ERT Day 1

European Road Trip Day 1

Friday 1 July 2022

Today was not like every other day.

Why?

Because today we were off to Västerås City Hall to get some papers signed. What papers, you might ask?

Well, to become Mr. & Mrs. Mayers! 🤵🏽👰🏼

But, as written in yesterday's post, it didn't start out great 🤣 Kim never finished cutting the video, so in the morning Lukas helped finishing the video while Kim got ready in the morning. It was total chaos, but it worked out. Kinda.

Because of this we ended up driving to Västerås sliiiightly too late (in true Kim & Lukas fashion). Our wedding officiant was of course informed.

So we arrived at the parking lot slightly stressed out, said hi to our dear friends Elin and Mikael who was going to be our witnesses and started walking straight away toward the City Hall.

Out of the corner of her eye, Kim spotted a car she knew! But we were in a hurry, so we didn't think much more of that.

Unfortunately though, today was also Västerås City Festival. We were supposed to be there at 10 and the festival would start 12, but they had kind of blocked our entrance to the City Hall. So we lost a few minutes going all around the building and looking for the right door in the middle of the festival area. But we found it!

Elin and Mikael walked away for a moment with the officiant, and then it was our turn to walk into the Red Room where the short ceremony would be held. It was just a few minutes long, but still made us cringe a bit on the inside, and we were both glad we were just doing this for 5 minutes rather than the "regular wedding thing" with all that comes with it. Simply not for us.

Finally it was over, and we had some photos taken, and then we headed back out again. There Kim's parents showed up (which was the car Kim noticed earlier) and congratulated us and we took photos together.

Afterwards, all of us headed to Café Gränden (so fancy 😂) and had lunch together, and talked a lot. It was really nice, and we all got so full we didn't feel like having fika afterwards. Time also passed super quickly so suddenly it was noon, and several of us needed to leave.

At the car we got some "wedding gifts" aka roadtrip snacks from Kim's parents, hugged each other and said goodbye. And also sent in the papers for Kim's name change. Because yes, Kim is getting a new surname 😱

On our way south we stopped a few times, both to stretch our legs, change driver but also, of course, for Kim to find some geocaches. Especially in some new municipalities. We stopped in Ödeshög (Brahehus), Vaggeryd, a longer break in Gnosjö (Stora Mosse), Värnamo and Hässleholm.

Brahehus

Stora Mosse

When we came to Sjöbo, the municipality just before Ystad, it was already dark. But also rainy, windy and cold. Such an extreme change from the blazing hot temperatures we've been used to having. Here it felt like autumn. Especially so because it got dark so much earlier than just a few hours North.

In Ystad we took one last geocache and threw our recycling. Then it was time to head onto the boat to spend half of our wedding night there 😂

We found our way to our booked seats. Some tiny leather seats that was way too close to the seat in front of us.

We headed out and the motions of the sea soon made Lukas seasick. Our seats were also by a door, something that you might think was something good, because then you get fresh air some now and then, right? No! Since people were smoking outside, strong winds of smoke blew in when the door opened, which didn't exactly help with the nauseua. Kim eventually fell asleep though, and slept a little bit but got a super sore neck from the bad sleeping position she was in. Lukas on the other hand hardly slept at all, he could, as usual, barely fit in the seat.

So, after about two hours and some very bad sleep, we had to get back to the car, drive it through a dark Germany and try to find somewhere to sleep for the night.

We ended up finding a spot near a trail head without prohibition signs, where someone with a roof tent was already standing, and here we stopped, and fell sleep rather quickly. We just had a thin silk linen in the car, so Kim slept super bad because she was freezing so much.

So that was that, our wonderful wedding night as a newly married couple 😜

Start: Home ❤️

End: Bergen auf Rügen, Germany

Via: Västerås, Sweden

Stora Mosse, Sweden

Ystad, Sweden

Toilet fees: €0

Parking fees: €0