Okay, emotional rollercoaster ride and some last minute stress.

First of all, I am suffering from TMS-syndrom. TOO MUCH STUFF!!! I tried to clean up my rooms today and to get at least my most personal belongings out of the way. More and more forgotten piles behind piles under piles turned up. I threw out three huge plastic bags of old clothing and what felt like one cubic meter of waste paper. And the rooms looked as full as before …

I did get a lot done though. It was like little chain reactions, acutally. I started to go through my piles of letters/notes/forms etc. which prompted me to do my tax refund application after all. Yay! According to the software I used (WISO Sparbuch, thanks to Svenja for letting me use her laptop) I am eligible for a refund of 1400 €. That’s cool. I just hope the revenue office comes to the same conclusion.

I also started making new piles, this time piles of stuff I want to take with me. TMS strikes again. I am packing too many clothes. I know. But I have so many nice new things (thanks to my Mum, actually, at least clothing-wise I wouldn’t have that TMS-problem without her). It is okay to spend the whole summer on a Canadian farm with three T-shirts and two pants, but the Mediteranian is a different matter altogether. I want to stroll along the beach promenades of the Cote d’Azur in style, after all. Naw! Actually it is more the fact that it still can feel like winter outside at the moment, especially when you are on a ship and it will be searingly hot in Greece in August. So I really have to be prepared for all kinds of weather.

Just when I was boasting with energy, quite proud of myself because of that tax thing and in the middle of packing, Markus called. His father committed suicide last night, pretty much out of the blue. Terrible shock for one thing, especially since Markus is already on the boat, alone, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, and a bit of an organisational problem as well, since we wanted to raise ancor on Friday. Now we will have to wait till after the funeral and until at least the most important family issues are resolved.

I will still leave here on Thursday, but it might be a while before we actually start our journey up the Rhine river and then into France.

I feel so terribly sorry for Markus. It was one of those moments where in the movies the hero always finds exactly the right words, while in reality, every variation of „I am sorry“ you can come up with feels flat and awkward. We talked for a while and maybe that helped a little bit at least.