Header reference: French “traditional” song Ce n’est qu’un au revoir, mes frères
The past two weeks have passed in a blur, and our trip has not even officially started yet. Great – I get it now, why several of you have warned me about how difficult it was to keep a good publishing rhythm!
Friday February 23rd was my last working day, filled with adorable messages from my colleagues. I let you picture the beauty of setting up an out-of-office message from March 2024 to March 2025…
Dimitri and I could not leave our beloved Hamburg without throwing a little something. Our booking at the Baby Goat Barn, St Pauli, started off with “20 guests-ish”; one invite from Dimitri to his whole company later, here were we with >40 friends. Perfect crowd, for a perfect evening.
We did not know a soul when we moved to Hamburg 5 years ago, and that night, we were surrounded with our friends wishing us luck and ensuring us that they would be here when we would come back. Love to you all!
Wednesday February 28th: our massive to-do list complete (see exhibit), we give out our apartment keys to K. & M., who will enjoy our Hamburg palace (no less) for the next 6 months, until Dimitri starts work again.
This is it, now: we must learn how to call our backpacks home. Laurent and Ina, who host us for the night before our flight to Paris, make sure that we don’t have time to mourn, between beers and glasses of red wine.
Thursday February 29th: early flights from Hamburg to Paris, with a stopover in Amsterdam. With just a small tote bag, Dimitri and I joke in front of the luggage conveyor belt about how light we travel.
And there starts the fun: Dimitri’s backpack got lost somewhere between Hamburg and Paris. We go to the lost & found counter, where the worker checks Dimitri’s passport and gives him back the passport… of somebody else.
“Oh sh*t.”
The worker starts running across the airport, to find its holder. No luck there. Sorry stranger, I hope that you made it OK…
They somehow make it work for us: Dimitri’s backpack has decided to stay for the day in Amsterdam, and will be sent out on the last flight of the day.
We are not even in Asia that we have already faced our travel issue #1 – impressive record, right?
Stay tuned: travel issue #2 comes with the next article…
Breathe In The World 
Let us know what you think! PS: don’t forget to sign it ;-)