500 Days

Egads! I only blogged once in January and it has been weeks since I last posted. I am very sorry! However, I don't this will change soon. After 500 days of traveling (yay!), Kristin and I find ourselves busier than ever. 

We have finally arrived in Munich, Germany. We are staying with our friends Julia and Zhenya in the student dorms here. We are getting ready for our big writing assignment - four days of daily reporting from ISPO (the International Sports Trade Show) for Backpacking Light Magazine. I have done a poor job preparing, as usual, and so we're already stressed and tired. It's going to be a crazy week. 

Next we go through Austria to Italy, where we'll have a base camp in the Dolomites at our friend's house. There we will finally be able to ski. We missed last winter and are so anxious to play in the snow. And we've had our skis for a week now. It's no fun lugging around a 30kg ski bag plus our backpacks, especially when there is no immediate chance of using them!

So, we're working hard on various projects with Backpacking Light and trying to finalize our plans for the next three months. Everything is going well so far...

 Our first adventure in Germany was to walk to other countries. This photo was taken in Belgium of me in Germany and Kristin in the Netherlands.

Our first backpacking trip in Europe was a 3-day trek along the Rhine River.We were the only ones hiking as it almost never got above freezing and dropped to -10 degrees C at night. We basically lived in our down parkas. But we really enjoyed the hike, with the great parks, castles, churches, vineyards and small towns.