Necessity creates a change in format!

Oh, isn't that just the most nonsensical and exciting title you've ever read? It is true, however. We are now back at home and barely posted a single thing in this blog while we were away, but I promised travel stories. So help me god, I shall deliver on that promise. It will just be a little different from the way I originally intended.

Originally, I meant to post updates and photos of our travels while we were traveling. That was what I did while we were in Australia and New Zealand, and I wanted to do it for Germany. In New Zealand, we brought Stowaway (our laptop) with us. Even when I was not able to get a WiFi internet connection, I was able to compose blog posts and then publish them once I was online. Stowaway did not get to come to Germany with us, as we were not about to lug around a laptop for a trip less than a month in duration. This naturally resulted in a limitation of the frequency and ease of blog posting.

As Western Europe is generally well-connected, I figured this would not be much of a problem. Sure, I would have to pay for internet access in cafes and at hostels, but it wouldn't be overly expensive. Sure, I probably wouldn't be able to upload many photos, but I could fill in many of the gaps with links to other websites. Moments of blogging could be snatched here and there in the wee hours spent awake thanks to hostel snorers, and we could hit internet cafes while doing laundry or waiting for train connections. It seemed like a good plan.

It seemed like a good plan in theory.

In reality, we did not have as much spare time for blogging as I anticipated. Despite hostel snorers, we jammed so much into each and every day that sheer exhaustion (usually) resulted in an okay night's sleep. Thanks to a large supply of underwear, we didn't need to do laundry as frequently as anticipated, and the German train system is so very efficient that we spent hardly any time waiting for our train connections. All of this cut into the time I anticipated having to update the blog.

Most surprising, however, was that internet access was not as readily available, as cheap, or as reliable as I thought it would be. While most hostels, B&Bs, and hotels did have WiFi, you needed your own device to use them. If hostels had computers available for use, there were precious few of them. In general, internet access was remarkably expensive. One euro would get you anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes (a couple internet cafes were cheaper, but more difficult to get to on our squeezed schedule). Moreover, the connections were usually terrible. In our Amsterdam hostel the connection was so bad that in 15 minutes I was able to send out a grand total of one email and pay off my Visa via online banking. It was a complete waste of a euro!

So the end result was one ridiculously sparse blog. Excuses, excuses.

Now that we are safely ensconced in my mother-in-law's basement (bless her for putting up with us while we move into our new house), we have constant access to good, fast internet. Our photos have been downloaded, and I again have the occasional spare moment in the evening to think about the trip.

So I have decided to blog the trip, but as a retrospective. Really, all travel blogs are retrospectives of recent activities. This will just be more retrospectivy than usual.

It will be fun, though. I can provide stories with context! I can add colour and foreshadowing! I can write posts while sitting around in my underwear while listening to Captain Tractor and drinking entire pots of coffee!

So let the retrospective begin, reader. Even though I did put in a couple of posts about our activities, I shall do it all again. We start at the beginning, my friends. Next stop: Cologne!