Viva Espana!

And we are in Galicia! Today morning we crossed the river from Caminha to A Guarda with the Santa Rita ferry and we are very proud of ourselves to make it so far :) in the last few days we faced some challenges - how could you expect such things not to happen... We got a flat tire on the trolley, as it turned out a thorn pierced it. We were just on the way to find a repair service when i hailed some fellow bikers on the road, who were the knights from La Mancha, Spain on their pilgrim to Santiago and instead of showing us the way they fixed our tire on spot!!!
And before being able to leave Caminha Lulu got a fewer during the night so we decided to stay one more day in the camping, also to dry our clothes which again got washed by the rain, and to take our princess to the doctor. We were scared because of the suspected tick she had a few days before but the doctor diagnosed her with an ear infection and suggested to take a blood test if we want to be sure she has no other infection. So we left this lovely country behind with the promise that we will come back. Now there is no mercy, if we do not understand each other, it is my broken Spanish, without the excuse of Portuguese :)

Vila do Conde to Rio Alto

We headed North along the shore from Porto and we had as Tomek put it the best ride ever in his life :) it was flat, it was right next go the Atlantic and it was through sand dunes covered with beautiful flowers. It must be a consistent coast preservation development because for the whole day we were following a wooden plank path with cool restaurants and cafeterias in Scandinavian arcitecture style - which i admire and which took me by surprise in a hispanic mediterranian country. Along the way we stopped by a tiny beach restaurant with its own beach, hidden and not even listed on our map, so we were all to ourselves with the hosts 2 year old son. We spent the night in Vila do Conde, which could have been a pleasant experience, but it was not, due to the stinky and unclean room and the traffic, though the city is pretty and we managed to collect our caminho stamp in the local church. Riding through the small towns has the downside of bumpy cobble stone roads which our bikes and trolley does not take too well so sometimes we opt for the N13 national road which is uninspiring but flat and fast. So we reached the Orbitour camping in Rio Alto the next day, where we rented a mobile home of some 20 m2 with a small bathroom ang kitchenett, we even had our first night in separate bed from our kids:) they slept together sweetly till the morning squashing together on a big bed. We even made a big laundry as they had a machine and decorated our terrace with all the clotes only for the night storm to wash it all away. So instead of heading further North we stayed another day to dry things, to indulge in the pool and on the magnificent ocean coast. We made a ride to Fao; to see a doctor as we suspected Lulu having a tick, but the doctor did not see it and i think he thought we were crazy for such an idea. I guess they have no such problems in Portugal... Anyway Lulu is fine and we have the nicest watermark in our passports from the Fao; church. So after 2 days in the camping we continued further North, this time a bit inland and more to the mountains, so the ritde was not easy. We made almost 40 km and reached Casa da Reina, which was our heavenly accommodation last night, a real treasure with giant hortenzias, a lemon tree, a pool, 4 rooms and all kinds of wonders in the garden. I climbed an orange tree and made a lemonade from fruits right from the tree!!! No comments can describe it :)


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North Portugal

I think we lost track a bit of writing - this time because we were enjoying ourselves instead of writing about how we enjoy ourselves :) but also the fact is that our internet limit was reached so we were not connected. Anyway, arriving to Porto changed a lot - we relaxed a bit having less km to conquer and we decided to spend a day in The city. What we would not do without kids is to take a sight seeing city train tour, but this time it was the perfect choice given Leon's fascination with trains and our limitations to otherwise cover distances. So as the bargain was a wine cellar tour was included in the ride on the other side of the river in Gaia, which turned out to be one of the most fantastic things we saw so far. You can see the photos in the Flickr gallery so in short: the winery was established in the 18th century and has been producing wine ever since, but now as a private property with 3 million litres of wine being aged in the cellar at the time of our visit. And opposed to our visit to a winery in Italy these guys really do age and process the wine in oak barrels and harvest by hand. I cannot remember who asked me some time ago which wine can be stored for ever without being spoiled, but here comes the answer, hopefully not too late: the vintage port wine can be stored in bottle horizontally in normal temperature basically limitless, but once you open you ought to finish it the same day as the oxygen destroys it. And it tastes heaven! We tried a 10 years Tawny and a Ruby, hmmmm. And the cellar was beautiful!

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Photos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mirmurr/

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Porto

So we thought we would have a relaxing day. Morning swim and a 2 hours train-ride to Porto and another dip in the pool in our hotel. All went to smoke when it appeared at the train station that it is not only not allowed to take bikes in the IC train but there is a strike. So we had the choice to take four regional trains - meaning 8!!! times taking on and off the bikes the trolley and the kids to and from the train, or to lose our 68 € hotel booking in Porto. Since the ride to the station in Santarem was a serious downhill ride - there was literally no way back. Actually the trip went very well, we had quite much fun you will see from our pics in Flickr. The kids fell asleep just before taking off the last train at 8 pm, so they did not have to witness the police taking away 2 surf-kids from the train for free-riding. It locked all passengers up on the train for a good 20 minutes, so we were in the right mood to get out and realise that we cannot get out of the station without massive exercise because the lift was too small and the stairs down and up the underground were too deep. So we had to chase some local muscles to carry everything down and up to face a 5 km ride to our hotel starting with a hill. Now i will not detail our ride just mention the main highlights: we had a walking navi on the phone which i had to hold in my left hand while steering with the right - i am no good at such tricks - and riding on cobble stone roads against traffic, as driving aspects were irrelevant for a walking navi. Second highlight: we went to the wrong hotel after an hour of such ride, but luckily the correct hotel was on the same road another half an hour ride away, so at least i had no further worries that the phone dies on me before we find the place. For a change i was holding a paper map :) at 9.30 kids are in bed without any complains and now we will have a Cairpirinha in our bathroom :)

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El Camino

So finally after some years being pregnant and nursing babies we r again on the road - this time 4 of us and so we r glad to continue posting about something fun! After all we got some minites to write about our caminho while the kids sleep and we r sitting in the bathroom doing the washing in the bide :) so we started from Lisbon on the 23rd of June - relatively smoothly. The bikes with the trolley and our bags arrived to our hotel, nothing broke and apart from being ripped of by the taxi driver - which is kind of usual on our first day in a new country - we really enjoyed being again on the road. We collected our caminho passport and accidentaly the cathedral was right next to our favorite cafeteria we new from our first visit to Portugal. So we headed to the park of the nation, which is as we think the expo area with amazing urban development along the river. We had some trouble to find our way but locals go out of their way to help us. I think we r more of a tourist attraction than the locals are for us :) by the way although almost everyehere we get by with English, i am trying my Spanish which is just so funny; i speak Spanish they speak Portuguese and we understand each other but as if there was a noise in the line so about 70% goes through - good enough for us :) so back to the park - we liked it so much that we stayed there and enjoyed a wonderful afternoon with the kids running in the park, looking at each other with locals like in the zoo and visiting the oceanarium. The next day we headed to Azambuja through Vila Franca de Xira, where we spent the night in a hotel right next to the rail tracks - for Leon's greatest amazement. He is out of his mind when a train comes, only boats are equally exciting as something new. We tried to beat the walking schedule for the camino, but after the 3rd day we had to surrender. We r barely able to keep up the plan with the pedestrians because we have a good hour and a half stretch a time to ride while the kids are asleep. This we can do once after breakfast and once after lunch, but it is so baking hot during the day that it is a torture for all. Now even if we can make about 10 km an hour it is a true killer with all the luggages on one bike and the 2 kiddies on the other. Our plan to cover 40 km a day just does not work unless we put all of us through hell - which is missing the point. After all we r on vacation... Today we made 25 km but the last stretch was such a torture uphill to the hotel that it made us reconsider our plan. We r 90 km from Lisbon - right on time with the walking plan, but with this speed we would need 20 more days to make it to Santiago de Compostela - and we have only 18 left. By the way the best question so far from our lovely waiter in Vila Franca when i asked him where to get the stamp to our passports, whether i know if Santiago is in Spain :) so tomorrow we take the train to Porto and continue our pilgrimage from there. We hope there are less hills along the ocean and we can see more from this lovely country by not killing ourselves on the road.... To be continued some other evening when we do not fall asleep together with the kids - who r by the way wonderfully cheerful companions!

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Four months in Estonia

Time to reappear and update our blog - four months have passed since we moved to Estonia and it feels now almost like home. As somebody recently reminded me - once a new place starts feeling like home it is time to move on :) We have however no intention to move on since we feel very comfortable and cozy. Not to mention that Leon is going to have a sister still this month so it is time for a bit a stability. Another positive aspect of Estonia is that the global warming has nicely warmed up the summers so that you do not have to be afraid that it is going to rain everyday. Unfortunately nothing happened to the long dark days of winter. At least though the amount of snow during that time is incredible so perhaps it will be time to learn the cross country skiing...


Our Leon is nowadays a big boy attending a couple of days in a week the day care and having his strong opinion on all aspects of life. He is not to flexible to change it but it probably goes back to the fact that he is not sure which language to speak :) No wonder sincte he is basically exposed to four totally different languages (Hungarian, Polish, Estonian and English). Anybody want to guess which one he will start to speak first? We were a bit concerned about this but it is quite difficult to get serious advice from any specialist. The good thing is that sites like http://incultureparent.com are always very positive about the outcome of such mixes, if one sticks to a couple of simple rules. Anyway this is our Leonsito expressing his disappointment about lack of breakfast in the morning during our short midsummer trip to one of the small islands in Estonia (Manilaid)...

The change

I have not managed to post every month last year though I have been having it in the back of my mind. Perhaps it is because we have been in the middle of the process of planning yet another change in our lives and because our little emperor has not been exactly sleeping at nights...

Now since in a couple of days it is going to be Leon's birthday and we have just had a big celebration with the family in Warsaw perhaps it is time to share the news with all the might still be interested in our whereabouts...

There are two serious changes going to happen in our lives. First of all at the end of Summer Leon is going to have a sibling!!! Second of all we are moving out of Poland to Estonia in the coming weeks. Both of us are really looking forward to the new chapter of our lives. Though now it means a total chaos!!!

Connections

I have managed unintentionally to find a connection between the origins of my grandfather's ancestors (remember the post about visiting Ukraine) and the partitioning of Poland (that part of Ukraine went to Austrian's and Hungarians in the 19th century).

The connection is called Leon Bilinski and used to be the finance minister of Austrian Hungarian Empire and later on the Director of Polish National Bank...

Check it out - though the Polish version is much more extensive than the English...

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Bili%C5%84ski - Polish version
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Bili%C5%84ski - English version

The real real connection is however on the photo below - Leon with his cousins during the October visit to Hungary :)))

The season of Summer

I think I owe this post still to the Summer season. It is actually the last day of Summer today and it would be a shame not to write anything. It just happened that I could not make myself sit down and write anything sensible. I was thinking that actually those posts nowadays would be very important for Leon later on in his life. It is the period which he will not remember but could somehow reconstruct from the posts. At least I have been relatively regularly posting photos to our flickr account.

Actually we were supposed to leave Szczecin by now. Things changed a bit and it seems we will stay for a couple of months more. We have not really had a chance to go for real holidays (what exactly would that be by the way?) - so instead we went with Leon for the first time to his home country of Hungary. He approved it though he did not like the heat :)) It was also the first time he met his grandfather. No - this is not Leon on the picture below - it is his grandfather and I must say they look very much alike even though our Leon cannot sit yet.

Later on in July we flew to London to see his new born cousin Matilde. The whole family enjoyed the colors of London and Leon most of all enjoyed the tube and all the people around him...


Just like his parents love the touch of civilization in London or Berlin, he loves all the hectic around him. From time to time we have thoughts that we will move to Hungary or stay some more time in Poland but just a drive through Berlin makes such silly thoughts fly away :)))


To round up the family tour around your Leon visited his cousin Gyura in the southern part of Sweden. They might make a good match in the future as plants are one of the favorite things of both of them. If you want to see the special relationship which Leon developed with Gyura's dogs check out our flickr.





I intend to improve my posting soon - I might introduce some new ways of doing it. Perhaps twitter is a good way since I do have a relatively short focus span but encounter lots of things which I would be happy to somehow be able to go back someday in the future. I really enjoy posting - somehow though I am not always convinced that I should post what I have in my head...

New friends of Leon

I have been really lousy with the blog. I cannot really understand why since our life with Leon became very interesting. The little monster changes almost everyday. He now clearly sees, smiles to us and decided to be friends with pineapple. Yellow is his favourite color so he either might in the future be the fan of Brazilian National soccer team or perhaps a player of Borussia Dortmund :) Anyway the good thing is that he also recognizes the night and has no problem with sleeping up to 7 hours - moreover he never mixes the day with the night. Though during the day he requires full attention - he is kind of a social animal. The interesting thing about him sleeping is that he puts a pillow on his face once he wants to sleep so you cannot see him. It is a bit scary but seems that he just decided it is the way he wants it to be.

Anyway - lets get back to business - actually I tried getting our Leon a frequent flyer card since he has already been to Finland three times and has a couple of more trips planned for the coming months - seems though that although you always have to pay something for the ticket he cannot get the miles - a bit unfair I would say.

Some weeks ago we also decided to choose the nameday for him. There are some rules for it but we thought that it would be good if he had it in the second part of the year since he was born in February. In this way he would have evenly spread parties...My mum though said that it would be nice if he had it on the 14th of March since it is right after my me, my bro and his great grandma. We did not see it as a good idea until we learned that Rita's cousin's daughter (Matilda to be born in a couple of weeks) would have her nameday also on the 14th of March. The funniest thing is that in the move Leon the professional - the young girl that "accompanies" him is also called Matilda :)))

The traveller

Our son has been the traveler from the day he left the hospital. We managed to travel with him around 10 times through the non-existing Polish-German border and it never crossed our mind that he should get some travel documents e.g. a passport. Rita and Leon got even once stopped on the border but somehow Leon was ignored - only potential cigarettes smuggling was of interested to the guys on the border. Anyway it would have probably continued like that for some time but Leon was to have his first real trip to far north to Oulu in Finland. Therefore we bought the plane tickets and somehow forgot to consider how are we going to check him in since he has no papers. At some point - exactly seven days before the flight and additionally right before Easter I decided to go to the passport office in Warsaw to get him the passport. There I learned that it takes two months before he gets all the papers so that he can apply for the passport and then an additional month before they issue it. Additionally since I showed up with him I almost got arrested since I could not explain how he made it to Poland since he was born in Germany...Things started looking very bad - basically the only way for him to have a Polish passport in time for the flight was to smuggle him back to Germany to get him a temporary  passport from the Polish Embassy there...Fortunately we tried the Hungarian path - those guys did not inquire how he got to Poland - neither wanted any special documents and with kind help of the Embassy staff who took care of the issue outside office hours he got his Hungarian passport just in time for the flight!!! Btw - the Hungarians issue the first passport for free to its new citizens - in Poland after three months it is going to be around 200 EUR altogether.

I should also propose a special award to the Polish authorities for their stupidity since the first step in the process is to get him a Polish birth certificate even though he has European Union which is recognized in whole EU but somehow not in Poland -I kind of though Poland is in EU but perhaps those guys did not notice it yet. All in all takes a month just for this step of the procedure. 

On the picture the result of the very stressful process - Rita with Leon in the sling on the main square in Oulu. Next time we are there he will get a picture with the Santa Claus!!! I must say the little guy enjoyed flying very much. It probably felt like heaven for him because he was fed every 45 minutes...

Last thing - the most interesting picture so far I have found on my bro's blog - the VERVET MONKEY 

or you can also google it as BLUE BALL MONKEY - magnified reason for the name below :)

Leon after a month

Our kid is a month old. He has grown considerably and eats more frequently as well. This makes at least two pit stops every night. With time one can get used to it :)
The good thing is he really behaves well when we go out. It is quite easy to go with him to a restaurant or take him for a longer trip. He sleeps through the whole event. Actually he likes noise very much - whether it is a vaccum cleaner or car engine noise. All sorts of music also help - classical sky radio seems to be his favourite.
He also loves to be warm - either in his tummy tub or under 5 blankets. It does not matter. Last week he actually started his swimming classes:)
I guess after the first semester we will be able to go swimming together. He is already a great partner for me to watch Champions League :) Anyway the guy is definitely making us busy.


Apart for this change in our lives we are looking forward to spring. The snowfall this year has been exceptional. The best since 1979 in this region so I guess the next such winter will come around 2040. The three of us might still go skiing this year and I must say I really look forward to it. Even if I will be spending every other day baby sitting and it is not always that easy with Leon. He clearly so far prefers to listen to Rita but I am trying hard to win him over.

Home again

We made it home and so far we have it all nicely under control. Or that is how we felt until we got home safe and Leon was asleep. And then a chain reaction started: after the first feeding he got hiccups which prevented him from falling asleep until Rita put him in the baby sling. There he passed out in a nanosecond till the next diaper change. Soon came the second faux pas, when Rita managed to put accidentally the nappy rash cream on his ass causing big shouting till washed away :) Thus arrived the second feeding round for another hour with lots of screaming, then expressing milk, which Rita wanted to save for the night. That was the plan - he finished it all right after Rita completed expressing it. And the hiccups started again.... And here I stop listing all the "first night" challenges before you think it is all a nightmare. Actually despite of all these difficulties it is very rewarding to be with him, seeing his fulfilled expression with a half-smile driven by a staffed belly and then an extended yawn with a big stretch. So far not much else makes him so content, but it is good enough for now. Finally he went to sleep at 11 pm and gave us a good 6 hours rest with a good feeding at dawn since when he has been sleeping "like milk".

By now we know the secret to make him sleep -enough food makes him let everyone else rest. I guess the next big challenge will come once he gets sick - we will not have a clue how to handle him. The only thing we have not figured out is why he gets hiccups. 

Lastly on his behalf - thank you for all the wishes from around the world!!! Forgot to mention that right from the beginning our little boy became an illegal crossing the German-Polish border without any papers as we have not managed to get him a birth certificate yet... It will be another funny experiment to get him registered first in Germany, then in Poland and finally in Hungary...

Our kid already with us :)

Good that Rita made the photos last week. She has stopped working on Friday and must have relaxed so much that the birth started already on Sunday night. By Tuesday our little kid Leon was born...
Until now he seems to be a very relaxed guy taking easy the new surrondings - not too much crying and quite easy to figure out :)

Soon to be mum

Rita made me a beautiful birthday surprise. Good timing because we only have around two weeks to go and we will have a new member of our family...

Support in writing the blog

Since I became so bad in writing posts (11 to go if I continue with last year's pace and we will be celebrating year 2011). Therefore I recommend a blog which was started by my brother - he and his girlfriend just started a 6 months trip in Africa. The upper part is in Polish but the lower in English so just scroll down!

Otherwise, tomorrow some very interesting pictures will be posted - and I will write a bit about our Leon moving in Rita's belly and the deals we made with him :)

Best mix of music

At some point in my life I wanted to be a DJ - lately I even got myself a DJ software to mix live for fun - never had time nor courage to follow up on my new possession.

In the meantime so time ago thanks to Rita I managed to discover a French, Paris based radio station which plays an excellent eclectic mix of music - jazz, world music, film soundtracks, alt.rock and the occasional blast of classical music mixed in a way you cannot complain - a real gem hidden among dozens of radio stations out there...

It is sometimes referred to as the best radio station on earth - check it out - because for sure it is close to being one. Great for breakfast but equally good for late night...

Happy New Year from Warsaw!

Joy

It seems we have been in Poland for ages since I managed unconsciously to post pictures from our trip to the glacier in Polish - once that happens it clearly means that time has come to start trying to move our lives in a direction of some more exotic place. Perhaps something not as extreme as Nigeria where I went to primary school for two years but somewhere where it is sunny and warm - we will move to Africa in step two of steering our lives into the excitement path...Nigeria came to my mind because we watched yesterday District 9. The other day on our way to Berlin in the car radio on BBC World we heard an official complaint by the Nigeria Minister of Culture against portraying the Nigerian as worst villains in the movie. I had a feeling that the whole humanity was portrayed as a bunch of total assholes and Nigerian looked quite decent in that comparison :)

Anyway today we watched Julie and Julia and enjoyed it very much. Perhaps because of the fact that Rita loves cooking in the same way those two loved it or perhaps because they were following their passion in life - though it was not exactly an easy way. I probably liked it very much also due to the fact that my uncle makes the best Polish food I have ever tasted. Every year it tastes more heavenly. I am not a fun of Polish cuisine but his Christmas dinners are amazing.

Our three days stint in Kaprun is something that made me feel the same way as I guess the two feel about cooking. I always loved snowboarding and the more I do it the more hooked up I get with it. Spice snowboarding with traveling and living in new places - here comes the perfect receipe for me!

Perhaps I will be able to do it with the little Leon pretty soon. They start teaching them at around 3 years so already in 2012 the three of us can go skiing/snowboarding together. Considering that he is very active in Rita's belly I think there should be no special problem in convincing him to do so...

Oh I needed this time the Christmas break big time! Having the best year in my life while touring the world and then getting into high speed corporate world was too big of a strain for me. Hopefully I recover enough by the time new year arrives.

Error 328

Life.sys error. Please, restart the universe.

I saw this on a t-shirt at the Christams market last weekend in Berlin. General lack of light makes me feel exactly in this way though in reality I should not have too much to worry. We went to see new Woody Allen's movie while in Berlin - Everything works - Rita concluded that I have a very similiar attitude to life as the main character (though I never claimed to be a genious). Perhaps this is why I felt that the error 328 quite well captures the state of reality.

Since April we have not had proper holidays and both of us are really looking forward to Christmas. We might then recharge to erase the error. We will start the process of recharging already next weekend as we plan to go on a glaciar to snowboard...well Rita and Leon will chill and breath fresh air while I will do some downhill activities. A bit unfair - but still should be a good deal for both of us.

We have now 3 weeks left to make new years resolutions - It is difficult to say what thay should be since we have managed to change almost everything in our lifes during the last 12 months - changing more could be an overkill :)

There are some new photos on flickr from a hen party Rita organized at our residence near Warsaw for her cousin...since our camera is working again we will soon start posting pictures again...