Jenni is working with the children of the couple we are staying with which means that she has early, busy mornings and hectic afternoons. During the middle of the day she works around the house or runs errands as needed. A typical day for her usually starts with making sure that the children have breakfast, clean up there rooms, do their chores and get ready for school. If their mom has other plans, Jenni will also take them to school before coming home to work around the house. When we started working for the couple their youngest child was still in kindergarten and Jenni had to pick her up at noon on some days. On Sunday, May 22nd she turned five and started regular school on the Monday after that. It seems strange to us that kids start school right when they turn five instead of starting at the beginning of the next year, but the school schedule here is very different. There is no three month summer vacation like we are used to. Summer vacation doubles as Christmas vacation and throughout the year there are two week breaks between school terms. Since all the children are going to school for the whole day, Jenni now has more time to get her other tasks done and even relax for a few hours before the children come home. After they get home, Jenni is in constant motion until they go to bed at 7:30.
When the children are all settled in bed, the adults will sit down for dinner. The couple we are staying with hosts up to four travelers at a time through the helpx website that we used to meet them, so we often have eight people around the dinner table. The discussions can get quite interesting because we have perspectives from all over the world at the table. There has been one Finnish traveler here and the rest of the guests have been from either the UK or Germany. Meeting people from different parts of Germany and the UK has made us realize how diverse even these small countries are and has made us more interested in adding a European trip onto the end of this trip.
Recently Jenni has been looking into purchasing a seven stop plane ticket for the rest of our travels. We will be stopping in Australia and Korea, but the rest of the stops are currently up in the air so if you have any suggestions we would love to hear them.
It looks like you two are having an amazing adventure and living life to the fullest. I just got engaged to the girl of my dreams. We originally met in 2000 and reconnected a little over a year ago. It's been a bit of a whirlwind but she said yes on the top of Beacon Rock last Sunday in the Columbia River Gorge.
ReplyDeleteI traveled in NZ for about 4 weeks during my high school years. We were on the South Island and had a blast doing a hike on the Abel Tasman trail and mountaineering in Mt. Aspiring National Park. I recommend both of those highly.
All the best!
-Matt Hutchison
Email: taurushutch@gmail.com