Vagabonderz's travel blogs:
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Prepping for the road
Entry 3 of 61 | show all | print this entry |
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Well, we've now been in Landshut at Yvonne's sister's place (Babette) for almost a week now, and it looks like we won't be leaving for Spain til Thursday or Friday (or even Saturday?!). There have been quite a few things to take care of, including getting our campervan in good working order, before we head out. Yvonne tried to change her last name to mine in her passport and got a good taste of German beauracracy. Seems our certified translated marriage licence wasn't good enough for them...here's the process: first send a letter to Victoria, BC (along with the original licence) asking them to authenticate it (does that mean they sent us an unauthentic one??)...then they have to send the authenticated licence to the German consulate in Vancouver who will then legalize it, and send that to our German address in Landshut. Once we get it here we have to send this to Berlin asking them for permission to use the name Alcos! Once they give their OK, they send it back to us, then we can go to the local passport office and apply for the change. Of course, every step along the way costs money too. God bless red tape!
Other than that, we've been doing all sorts of errands...laundry (lots of laundry - not sure why we brought so much clothes?), shopping for things we need on the road, tuning up our bicycles, cleaning and disinfecting our twenty year old van. Yesterday the van wouldn't start up so we had to call ADAC (like BCAA) and get someone over. He found some battery cables loose and also that the battery needed to be changed. We were pretty thankful actually that it wasn't something bigger like the alternator, or the fuel pump or something else we know nothing about. Today we bought a new battery and new tires and brought it into the shop for an oil change, fuel and air filter change and an inspection...hopefully nothing else needs to be done! We'll soon find out (I do suspect some brake work might be required).
We've also been keeping entertained by Babette's one year old cat...so aptly named, "Kitty". She's a real treat...she's possibly the craziest cat ever. It's like a carnival spook house around here sometimes. She has these spots (like her little cat house and the top perch of her scratching post) where she'll hide, then jump out at unsuspecting passersby. If you're not on your guard at all times when you round a corner, you're liable to get the you-know-what freaked out of you! Also...and this goes against all I know about cats (basically what I learned from cartoons)...but she's not afraid of water. Quite the opposite, really. There is a spray bottle that is supposed to be to scare her away when she's doing something she shouldn't be doing, but instead of making her run away, she sticks her face out and enjoys the shower. Speaking of shower, if you're not careful, she'll hop in with you! And she'll drink water from your glass...even if there's just a little at the bottom and it's a tall skinny one. She somehow squeezes her head down there to finish it off.
Mmm...what else have we done since we've been here...we went to a big flea market on Saturday. It was a huge parking lot full of crap that the owners didn't want anymore...and about 99.99% that no one else wanted either. But it was pretty interesting seeing what kind of memoribilia Germans held on to. It's hard to imagine...and this is quite a small town, but there was so much garbage in this market...and multiply that by who knows how much...conclusion: there is A LOT of unnecessary shit in this world!! We also went to a beer garden with Yvonne's mom and sister for, what else, a beer! And shared a piece of fish with cheese and a huge pretzel (typical German fare). The weather has been off and on. It was comme-ci-comme-ca when we first arrived, then it got quite hot (Sunday got to 30 deg. and yesterday was pretty searing too...perfect for labouring in the hot sun cleaning the van), but late last night it turned around and we had a lightning storm and rain. Today it was pretty chilly out and rainy.
PS - we're still on the fence about Rosie (as a name for the campervan)...we're tossing around some ideas... More thumbnails ...
Latest Comments (1)
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who's talking now? (reply)
May 18, 2007 10:22 EST by simetra
...And you guys had a go at US about how much stuff we were taking! Geez! At least we fit it all into one bag and only have one load of laundry to do!! Maybe next time we come over and help YOU pack :)
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