*Note: While this is mostly a personal update blog, I elude to several articles coming over the next few weeks. So come for the rambly, stay for the teasers.
So. It still hasn't hit me yet but we officially said goodbye to our cozy lives in San Francisco and are now fully nomadic. We put everything in storage, handed over the keys to our apartment and arrived in Germany at 11am on Friday with a single suitcase, 2 backpacks, a and a stroller.
But! It's been a minute since my last post, so let me catch you up a bit.
First, at the risk of making a global pandemic all about *ME*, I did have to laugh that after months of procrastinating, I finally get my shit together and publish my beautiful new travel blog and then... the apocalypse happens and travel kinda like, ends. And all the articles I had scheduled to publish like "how to pack like a boss" or "how to plan an itinerary that doesn't suck" seemed... irrelevant. I actually did try to write something topical about doomsday prepping for minimalists but nothing felt right. So I pressed pause on this project and spent the last few months studying Vipassana meditation and spending lots of quality time with the baby.
Puerto Rico --> Mexico --> San Francisco
Last you heard from me, we had just landed in Puerto Rico; our trial-city to beta test living and working remote for a month. Well, a week into it, COVID hit, like most beautifully laid plans, our "work from beach" life was suddenly reduced to us being stuck in a very small beach shack fighting over who gets to use the wifi for their zoom call and trying fit in 8 hours of work into Ezra's 90-minute naps.
At the end of March, we decided that if we were going to shelter-in-place we needed better shelter. So we flew to Tulum and quarantined with a group of nomadic friends for a month in before heading back to SF to get our affairs in order for the big move.
So how was the trial month?? What did I learn?! Well, I have a whole article called How To Do A Travel Retrospective. Check it out for more details.
Moving Out
We came back to San Francisco in May and gave ourselves 4 weeks to pack up our lives and set up a soft place for us to land in Berlin. It was the *FUNNEST* project I've ever organized.
<-- Everything we now own for the next year!
Everything we put in storage -->
Wait, Kari. You sold half your stuff, put everything else in storage, found a new apartment in Berlin, turned off all your subscriptions, found new homes for all your plants, sold your motorcycles, and did all the travel logistics in 4 weeks? While taking care of a baby all day??
Why yes, I did. How? Well, I have a whole article on how to project manage an end-to-end stress-free move for you next week as well. Stay tuned.
So travel in the post-apocalyptic world, you might be wondering about? A bit surreal, a lot of empty airports with closed shops that feel more like a movie set than real life. Everyone gets their own row on planes now which is both an improvement but comes at the cost of EXTREMELY expensive flights. One-way to Frankfurt was ~$1500. Once again, I was unable to sleep on the flight (I will solve this problem someday) so I arrived already in a sleep deficit and terrified about baby jet-lag, but we made it safe and sound.
Pro tip: Beanies not only make great eye masks but can also be used as a stuff sack for your jacket to make a pillow. In this picture, however, I believe I'm sleeping on a packing cube filled with diapers. Another good travel hack :)
...And Finally Berlin
So we're finally here and I'm writing this blog from a Turkish cafe, with Ezra asleep in his stroller and Manuel across from me sipping coffee and doing his own journaling. Our new apartment is better than expected, which is a relief. It's a bit nervewracking to sign a lease without seeing a place in person.
Manu planting an herb garden on the balcony of our new apartment. We don't have a frying pan, paper towels, or hand soap yet but we have an herb garden. #priorities
I've spent the last 3 days wandering, trying to balance "aimlessly getting lost in a beautiful new city" with "omg! get acclimated ASAP and learn the train system and find the grocery store and join all the local FB groups and find a ballet school and start applying for jobs and figure out which german laundry detergent is best... and and and..."
Of course, I have an elaborate project plan for exactly what to do, in what order when arriving in a new city to optimize acclimation. And... yup, I'll post an article about it next week :)
For now, I'll wrap up this update with a quick list of what I've learned so far from our plunge into the unknown:
For how much I've traveled (especially having lived in Germany before) I'm surprised at how difficult it's been to know what kind of stores sell what things. There's no real concept of a Walmart or a Target and most grocery stores don’t carry personal care or cleaning supplies. It makes it difficult to do the initial “I just moved in and I need an everything store.” So after going to a grocery store, I had to go to a separate drug store to pick up laundry detergent, paper towels and shampoo. Then I had to find an optometry shop to get contact solution. Then a specialty kitchen supply store to get a spatula and kitchen towels. Then a hardware store to get scotch tape and wall hooks. I don’t mention it because of the inconvenience, but more just that there’s a handful of miscellaneous things that without concepts like Target or Walgreens, I was actually a bit lost in where to find them!
2. If you check a bag over a certain weight, they put this giant “tag of shame” on the handle that says HEAVY in big letters. As if Manuel and I weren’t already dying inside at having to check our first piece of luggage in 10+ years...
3. Public interactions in a foreign country during a pandemic is extra challenging. My German is decent but I've typically only needed phrases like "I'm just looking, thanks", "Yes, I need a bag", "Where is your restroom?" etc. Now, every place I visit gives a speech about wearing masks, disinfectants, specific entrance/exit policies and special rules about what to do with items you handle. I've had to learn a weirdly specific new vocabulary. But I'll gladly do it for the privilege of being part of a functioning economy again.
4. Jet-lag with a baby is...tough. Those elusive 5-hour stretches of sleep are so much more important to get while your body adjusts to a new time zone. And you can't rely on Ambien or the like, because you have to be able to take care of the baby if he wakes up. I don't have any tips here yet. It's day 9 and I'm still struggling...
5. While there is no shortage of issues to take up with Facebook, the incredible number of ex-pat and family communities has been invaluable in helping me acclimate. I was able to locate the only newsstand in Berlin that sells the New York Times, figure out which language schools actually focus on conversation and get a good rundown on the Spousal Visa process. Questions that are specific enough that it's hard to google and answers that are relevant versus what you find on a Trip Advisor post from 2011.
That's it for now.
xoxo all my soon-to-travel-again buddies,
KT
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