Packing... from Nancy's perspective

How do you even begin to start packing for a year-long trip?  For this reason I was able to justify procrastinating the dreaded task of figuring out what my favorite 100 pounds of clothes were (my luggage allowance) until just a few days before our departure…

Once I finally realized that it was TIME, I scoured the internet for packing suggestions – items that we should definitely bring with us, such as prescriptions, a warm jacket (which I would end up wearing on the plane, uncomfortable when it was 90* when we were leaving Atlanta), and other basic clothing that would be good for layering; versus items that would be cheaper and more logical to leave behind and buy in Europe, a blow drier, “cute heels” – Todd was adamant that I had to leave all of my “fun” shoes behind, and big heavy items like lotion/shampoo/conditioner, etc.  I went through a few rounds of cuts (it kind-of felt like rush) and enlisted the willing help of my mom to help me choose between “this dress OR that one.”  Once my piles of clothes on the floor (see pictures below) started to shrink, I decided it was time to go ahead and start packing… I’ve always heard rolling your clothes is the best way for them to travel, not only to save space, but to also cut down on wrinkles, weird, I know!  So I started rolling… and quickly realized one thing it wouldn’t help with was the weight of my bag.  Todd and I were flying on British Airways and we were each given 1 bag included in the price of our flight. But, it’s amazing how quickly one bag fills up.   We decided (Todd begrudgingly) that it made sense to pay for an additional bag as well (60 Euro apiece – this was the first “ugh!” when we thought about the conversion rate $1.40=1 Euro).  I started to panic a little after I filled up my BIG suitcase, with only my big backpack and carry-on to go… I still had a lot of stuff to pack, which brought me to yet another round of cuts.  Once I finally squeezed everything into my bags, I started to feel a little better… until I tried to put on my backpack realizing that actually putting on my bag would require a little bit of Todd’s help (which he wasn’t happy about, “you need to learn to put it on like a true backpacker, Nancy” (insert Todd voice) but I think he felt bad when we weighed it and it weighed close to half my weight – see picture below). 

At this point it’s Sunday afternoon, and we started to stress a little bit about the weight of our bags, especially since we were leaving in just a few hours  Since my parents don’t own a scale we asked Todd’s parents to bring a scale with them to our “last dinner” in the States so we could get an idea of how much our bags weighed before the dreaded check-in where you’re unpacking your bag at the counter with people waiting, and muttering under their breath behind you, as you rearrange jeans/shoes from one bag to another to make sure you’re not so much as a ½ pound over the weight limit. 

So… in the parking lot of Coldbrew Sports Bar & Grill in Roswell we weighed our bags one-by-one.  We were shocked when they all weighed in the 35-55 range (which turned out to be surprising accurate and close to the airport’s scales), and we definitely felt relieved to know that we could do a little bit of juggling to get everything to fit within the proper weight limit.   

It was sad to say goodbye to all of our friends and family, as we know that we’ll miss you all so much during our time abroad, but we are thankful for technology to help us keep in touch with everyone via e-mail/Facebook/Skype/FaceTime/ and our blog, and more importantly we hope to have enough visitors to continually remind us of home.

Nancy's clothes #1

Nancy's clothes #2

Todd's clothes. Simple.

My bag literally weighs almost 1/2 of me!

Getting ready to leave the house - the packed out trunk of my parent's CR-V.

Keep in mind it's 90* in this picture... Todd is ready to go with all of his layers on!

Our last dinner in the States.

The idea of Spain.

¡Hola!  Welcome to el blog (that’s Spanish for ‘the blog’) documenting our time in Spain.  If you're reading this, we really appreciate your interest in our journey and we will try our hardest to make it mildly entertaining, possibly even humorous, we just don’t want to set your expectations too high, yet.

Over our next year abroad, we want to make sure that we are taking the time to collect all of our own thoughts and experiences (in between siestas, cervezas, and paella, of course). Through this blog we hope we can share our 305-day adventure with all of our friends and family while we live out one of our dreams.  Please comment on our posts (so we know there is at least a somewhat interested audience) and continue to keep up with us via e-mail/Facebook.

Our journey actually began 14 months ago when we started researching opportunities that would allow us to fulfill one of our shared dreams – to live abroad.  In July 2010, Todd connected with a friend that was participating in a teaching English program in a different country, and after we learned that the same program also existed in Spain.  Getting paid while living in Spain (oh, we would have to work ... for 12 hours a week) -- our interest was peaked!

After printing out a 60 page ‘brochure’ we quickly realized our Spanish skills were a little rusty.  Nevertheless, we made quite a large investment in time in order to translate all of the requirements, timelines, etc.  Once we decided we wanted to move forward with the application process, we wanted to apply right away as the program was based on a ‘first come, first serve’ basis.   We were disappointed to learn that the application process didn’t open for three more months, but we were finally able to submit our applications in November 2010.  From this point, it was a waiting game.  We quickly learned about the pace of ‘la vida Española’ – we were forced to wait since there was not a single person to contact to confirm or update the status of our application.  The brochure said that we should hear back by July 2011 – about eight months after we applied!  This obviously created some uncertainty, since we were also planning our wedding and new life together.

As excited as we were, we tried not to be too excited with our friends, in case something didn’t work out.  It was very difficult to constantly downplay our excitement, even to our friends.  Worse, with strangers, sometimes we wouldn't even bring it up.  We knew there was a realistic chance that something might not work out for us to take a one-year adventure abroad and a year off from “real life”. (*Todd won’t admit it’s a part of our honeymoon because he has to work, even if it’s only 12 hours a week.)  It became more and more difficult to downplay our excitement as the months dragged on and more and more people wanted to know what we were going to do after we got married.

We finally received an acceptance to the program in April.  However, the letter only stated that we would be placed in the same region (Andalucia), but that we would have to wait another few months to find out if we were going to be placed in the same city!   It became stressful when we had to make career decisions based on the possibility of being placed together in the same city, not to mention the stress of planning our wedding at the same time… (if it sounds like we are redundant, we probably are, but it was very difficult!).  When we finally received our acceptance letters the WEEK of our wedding, explaining that we would be teaching in the same town, it was the best wedding present we didn't register for!

Where's Waldo?  See if you can find Linares, Spain.