Quick Life Update & Recap of the first half of 2023
What a whirlwind 2023 has been. For a long time, I didn’t feel the motivation to share any updates on my blog, but now I’m back in my routine and picking up speed, so I thought it’s good time to share some updates.
2023 started out a bit rough and unexpected.
At the beginning of the year, my dad passed away and so I had to travel back to Germany to support my family. It was a bit unexpected and I’m eternally grateful that my family got the chance to celebrate his 60s birthday in Vietnam together last year.
After my dad passed away, I spent a long time in Germany with my mom and sister.
During the initial months, it was actually not easy. But I kept thinking about the phrase that Napoleon Hill once said: “Every adversity and every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.”
And so it happened that the sadness and frustration at the beginning turned into something beautiful over time.
Since I moved away from home when I was 18, I never really spent a lot of time at home with family. For many years, I was gone most of the time and missed to see how my parents and sister got older.
Because I slowed down with traveling this year and spend almost 6 months living at home, there was a lot of time to catch up. It was a great time for healing and developing a stronger relationship with my mom and sister. I really enjoyed having morning coffees on the balcony and spending the summer in Germany.
I really missed having good old German breakfast on the balcony.- Germany in the summer is beautiful. Blue sky, clean air and lots of life force around. Going out for a morning run always made my day.
It was also great spending a lot of time in my home town and catching up with friends of my family that I haven’t seen in ages. We had a lot of gatherings, lunches and dinners together that made me realize how amazing it is to have a base and good friends around you.
It is one of those reasons, why I have been craving more and more to have a permanent base somewhere after being on the road for almost 5 years. It is probably on the top of my list for 2024 to find a place that we can call home. Maybe not for forever, but at least a year.
Thankfully Andrea also made it to Germany in July.
Since I rushed home at the beginning of the year, it threw us back into a long distance relationship mode again.
But after Andrea visited her family in the states, we thought it was a good idea to reunite in Germany and start our travels again from there. Andrea came to Germany 20y ago, so it was perfect to come back and revisit some places from the past.
We stayed a few weeks with my family, explored Berlin and caught up with good old friends in Munich. A place I called home for almost 13 years. It was a weird feeling when the train slowly approach the main station and all the people rushing out. I felt like I was a tourist this time. Some things have changed. Many not so much. Munich is still a beautiful city in the heart of Bavaria. The food is fantastic, the hospitality service not so much.
It was also beautiful catching up with old friends that I got to know during my 9-5 days working for a company. Unfortunately, we only spend a few days in Munich before heading off to our next destination, so I felt a little heartbroken not being able to catch up with everyone.
After spending some great days traveling in Germany, it was time for us to move further East.
We flew from Munich directly to Sofia to spend some quite months in the town of Bansko again.
Last year, we had an amazing time in Bansko during the summer, so we felt compelled to going back and enjoying a low key life and getting back into a healthy routine. From there, we will most likely make our way back to Vietnam before it get’s cold in the mountains.
