Ingrid and Marcel World Journey

That’s it folks: finito la dolce vita, terminado il viaggio.

It’s now time to go back to Zurich, find an appartment and get a job.

Ouhhhh….das wird sicher weh tun!

Plus de grasse matinee, fini le chant du huard sur le lac, adieu les soupers avec maman, aurevoir les journees en famille avec Valerie & Stephane.

Demain soir 17h heure locale nous prendrons le vol LX87 a destination de Zurich. Ca fera exactement 4 mois que nous sommes arrives au Canada.

Happily for us Rene & Carmela have agreed to provide a shelter for us while we look for a place.

Guys, go to Migros get the Bratwurst and heat up the grill: we’re coming home!

This is an old story that happened at the beginning of August while Rene and Carmela were here, but I still find it worth telling.

After going up the St. Lawrence on the north shore and spending a couple of days at a camping right on the beach watching the wonderful view, we thought we’d take a ferry across and come back on the south shore, stopping en route to visit the seals at a national park. Marcel boarded the car on the catamaran and we went up to the deck to watch for whales on the way. After about an hour we reached Rimouski, and decided to go for lunch before heading to the park. We stopped at Tim Horton’s and ordered our food, sat down and ate, and left to drive the 15 minutes to the park. When we reached the park gates it was time to pay our entrance fees, and reaching for my bag at my feet I realised….there was no bag! I had left it hanging on the back of my chair at Tim Horton’s! HAAA! Quickly we turned around and drove back to town, re-entering the restaurant about a half-hour after leaving it: my bag was not on the chair anymore. I asked the ladies at the counter: they hadn’t seen it when cleaning up the tables shortly after we had left and nobody had reported a lost bag. Ooh it was not looking promising…. I started crying, Carmela went to look for the bag in the bathrooms, the guys went outside and looked in bushes and in garbage cans: nothing. My bag had been stolen!

I left my details with the restaurant and the tourist information in case the bag would re-appear and we drove to the police station to fill out a report for the insurance. We cancelled all my cards and lost over an hour with paperwork. The bag itself, the 120$ cash, the cards, they didn’t matter. The worst of having the bag stolen was the camera inside the bag….the one with our 5000 travel pictures. A camera that can not even be used in Canada because the power adapter is not available. Yes most of the photos had been transferred on the computer, but I can’t say I liked the idea of some bozo walking around with MY pics on the memory chip.

With a few hours delay we went to see the seals at the park, very cute laying on rocks drying their fur for the yearly shedding. On the drive back to Quebec I received a phone call from my sister: a nice lady had found my bag under a bench by the street and had found my sister’s phone number on the last page of my little travel book. All was still in it except for guess what? The camera. Grrrr to the a…s…h… who took it.

We travelled around the planet to places where people are very poor and nothing was taken from us.

No, it was in Canada that some scoundrel stole my bag.

Definitely not very proud to be Canadian on such an occasion.

It’s been a while already….but how unforgettable!

We’ve been quite mellow these last weeks, but one of the main highlight of our summer was to have Rene & Carmela with us for 2 weeks. We were extra excited driving up to Montreal to pick them up at the airport! Time always flies when you’re having fun, so the 14 days went by as quick as lightning, but we did enjoy them as most we could.

We took them for a stroll in old Quebec city, went to a fireworks show, to a nearby park to go down a river in canoes. Then we left for a little trip: 2 days in a chalet by a lake lost in the woods where we saw a black bear and her 2 cute cubs, camping in a national park where a moose and her calf said hello, then up the St-Lawrence river to observe belugas and whales. Met a deer, then found a super camping place right by the river where we beached for a couple days before taking the ferry across to another park to see the local seals. Never seen so many wild animals in so little time here, they really did coordinate super for the swiss!

We came back home to wash our clothes and so our friends could do some shopping (only food stuff, the gluttons). And then the highlight of their visit: we went 3 days canoe-camping. Ah, the undescribable feeling of being alone on the lake with only the loons as neighbours…. Roasting marshmallows on the fire at night and going for a dip in the cool water when you wake up…. Now THAT`s life!

ça fait toujours plaisir; si c’est pas en arrivant, c’est en repartant, disait ma grand-mère.
(Besucher sind immer eine Freude, wenn nicht bei der Ankunft, dann bei der Abreise, sagte meine Grossmutter)

Ask René and Béa, they can for sure explain if needed.

It’s now 1h30 and we are having a last panaché on the balcony, somehow we’re not tired yet.
The excitement probably, tomorrow is the big day. (yes, we are really going now)

Our bags are packed, 40 litres each. The content:

1 pair of socks
3 underwear
1 pair of shorts
1 pair of pants
1 pair of convertibles
3 t-shirts
1 long sleeve shirt
1 short sleeve shirt for Marcel and 1 long arm jersey for Ingrid
1 fleece
1 bathing suit
1 cap
sunglasses
walking boots
sandals
flip-flops for moldy showers

1 towel (eher ein überdimensonierter Mikrofaser Lumpe)
toothbrush, toothpaste, armpit stuff, soap, shampoo for Ingrid, rasor for Marcel
1 first-aid kit (the biggest item in the bag)
sunscreen
liquid soap for clothes
a universal sink plug
a water filter
a camera
a telephone
a current adapter for over 150 countries (in case our money lasts longer then expected)
a Victorinox
a multitool
a compass

The weight? We have our guess, but let’s see if you guys can figure it out!
We’re taking the bets from tonight on!! Don’t pass this opportunity, the person with the guess closest to reality wins something special from us!

We’re gone now. Next post sometime from somewhere….

A few pictures of 4 days in the Provence with my dad and Lise.

Rosé wine, fields of vines, roman aqueduc ruins, le moulin de Daudet.

Simply beautiful.

Finally it’s fixed: we’re leaving definitely on June 10th.

First destination: Oman as planned.
Further destinations: unknown.

We opted for the adventure, forgetting about the round-the-world ticket and just booking our first flight. We’ll just wing it from there.

B&B chez René
Currently we’re still hoging Béa’s atelier. Although the bed is inflatable the service here is excellent: breakfast is served at the family table every morning and we can even have the evening meal here if we reserve enough in advance. The owners and their son Jon are very friendly. Rating ***.

On Thursday we will be driving to Provence for 3-4 days to meet my dad and Lise who will be there on vacation. Afterwards back to Zurich for the last packing and bye bye.
I can still hardly believe it.

Now we’re off to the stores again, this time to buy Ziplocs and a sink plug.

After 2 weeks in Pastaland we are back once more in Zürich.

And forget about Salerno, we didn’t make it anywhere more south then Rome 🙂

We took our time driving to Rome, stopping along the way in Salsomaggiore and Castelnovo nel Monti (close to Parma), visiting a castle and enjoying local food along the way. We then spent 3 days camping in the rain in Rome. We did visit the Collosseum and some roman ruins, passed by the Vatican and walked around the city, but somehow we were all done with the tourist crowd and the wet weather. We decided to look up the weather forecast and head towards sunshine. And it wasn’t in the south, it was further up north. We considered Sardegna, but when we saw the boat had left 5 minutes before we arrived at the port we changed our mind. You see that’s the beautiful thing about this. The boat left? Oh well, let’s find something else! Believe it or not the problem is not in changing plans, it’s actually in making them, the opportunities are so endless it actually sometimes makes choosing difficult!

A tip to al beach lovers: Punta Ala in Italy. It’s within driving distance of ZH (just south of Piombino) and has a great camping directly on the sea. We liked it so much we ended up staying there for 10 days working on our base skin protection before Oman. We also kept on what we’re been training since soon 2 months: sleeping and eating lots, doing nix all and having the daily apéro glass of wine. Yes my pants are slowly getting tighter. And my stomach is also taking shape.

Man life is hard.

 
A few pics of Toscana (the castle), Rome and Punta Ala.

The 1st pic shows what exceptionnal fungi can grow inside an Expresso machine if left a tiny bit humid. The wonders of nature.

The pictures with snow are on the Gotthard pass when we came back to Switzerland.

Still trying to find the best Theme to present our Pictures 🙂