asses in lake Trasimeno

(Check section ‘Route’ for where we are)

We have been so extremely unbelievably lazy the last 4 days that it almost felt like holidays in a Greek island before the kids. Almost. The longest distance I walked was to the toilet and back. We would take naps on the chairs after lunch and the biggest event of the day was swimming in the swimming pool. I tried entering the lake, but after 1.5m in the bliah water and more than a zillion mosquitos I could not help my ‘how disgusting’ arrogant Greek attitude and turned around 180 degrees running out.

We also had a surprise visit from Alex C., now we are 1-1 with the surprises. His fight was cancelled, so he was back in beautiful Umbria for another day.

Packing and going again seemed too much effort, so we postponed leaving for another day. Serious laziness alert. Alex (Alexis) swam for the first time in his life, but I guess we thought he is one of us and forgot his age, so soon afterwards he had an ear infection. And fever. Ai ai ai. The sweet little moppie spent long hours in our hugs and it seems he is improving. (Gioia had her first of many ear infections at the same age. I hope the similarities stop here, cause Gioia went on for another 4 months of fever every other weekend).

Riccardo drafted a route for us and Alex C. filled in more details. So we have a route and we are allowed to be over the top lazy, checking only for suitable campings. I love it.

We are on our way to some waterfall (Marmore) and with 33 degrees outside we worship the existence of air-conditioning. A presto!

June 29, 2018June 30, 2018

After the rain comes the rainbow

Ok, this is to not explicitely write: ‘after a shitty day, there comes awesomeness again’.

A detail I intentionally omitted yesterday to save my mom from a certain heart attack was that Alex spitted some blood. That was minutes before the realization of the flying window. We called the doctors in NL, chatted, analyzed the situation, we sent photos etc. The conclusion was it might have come from coughing, no issue, we should not be alarmed and keep monitoring. It ended up being…tadaaa..a tooth.

The little fat happy man has an emerging tooth (you see its top on the bottom left). We were so unbelievably proud to capture his first tooth yesterday, you cannot possibly understand how proud we were today capturing his second one.

As if this whole shitness was not enough yesterday, we decided to spend the night for the first time in a so called camperplaats. This is a parking space for campers where electricity is provided. No more. Oh my God. How can people possibly pay to stay there. I would demand to get paid instead. Picture this: steel, cement, next to the road. Thousands of mosquitos and heat. Suicidal, really.

The good thing if you had such a crappy day is that it can only get better after that. And it did. Today we arrived at an unbelievable camping, in Chianti, Italy. Wow. How can these places not be packed with tourists and how lucky we are to find them. The camping is in layers with trees overlooking winefields and the village is old, elevated, with amazing views on the valley and incredible people. Wow.

I hope that the rule of ‘crappy days are followed by good days’ doesn’t work reversely. Because now that Alex is back in his bed and happy and we are sitting outside with gin tonic (proost Hannah and Daan) we are in a serious vacation mode and we don’t want to compromise this a bit!

PS: Today I was putting Alex to bed and Martijn was laughing uncontrollably outside together with Gioia. Not sure what kind of jokes made them both laugh so loud, but we are supposed to be a bit quiet when putting kids to bed. Martijn entered the camper at least twice to grab smth from the fridge. I did not make the ‘sssssshhhh’ remark. The third time he comes to the fridge I made a remark and Martijn said giggling: ‘Sorry, I forgot the lemon for the gin tonic, it was an emergency’. Vacaaaaation, tadaaaaaa!

June 28, 2018June 28, 2018

And the biggest fuck-up prize goes to…

Ups, I did it again. I make at least one fuck up mistake a day, but today I brought this to a whole new level. (Mom, if you are reading, stop now, you can still prevent a heart attack).

My top fuck-ups:
1. Leaving the drawer with cutlery unlocked. Seconds later, in the first curve, it opended widely and stopped only few cms from Gioia’s nose
2. Closing the window shades of a specific window in such a way they were almost permanently destroyed
3. Closing and ‘securing’ the windows when leaving the camper, wondering why there is a persistent 1 cm distance and why they ‘seem’ open. Guess what, they ‘were’ open. Tens of mosquitos were the proof of it.
4. Falling from the ladder (honestly they s*ck because they do not click anywhere, so with a wrong distribution of your weight you can fall backwards – together with the ladder)

But the grande belissimo non comparable fuck-up, which made me think if I even want to continue this trip (so bad it was), was today. Martijn was wondering if all windows were closed cause he felt a bit of a breeze while driving. (Reminder: Alex and I slept together in the bed above the steering wheel). We stopped, he climbs up and he realizes there-is-no-side-window-at-all. As in: the window flew away. As in: the window was never closed (apparently). Ups.

We are now travelling with a hole on our roof, amateurely sealed with the top of an IKEA transparent box that we use in our storage. And contrary to all weather forecasts it just started raining. Ups.

There is a rescue plan that involves us receiving the missing window in a week and install it ourselves, but (very big but), we need to give an address for them to send it. And we have no idea where we will be in a week from now. Good luck making a plan for two people that just cant do this when on holiday. Ups.

June 27, 2018June 27, 2018

High beds, low ceilings – in paradise

If I never return from this trip it is either because I fell from the high beds and opened my head, or because I hit myself on the low ceiling – and opened my head. Or both, like hitting the ceiling first and then falling over, in which scenario I will certainly not make it. This story ‘of climbing and hitting heads’ became even more complicated when little mr. ex Happy got sick (did you notice less posts the last two days? There you go.)

So, this is how it usually goes: Alex is crying. We let him cry for a while hoping he will sooth himself and when he reaches hysteria level we need to act. Action plan: a) climb up the ladder to his bed b) open the little curtain c) put your knee on the matress and push you body high up with your palms. BANG. You hit your head for the first time in the ceiling. ‘Auch’ and some swearing. d) you sit next to Alex’s tent and think further of the action plan. e) you open the zip at Alex’s little tent (Alex in the meantime has reached 100 degrees temperature from crying. Gioia, who sleeps in the same bed outside the tent, turns around noticing ‘something is going on’, but no more, she can still sleep while Alex’s crying can be heard from Mars). f) *This is really difficult*: you use both hands, palms up, put them under crying Alex, you lift him up and try to bring him close to you while he moves like an octopus. 8,5 kgs crying octopus. You lift him up. BANG. Alex hits his head on the ceiling. The volume level increases. You try not to cry yourself. Now that you have him safe on your hands you realise you forgot whatever you were supposed to bring a level down (=downstairs). And you want to kill yourself.

The last two nights I slept with Alex in our high bed – above the steering wheel – and Martijn squeezed himself diagonally between Gioia and Alex’s empty tent (too much effort to remove it). This is because Alex had fever and would wake up every 10 minutes screaming, which made the aforementioned stepwise relief method impossible to execute. In his ‘new bed’ he had plenty of space and could scream easier. But this bed is even higher and the ceiling is so low you can’t sit, you can only crawl. Supernice for mama #NOT! These two nights Alex would only sleep if I was literally skin to skin with him and the moment I would remove my hand from his head/ belly/ little feet he would immediately wake up and cry. It was quite a nightmare, but today we saw the first smile and heard the first goo-goos again! It seems we are getting back on track, yuhoooo! And can enjoy the paradise we are in: