The happy sandwich

When in home, I have a whole kitchen for myself. It has about 10m2! Can you imagine Of course you can. But when you got used to living in a van which is 6m long and your kitchen is 1 x 0,5m big, you forget about the cooking comfort. Each time I go through the same steps in travelling in a van.

1. We pack the van and I realise how small it is comparable to our apartment. This will be our living space for the next months. It makes me very excited. No, I do not think about cooking at all. I think about our adventures. I get a bit scared of opening the roof in our car in random parking spots, but then I think about people sleeping wildness in a tent. If they are ok with this, I should be as well.

2. We start driving and for the first week or so I try to figure out, what is the best place for different things. How to make preparation of my morning coffee most comfortable, not only for me, mostly for a 3 year old still asleep behind a thin fabric. Usually the perfect packing balance is achieved one week before the end of the travel. Just imagine the perfect balance of your place. So worth working on it for about 3 months.

3. Travel blues – I discovered it years ago on my first long and lonely travel in South America. Even though you are super happy and excited about doing what you love, travel blues come to you. It usually happens in the beginning, like 2-3 week. You see your friends having fun in sunny Berlin (social media show you everything), you think of your cats hugging a cat sitter and you start to miss home. Thankfully, this strange feeling disappears as fast as it comes.

4. You realise that you get used to your new lifestyle and this is your life now. 6m2, cooking in it, taking a shower, looking for a source of water to refill the 100l tank, refilling your small storage place, so you have lunch and dinner options for at least two days. Someone asked me lately, what is my routine. It’s just like at home, it just includes driving and looking for a spot to park for the night.

5. You compare to the previous year. But mostly when it comes to your kid. This year she’s 3,5 and the travel is totally different. No afternoon naps, which gave me loads of additional time for work. She gets up earlier and go to sleep later (I do not like this change). She is curious and more into running around, which I love, but forgets about reading a book. This year I definitely feel that we hang out more and that we get each other more.

6. You realise that some things are long gone and they will never come back. Last year I could easily prepare breakfast for my blog and shoot it. This year it looks like Mia has decided that she needs to take a big part in it. Mostly by eating all the products beforehand and by tasting the styling objects straight away. In the end my shooting session takes about 3 minutes, but watching her discussing my food is my favourite kind of time.

7. Surprisingly, after 2 months you realise that you don’t want to go back to your comfy apartment. You want to keep on travelling. You already love sitting early in the morning and reading a book with small breaks to admire a view from behind the window. You love getting up and quietly preparing your coffee so no-one wakes up. And you definitely adore this precious moment when you hear “mama” from behind the curtain and you know that the tiny person is awake and that she wants to hug you. Then obviously she wants to take over the warm place where you’ve been sitting in and she will start thinking out loud what is it that she’d like to have for breakfast this particular morning (always porridge with banana) and the whole day goes crazy fast. Then at some point you realise that it’s 9pm and once again it is already too late and that she is supposed to be asleep and that she’s not even close (all because of the summer light).

This recipe takes about 2 minutes to prepare. It also takes 2 minutes to shoot, as that was the time given to me by Mia. When I asked her if she could go on a beach with her dad so I take some pictures, she answered “no, thank you”. So you get the idea. Somehow it makes me happy, as I concentrate on eating most.

Another beautiful thing about travelling is that you learn a lot all the time. We stopped at our friends place in York to say hello. We stayed with them for the next 24h (longer hello) and meantime I learned how to make this beautiful sandwich and also that I love my friends. I haven’t seen Ania since her wedding a couple of years ago, but one day with her gave me so much pleasure. Obviously the next 24h after we left were all about missing her. So I recreated the sandwich. I replaced pomegranate with raspberries, as the first ones were nowhere to be found and I am sharing it with you. This is the happy sandwich.