The cat’s out of the bag

Yesterday for the first time I posted the photo of the LEASED sign on my FB page because a) it was such a big milestone I just had to share it and b) I’ve been boring everyone with precious finds from our de-cluttering exercise I felt I just had to put it in context.

So I think it was time to let the cat out of the bag... not that it was ever really in a bag (except with work friends maybe) as I feel like I’ve been thinking and talking about nothing else for months on end, but now that more people know, there are more questions. 

So… here are some answers.

What are we doing?

We are going to Europe for a year. The original plan was to immerse in Spain - to live there - but as we started planning the details of our trip we soon realised that was going to be a tough ask. There’s just too much to do and see over there and we want to see it ALL. We have still chosen Spain to be our base, and will need to establish our residency in Seville (as per visa requirements) before we can start moving around for the rest of the year.

For now, here is what our itinerary looks like:

Dec/Jan – Germany, Austria, Czech Republic (Prague) – finding the spirit and origin of Christmas tradition. And to have a White Christmas!

Jan – Finland, Sweden, Norway (Arctic Circle) – visiting a tired Santa in Lappland and chasing Northern Lights and Polar Nights.

End Jan-Mar – Spain (Seville) - defrosting, catching our breath and speaking Spanish!

Mar-Apr – Spain (Seville), Portugal, Morocco (Chefchaouen)

May/June – France

June/July – Italy and others. Switzerland is in here somewhere – to offload all our winter gear and enjoy free accommodation for a few weeks in a particular place called Zug! Oh and of course to see Switzerland!

Aug – December – Have no idea. Will need to head back to Spain at some stage due to visa restrictions and to speak more Spanish. Anticipate this would be Northern Spain and Balearic islands maybe. If we run low on funds we may find ourselves heading for the most southern island of Spain called the Philippines. That’s a joke btw – the fact that the Philippines is an island of Spain – not that we may head there if funds run low.

All these plans are of course up in the air and the key to this whole journey is our freedom and flexibility - being able to go where we want to when we want to.

Why are we doing it?

There are so many reasons why. The reasons don’t seem to have changed much from when we were planning to do this back in 2013.

With our kids growing up in a multi-cultural society in Australia I feel it’s important for them to be exposed to the world and different cultures. In doing so I hope they come to understand and be more tolerant of cultures and people who are different to them. I want them to have their stereotypes challenged and be educated firsthand about people – not just from a book or someone else’s opinion – but because they have experienced it for themselves in their home environments where we are the foreigners. Where we are the ones who don’t speak their language.

The world and its people are a beautiful place… it feels like a crime not to experience it all. As the famous quote by Saint Augustine goes… “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.”

Then there’s family bonding. Our day to day lives are filled with routine. Wake up, get to work/school, come home… do it all again tomorrow. On winter weekends our days are filled with sporting commitments. When we’re at home, everyone is glued to a screen – a TV, the computer, or a phone. (Warning to kids – those devices will get ‘stolen’ if the same happens on our travels.) We needed something to short circuit the routineness of it all and reconnect with each other. Which is why I feel conflicted between sharing our experience with everyone (which many have requested) or keeping it to ourselves. Not that I don’t want to share it. I can be an ‘over sharer’ at times and I personally love and get inspired reading about other people’s experiences, but it does take time to write and upload photos and I definitely don’t want that to take away from the actual experience. The jury is still out on this one. Although one day I’d love to be able to write a book about it all.

I also think the best test of a relationship is to be able to travel with people. You’ll either end up closer or you will want to kill each other – if not during the trip - by the end of it. I’m hoping we won’t all want to kill each other.

Lastly, Cat is at the age now where she will start making her own decisions, making her own way in the world. Luckily Bee is still a bit of a homebody, and Mig doesn’t get much of a choice. If we don’t do this now, we may never be able to do it as a family.

Life’s too short to wonder about ‘what ifs’. More importantly no one is guaranteed a tomorrow. My Dad passed away suddenly at 46…. yes 46. Our age. One day he was there, next day he was gone. No warning. At the time I remember being grateful that his youngest (me) was already 18 – at least my mum was not left with young kids she would have to raise by herself. Now I realise he was way too young.

So the simplest way to answer the question why we’re doing this is… why not? 

Many people have expressed envy, wishing they could do it too. The truth is if you really want to, anyone could. There's nothing special about us. We're not "loaded", some distant relative hasn't died and left an inheritance nor have we won the Lotto. The one thing that we do have going for us though is our health (although for some even an illness doesn't stop them). So if you want to do it - go for it! There is nothing stopping anyone from doing the same - not the money, not the time, not the career.

That’s it for now. I need to get back to packing. I will save the ‘How’ for next time.

I will end this with a corny but apt quote - one that I've had on my FB profile since I created it as it succinctly explains how I want to live my life.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover" - Mark Twain

The LEASE has been signed!

Today we hit a milestone – we found a tenant for our home and the lease has been signed!

I came home from work and the FOR LEASE sign had been pasted over with a LEASED sticker – sending me into a split-second “What have we done??” moment. Of course, this was no surprise as the agent had texted me as soon as the contract had been signed, not to mention the numerous texts and conversations in the days prior about approving this particular tenant. Nevertheless, seeing it on our front lawn was a bit of a reality slap in the face. I can’t imagine how I would have felt if it was a SOLD sign!

The tenants look like a nice young family – mum, dad and a small child. They reminded me of how we were when we moved in 17 years ago. The Universe has a funny way of working. When we had the first (and only) Open Home, there was a group of 10-12 people waiting to come in as we were leaving. In front of the group I spotted a young family with mum carrying a young girl in her arms. We got in the car to leave and I turned to Hubby - “I want them”, I said referring to the young family. I then forgot about them and we went about our weekend wondering how on earth we would keep our house spotless until the next Open Home the following week – until I got an email with all the details for an application from the agent late Sunday night. It was them!

In the days following there were other applicants from that Open Home but the agent and I ruled them out in favour of this one.

Tenant selection is an interesting process, one which I thought would be way harder for our beloved family home. While the usual boxes need to be ticked, I tend to rely heavily on gut. Luckily we had a strong candidate that ticked all the boxes AND felt right so we didn’t want to lose them to another home.

I’ve since stalked them on FB (they really should improve their security settings) and they seem just like the people I’d be happy to entrust our home to while we’re away…so I’m relieved to have that uncertainty resolved. The real estate agent has done all the other background checks to make sure they’re good tenants as it will be his problem to deal with if they aren’t.

SO…we will officially be homeless a few days before we fly out and start our journey on December 3.

Spanish Residency Visa granted

Today I picked up our passports with long stay residence visas for Spain! Woohooo!!!!

After what felt like the end of the world a few months ago (or the end of our year away at least) has managed to sort itself out – like it always does. The Spanish Consulate in Sydney eventually opened in late July and I quickly got our application underway conscious of the 3-month lead time required. 

The email approval came through 3 weeks later! So we went from a risk of not having enough time (to allow for a French visa application as well) to suddenly having too much time and being at risk of the visa being issued too early. Thankfully I somehow became ‘best buddies’ with my contact at the Spanish Consulate and she advised she could delay the issuing of the visa for another 30 days to the end of September, then delay the visa start date to the end of December… after which we would need to enter Spain within 3 months to establish our residency. Since we were planning to be in Spain by end of January that worked fine!

Cat and Bee’s Spanish passports were received a few months back as expected so they’re all set. In theory, they will be able to travel and work without restriction while in Europe… except on this trip they’ll be stuck with us so they’ll just have to save that for another time.

The French long stay visa was a ‘no go’. We went to the French Consulate in Sydney ready to lodge our visa application only to find out we couldn’t do it from Sydney. The visa requires us to enter France 3 months from the date of issue and since we don’t plan to be in France until sometime in late April or May that wasn’t going to work. The other option for us would be to apply for our French long stay visa from Madrid which is still a possibility but may require the cancellation of our Spanish long-stay visas. So we’re not sure about that one.

Given our current status, the plan is to base ourselves in Spain while using the maximum 3-month stay in every 6-month period travelling through other parts of the Schengen and non-Schengen areas visa-free. We’ve had to shuffle around some of our plans and will need to keep an eye on how long we are in the Schengen area but I’m no longer too worried about this. We’ll make it work… somehow. I feel incredibly grateful that we’re even in a position to do this and we’ll just have to make do with what we have.

On the work front, Hubby has had is career break approved. My one is in progress and looking good. This is a bonus! I wasn’t sure whether we would both be lucky enough to get this but it looks like we will. Knowing we have something to come back to - especially since I actually like my job and the people I work with, not to mention we’ll probably be broke - is definitely a bonus.

Packing is well underway. Hubby and I have had to divide and conquer with exactly 2 months to the day before we fly out on December 3. December 3?! 2 months?! Yes! We’re booked! One-way tickets to Frankfurt, Germany where we start our year away!

Hubby has been glued to his laptop finalising flight and accommodation bookings for the first couple of months until we arrive in Spain towards the end of January to catch our breath, while I’ve been covered in dust and boxes trying to rid ourselves of the clutter of the past 17 years in this house. After 4 car loads to Salvos to donate items and 19 boxes packed for storage (do I even want to keep that many boxes?), it looks like I’ve done nothing. I knew we had a lot of crap but really??!

With the Salvos furniture donation pick up already booked for next week, the next step will be to schedule the Council pick up and skip bins for anything that can’t be donated. It’s been such a liberating experience getting rid of all that “stuff”… the material baggage that weighs us down and keeps us anchored to a location. I can’t wait until all we have left are the suitcases we will be taking with us for a year on the road.

Speaking of suitcases… Cat almost had a conniption when I announced we would have to make everything fit in 2 large suitcases and 2 carry-on bags… for all 5 of us! Just her make-up alone would take up an entire carry-on - I don’t know why when she doesn’t even need it! Needless to say the jury is still out on the family baggage allowance which will be way less than the airline baggage allowance if we want our things to fit in a rental car without having to hire a trailer. So packing our bags will be interesting…

A lot has happened over the past few months with even more to happen in these final 2 months. Our to-do list runs a mile long. Our conversations are centred around what needs to be done, what to get rid of, what to keep. When I’m not at work, I’m doing something in preparation for the trip – whether it’s selecting the agent to manage the rental of our home while we’re away or finding out what to do with our mail or finalising details for Bee and Mig’s schooling there’s always something to do – which is partly the reason why I’m writing these updates.

When we finally leave, to the outside world it may look like we’ve just quit our jobs, packed our bags and jumped on a plane. While I wish that were true, the reality couldn’t be further from the truth. When a family of 5 goes away for a year, it’s simply not that easy – but it’s not impossible either. Everything about preparing for this trip has been carefully planned - the timing, the savings plan, the schooling, the visas, and to a lesser extent the itinerary. Ironically, planning and preparing for this trip has taken as much time, if not longer, than the actual trip itself.

Which leads me to end with this thought…will a year away really be long enough?

Visa dramas continue...

A lot has happened in just over 2 weeks. Sometimes it feels like it’s been longer than that so it’s great that this blog gives me some perspective.

The Spanish Consulate General in Sydney is still on strike – going onto a month now – and Canberra has been forced to take on the Sydney load. We drove to the Spanish Embassy in Canberra last week to get Cat and Bee’s Spanish passports renewed which went without a hitch thanks to all the prep work before the 6-hour return trip. I was told they should arrive in the mail within 3 weeks.

Our visas on the other hand are another story… and right now I just want to crawl in a hole and cry. I won’t go into the details here but long story short is that we will need to apply for a Spanish long-stay visa (no work) and we’ve decided to apply for a French long stay visa as well. The reason for this is so we can break up our year using both Spain and France as our base, while travelling to the other Schengen countries using the 90-day visa free period allowed to Australian citizens.

At this stage I'm too emotionally exhausted to even write about it. I'm just thanking my lucky stars that we weren't counting on Hubby finding work there to make this plan work. The biggest frustration comes from thinking how much easier this would have been if Hubby just had his Spanish citizenship rather than facing what is. I need to work on that one...

Overcoming obstacles...

I feel like I’ve been talking about this plan forever. It’s been 3 years in the making. Ever since our last trip to Europe in 2013 we always knew we wanted to go back – for much longer. 

We decided 2018 was going to be the year. Cat would have finished Year 12 so this could be her gap year before Uni, Bee would be in Year 9 – not a critical high school year, Mig would be in Year 4. If we didn’t do it in 2018 as a family, it was unlikely we’d ever be able to do it once the kids started going their own way.

To kick start that plan many things were put in place. For starters, I sold my business and went back to permanent part-time work so we could start saving. So you could say that this plan (although sometimes it felt like a pipe dream) has been bubbling under the surface for quite some time.

We’re now in July, 5 months before our planned departure of December 2017 and I’m starting to freak out. Just typing that sentence puts butterflies in my stomach. The last 12 months has been nothing short of an emotional roller coaster with us finding out Hubby's mum was sick, then losing her a few months later to cancer. I’ve never had any experience dealing with someone so sick, let alone a parent, so this is something that I felt pulled the rug from under our feet a bit. So much so we were suddenly uncertain if we could still go ahead as planned. As it turns out, going away has now become a need rather than a want.

By the time we returned to our routines after Hubby’s mum’s passing, it was already May. And to help Hubby heal from the loss, I felt like we needed to focus on what was ahead of us. It was time to get things into gear for our year away. So while we’ve technically been planning this for 3 years, I feel like we’re behind the 8-ball a bit when it comes to logistically pulling it off.

And as with all great plans, there are always a few good curve balls that test your resilience. And as if we needed another one thrown our way, we got one anyway - when just over a week ago we found out that Hubby had lost his Spanish citizenship in 2006. Yup! In 2006! Heaven knows what we were even doing or thinking in 2006! So 6 months out from a trip we have been planning for the past 3 years and we find out that the very foundation that would enable our entire trip does not exist.

How could we not have known this before, I hear you ask. Don’t worry. I asked myself the same thing. You see, Hubby renewed his Spanish passport in 2010. Then in 2011, our marriage was registered with the Spanish Consulate in Sydney and a Libro de Familia was issued – an official document that registers the marriage and births of children to a Spanish citizen. In 2012, all 3 kids were issued their Spanish passports. To us, everything looked normal. We knew the kids’ passports needed to be renewed so I started the process a few weeks ago with the Spanish Consulate in Sydney. Plenty of time I thought. It was only June, we are planning to leave in December.

I’ll never forget the moment I read the email from the Consulate advising us that Hubby was no longer a Spanish citizen – and neither was Mig. I was in Melbourne for work and was shaking. I couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the day. How could this happen?? They both had Spanish passports. J’s was still valid. M’s had expired so they wouldn’t renew it. Luckily Cat and Bee have managed to retain their citizenship so renewal will be allowed.

This is still an open dilemma with no clear solution. In what is almost a comical twist of events (if I don’t laugh I could cry), the Spanish Consulate in Sydney went on an indefinite strike 2 days after delivering us the blow leaving us in limbo. They are still closed and the Spanish Embassy in Canberra has advised they’re unable to assist with citizenship enquiries as Sydney is outside their jurisdiction. Watch this space!