The early morning sun is waking both of us up. We are finally here in Vienna. At my mothers house, the house I grew up in. It is such a warm feeling to be at this place again. Getting downstairs, making breakfast and sitting in the beautiful garden, enjoying the birds singing and the easiness after 5 days of continuous rush riding through Eastern Europe.
Today is the day. I am already really excited, that I will finally meet my first nephew. Text messaging my sister we agree to meet at her place after lunch.
Since I have left for my first trip back in the year 2016 my visits in Vienna were always quite intense, visiting my family and meeting my friends. This time we are using the break to arrange the final things before we will cross into Africa.
Sipping another cup of coffee, we are making a To-Do list. The equipment we want to buy, such as a second GoPro a new lens, a hard-drive, ear-phones, and some other things. Some additions to the motorcycles, like additional USB-charging slots. The vaccinations finding a place on the list, as well as a final visit for a check-up at the dentist. To catch up with all my family and friends we will do around 20 visits. This brake will definitely take some days.
It is time now, getting a cake and some snacks at the supermarket and making our way to my sisters place. I get nervous, when we arrived at the front door, walking up the stairs to her flat. We are finally there, and she is opening the door. She looks at me with a smile and a shining in her eyes, her voice is calm and confident. My sister definitely changed. In a good way. Hugs and kisses before we enter the living room. Here he is. Lying in his small bed. Peaceful and tiny. I think I have never seen a more tiny human. He is real. He is my sisters son. The next generation is born. For the first time in my life I get a feeling how short life is. The time has come, where I am not the youngest generation of my family anymore. I am so happy and proud at the same time. My sister Verena is taking the small kid out of the bed and putting him into my arms. Nora and me immediately fall in love with him, spending hours just chatting with my sister and her boyfriend, while holding the baby.
Social life is quite a important part in my life and seeing my friends whom I know since more than 15 years is always a pleasure. There is something that will always connect us and even if we haven’t seen each other for a year, we meet up, have a talk and it is like we have seen each other every day.
Luckily the sunny early autumn days brought the whole group together and we were wandering around the wine hills of Vienna. In that time of the year the wineries sell their young wine, called “Sturm” and there is also a lot of food like “Brathendl”, “Leberkäse”and “Käsekrainer”. Oh how much I have missed Austrian food. Luckily Nora also became a huge fan of that culture during her last visits in Vienna together with me.
The next day, Sunday, I attended a ride in the outskirts of Vienna with a group of friends. It felt so good riding through this area again. Just a one hour ride from the busy city center of Vienna and you will find yourself in the Alps, with rivers finding their ways through canyons, green grass and pine trees. At the end of the section there is a nice restaurant located in the small town called “Kalte Kuchl”. This location is the meeting point of motorcycle riders from Vienna until the county of Styria. More than 100km of winding roads with perfect asphalt. Before I left on the trip, buying an adventure bike, I had a supersport-bike Yamaha R1 YZFRN19 and a café racer type naked bike Triumph Speed Triple 1050. I really miss those bikes. I have sold them to finance the trip to Indonesia and to create the budget for the current adventure. Not a bad trade at all.
During the week we start to get our things done, ordering the equipment and visiting the vaccination center for the African specific shots. Yellow fever is the most important one. We check together with the consultant at the institute of tropical diseases, which vaccines we should get, by going through a huge catalogue with information about every country, working our way alongside the route. The decision is yellow fever, DTP and for me another polio shot, since we have some immunization left from the last trip. We get pinched by the needles and our passes get stamped! Vienna is also the first time since months, at least for myself to have a few days of rest, since I was working until the very last day before the departure. I think I would never have thought finding such peace in Vienna. My best friend Slavi offered us his flat for a week since he was on a trip through South America. A perfect base to do some editing, re arranging our equipment, get rid of the winter stuff we have packed for the Northern European countries and so on.
The week was quite scheduled and we were able to get everything from the To-Do list done. We produced a ton of Vlogs and in the evenings we were meeting up with people to have dinner and a chat. The star of this time was of course little Theo! Nora and me tried to see him as often as possible. He is so cute and I still can’t believe, even writing this article two months after the visit in Vienna, that my sister has became a mother. Thinking back to 2016, when I have left for the first trip, I would have never thought that the next two years until the day today would change so much in my life and bring at the same time tremendous development. Life is too good if you keep living it.
After spending in total 16 days in Vienna we forced ourselves to pack up and to get the bikes ready. It was an emotional good bye. Even though, spending the last 2 years on the motorcycle and in the Netherlands, I have just realized how bonded and rooted I will always be to Vienna!