The learning process and new decisions....

With the prospect of Mike going blind now firmly behind us and both of us working hard to get back into decent physical shape to minimize any future health issues, it was time for some hard evaluation.

We had learned that we did like being on the ground in another place and a different culture.  We had learned that the Charles Schwab checking account worked exactly as advertised and was perfect for us.  We had learned how to use Gmail and Facebook in ways that suited us.  We had learned that we absolutely hated flying long distances and we had realized we would now never be content without some significant exposure to other people and cultures in our lives.

The Peace Corps seemed like a perfect way to begin that process of living at least part of our lives outside the United States.  We continued to work on all the medical forms, made appointments for doctors, dentists, lab-work, diagnostic procedures and continued to move that process forward.  We had made the decision when we went to Spain for the TEFL course that we would live in the residencia, a far different environment than we had ever used for vacations (we had been of the 4 and 5 star resort and golf course mentality).  While it was a new experience for us it was also a rewarding one the we thoroughly enjoyed.

Our new perspective was that the Peace Corps would really take us back to our roots and help us learn to live very simply and frugally.  We started to realize that our perspective on the entire world and how we would live in it had changed.  Gone was the desire for more stuff or to recreate our American lifestyle and in its place was an insatiable curiosity about other people, places and cultures and a desire to not only see them but to live and experience life with them.

Suddenly it was time to seriously start getting rid of stuff.  We did not know exactly what the future would look like but we knew that we had some significant changes to make.  The house had to go, being a long distance land lord just did not have any appeal to us.  Getting it on the market became a priority for the summer.

First and most important we had taken the time over the holidays to explain to our two daughters what we were thinking.  They actually both thought the Peace Corps was a really cool idea and they were very happy for us.  They had mixed emotions when we told them we had decided to sell the house and that these could be the last holidays we celebrated in this house we had lived in for 17 years.  Then the really big thing….here are your sticky notes, go through the house, pretend we died, and mark anything you want to keep:  books, furniture, artwork, kitchen supplies, everything.  Difficult for them, easy for us!

We actually figured that we would need some kind of small storage unit for the things we would want to keep, thinking that we would need some furniture and maybe a few boxes of things to get restarted with when we came back to the States.  Assuming that we would leave for the Peace Corps sometime in the next 18 months as planned, we would be getting through sometime in 2014, and who knew what we would want to do at that point.

Then the real work began, with more learning, like how to use Ebay and Craig’s list, how to figure out what you should try to get for stuff you haven’t seen for 10 years,  and what charities you want to give things to that you either can’t or don’t want to sell. 

We also had to learn how to manage what we were calling our “leave behind” budget.  A storage unit, life insurance policies, property taxes, and all the other little things that we would still need to pay for even if we were living somewhere else. 

Learning new ways of dealing with each other was no small task either.  Never, in our entire married life had we spent so much time together.  We needed to work as hard on making our relationship work for both of us as we did on all the other stuff.   Two very strong personalities making tough decisions in the midst of very high stress can take a toll on any relationship and yet for us in many ways it seemed to help bring us together.  We began to see that even if we came to the answers from very different perspectives, we kept coming to the same answers.  

The idea now was to get the house on the market so hopefully it would sell by the end of the year.  Once the house sold we would become apartment dwellers, renting until time to leave for the Peace Corps assignment, whatever and whenever that might be. 

The idea of continuing to travel after our assignment just kept getting stronger.

Moving forward...

Okay, now what?   We had been told that the Peace Corps application process could take 18 months to 2 years for a couple that wished to serve together.  Seems like plenty of time but there was a lot we needed to do.

First, there was the house; sell it or rent it out?  Then there was the issue of our personal property, our stuff.  Storing it all for two or three years just didn’t seem to be a good solution.  On top of this there were the endless little things we started to realize we needed to do to prepare ourselves; banking, communication, acquiring additional skills and more.

We decided we had time to figure out what we were going to do with the house.  We determined that travel abroad, for any length of time, was going to require us to make a significant improvement in our technological capability.  Complete conversion to electronic methods would be a necessity.  Our laptops were going to become more important to us, MP3 players which were unnecessary to us in our current lifestyle needed to be acquired and most importantly, we were going to need e-readers of some kind since it would be impractical to travel with a lot of books.

We also wanted to spend some time, perhaps as much as 5 or 6 weeks, immersed in another culture; just to see how we adapted or in other words, how uncomfortable we might be.  It seemed rational for us to schedule a working vacation, abroad, acquiring our Teaching English as a Foreign Language, or TEFL certificates.  This is generally a one month course and they are taught all over the world.

We chose Granada, Spain for a combination of reasons.  Our research showed that the programs offered there were some of the most rigorous in the international TEFL society.  Granada was also the home of a major university and over 40 language schools.  We didn’t want to be in a large urban environment and programs in Sardinia or one of the Greek islands seemed a little too much like a vacation rather than a serious learning experience.  We also wanted to spend time in a place with a rich history we could explore in our free time.  Granada fit the picture so we signed up.

Now we were on a schedule.  It was late July and our class started the first week of October.  We had never tried to get away for more than two or three weeks before plus we needed to implement elements of our long range plan.  We had to work out coverage for our clients and figure out how to stay in touch.  Keeping the long term plan going meant we had to start getting rid of our stuff, the books had to go.

We are voracious readers, reading several hundred books per year.  Needless to say, we had built up quite an extensive library (in excess of 4,000 books).  We took the time to list them on EBay and Half.com and started to sell them.  We almost cried when we sold the first one.  After quite a bit of research we bought Kindles, and vowed not to buy another “real” book.  With so much free and inexpensive content available for our kindles we knew we could keep our reading habit alive at a significantly lower cost.

We also bought MP3 players and started to burn our existing music to them.  We upgraded one laptop and purchased another high end but very light weight model.  At the risk of sounding Bohemian we decided that backpacks were the way to carry them and our other electronics while we traveled.   Another month of research to figure out which type and size to buy (we bought Northface but there are lots of options), then trying it out at home to be sure everything would work and we were set.

By early September we were very busy with travel and business arrangements, selling books, buying e-books and burning music.  We set up Skype accounts in order to communicate with our clients, family and friends.  Later, we were glad we had set up our Facebook page so that we could easily share our international experiences. 

There was also a major change in our banking arrangements.  While most banks (but not all) have electronic bill pay capabilities, we were facing issues like currency exchange rates and using ATMs outside of the country.  The fees and other costs could become enormous.  The solution came with Charles Schwab HighYield Investor checking.  Here we get bank exchange rates, no foreign transaction fees, all of the electronic services we needed and they refund all ATM fees charged to your account from anywhere in the world.  Wonderful!

The next thing we knew we were on an airplane.  Our short stops in Philadelphia and Madrid flew by and we found ourselves in Barcelona, Spain.