Confessions of a Wandering Gypsy Princess

The part where she cries over her Masters degree makes me laugh, until I too start to cry…

I am so excited about the upcoming trip, this is our first major motorcycle trip in 2 years. Last year we only went to Amsterdam on the bikes and that was only for a week in total. Everything else was just weekend trips. So now that we have a 6 week tour coming up Im ready to jump out of my skin.

And so I am looking into headphone reviews, because in addition to a little laptop that is even lighter and more mobile than normal laptops, I also want decentheadphones so that I can work on the laptop without any impairments, be it from a cafe where we have stopped to do our uploads, or in the tent in the middle of nowhere, as if there is one thing we need in the house while we work on the computers, it is decent headphones as noise drives one of us crazier than the other. Ahem.

I cant help it, look at how fluffy cute he is!!!

Ok so I am waiting for the German to finish looking for tires for Iceland (apparently in Germany you can not just put any ole tires on your bike without going to jail, but I know as soon I start something, he is going to be finished, and then I am going to be int he middle of something, so he will start something, and this will become a nasty downward spiral until about 2 am when we finally do go to bed. I am trying something new here, posting my fav bunny pics!)

Yes there is a million and one more important things I can and should be doing instead……

Maybe I can help pay for the babies that Johnny seems intent on creating by pitching him as the star of a PS3 game. We have Patrick’s nephews convinced he is a ninja rabbit, he fights crime and does dropkicks (they have seen his impressive sidekicks). Of course when I do the same sidekick they are not so impressed, so maybe you need to be furry to be cool to a 4 year old……Although something tells me that for a successful PS3 game we need a tad more violence…

So Cute:

So harmless looking, and yet I spent 30 mins this morning tearing apart gardens trying to find him, and where did I find him? His tunnel complete, he is in the neighbors backyard with the girl bunny.

Maybe the neighbor is right,

this is the face of a menace!

And we are going mad trying to get everything done. We spent the day at Oma’s (and took our guest from Canada with, but we took the long way round just so that we got a nice ride out of it as well, plus I am of the firm belief that you can not come to Germany without eating some of Oma’s cooking, it just does not work otherwise!). And now I am looking into Link To Copy: laptop insurance, as I tend to need it more than most. Of course I am sure that they do not offer plans that cover temper tantrums that end in you punching or ripping the thing in two. But perhaps something for when you are on a trip and perhaps it rains a little while you are on the motorcycle and your bag leaks….

I love this, the ever wonderful Mz Tracey P put this on my wall on Facebook with the comment that she thinks of me when she sees this. Of course when I did do that I ended up in hospital, but minor detail.

Of course I know that taking off on a long trip does not mean that you are free from everything. You actually kind of start to see long term travel as a job itself, and find yourself checking into a city to stay for a long period and maybe even work. (This is always best when done on a freelance basis because its on your terms and you are not stuck when the novelty of a schedule wears off. ) But when of the more pressing details is of course insurance, and if you go for
short term health insurance NC or long term. So its not all glamor, but it is much more fun.

We both need to travel now. This tax thing is not helping the desire to go of course. Last year we missed a long trip ( a lot of short ones, but only one with the bikes, just not enough). I have the overwhelming desire to just keep on riding after Iceland. I spent 3 years here now, that is the longest I have ever lived in any country. I paid off 2 credit cards and 2 student loans (with a 3rd still outstanding, but you know, Im working on it, and if we go to cheap countries I can live on blogging …….) Of course should the blog money dry up I would be screwed. Which is why we wanted to work this year and go next year so I have a travel egg. But there is the beauty of being an English teacher…..

Waaaaaaaarrgg. This is when I want to scream and jump out a window, and when you have the stress of university (2 exams last week, 1 presentation and 1 exam this week, plus group work on a scientific poster using previously collected data), the stress of trying to do your taxes (in a system where even the Germans who are trained in tax laws are not sure of the rules) and toss in there a heatwave, well lets just say you find yourself either embracing yourself as an itchy scaly princess or seeking out eczema treatment.

I know, why almost. We called today to book and they need our license plate numbers. Since we are actually in the process of changing our plates to the new address we need to wait till tomorrow when we actually pick the plates up. But tomorrow by mid afternoon we should have our dates set!

I just had a thought, I wonder how easy it would be to compare life insurance quotes and perhaps more importantly, find them all low, should any adjuster ever have to life with the German.
If they went sailing with him they would discover he is part monkey, and therefore probably actually a safer bet than one would think. I keep thinking about Ben Stiller’s character in that Polly movie with Jennifer Aniston and the ferret, shots like this one come from hanging off the side of the boat:

and Ill repost the latest Journizer, and you can see where he parked his bike in the quest for a camping place!

It may have taken 2 weeks, but here are some pics from 2 weekends ago when we went sailing in the Baltic sea!

The boat:

Captain Moi:

Just sail straight: (easier said than done!)

Getting coffee ready:

This week was insanity for me, we got back from the trip sailing (which reminds me that the pictures are not only up, but fixed! so I can see them and choose to embed them so I choose to do so!) and I had 2 exams, a presentation, and a major project, and I had 4 days to do it all. I think I need to take vitamin supplements if I really want to keep this up. I just need to make it though this week, and then Alix is here and a little more relaxation, but just a little!

Sometimes its takes awhile but they do still come out!!!!

Watch the end to see where Patrick parked his bike!

The last 2 posts were not just the rambles of a neurotic ADD headcase. On the way home today from the presentation my co presenter was asking me about Japan and living there, and more importantly, the FOOD! Now I am sitting here yearning for deep fried tofu in ginger sauce and thinking how cruel life is that I feel in love with someone from Germany. Not that their food is not amazing, but instead the cuisine has me clicking on the “click here for diet supplement reviews!” because the food, shall we say, sticks, whereas Japanese food I ate as much as I wanted (and being greedy and madly in love with food I ate even more) and instead of gaining weight I lost it! THAT is the life for me!

Does anyone else watch this? Alix will visit me in 2 weeks time, she is the one who introduced me to the wonders of Naruto, I use to go to her place after class during our Masters and we would curl up on her couch and eat chocolate and watch hour after hour of Naruto bliss. And now the last episode was one of the better one, and considering they have finally got the plot back on track I am back to yearning for Friday nights so I can watch more anime, which really makes me want to go back to Japan….

So I just finished a presentation in Heidelberg and we did a fantastic job if I do say so myself! It really is a little ridiculous, when I am in front of everyone and I feel I have the upper hand, I can talk and the size of the audience does not matter. Put me in front of a group of my peers however, such as last week on a project that I did not feel that I had a 100% handle on, and its over. I reach for the acnepril to prevent the acne breakout that the stress brings on and I stutter and fumble and gasp for breath like a drowning fish. But something I know about, like studying in Germany or talking about gender issues, and I tend to take over and you need to wrestle the microphone away from me because I just wont shut up……