Moving on to the Pyrenees… always wanted to be here. Now we are. Wow! What a place!

Wow! Wow! Wow! The landscape is impressive. And we are in the middle of it.

The Pyrenees Mountain Range stretches 450km between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

How are the Pyrenees like? Remote. Mountainous. And much more beautiful than I ever expected.

50km in 3hours. Winding & curvy endless roads. Open windows. Wind in our hair. Wild horses along the way. And cows. And bicycles. It’s gorgeous!

Fresh apricots, peaches and tomatoes, later vineyards again. It’s beautiful.

From sleeping with open doors & windows to almost putting the heater on (if it would work…). We are feeling cold here. Morning temperature 9C degrees. Brrrrr. Time to move on towards the sea again.

Yes, This is still part of the Pyrenees, the Catalan Pyrenees.

A very delicious lunch in Collioure.

Staying a little longer in the south of France, moving on to the Ariege.

The best part about van life: you can stop anywhere. We woke up in a vineyard. We stayed next to cows somewhere in the Alsace the night before. And last night we (well… I…) wished to stay next to the beach. Lucky us, we got the last available spot (shower inclusive. Yeah!).

The summer 2022 is hot. We passed a village with its forest on fire… Luckily rain is in the forecast.

The Alsace was wonderful. Our road trip continues south. Crossing the French Vosges. Gorgeous!

7pm: arrived. A dip into the Mediterranean Sea after an all day drive. I have been waiting for that. Wow! Enjoying the cool wet. Salt on the skin.

Moules & Frites for dinner. A glass of Rosé. Pure French happiness.

Sleeping 20 meters from the beach. Falling asleep listening to the sound of the ocean. Bonne Nuit!

7am: Almost alone at the beach & a morning swim. Oh, I am loving it.

Bed on board. It’s been a while that we have been using our van for a road trip… all arms and knees are fixed again… On the Road again & along the way discovering beautiful things: it’s all about wine.

Where the Blackforest kisses the Alsace. A perfect place to stay for an evening and the night.

Magnificent!

Crossing the border: Bonjour, France!

Cruising along the “La Route des Vins d’Alsace”. The area, a wonderful blend of French & German culture: colorful, half-timbered buildings line cobblestoned streets, flower bouquets. It’s gorgeous. Adding in fresh baguette, Pana chocolate and café au lait… Bon Voyage 👋

It’s the season and it seems that blackberries love to grow in our garden… we again have so many wonderful delicious tasting blackberries.

It’s the summer of blackberry jam, blackberry tiramisu, blackberry muffins, vanilla ice-cream and blackberries, and bowls full of wonderful ripe blackberries crossing the street to our neighbors… it’s all about blackberries these days.

And the best: they don’t need much, just happily growing next to lavender and roses. Bees, wasps and other insects had a blast.

June, July & August – the 9€ ticket made it already to its final month: Germany has been slashing public transit by 90% to encourage people to ditch their cars and save energy amid high gas prices. Nice idea. Saving money & the environment.

I finally got myself a 9€ ticket for August. My goal: take the bus to work.

August 1st: purchased ticket

August 2nd: made already full use of ticket, savings included (2 times return to Stuttgart has paid it already).

Taking the bus to work and having a wee nap while being transported is handy.

Retired people have been keen on city hopping. Punks have been traveling to Sylt for fun (thanks to the Bild Zeitung).

I am wondering, what if we like it and the 9€ ticket is not going to be extended…?!

Anyhow, I got inspired and traveling by night trains in Europe seem to become fashionable (again). We have great memories about sleeping trains in China. Let’s see what’s next…

Oh and then I remembered again why I don’t agree that public transportation (in Stuttgart) is convenient: road work leading to a 2km walk(!) around. High heels – better not if you want to catch a train on time… delays, of course. Or how about the pigeon enjoying too much sitting on the train power lines and causing not fast fixable trouble… oh dear! 9€ ticket… and I still like my car a lot: for the convenience, the flexibility, A/C these days (not being surrounded by people who haven’t heard about deodorant…) and good looking shoes. And last but not least: job security, right? What if we all stop driving cars… well, the month has just started, let’s see if I can change my mind…

Love is…

…when he lets you chose from the menu first and he takes something else.

…he’s awaiting your opinion on his beer.

…he’s having me the “nicer” looking espresso (with better crema).

…enjoying traffic jam with hubby & Charlie.

…when he brings espresso to my home office desk. Every day! (Maybe that’s why I don’t want to go back to the office)

…when he’s cooking for me.

…when he follows my travel ideas without questioning.

…listening to the Beatles record together.

…him choosing orange cake as a starter right before lunch.

…celebrating 13 years of being together!

Happy 8th anniversary!

To many many many more years together!

Having a huge family is great & very fortunate. Enjoy the family while you can.

One year ago, at my granddads funeral, we decided to start an annual family festival. This weekend was the first one. It was fantastic! We all loved it so much that the date for the next get together in 2023 is already set!

All aunts & uncles, cousins, nieces & nephews from my mums side. In total 30 people somehow related to each other having a great time. The youngest guest: 9 months, the oldest 90 years!

Coffee & cake. Games & talks. Home brewed beer, Ahrtal wine & Jan Torf (the killer). Super delicious BBQ and more talks.

My uncle celebrating his big birthday from 1 year ago.

Love you all, looking forward to seeing you soon again!

PS: I’ll be the driver next year. Hangover all day today. Meh!

The school celebrated 70 years. Our class celebrated 22 years! A high school reunion.

I haven’t seen most of my mates for 22 years… in fact this was my very first reunion…

Didn’t we all ask ourselves what to wear (get over it if you didn’t achieve perfect abs, your ideal weight, perfect hair, perfect life, no one really cares that much. And if they did, they didn’t show…. Lol)!

The experience was a bit like speed dating: We all talked a lot. I tried to talk to everyone. It’s like a bunch of interrupted mini conversations and all about the good old times: Ex-boyfriends (or girlfriends). Teachers. Old stories. Out trip to Hamburg. Skiing in 8th grade. A lot of laughing. The good old times. Facebook was a bit of a spoiler alert. Lol.

We took a tour of our old school. A lot has changed.

It’s nice to be back and being reminded about great memories. It was my favorite school & favorite teenager time! Our high school years may not define us.. but they did help shape us into the person we are today. Our next plan: let’s not pass another 22 years by.

Many thanks to our reunion organizers, putting a lot of hours into contacting everyone and making this happen. THANK YOU!

If you are on the fence about going to your high school reunion..: go! You’ll be glad that you did. So am I. 22 years. Wow!

It was really good to see everyone.

Summer. Hair gets lighter. Skin gets darker. Water gets warmer. Drinks get colder. Music gets louder. Nights get longer. Life gets better.

Every summer has a story. This is ours.

The pandemic is over. Yeah! At least according to our managers behavior. Why? After Covid is like before Covid: questioning if we do really work from home or if we hang out in the garden all day. Others may wonder if we still don’t dress when working from home.

You almost could feel sorry for all managers these days… working from home worked (had to work) for the past 2-2.5 years… and all of a sudden it has to be changed… the control freaks (including excel location control lists) are back, worried about us loosing creativity or our team spirit or the emotional connection to the company we work for.

If they could choose, most of them would want us back in the office 100%. Since most of us are not willing to do so (especially the younger generation wouldn’t even consider such employer), we started working hybrid. Ever heard of it? It’s the new „2-day-work-in-the-office-week“. Sounds like a great compromise, doesn’t it? Well, it seems not to work to everyones satisfaction (so far)!

Those, who wanted to return to the office go back for gossiping and talking, but not necessarily to work. Those are keeping the others, who actually want to work, from working (those prefer to work from home).

When I’m in the office these days I have so many „let’s have a coffee“ meetings, that I hardly have time to work! Also I’m talking to so many people on that day I haven’t been talking to in the past 6 months. The summary: office days make tired, you feel like you had an overdose on human face 2 face contact & communication and you didn’t get work done. That’s great, isn’t it?

Oh, and all the technical issues: the office equipment doesn’t work anymore since people took cables back home to set up their home office space. Or how about those on-site meetings when you still need to set up Skype or Teams to also include the international team members. Let’s not start about the not working equipment in meeting rooms and how much time we waste until it works and everyone can hear or see. By now everyone has a working headset at home (noise cancellation included). We also all learnt how to switch the microphone on or off.

At the end of the office day, most of us are wondering why did we travel to the office? Just to hang out in teams meetings like any other home office day? Not to forget that you had to get up earlier, dress properly, commute to the office, find a free desk and figure out how much longer the way to the restroom is and that the canteen food sucks.

If you do decide to work from the office it could happen you are the only one which feels like a ghost town (at least you could get some work done and have no coffee date excuses!). Alternatively you may not be able to find a free desk to sit on, because our management changed to a clean desk policy: first come, first serve – not enough room for everyone.

Our management tries hard: organizing all day team events in cool locations, dinner invitations to the beer garden after work, workshops on site, free ice-cream… (and most of those ending in multi-spreader-Covid-events followed by people on sick leave for a week)… and still… people don’t want to come back. At least not every day. We got used to work remotely.

Some companies, like Apple, changed already back from a 3-day-mandatory-office-week to a 2-day-mandatory-office-week. Other companies delaying the back to the office target due to increasing Covid numbers.

In the end, and to be fair, nobody controls if we are back in the office or on which days. That is leading to the result that the office is empty on Monday’s and Friday‘s and super busy in the middle of the week. Good for the virus to catch up & keep spreading on Wednesdays. Friendly reminder: The pandemic is not over yet!

It’s complicated! Times have changed. We all got used to a digital transformation (finally! Besides, we didn’t really have a choice). It took us a while to get used to work from home, so please provide us the time to get used to hybrid work.

Good luck to all managers out there in organizing hybrid work! I don’t mind to come back to the office for a couple of days per week but please stop controlling us, and rather let us know how much you appreciate us as a team and how beneficial it can be to meet again face to face: for team work! For brainstorming! Team Building! Socializing!

I checked the box for this week: 2 days in the office and got not much done (lol). My weekend bag is packed, I’ll work from my dads home tomorrow! See you (maybe) next Wednesday in the office!