Tuesday, April 22, 2008

22 April – Departure

After all the preparations, and with a lot of help from both grandmothers, we have finally left our apartment. The journey has begun! The travel plan from April until July is: Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey.
By now, an e-mail has been sent to all friends to whom we have an e-mail address.
Our e-mail address during the trip is ringdahls@gmail.com
You can follow us during our journey on our travel site: www.ringdahlfamily.blogspot.com (English text). Please note that our updates will not be so frequent.
If you want to read Temba’s words about his experiences, please check www.tembaringdahl.blogspot.com (Swedish text).

All the best,
Ola, Nina, Temba, Disa, Tinna, Atlas Ringdahl

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

15 April – Final preparations

The apartment is a mess, but we are enjoying the commotion very much. We are packing for the trip and at the same time clearing the apartment which we are subletting during our absence. We have now bought most of the equipment we need and we have had the vehicle checked by an autoelectrician to make sure that all the wiring is in order. We thought we would be leaving Sweden today, but we have had to postpone our departure by a week. Our target departure date is now 22 April.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

5 April – Farewell party


We were delighted to see do many friends at our farewell party. Thank you for coming!

28 March - 1 April – We picked up our new Land Rover in the UK

The whole family flew from Copenhagen to London on a Friday morning and went by public transport via Piccadilly Circus to Roydon outside London. Stuart and Paul Foley picked us up and took us to Foley Specialist Vehicles where the car was waiting. We spent the whole afternoon checking the specially prepared vehicle and the equipment we have chosen. The kids loved their “new home” and created quite a commotion in the workshop when mummy and daddy were busy checking the details. Disa, Nina, Atlas, Tinna, Ola & Temba at Piccadilly Circus 28 March

Temba trying out the rooftop tent on our new Land Rover at Foley's


We spent the next day in London before heading towards Dover. We chose to cross the Channel by ferry to Calais (due to Ola’s nostalgic wish to see the white cliffs of Dover from a boat). We crossed France and Belgium, only to find ourselves in the middle of the Netherlands when it was getting dark. We thought it would be easy to find a motel in Holland, but we just didn’t have any luck. Temba jokingly said that we should stay in Hotell Kantarell (Swedish saying). And amazingly, a local resident showed us to the nearest hotel, called Hotel de Cantharel…
Temba, Disa & Tinna on the ferry in front of the white cliffs of Dover

In Germany we spent a whole afternoon at the great Globetrotter store in Hamburg. You can find pretty much everything you need for your outdoors experience there, and we went on a shopping spree. As it was getting dark, we arrived to Nina’s cousin Anne in Rendsburg. Over the phone, she had offered us to spend the night in her three room apartment, but she didn’t realize that we were travelling with all the kids! But is worked out very well and we had a nice evening together.

The next morning we went shopping a little bit more in Flensburg before crossing Denmark and arriving back in Malmö, Sweden. Ola’s mother had arranged a perfect and safe parking place for the car very close to our apartment. Now it is time to pack!
Our new Land Rover in front of the Turning Torso building in Malmö