Friday morning, we left the apartment at about 10:30am. We were actually aiming for earlier than that, but it just never happened. We wanted to hike up the dirt path I found that leads into the hills behind our apartment building, and of course the morning is the coolest time to do it.
And it was definitely starting to warm up by the time we got going. They were calling for a high of 27C (81F).
Thursday was a day of rest, for the most part. We spent the morning planning, although we still didn't come up with a firm choice as to where we are going next. Not that we're in a huge rush to figure it out because we are here until next Wednesday.
I know, that's only five days away, but there are a LOT of empty accommodation options available. Normally the British would be starting to come to this area for a holiday. But Turkey is not on the quarantine exemption list for Britain, so although they are welcome to come here, they have to quarantine for 14 days when they return home. So not nearly as many will be coming.
We are just getting ourselves into a blog posting routine here in Turkey. I know that it feels to most of you like you missed a daily blog post along the way, but our activities take place 7 hours ahead of eastern time and this blog post actually gets us caught up. You haven't missed a thing!
We will try to post during our morning here which means when those of you in North America wake up each morning, there will be a blog post waiting for you and you will be able to read Travel with Kevin and Ruth while drinking your morning coffee.
As I write this, we have been in Turkey (country #39 for us!) for a total of about 7 hours.
And our first impressions are that we are really going to like Turkey!
Let's back up a little bit to our overnight stay at London's Gatwick airport. We had booked a cheaper and better than expected room at the Premier Inn Hotel located right across the street from the airport terminal.
Our flight from Ottawa to Toronto was uneventful. It was just a small two propeller turbo prop plane, and it was probably 80% full. It was a one hour flight.
Then we had a five hour wait for our Toronto to London flight. We arrived Toronto at 4:00pm, and our London flight was scheduled to depart at 9:00pm.
We were in Gravenhurst, Ontario (about 2 hours north of Toronto) yesterday visiting with our son and his girlfriend. Our daughter and the grandkids showed up as well! It was a great family send off for us!
However...
Just before lunch I got an email from our Airbnb host in Berlin. She said that Berlin has been declared a Covid hotspot and that we would have to quarantine for 5 days after we arrive in Berlin. Not only that, but we might have difficulty moving on to another spot in Germany depending on the rules of the German state that we would happen to be moving to.
We had a bunch of last minute stuff to do at Ruth's dad's house. You would think that after having been there for more than two months we would have been totally organized to leave, but we still found ourselves rushing around at the last minute.
We didn't leave the house until around 12:45pm, and then we still had to drop one last load of stuff off at the charity shop, and go to the bank and do some other running around.
Well, we are done at the house... for now. There is still a lot to be done, or at least a lot that could be done. But eventually it will be up to the people who buy the place. In the meantime, Ruth's brother Colin will take over where we left off and it will be up to him to get some more things done over the winter.
The plan is that we will return here for the last two weeks of May next year. We have the auction arranged for Saturday ,May 29th.
Ruth's parents came to Canada from England back in the late 1950's so she still has relatives there and we like to visit every few years. But the last time we were in England was in July of 2012!
So we really were due for a visit, which is why we originally booked our upcoming flight to London. The price was cheap, and when we booked it back in June we figured that maybe they would have lifted the quarantine for arrivals from Canada by now. Of course that hasn't happened which is why we are now carrying on to Berlin.
We always travel light, but I think this time will be especially light! We each have a Chester carry on size bag, so we can only take so much with us in the first place.
We will be bringing all of our Tilley travel clothes... including our fresh supply of Tilley socks and underwear. Ruth will also be bringing a pair of jeans, but I am sticking with my Tilley travel pants and a pair of Columbia hiking pants.
Thirteen years ago yesterday, we closed the sale of our house and moved into the motorhome to embark on a different lifestyle. We have no regrets at all... we love our life!
And so begins the fourteenth year of Travel with Kevin and Ruth. And we think it's going to be a great year!
Lots of fun having granddaughter Sadie (7) with us for the weekend. She's a really good kid to look after, and such a little sweetheart. Of course that is just the grandpa's opinion, so it might be a little biased!
We didn't do anything special though. The weather wasn't the best, and you can sure tell that winter is coming!
A week from today we fly to London, England. Not that we will be seeing any of London, but we have been there several times in the past. We will not be leaving the airport terminal, and will be connecting to Berlin, Germany after a long layover.
This week will go by quickly!
Yesterday, I had thought that we might wait a few more days to book accommodation in Germany. But I had a quick look through AirBnb and came across an inexpensive one that caught my interest. I sent the host a couple of questions, which she eventually answered, but by the time I went to book it, somebody else had already done so!
So, while there are lots of choices available in Berlin because tourism is down and the weather is quickly cooling off, the good ones still do go quickly. I figured I had better spend a bit more time looking for one that is suitable for us.
Back in to Ottawa yesterday where we had a nice visit with my mother and older sister. Then it was off to pick up Ruth's dad and we brought him out for a drive. We also had some running around to do, including a stop to change some Mexican pesos into euros.
When we were preparing to leave Mexico last March, we thought we had our cash situation figured out so that we wouldn't have very much left over when we actually crossed the border. But because of Covid altered plans, we ended up staying in one spot the last ten days and that actually meant we didn't spend as much cash.
