Back to where we started: The Netherlands. A home sweet home visit. It took us one year and nine month to travel half the globe and no more than 40 hours to fly back to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. Our family waiting for us… goosebumps, tears and smiles from ear to ear… After such a long time no screen, bad WiFi or time difference between us! 🙏 ❤️

Why? World travelling to us always felt like a sort of process. Something we wanted to go through in full. Truly experience the impressions, thoughts and feelings that come with a nomadic life around Earth. It gets to you, really. And since it did, the road back home became an option again. Travelling talk… 😉 Anyhow, my strained knee, fires down our route, a sister promising Christmas cheese fondue (already in June… 😂 ) and plenty of other reasons we could come up with, made us decide to head for The Netherlands. The truth? We simply wanted to visit our roots. Just because.

A 20-hour stop-over in Abu Dhabi was part of the trip back to our so-called – and literally-translated – beloved frog-land (kikkerlandje). As avid F1 fans, a visit to Yas Marina Circuit was obviously the first thing that came to mind to fill a couple of hours. Inspecting empty pit boxes, motorhomes and grandstands, taking podium pictures, sitting on Charlie Whiting’s seat where he used to control the race, listening to inside circuit stories and driving down the circuit in a bulky bus – where normally aerodynamic Formula 1 cars speed up to 320km/h, kept us awake easily.

The next leg, brought us in the arms of family and friends. Truly wonderful spending time together again ánd being treated with all sorts of food. Oh yes, food! 😋 The first nights we spent apart at our parents place making each other jealous with all sorts of food pics, a habit we’ve picked up in Asia. And so after two weeks we’ve found back the kilo’s, we’ve lost somewhere along our trip… 🙁

We couldn’t get used to the cold tap water 🥶 , waking up in the dark 😩, sunset at 16:00 😱  and to wrap yourself up every time you go outside 😓. Other than that we loved every moment, with the blessing of being together with friends and family as the true high light. 🥰🙏

As genuine world travellers we couldn’t resist an invite for a private tour of the Zaanse Schans, a collection of historic windmills, handicraft shops and houses, located in one of the oldest industrial areas of Europe. De Zaanse Schans brings the industry of the 18th and 19th century to life and is probably one of the most touristic things you can do in The Netherlands. At least, if you skip the things that may come to mind first 🥴.

We grew up nearby and visited the area a dozen of times and yet the stories of the millers got our attention once again. Fascinating to learn how these old mills are still in business. And kind of funny that such a familiar place close to our roots fascinated us in the same manner as for example the Taj Mahal or Angkor Wat. Question is, would that have been the same if we hadn’t been away from home for so long? 🤔

After two wonderful weeks we once more said goodbye until we meet again… 😢 and took off to Guangzhou, China. An incredibly uninspiring town with 15 million people and the main hub for China Southern Airlines. To make a 10-hour lay-over in Guangzhou sort of appealing, the airline provides you with a free shuttle and free hotel. Which we obviously didn’t mind 😴.

Another 10 hours later, we finally arrived Down Under again. 😃 Not in Brisbane, where Kempie – our van – is waiting for us, but in Sydney. No time for a jet lag and no time to digest our time back home as tomorrow a new adventure will bring us back to Brisbane!⛵️

The world trip continues! 😎✌🏻