It was a bit cold when we started out, about -19, which mellowed to -16 by the time we arrived. We met with some of Siri’s relatives and friends, and had a lovely evening with good food, games and a warm toasty fireplace.

Since we started getting a bit sleepy we decided to head homewards a bit after 10. As we got half-way home I realized that we would be driving when the new years bell tolled, and according to Hungarian tradition, whatever you’re doing on new years day, you’ll be doing all year (which I why Judit won’t do any cleaning, dishing, washing or anything boring today).

When we drove it felt like we were the only ones on the roads, since there was a fresh cover of snow, and there were no other tracks visible. The snow also made the sound of the road very soft, so it was like zooming or flying forward, with a big trail of snow-smoke behind us, and not another car in sight.

As the time neared midnight we entered Sweden (probably we were the last ones to cross the Norwegian-Swedish border at Svinesund in 2009), and saw people starting to fire of fireworks. At the strike of midnight we were only 5 km from home, and listened to the Swedish anthem on the radio, made our wishes, and wished each other a happy new year.

An unusual, but lovely new years eve.

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Kan man inte polisanmäla sådana här idioter, så vägverket inte vidhåller att nejdå, den vägen är fin som 70-väg, och det är upp till varje förare att anpassa sin hastighet till rådande förhållanden. Bullshit! Vet inte hur många gånger jag vart med om bilar och mc som använt sträckan som hastighetstest. Vi har redan förlorat en katt där. Skall det behövas att det blir en människa som blir skadad innan någon säger “nejmen, det kunde vi ju aldrig tro att det skulle hända där!”…

Grrrrr….. En morgon ger jag mig fan ut och cementerar upp ett par härliga vägbulor á la vägbygget, så får vi se vad som händer…

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Next morning we started driving south, first towards Berlin. Really nice roads and pleasant driving weather made this a really quick part, and we quickly passed Berlin and continued towards Prague in the Czech republic, which we arrived at in the afternoon. We made a visit at a famous kennel for Tibetan Mastiffs called Sundari, and got to meet some lovely dogs, and people

Then we punched in Hotel/Motel/Boarding house in the GPS, and ended up a few km down the road, at a motel which looked like something out of a movie. Lots of character, and definately nothing like a motel you’d find in Sweden. Rooms were nice and clean, and incredibly cheap, only 20 euro for a room with bathroom.

The next morning we programmed Budapest into the GPS, which took us on a drive past Bratislava and into Hungary. In prague in the morning the temperature was 12-13 degrees, but as we came to Slovakia and Hungary the temperature rose towards 25 degrees!

We spent almost a week in Hungary. The first 3-4 days offered lovely weather, almost 30 degrees warm, but then the temperature dropped to a more normal 5-10 degrees, rain and wind (it’s not usual to have this warm weather in October in Hungary either).

Our trip home then first took us to Melk, Austria, which we wanted to see because of the book (and film) “Name of the Rose”, where one of the major characters is Adso from Melk. The town of Melk is a cozy little city, with a huge beautiful temple which we took a guided tour of. The library there had many special books, including one from the 9th century!

The next morning we started driving towards Bavaria, Germany. As we came towards Germany the weather started to worry us a bit, since we started getting snow and low temperatures, and we had summer tires on, so we kept to a slow 70-80 km per hour on the autobahn. As we got a bit further into Bavaria the snow turned into rain and the temperature rose. We ended up in a little placed called Niederaula in the neighbourhood of Kassel. If it wasn’t for the GPS we wouldn’t find these places I think. We just drive until we’re tired, and then punch in “nearest hotel/motel”, and go there. So far it’s worked great (if you don’t count that the GPS didn’t have the latest map of Budapest and wanted to take us through central Budapest in the middle of rush hour when there is a motorway ring around the city which we did take, which surely saved us some hours of breathing smog in central Budapest). Going to complain to TomTom about it, since we bought the GPS just some weeks ago, and then you’d expect it to have the latest maps, right?

So, morning in Niederaula, Germany, we had yummy breakfast at the motel and started driving north, past Hannover, Hamburg. We weren’t sure how long we would drive, but as we got further and further north we decided to continue driving to Denmark. We took the ferry Puttgarden – Rödby, and started driving in Denmark. We considered staying in Denmark for the night, but the prices of the hotels seemed a bit steep, and we thought that if we continued driving we would be home tonight, so we went for it. It was quite a lot driving for one day, 1228 km to be exact

So, this was our little vacation Oh, and I had the flu during the first 10 days, so I spent most of the Hungary-part in bed with bad coughing and fewer, but otherwise it was a nice vacation

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