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?