Story behind this blog

Hello!

To begin right away: Just until a few years ago, I hated traveling all my live. I am very interested in culture, nature, history; I always loved going to museum and to visit churches and other historic buildings, I loved hiking in the nature.....but I didn't like to be away from home. As a child I suffered severe homesickness and later I was always happy to be back in my own four walls.....When I met my husband and we traveled in vacations, I felt slightly better, because at least I had my beloved one with me. But still, some journeys we shortened just to be back home again....

In the very beginning of our marriage my husband suggested to go on a sailing trip. I was shocked and refused in panic: "Never ever will I set a foot on such an horrible, shaking vessel...!!!!!!" He let the topic drop until a few years later.
In the meanwhile our two children were born and we moved to a very tiny house with a huge garden outside of Berlin. At one point my husband decided to buy a small sailing Dinghy, which should be used at the nearby lake by the whole family. It was awful! I felt most uncomfortable on this nutshell.

In 2009 we spend our summer vacation on a farm in Northern Germany close to the Baltic Sea. My husband was hooked by all the different sailing ships in the harbors and on water all around. Unforeseen, we had the chance to go on a daytrip sailing on a 30 feet yacht. I agreed...I love him, so I did it, as a favor to him....At least I entered the ship without getting stuck at the pulpit.....But then: It was amazing, absolutely wonderful: I fell in love! All the sudden I realized: Sailing is MY way of traveling. (By the way there was hardly any wind that day, the sun was shining and it was a very short journey on the water, but....however....)
One afternoon shortly after our vacation I sat in the garden with my friend telling her about a book I just started reading: About a family doing a circumnavigation. I claimed, that would be the best thing for us to do.....A year later we moved to Hamburg because of job reasons. Luckily we sold our house in Berlin and had the chance to buy a 31 feet sailing vessel. There we started traveling by sailing, currently at the Baltic Sea; each weekend and vacations. We started with hardly any experience, lost our mast in the first year, made quite a few mistakes and experience the most wonderful way to be within the nature. We see places from a perspective, which is completely different to seeing a new spot first from the landside. Even larger cities as Kopenhagen or Malmö look different when approached from the waterside. We reach locations we wouldn't easily access by car or plane. We love to be out in fresh air and sun (and rain of course, often enough). We do it all together, the whole family (including our dog) and we have "our four walls" with us.

I am working as an artist and more and more my work is influenced by the experiences on our travels and by experiencing the nature and its utmost beauty.

I start this blog to write about the three topics which are of importance to me: Travel, Nature and Art;  each one by itself and all together combining and influencing each other.

Currently we explore the baltic sea, but we still be convinced that sailing for a longer period of time would be a very good idea......let's see what the future will offer us.

Birgit Grassl

May 2014

0 Kommentare:

Post a Comment