As days go by and weeks turns into months, the daily life and routine I imagined constantly change. One of my main interest while traveling is meeting other people. Whether they are 18 og 55 years of age is not one of my worries, because I know I can learn from them and turn their personalities into one of my benefits. In this very moment, there is one person that constantly is a target for my curiosity.

The 20th of June this year, while trying to look for a Spanish professor at the university of Mérida, Venezuela, I had to kill some time while waiting for an appointment. As internet cafées were rather easy to find in Mérida and with no knowledge of what to do or where to go, I decided on checking my mails. I had recieved a mail from Tina.

Tina and I have a 3,5 years history between us. We have been dating, been a couple, splittet up, started over again, having lots of fun, developed each other, shouted at each other and been the best of friends. Our past has been quite different than other pasts I have had the pleasure of getting to know but to me, I wouldn’t want to trade one second of our ups and downs for anything in this world. Tina is the most giving, caring and fun person I know and her friendship, our moments and our past have developed me much farther than I could have done on my own. Her optimism, values and vision of life in general is sometimes irritatingly astonishing but most of the time, I cannot do anything else than admire her qualities. She means everything to me - something I know and hope will not change in the future. We are currently not a couple but an event some weeks before I left Denmark, have changed our lifes drastically.

Mails are allways welcome when one is traveling and any small signs of life from the life that is waiting at home can make a huge difference in a travellers daily life. Opening my hotmail inbox as usual, nothing unusual seemed to appear. Although Tina is a very intelligent woman, her stubbornness sometimes get the best of her. Clearly informed that I am traveling and that I have bought my very own domain name for the purpose, she still uses my old adress. Not to worry, though - I check all my accounts regularly, and even if someone sends mail to my hotmail, I will read it. Mails from Tina are normally the first one I open, because they can by many occasion contain huge surprises of both positive and negative character. This day, Tina wrote me a very short mail. She wanted me to call home.

I called. She talked. I got shocked. She got silent. I got silent. I lost words. We were pregnant.

My situation were as follows: Alone in South America, searching for Spanish tutoring and with only 6 days of history in the town. What to do?

Her situation were as follows: Alone in Denmark, pregnant, searching for answers and with a potential father half way around the world. What to do?

This was not a situation I was prepared for and I definitely have had no previous experience to help me coming through it. So what do one do, when ones ex-girlfriend tells you that a life has been created? You do exactly the one thing that feels absolutely natural and 100% inappropriate in that kind of situation. Shouting “WHAT???” loudly enough to attract the attention from the other people outside my little phonebooth and following this question with “and it is mine??”. Even though this is not the preferred response any freshly pregnant woman would like to get, it is actually hard to imagine another propriate response. Especially when the pregnancy is not planned. So what do one do, when one is thousand of miles from home and recieves a message like this? You do exactly the things that feels absolutely natural and 100% inappropriate.

Spending over one hour on the phone I can’t really admit being proud of neither my vocabulary nor my skills in maintaining a conversation. Mostly unable to construct sentences of complexity exeeding the level of a first grader, I actually did not speak for more than 10 minutes. Not because Tina did most of the talking. Stricktly because when something sneaks up on you from behind, it is natural to get some sort of surprised. And when one is surprised, the ability to speak is one of the first abilities that leaves your brain. Since I was not surprised in a really scary movie kind of way, I did not feel the urge to scream. On the contrary - silence was my preferred state of mind. After the rather quiet phonecall, thinking made up the next next stage of my reaction.

Being pregnant under these circumstances, there are actually only two considerations to handle. Do we keep it or not? The reasoning for both of the options were painstaking and neither of the possibilities felt absolutely natural nor 100% inappropriate. As this blog entry indeed is beeing written, the outcome of our reasoning was clearly to complete the pregnancy. Now I just have to work on and get used to the idea, that I will become a father.

Although I prior to this never have seriously considered fatherhood, babies and children are not individuals that scare me. Dipers, sleepless nights and long hours of crying on the other hand, have never been an attractive though in my mind. Now it is a reality and I have to develop my ability to overcome these unwanted activities in my life. I would be dishonest saying that I am looking forward to performing the activities like mentioned above and I just hope that when the fatherly instinct really kicks in, these things becomes a piece of chocolate chip cake.

It is very strange sitting on the other side of the world knowing that someones stomach grows by the minute a thousand miles away. It can be hard to comprehend the reality of the situation and my excitement and happiness for our decision grows by the minute. I daily consider the appropriate time for returning to Denmark but the decision is genuinly not easy to make. When all parameters are accounted for, I need to do whatever feels right to me - even though it might seem like the exactly opposite of the absolutely natural and 100% appropriate. I have almost daily contact with Tina and she is still handling the situation perfectly - being very strong and considerate both for me and the little person inside of her. I could not think of a better woman to mother my baby. The baby is a boy and he is already waving to the world outside of the comfort of Tinas belly - however tight is must feel staying in there.

This is Trial and Error Traveling at best. Leaving home for a significant period of time with nothing more than money to worry about and ending up with an at least 18 years long change in your life. As all my unexpected experiences so far on this trip, this is far from different. I am looking forward to the continuation of the story even though I have no idea of what to do next. So what do one do when this kind of situation arise? One does exactly the thing that seems absolutely natural and 100% inappropriate: one panic, forget all knowledge of which way is up or down on a baby, start comfort eating, silently freak out and ask everyone possible the same question.

How does a baby actually work??