Category: France

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Life turning point

Having kids is a life changing experience. Losing someone you love is a deep changing and reconsidering priorities experience. I can name a few more but I won’t cause the real beauty is when you have this OMG changing moments in smaller every day things. Like when I bought my first Samsonite case with 360 degrees rolling wheels and travelling was never the same again. Or when I got my first iphone. And the list goes on.

So today I had one of these and it made my day, really! The day was quite impossible because of a number of wrong decisions we took. The result was not only one but two crying kids (yes, also mr. Happy) for the most part. Martijn and I were supporting each other (when one flips the other ones stays strong), but it was clear that the moment they would sleep we would start crying almost. And on top of everything Ihad to take care of the laundry, because mr. Happy produces a lot of smelly dirty stuff that sometimes find their way out of his diaper. Sigh.  Anyway, I carry the 100kg box of clothes on my shoulder (given the opportunity we would wash another ton of clothes of his sister and some of ours) and walk to the laundry room. There is a dryer too. I love it already.

1,5 hr later I collected all the clothes, including hundreds of little socks and little of everything, all clean and all dry. And all warm, you want to put them on right away. And colors shining. This is not happening. DRYER it is. My life will change for ever. No more frustrations above the laundry line, no more washing, no more hanging smart so all 1000 little stuff fit, no more waiting for clothes to dry and spend your evenings doing this.

What? Not environmentally friendly? Sorry planet, I need my sanity back. What? It destroys the clothes? Who f*cking cares. What again? They become small? Well, this I still need to check.

 

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Cleanliness

Ok, I know that the concept of ‘clean’ and ‘hygenic’ is very personal. And I also know most probably I need to be the one adjusting my cleanliness standards downwards rather than expecting others to do the reverse. Honestly, I have made huge steps compared to where I was once. Doing camping and having kids helped me enormously to be more reasonable.

But, there is a but. People stop putting the shoes on the table! Please! And ok, if you do me the favor, stop also putting the socks on the table. Thanks.

What I saw these days was a sad reminder of me not having advanced as much as I thought in the ‘I don’t mind dirt’ mindset. A woman yesterday was walking in the toilets and showers of the camping WITH SOCKS! Jesus! I came back telling Martijn that throwing the socks away won’t help: she needs to cut her feet.

And today we bought a french baguette in a supercute local store, the one and only of the village, that looks like this:

And for God’s sake, this is how we got it:

I mean…seriously? You are supposed to take the baguette with bare hands and carry it home like this? Ok, I give up and will be miserable for ever.

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Unconditionally happy

We all have our moments during the travel. Except one, who is unconditionally happy. It doesn’t matter where we are and what we do, whether he gets attention or not. We adore you Alex!

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Campings so far

We already feel quite experienced with this whole thing of sleeping, eating, tidying, securing everything to avoid flying objects and start driving. Funny to see how quickly you get used to things and adapt. Next step of maturity would be to choose our accomodations more in advance. So far it has been possible to plan our accomodation on the spot (half an hour before we arrive mostly) using a super handy app for campsites, but I guess the more we head south to touristic destinations the more we need to plan ahead and ensure we have a spot. Let’s see.

Night 1: Belgium, Donkmeer, camping called Roosendaal. Pretty basic, but we were such first-timers that we were excited by simply parking this monster without hitting anything. The owners were lovely, around 70, hippy style. 15€/ night. There are older people camping there for months, mostly after they retire. Some of them with on-the-edge kitch style decorating their ‘gardens’. At one spot Gioia said the legendary: ‘I think they have a birthday party’ when looking at the tons of things hanging from the walls and spread on the outside. I took a photo of the party location:

Night 2: France, Calais. Camping called Municipal Le Grande Gravelot, 20€/ night. The place is totally new, built last year, with state of the art facilities and located next to the sea. Pity i did not get to see the sea, not only because I had to put Alex in bed when Martijn and Gioia went, but also because the wind force was enough for me to take off. Plus I hate wind from the bottom of my heart. I know I chose the wrong country to live, but honestly I realized how much I hate wind after some pretty traumatic holidays in Tinos 2 years ago. Myrto, Manos, Panagiotis and Aggeliki know…in Calais Martijn and Gioia also went to the supermarket, first time the bike was used.

Night 3 (where we are now): France, Rang du Fliers, camping called L’Oree du Buis. 24€/ night (we noticed the prices go up, but do intend to keep things in control). This is vast, huge, enormous etc. It has ‘neighbourhoods’ of campers, tents, bangalows, motorhomes etc. Much better than the other two with forest-like setting, but still not my thing. Not that I don’t enjoy it, on the contrary, just it is not this place I intend to write down and come back. Plus 9€ for internet. Right. Of course, we did not pay.

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Iedere dag prima

Sometimes it is so extremely nice that I wonder: why not everyone is doing this. And some other times I am wondering how we will survive 2 months. Good moments are when we drive, with music, no kid is screaming and we feel it gets warmer (it happened today, i removed the socks and felt like the world is mine).

Or when we wake up with Gioia and Alex in our bed.

Bad moments are when we have to put the kids to bed (they both sleep at the same time and next to each other). And when I had to cook today, which took for ever with everything costing ten times the usual effort.

But then again comes a good moment and we get a huge smile. Like when Gioia yesterday, who sings 95% of the time we drive, started screaming out of the blue ‘iedere dag prima’ (Dutch for: every day is perfect). It becomes the trip motto: #iederedagprima!