Stina

*This post goes with the emotional song below. 

I'll interrupt the normal programming of the blog to talk about my other travel partner.

Today is my birthday (I'll tell you all about the awesome things we did when the time for that story comes).

 I turned 29.

29, 11 countries, and countless random adventures. And for most of those adventures, my beautiful, old and basic backpack Stina was with me.

Today, on my birthday, I finally assumed that she's too broken to keep going. As Chey nicely puts it, she has decided to go into retirement.

Stina's many war wounds. That white thing is the padding of the backside.

You might think I'm a little bit old to get so over-attached to a thing. Maybe it just comes from the fact that I was a very lonely child and I always had a tendency to believe my things had feelings. I named them, and talked about them as friends. I might not be completely normal.

But the meaning this one object has to me is enormous, I could say she symbolises the life I chose to live.

Me and Stina (and Chey's backpack), waiting for a lift.

 If that backpack could talk, she could tell you wonderful stories of the road. Of meeting great people, climbing mountains, roaming the streets of exotic cities and living in boats. It's over 15 years old, and I think it deserves to go with a little bit of a tribute.

...

While I'm sitting in our beautiful room here in Uruguay (does everyone know the blog has not caught up with real life us yet?), I prepare myself emotionally to change my worldly belongings from the old backpack to the new one. Chey makes me smile making an impression of a news reporter telling the story live for TV. And I know that this is how it goes.