Travel
-
Tunisia (2023)
This travel report begins with a confession: Tunisia was rather towards the bottom of my imaginary list of countries to visit. In my mind, I always associated it with a typical destination for people who want to lock themselves up in an all-inclusive hotel for two weeks. Then suddenly came the email that changed everything. I had previously submitted a paper to the AfricaCrypt conference with my boss, and out of nowhere, there it was: the email announcing that our paper had been accepted for the conference. I ran jubilantly through the apartment; after all, this was a crucial milestone on the path to my promotion. The location for AfricaCrypt…
-
Cuba (2022)
What do you normally think of when you hear the word Cuba? Dreamy Caribbean beaches, rhythmic salsa music, cigars, classic cars, and Che Guevara. We all probably know at least one person in our circle who has been to Cuba and raves about it. I myself visited Cuba in 2005 with my parents. We stayed in an all-inclusive hotel in Varadero, like most people who travel there. Although I had a good time during that trip as a child, I was fascinated by the country beyond the hotel walls, and even back then, I wondered why we had to fly for over 10 hours just to spend most of our…
-
Tromsø New Year’s Eve 2022/2023
After our camping road trip to Nordkapp in 2021, it was clear to us that we wanted to visit Tromsø again. You could see the city as the Weimar of Norway, because it also has a lot of culture and is a small university town. In the summer it was already quite beautiful and you could do a lot, but many people advised us to come back in the winter. That’s when the city is at its most beautiful and with guaranteed snow and darkness, many activities are possible, such as dog sledding or seeing the Northern Lights. It was simply too short notice for Christmas and New Year’s 2021/2022.…
-
Madrid (2022)
Arrival and finally paella Madrid was our “relaxation vacation” after the two-week “active vacation” in the form of the pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago from Porto in Portugal to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. We actually wanted to take the train from Santiago in northwestern Spain to Madrid, but unfortunately, there were no more seats available and the tickets were also very expensive. So we opted for the much cheaper tickets with the coach, which also took us around 9 hours, which means almost the whole day. The ride started at 6:00 a.m. in the morning. At 9:00 a.m. there was a short break for breakfast and around 3:00…
-
Camino de Santiago (2022)
Whether Paulo Coelho’s book on the Camino de Santiago, or Hape Kerkeling’s “I’m off then”. The Camino de Santiago has long ceased to be a mere pilgrimage route for Christians from all over the world. Instead, it is a world-famous phenomenon and as such one of the best-developed and most popular long-distance hiking trails in the world, including being declared a UNESCO World Heritage designation. I, too, first became aware of this pilgrimage route through the media. For me, it was the French film comedy “Saint Jacques… La Mecque”. The concept of spending days, weeks, and even months wandering from one place to another absolutely intrigued me. And so I…
-
Scandinavia (2021): From Thuringia to the North Cape and back
Like so many others, the corona pandemic has thwarted our travel plans for 2020. We were in South Africa shortly before the outbreak of the pandemic and even a short vacation on the Polish Baltic Sea was possible in the summer, but we had accumulated a few vacation days that we now, freshly vaccinated, finally wanted to enjoy by traveling for a whole month. Of course, the world was far from what we were used to before 2020. For sure, this was also reflected in our way of traveling and, above all, in our destination. The Scandinavian countries have also taken some special paths, but all in all they naturally…
-
Poland (2021)
Departure for a short vacation to Zabrze In summer 2021 and before we wanted to tackle our big camping trip in August, we went to Poland for a few days. The plan was to visit Nathalie’s grandparents, similar to 2018, but this time only to the maternal grandmother, because the paternal from Ruda Śląska had died the previous year. So this time it was primarily only to Zabrze, where in addition to one grandmother now also Uncle Darek (the brother of Nathalie’s mother) lives. He recently moved back home after living in Scotland for a long time. In contrast to 2018, we did not go with Nathalie’s parents this time,…
-
Poland (2020): Short vacation on the Baltic Sea!
Planning and departure Due to the Corona, there wasn’t much to do with vacation in 2020. Fortunately, we had traveled to South Africa in February and had a big vacation this year, but nothing came of it with Egypt / North Sudan in July. So we thought: Why not just go for a little tent trip to the Baltic Sea? Not to the German Baltic Sea, but to the Polish part, because it is cheaper there. Only a few months beforehand there was also a huge 4-person tent on offer at the Aldi (which we also got hold of, although there was only 1 piece per discounter), which gave us…
-
The Cat Vacation in Greiz
During our trips to Peru, Japan or South Africa, our cats Iva and Yuri also had a kind of vacation … they were always with my mother in Greiz during this time and thus also made a small change of location. Iva was always the biggest problem child in this situation. While Yuri is calm when you take him anywhere (be it in a basket or a backpack), Iva is always quite panicked. She always struggles to get into the transport medium and during the transport, she sets new records how often she can empty herself into the basket or backpack. We also tried to give her a sedative, but…
-
South Africa (2020)
Why South Africa? It is not possible to answer this question exactly. The country exerts its very own fascination. On the one hand, we wanted to admire wild animals on a safari, on the other hand South Africa has a fascinating history with apartheid and the resulting struggle for freedom with Nelson Mandela. Furthermore, Africa as a continent is a completely different world that we wanted to discover. So on 09 February 2020 the time had come. Unfortunately, hurricane Sabine also hit Germany on this day. With one of the last trains that were still running that day we arrived at Frankfurt Airport, where many flights had already been cancelled.…
