The Vacation Before The Trip

Presently we are finishing our last couple of days in Italy. There has not been much to post as the past 8 days have been eating, drinking, and reading.  Only one day was even spent on a motorcycle! So really this is the vacation before the trip, because as most overland motorcyclists will tell you, a trip is much more of an adventure than a holiday. For those of who craving a little more action (although I would argue family vacations do have danger and action, just of a different variety  ;-)  ) Andi has finished the sneak preview to our Iceland video!

 

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World Trip A Go!

Although our start has been more in the style of a machine lurching and cranking itself into existence than smooth sailing, we have officially begun our world trip!  And given that it is us I am talking about it I will gladly take that!

Rather than riding off into the sunset on Wednesday, we broke our golden rule of motorcycle travel - never ride at night.  At 12:30 am we left Oma's garage and began the ride to Patrick's parent's in Switzerland. Given that this meant we were only 6 hours past our planned delayed this was some sort of miracle. That we arrived at 3 am and that the only casualty were my ears was the second! (they blew off on the autobahn.  :-(  )

The joy was also slightly tampered yesterday when the bill for my Russian and Mongolian visas arrived via email: 650 Euro in total.

But on the bright side that means I HAVE Russian and Mongolian visas, and tomorrow we begin our ride to Italy! With my 2 co-riders:

And the two of the human variety:

It hardly feels real!

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2 Week Countdown!

This time in 2 weeks we are homeless! We pass our keys over to the guy who is renting our apartment, our bikes will have our worldly possessions for the next year strapped to the back, I will teach my class and then Patrick will meet me and we ride to Switzerland!  (Our first 2 nights of homelessness will be spent at his parents place, where we plan a family exodus to Italy. Not such a terrible situation.  ;-) ) 

So with the 2 week countdown bearing down upon us, what do we still have to do?

Visas

Apparently being Canadian comes with more trouble and pain than just having Harper as our Prime Minister. It means that unlike the Germans who need to shell out 200 Euro for a multiple entry visa, I need to shell out 200 for the invitation alone. Then another 200 for the visa.  And another 35 for regular processing fees. PLUS another 40 for processing outside the country.  We found this out after the agency already had my passport.  A quick online check to see if sending it to Canada would have made more sense proved futile. In Canada it would cost me about 400 dollars, but toss in there express posting both ways and time, the 100 Euros is no longer worth it.

The good news is that my bike is fixed! And for significantly less than quoted.  BMW quoted 1200 for the whole process. But the guy told us if we bought the handle bar and did that part ourselves it would be significantly cheaper. By we I mean Patrick, as my only contribution was to pay for the handle bar and pick it up.  The German did the elbow sweat part.  But with parts and then dropping it off for BMW to do everything else, the total cost came in at 800.  So that at least covers my Visa......

Patrick's bike is something else. The BMW dealer is saying that ABS should be fixed, but the ABS light keeps glowing that it has not been.  Word to the wise: don't drop your bike in a river.  It short circuits shit.

 

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2 Week Countdown!

This time in 2 weeks we are homeless! We pass our keys over to the guy who is renting our apartment, our bikes will have our worldly possessions for the next year strapped to the back, I will teach my class and then Patrick will meet me and we ride to Switzerland!  (Our first 2 nights of homelessness will be spent at his parents place, where we plan a family exodus to Italy. Not such a terrible situation.  ;-) ) 

So with the 2 week countdown bearing down upon us, what do we still have to do?

Visas

Apparently being Canadian comes with more trouble and pain than just having Harper as our Prime Minister. It means that unlike the Germans who need to shell out 200 Euro for a multiple entry visa, I need to shell out 200 for the invitation alone. Then another 200 for the visa.  And another 35 for regular processing fees. PLUS another 40 for processing outside the country.  We found this out after the agency already had my passport.  A quick online check to see if sending it to Canada would have made more sense proved futile. In Canada it would cost me about 400 dollars, but toss in there express posting both ways and time, the 100 Euros is no longer worth it.

The good news is that my bike is fixed! And for significantly less than quoted.  BMW quoted 1200 for the whole process. But the guy told us if we bought the handle bar and did that part ourselves it would be significantly cheaper. By we I mean Patrick, as my only contribution was to pay for the handle bar and pick it up.  The German did the elbow sweat part.  But with parts and then dropping it off for BMW to do everything else, the total cost came in at 800.  So that at least covers my Visa......

Patrick's bike is something else. The BMW dealer is saying that ABS should be fixed, but the ABS light keeps glowing that it has not been.  Word to the wise: don't drop your bike in a river.  It short circuits shit.

 

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What do people live for?

Mika a motorcycle traveller just sent this video to me. I liked it a lot so I wanted to share it :-)

 

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Mission Impossible: How hard is it to find a head lamp?

I just wasted 3 hours on finding a headlamp for our next trip.

You might think this is an easy task (I thought so too):

But try it, go on Amazon and look up head lamp:

head lamps on Amazon

Sure enough, a few hundred search results pop up. But not a single one meets the requirements I have in mind. In my opinion they are not very fancy requirements but apparently they are of an impossible standard:

1. It should come with LED lights. They use much less energy then a "normal" bulb lamp.
Sure enough most headlamps come with LEDs, no problem so far

2. I want the lamp to have 2 batteries. Not 1, not 3 but exactly 2. And this is apparently impossible to find. I wonder why. This shouldn't be a big problem in the 21st century. But apparently it is.

But why do I want 2 batteries? Because I want to use rechargeable ones. The problem with these is that they:

1st of all, they come in pairs of 2 (I have never seen them sold in a pack of 3), don't believe me?

Ask Amazon:

rechargeable batteries on Amazon

2nd and much more important: They can only be recharged in pairs of 2. I haven't found a recharger that recharges 3 of them at a time.

battery chargers

So what am I doing wrong? Did the headlamp industry miss something? Isn't it obvious that 3 is neither 2 or 4? Or am I missing something?

Anyway, if anyone has a good idea or a recommendation for a headlamp please let me know.

Patrick

PS: Done with my rant. I guess if this stays our biggest problem we are lucky. Speaking of problems: I do not have a passport yet. And no visa. And no new tooth brush. And both bikes are still broken. Speaking of broken, the tent is still missing a pole and ...

I guess we still have some things to do.

5 weeks to go :-)

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Anyone Looking To Ship A Motorcycle From Russia To Chile In October?

Trip planning is in full swing and we have run up against our first full snag: shipping the bikes from Vladivostok to Valparaiso.  When Patrick shipped his bike from Korea to Chile he paid just under 500 US for the bike.  We were hoping around 800 per bike either by air or by ship from Russia.  The quote came back, we can not ship per bike, we need to rent an entire container.  For close on to $5000 (we were quoted 4, 500 but that does not include harbor fees in Chile,  so we are thinking in the end it will be more like 5,000).  The thing is a container fits up to 8 bikes.  We are 3 bikes.  That means 5 more could fit and that would bring the costs down dramatically (although cheap it will not be).  So if you know anyone with plans to try and get a bike out of Russia in October in the direction of South America, pass on our address!

Patrick In Mongolia:

But that also means it is crunch time.  We have 4 months (more or less to the day) before we head off on our world trip.  (The date is flexible, Patrick wants to leave the 25th or 26th of May.  This is when the house in  Tuscany becomes available and the rest of his family head to Italy for 2 weeks of vacation.  I am torn between this is much better than working, and that 4 extra days of work brings in enough money to finance half a month on the road). But then life is short, and this was really hammered home last week when I lost my Aunt Liz to cancer. There is one good thing that comes out of the grief of a loss, it really brings home just what, and who, is important. 4 days of work is very little in the grand scheme of things, and Patrick's family have become mine.  In the end what will I gain from those 4 days working versus the memories of the 4 extra days in Italy with family?