Now that we're into February we have a better idea of what we're doing next, so I thought I should post a quick update. Today we decided that we will move out at the end of this month (Feb. 29).
The plan after moving out is to start with some more Germany sightseeing further afield, mainly Berlin and the Luther towns in the east and center. Since we'll have to stay in hotels for that longer journey anyway, we thought we might as well wait until we're not paying rent here anymore.
Then we'll drive south, stopping in Bavaria and whatever else along the way, to Italy! Hurrah! We are planning to drive all the way to the south first, where it should be warmest and sunniest in March. Then we'll spend a good month or so making our way back up. Somewhere in there we hope to fit in a trip to Greece.
From Italy we'll head into France, where we plan to spend several months, again starting south and working north. This is the part we're most excited about, but we want the very best weather for it so we're putting it off until the summer. This will include detours to northern Spain and probably more Belgium, and maybe even a little more England.
Eventually we'll fly home, preferably from Frankfurt so it's direct, sometime in the fall. Then we'll have to figure out where "home" is, which will be a whole new adventure!
The present is much less exciting, but we're really happy relaxing at home most days. Well, we don't do much relaxing - I've been putting in 12-16 hour days on the website and David has been just as hard at work learning Photostop and photography skills. Soon we will need to start travel planning for the big next step, too.
We had about 15 minutes of light snow this morning, which was exciting. But then the sun came out unexpectedly for much of the day, so David went out on a long photography-practice walk and he really enjoyed himself. Here's a couple of his pictures from today:
Tulips in a nearby cemetery - it's the only place to find flowers this time of year!
It's "Karneval" season around these parts - interestingly, Cologne is one of the biggest places to celebrate it in the world, coming third after Rio and New Orleans. It's not what you would expect for orderly Germany, but this seems to be the time when they get all the chaos out of their system!
David was in Bonn running photo equipment errands the other day and he enjoyed seeing lots of people dressed up and stumbling drunk. Apparently the Cologne Madness spreads down into its little sister city to the south, too.
Ghostbusters!
Tomorrow there will be a parade or some kind of celebration here in our village, and then Monday is the biggest day of celebration in Cologne with a really big parade.