Europe // 2015

On a whim I buy myself a one way ticket to Copenhagen and reserve a rental car for six weeks. I arrive to weather far colder than I'm prepared for so I buy two sweaters and an extra jacket and sleep off my jet lag for two days. I meet Morten and then Effy and then two guys named Bo, one of whom will have an unexpected impact on my life. I drive to Berlin and meet even more people and reunite with an old friend I haven't seen in 16 years and the idea of moving here is planted in my mind. I keep traveling and visiting old friends and making new ones. I go to Norway and Sweden and take an overnight ferry to Estonia. And then I drive all the way to Frankfurt to pick up my daughter Tully where she's taken her first transatlantic flight all by herself. Together we visit Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands. We barbecue on the Rhein, eat Belgian waffles in Belgium, climb the Eiffel Tower, shop at flea markets, dance on rooftops, visit old friends and make new ones. The seed has been planted, watered, and when we return to Europe a month later it will be as legal residents, not tourists.