Zurich – Luckily, Playing In The Fountains Is Free!

Zurich, Switzerland was our second stop in a six-day-journey-by-train from Barcelona to Berlin.

During our trip, we’ve stayed a couple of places that people have warned us would be quite expensive: Sweden, New Zealand, and Japan come to mind immediately. In all three of those countries, we were actually surprised by how (mostly) affordable we found them compared to the warnings. (Of course, we departed on our trip from the California Bay Area, so we have a somewhat skewed baseline.)

We’d been warned that Zurich was expensive too… Continue reading “Zurich – Luckily, Playing In The Fountains Is Free!”

Our (Likely) Farewell Ride On The City Night Line Trains

We’ve taken about half a dozen night trains during our two years of travel, and they are definitely one of my favorite modes of transportation: lower carbon footprint than flying, no need to try to entertain a child during a daytime long-haul ride, and a pleasant sense of adventure inspired by the slight sway of the carriage.

Our trip from Zurich to Berlin was our third experience on the efficient and comfortable City Night Line trains, which Deutsch Bahn seems to be in the process of phasing out. (If this makes you sad too, you can sign a petition.)

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Unpacking Our Trip

I’m currently in a very dense bubble of work, so dense that I don’t think it’s really sunk in that I’m back in the United States instead of hopping around the world. (As someone who works remotely anyway, work craziness feels pretty much the same anywhere.)

Anyway, I did pop out of the bubble long enough on our first night back in Ohio to photograph our final travel possessions. (Brian’s idea!) Below, all of our ending items are sorted by the country where we first acquired them.

We didn’t photograph everything we started with. We also didn’t photograph the many things that we acquired and then lost or gave away. Our records aren’t perfect! Sorry.

(Also, there are pictures of underwear and stuff below. If you don’t think that we wear underwear, you might not want to read any further.) Continue reading “Unpacking Our Trip”

Maybe Someday Stockholm: Settling Into Ohio

We’ve been back in the United States for two months now, staying with family initially while searching for a new home. Then, two weeks ago, we purchased and moved into a house in Columbus.

It took three minivans-loads and two car-loads to transfer all of our possessions. After moving just the contents of our backpacks each month for two years, this felt like a ton of stuff, but it still leaves our house mostly empty of furniture. Oh well. We have places to sleep and a table to eat around. Also (of high priority to me) our kitchen is pretty well equipped. (We are attempting to obtain most of our possessions, including kitchen-gear, second-hand. More about this in a separate post.)

So, we have a house. We have some stuff. I guess we’ll be here for a bit.

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Continue reading “Maybe Someday Stockholm: Settling Into Ohio”