The Traveler's Theory

Introduction

Patrick and Giulia Dubel met in a hostel, in a small village in Germany in 1989. Some would call it love at first sight, but in all honesty, it was love at first sight of  the other's passport. Both Giulia and Patrick were experienced backpackers by then, their love for traveling completely ruled their lives.

Patrick was a writer who wrote about his experiences in a much  more interesting way than they actually happened. Like if he saw two guys fighting over a mango cart, he'd add in some dragons and swords and make it a best selling novel.

Giulia on the other hand, was living off her parents' money. Claiming she needed to 'find' who she was before she let herself get dragged in to the average upper-middle class lifestyle of the suburbs. Though, she found who she was after her first two months of traveling. And she couldn't be a suburban housewife. It just wasn't possible.

I guess that's what brought them so close, their similarities were extreme. Patrick had backpacked through China and India, he was only in Europe to get a visa for the middle eastern countries. Giulia had traveled solo through most of the Western countries, had been doing so since she was 18.                              It must have been fate, that they were both in that small village, in that same hostel together.                   It was such a great coincidence, even the owner of the hostel was taken aback by their instant adoration for each other, and he had seen many travelers come in and talk the nights away with people of their likeness.

Just three months after they met, Giulia became pregnant, the two's love was as strong then as it wow the first night in the hostel. 

They were in Prague, when Giulia started having trouble keeping up with Patrick on all their adventures, she'd wake up vomiting and the feeling of being ill never seemed to fade. At first, they both thought she was just a little under the weather, didn't think much of it. Until one night at three in the morning when Patrick couldn't stand seeing the love of his life in anymore pain. 

"Giulia, I'm just going to walk to the petrol station a few miles up the road. Would you like anything?" he asked, fearing she might not want him to leave. It wasn't until after he asked did he realize she wasn't even awake, laying on the dirty hostel mattress sleeping like the dead. 

He smiled at her in her sleeping state and started up the road towards where he hoped to find a pregnancy test.

That's basically how it happened, at least. Patrick bought a test, went back to the hostel and made Giulia take it, yada yada yada. She was pregnant, as he thought and 7 months later they had a son. They called him William, Liam for short. He was born in Avignon, France in November of 1989. Life seemed perfect. The Dubel's still traveled every waking moment of their lives, they somehow managed to not run out of money even though Patrick hadn't published a book in just under a year. Little Liam had more stamps on his passport then there was days in his life. It was amazing, and they loved every minute of it.

That was, until a second pregnancy, this one more planned then the first, was mixed in. And even though the Dubels wanted two children, that's all they wanted. Liam and a little sibling, not Liam and two little siblings.

 But in the summer of 1991, that's exactly what they got. June 22nd, Raven Jacqueline Dubel and Finn Cameron Dubel were born. This made life much more complicated, finding hostels that will let full families with three kids stay, and hiking up mountains with more small children than you can carry is never easy, and Liam was at that annoying age where he was too big to carry everywhere but too small to walk on his own for long periods which made everything worse.

Due to their lives falling apart before their eyes, Patrick decided to buy 'a home' as he called it. It wasn't a house, but it was what they needed. Patrick bought a cheap, yet still extremely nice, RV. Instead of walking and taking trains with all their new baby stuff [and babies] they just packed it all in the car and drove around with it. Thus making their perfect lives perfect again, this worked for another 2 and a half years until Giulia and Patrick had yet another child. Another boy, Maximilian "Max" was born in December 1993.

The Dubels weren't a very traditional family, as literally anyone could tell, they didn't celebrate Christmas like you'd think. They were Catholic but they didn't have the money to spoil their kids that time of year so Christmases were always just a time to go obsess over German Christmas markets. So having a child born in December wasn't a problem.

What was a problem about Maximilian was the fact that he was mute. He communicated through a series of moans and pointing. Around the family it was fine, but when you're touring the Vatican and your child starts grunting like a gorilla to get your attention, that's when it gets in the way.

If you thought the family was complete, with 9 year old Liam, 7 year olds Raven and Finn and 3 year old Max, you were almost right, but not quite. They had one more child. A total accident, but still a blessing. In May of 2002, their surprise child [and most definitely their last one] Anastasia Mariza Dubel was born. 

The family still fit in to their original RV,  they still had the money to travel around all the time, and patrick and Giulia started teaching the three eldest children basic English and math. Though most of their educating was done in the amazing places they went. Raven had such a love for the Renaissance, she could spit more Michelangelo facts at you than your toughest History teacher ever could.

And they were happy. Their little family made up completely of accidents, fate, and coincidences, was happier than any 'traditional' family I've ever heard of, so I don't think it matters all too much that Liam has no friends, or that they don't have an actual 'home'. Because as far as they're concerned, Wherever they're together is home.