First stop San Juan, Puerto Rico.

We’re on a plane to San Juan, Puerto Rico and we are a little emotionally hung-over from the parties our friends and family have thrown for us, and from the incredible stress of actually leaving everything behind.  Our tickets to San Juan are one way.  We are renting an apartment in Old San Juan for a few days and then getting on a ship for Spain where we will be taking a twelve week intensive course in the Spanish language.  This was the beginning of a whole new life.

Our goal is to live “in the world”, see places we haven’t seen, meet different people that speak different languages and have different cultures.  It is surprisingly difficult to wind up your affairs in order to live abroad extensively.  We hoped we had been successful and knew that only time would tell if we had missed anything important.

It’s a muggy, dark April night when we finally arrive in San Juan.  We have to travel heavy when we move since it is everything we own (four 50 pound duffle bags and two 20 pound backpacks).  The taxi driver takes us to pick up the keys to our apartment.  Our landlord Gaby has been wonderful and has made arrangements for us to collect the keys to the apartment at 11 p.m. on a Thursday night.  Then we’re off to the apartment.

The outer gate to the apartment is locked and barred but the keys work fine and we step into a lovely inner courtyard to the sound of a running fountain.  Our apartment is on the second story which is accessed by a steep, winding, stone staircase.  In some places the stone is broken and dangerous if one were to step wrong.  Mike’s job is to carry the heavy duffle bags up this staircase.

When we get everything in we are covered in sweat.  We have rented a small, one bedroom apartment right in the center of “old town”.  There isn’t much to it…a living area with a small couch and bookshelves, an attached kitchen with a small dining table, a small bedroom with built-in closet space and a functioning bathroom.  Much bigger than a standard hotel room and right in the location we wanted!  It is clean and has everything we need to live for a few days.  The front door has swollen from the humidity and doesn’t open or close easily and we soon find that the French doors to the balcony have the same problem.  Interestingly, the apartment had air conditioning but we never felt the need to use it.  We just opened the French doors in the bedroom and the salon and let the island breezes cool us off……perfect.  There was certainly a bit of street noise but we slept right through it that first night.

There are only a couple of large hotels in the old part of San Juan, and we did not want to stay in the areas where they were located.  We wanted to be where real people are living and the hotels we could find in the Old San Juan area were very expensive boutique hotels with a small number of rooms.  We had discovered HomeAway.com and it lists apartments for rent (generally a four night minimum but you can find lower minimums) by private individuals; fully furnished of course.  An apartment just seemed right for us…..the price was certainly an improvement.

Our first full day in San Juan was wonderful.  As is typical for us, we walked entirely around the old city and started exploring within.  San Juan has an walled fortress and separate castle and beautiful ocean views.

San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico,  is the oldest city in the American territories.

Like all “old towns” there is an incredible combination of old ruins and restored walls and buildings.  Beautifully maintained buildings stand next to crumbling, weed infested derelicts.  We wandered through the narrow streets, with their interesting bright blue cobblestones, grabbing a coffee at a stand in one of the plazas and enjoying the ambiance of a city we had never been in before.

Old San Juan is the historical center of the city.  It is a lovely warren of old homes, churches, government buildings and gardens with spectacular views every where you look. 

15 minutes outside of the old city you can find Condado Beach, tall hotels and apartment buildings on a beautiful Caribbean beach that reminds one of Miami Beach. 

There is a rain forest that is definitely worth seeing and a myriad of other interesting things on the relatively large island of Puerto Rico.  We chose to ignore the beach and the rain forest this trip, instead spending our four days in the old city.

By mid-afternoon we stopped at an outdoor bar, attached to a restaurant for a coconut rum.  This drink is made by removing a shot glass worth of milk from the coconut and replacing it with, of course, the rum of your choice. 

It has an interesting taste that is not for everyone and the locals swear this drink is good for the digestion (sometimes too good for the tourists if you know what I mean).  Our bartender Norman was wonderful and we returned in the evening, after a late afternoon nap, for further drinks and to sample some the restaurant’s island cuisine which was fantastic.

We met our friend Eddie near the port on the second day.  Eddie took us to the Don Q production facility to learn about rum production but most importantly, to sample some of the many different flavored types of rum.

  We passed a lovely day with Eddie wandering the old town and finished with dinner, drinks and cigars in an outdoor plaza.

  Eddie lives on the beach on the opposite side of the island and as we bade him farewell for the evening we agreed that our next trip to Puerto Rico would include a trip to his side of the island.

Our last two days on the island were punctuated by rain showers and featured wonderful seafood cuisine and cocktails made with rum.  We walked every street in the old city, occasionally stopping at an outdoor café for some food and/or a beverage.  We quickly discovered the difference between the tourist-oriented locations and the harder to find local facilities.  People everywhere were warm and welcoming, this island needs tourism and has a lot more to offer than some of the smaller Caribbean islands.

In hindsight, the old city can be explored sufficiently in two or three days but we used the extra time to make friends and decompress.  Wandering and enjoying this island paradise was just the way to embark on our new adventure.  Our final day dawned rainy and we caught a cab to the port to embark on our ship to Spain.

By the way…not a single Irish Pub to be found in Old Town San Juan or in the Condado Beach area, anyone looking for a business opportunity?

Now Arizona would b e where we came from....rather than home.

It was Monday, April 9^th and our plane to Puerto Rico left on Wednesday.  All we had left to do on Tuesday was sell the truck, pack everything we intended to keep, clean the condo, have all the left over stuff picked up, cancel our mail, cable and cell phones, donate the scanner (just finished scanning the last of the photos, whew!) and move to a hotel for an evening. 

We had decided to stay at the Twin Palms Hotel in Tempe for our final night in town (thanks so much Pat!).  That way we did not have to worry about getting to the airport in the early morning, the shuttle would take us.  We are not big on extended good-byes so it would be easier than having friends or family take us to the airport, we could enjoy their company on Tuesday night in the hotel bar and avoid any early morning drama at the airport.

Tuesday was a little less crazy than we thought it would be, we concluded a deal with a friend to sell the truck after listing it for a couple of weeks, unsuccessfully on Craigslist.  Resurrection Ministries came first thing in the morning so we were able to get everything out of the condo that wasn’t going with us.  We had been packing our bags for a week so there were just a few things left to pack.  We successfully checked the weight of the bags on the bathroom scale to be sure we would be okay at the airport, cleaned the condo and headed out to run the last few errands before checking into the hotel.

Marilyn went into the post office in person while I fielded a client call and waited in the parking lot.  Our purpose was to cancel our mail because any correspondence we needed to receive had been either changed to our permanent address or was being received electronically, successfully.  After about twenty minutes, Marilyn came out obviously suppressing laughter and when I terminated my call and asked why she told me what had happened.  Apparently, postal clerks are unprepared for a person who wishes to cancel their mail, permanently, with no forwarding address.  The clerk had to call a supervisor in order to determine if this could be done, which, after several minutes of confusion turned out to be possible.  There was no way we could explain why and the incident still provides a good laugh for us.

We made a quick stop at the Salon to have my hair cut very short, by our friend who has been cutting it for years, and were given a great going away gift, an electric hair clipper to take with us (this requires an understanding that Marilyn would be cutting my  hair in the future, very scary).  A quick stop at the Cox store to drop off the cable box and a run next door to the Verizon store to cancel our cell phone contracts and we were all wrapped up. 

As the beautiful Arizona sun began to set our family and a few close friends came by the hotel.  We commandeered half the bar and spent our time just chatting and enjoying each other, knowing that it would be an extended time before we would be back here for any length of time.  Some tears were shed as we said good-bye, especially to our girls, who we knew we would miss tremendously, but the anticipation of the journey to come was a great offset for them.

Ok, we have to admit, there was something we just couldn’t part with; our golf clubs, we left them with some very good friends (thanks Guy and Dee Dee) whom we did make time to have dinner with a couple of nights before we left.  We did however, get rid of substantially everything else and the feeling of liberation was incredible; and still is.

We do not have to pay property taxes, car insurance, homeowners insurance, or rent a place for our things.  We don’t have to register vehicles and our income taxes are very simple.  We only have to pay utilities in the small apartments or houses that we rent and make arrangements for health insurance wherever we stay.  We really don’t worry about theft because we don’t have anything worth more than a few hundred dollars.

80% of the stress in our lives had been eliminated and the rest was rapidly changing.

It was still pitch black outside when we got up in the morning to head out to the airport, the shuttle got us there in plenty of time and surprise, surprise the flight was leaving on time.  As we taxied down the runway the Arizona sun was just touching the valley.  We could not have asked for a more beautiful departure.

Getting close, out of our house and on to the final countdown.

The past few months had flown by and we were suddenly coming up on Christmas.  In addition to scanning photos and documents in our every spare minute we were fielding calls and emails about our belongings listed on Ebay or Craigslist and selling books as fast as we could.  All our music had been “burned” to our computers; we subscribed to a very strong anti-virus program and made the decision to back up all of our data in the cloud.  Now we had an offer on the house.

It was all becoming very real, very quickly.  We sold all of our yard maintenance equipment and tools realizing that we would never need them again.  This would be the last holiday celebrated in the house in which we had lived for eighteen years.  The date for our retirement had been selected and we had been carefully managing the process of winding down or transferring our client loads.  We started making arrangements for a place to stay after the sale of the house and it seemed very strange to evaluate the rental market after owning our home for so long.

We were beginning to doubt that we would be able to dispose of everything in the four months we had left and we knew we didn’t want to move more things than absolutely necessary.  There were companies to wind up, boards to resign from and taxes to be calculated and paid.  Sometimes it felt like we couldn’t catch our breath but we had become very good at setting it all aside and going out to lunch or dinner for a couple of hours and our “date night” had expanded into an everyday necessity.

We accepted an offer on our house before Christmas with an estimated closing date at the end of January.  We’re not sure our family and friends realized and understood that this Christmas would be the last one we celebrated with them in our Gilbert, Arizona home.  It was a little like being in the twilight zone.  We were now selling things we used every day like our home theater system, extra utensils and patio furniture.  We had already cut several swathes through our wardrobes and still needed to reduce them further.  It was time to practice pack, oh joy!  Worse, it was time to have a series of garage sales.

We had to hunt for and buy the best kind of luggage to carry a lot of stuff but be easy to manage and not exceed size or weight limitations imposed by the airlines.  Even though we did not plan to fly any more than necessary we knew that we would have to get on airplanes from time to time.  We found some great rolling duffles on Ebags.com and bought 2 of them in the largest conforming size.

One interesting strategy we incorporated at this time concerned our books and music.  We needed to find the remainder of our library a good home and we initiated a strategy using the local second hand bookstore called Bookman’s. We would take boxes of our books and all of our music CD’s into Bookman’s and they would issue store credit for all items that they wished to add to their used book and music inventory.  Any remaining books we would take next door to the Goodwill store and donate them.  I know this sounds counterintuitive but we used the Bookman’s store credit to buy additional music.  This additional music we burned to our computers and returned to Bookman’s on a subsequent visit.  What a circle life was becoming.

An interesting thing developed as we really started to get rid of our stuff.  We realized that there was really very little that we wanted to keep, that would not be traveling with us.  Our girls picked up the stuff that they had claimed and we found homes for almost everything else.  A few special family heirlooms went to other family members to keep or use while we got ready to head off, planning to live in apartments (flats) with only what we can carry.

Mike’s brother came to visit prior to the closing on the house and helped us during a couple of garage sales but was there primarily to play golf at our club, Encanterra for the last few times.  Moving day arrived and our girls helped us move the needed furniture and the few small items of value that we still needed to sell or donate.  Mike finally moved away from his desktop computer to a his laptop and had our local computer expert wipe the hard drive and set it up for a new user so it could be donated.  We donated all our office supplies, and there was quite a bit since we both had worked from home for years, to the public school where one of our friends worked.  The teachers were amazed and grateful for all of the things they could find use for.

Suddenly it was real.  We were out of our home of eighteen years.  We had sold or given away almost everything we had spent more than thirty years acquiring.  We changed our address for the few items we couldn’t obtain electronically and filed final tax returns for our small, now defunct, companies.  We moved into a lovely condo in the university district of Tempe, Arizona.  We were happy to be out of the suburbs and enjoyed the ability to walk to restaurants and bars rather than driving.  All we had left to sell were a few valuable items from our home, some small pieces of furniture and our remaining vehicle.

We decided that we did not need a storage unit, but that meant that we truly were going to be packing almost everything we owned.  We could take two duffle bags each and a backpack.  That was our limit and we were sticking to it.  Neither duffle could exceed airplane size or weight restrictions so we knew that we really had to make wise choices.  What we were taking with us needed to be enough, and we planned to simply replace things as they wore out.  Evening gowns and suits were given away or sold, a mountain of shoes found new homes. Our daughter found a great rolling duffle on sale at Big 5 Sporting Goods and we found that we liked hers even better than the ones we already had so we bought two of them as our second bags at half the price we paid for the first two.

The thrift stores in our area found themselves with a sudden surplus of nice clothes, shoes, accessories and computer equipment as we finally realized how little we were going to have room for in our “new life”.  There were a few things that we knew would not make the trip but that we still needed for the last few weeks in Arizona so at least one more load was still on the horizon.

 Our flight to San Juan was just a few weeks away.  We were almost there. 

Why Fly?

Looking at retirement causes many changes in perspective.  One of the better changes is a relative lack of deadlines.  You have time!

Over the past ten years we have grown increasingly disgusted with the cost, the hassles and the state of airline travel.  Cancelled or delayed flights, baggage limitations, damage to and outright theft from baggage, seats built for dwarves, etcetera.  We have put up with this due to the necessity of business travel and the time limitations on our rare vacations.

Guess what!  No more business travel.  No more time limitations.  Our time is now our own.  If we can avoid an airplane ride, it just makes the whole travel experience that much better.

We have been destination cruisers for about 15 years.  For a while it was comforting to think that we only had to unpack once during our vacation and the ship was basically a hotel that followed us around.  Over time however, the ship became more of a tether pulling us away from places we wanted to be.  So, for a time, we stopped cruising, preferring to spend time in the places we wanted to go.

When planning our trip to Spain we were astounded at the cost of airline travel and dreading the idea of 20 hours of flying and airport connections.  On a whim we looked at repositioning cruises, since it was to be the springtime ships would be going from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean…seemed like a good fit for us.  We found several cruises from the east coast of the US or the Caribbean to ports all over the Med and were delighted by the low prices.  The perfect cruise for us left from San Juan, Puerto Rico and arrived in Malaga, Spain a 1.5 hour bus ride from Granada!  The cost for two people, in a balcony cabin for two weeks with several interesting stops when added to the cost of air travel to San Juan was less than the price of the economy class airfare to Spain!

Hmmmm, let’s evaluate. 

Two weeks of reasonably good food in several restaurants, a double bed to stretch out on, a private bathroom, maid service, 24-hour room service and entertainment all included.  Beverages of all kinds are available for purchase when you want them not when the flight attendant decides to visit you.  No jet lag?  Sold!  An added benefit; two weeks of living expenses are covered as well!  We were to stop in St. Thomas; St. Maarten; Lanzarote; Tenerife; Madeira and then made final port in Malaga, Spain.  We would arrive in Spain happy, tanned, well rested and ready to go.  Having energy from the first hour of the first day would be a first for us in Europe.

Another thing to consider, we were going to be in a state of near exhaustion from the last few weeks of getting rid of everything in our lives and saying good-byes to everyone.  Perhaps some "down time" on a ship on our way across the Atlantic would give us a chance to rest and catch our breath before beginning an entirely new life, in a new place, with a new language.

We booked it! It was an RCCL cruise on the Adventure of the Seas and we used vacationstogo.com to get the best deal.  Cost of air tickets to San Juan $189 each accommodations in Old San Juan for 4 nights $324, cruise in a balcony cabin for 2 weeks $799 each.  $2300 total for everything including meals….two one way coach class tickets to Madrid $2160, no contest.  Keep in mind that we knew we were going to spend money for food and drink in San Juan and for drinks and extras on the ship but these expenses were already in the regular monthly budget for living expenses, no matter where we are we will have to eat and drink.

If you have time and have the flexibility to travel whenever you choose, a cruise just might be the way to knock the longer flight segments from your travel and save your back from those awful airline seats.

Besides, isn’t retirement about not being in a hurry?

Getting on track...

We were on track, for the time being.  Seemed like there was no end of things to do; setting up paperless statements, taxes, scanning records, scanning photos, scanning, scanning…….

After all the scanning there was shredding, and shredding…you get the point.  We killed at least one shredder and our printer/scanner would never be the same but that was okay, we didn’t care; it wasn’t going with us.

About this time our youngest daughter and her roommate began to talk about traveling abroad and taking a TEFL course like we did.  Their destination; Istanbul wow!  Our original thought was that this was a little bit exotic for two young girls on their first trip abroad but who were we to judge; after all, we’re nuts right?

A funny thing was beginning to happen to us as we slowly began emptying out all those custom made storage cabinets in the garage and shredded our paper files; we were closing doors on many old, no longer relevant parts of our lives.  Yes, there was some laughter and some teary eyes as we found pictures, letters and items with memories of people and events from long ago.  It was pretty good therapy actually.

We also started making a special effort to spend more time together, you know, just to see how that might work.  How the hell were we going to do that?  Well, this may sound corny but we started with “date night” where at least once a week we would go out together, have dinner and a couple of drinks and simply talk.  This gave us time to plan our now complicated lives and to simply listen to the other which was something we found we had stopped doing.  Pretty quickly, we began having date night a lot more often than once a week.

We were really out of shape and were working our rusty old bodies out for an hour or two, at least twice a week and probably would have injured ourselves if we hadn’t had a physical therapist designing our program.  The problem is that by the time you are fifty, if you haven’t maintained a regular exercise program, your body has had time to degenerate and injuries both small and large have accumulated, so care must be taken to strengthen all areas, slowly in order to avoid injury.

Marilyn started wrapping up service on all the Boards and Commissions she was involved with, letting them know that she would not be available to serve in the following year.   Projects that needed special attention required some hand off and she found people to work with her, so that they would be able to carry on without her into the future.   Wonderful people stepped up and most of the big projects that are very close to her heart (see links below) were taken over by competent, caring individuals, who will undoubtedly continue them successfully.  She also had a built in network of professionals that she could hand off any client that had unfinished business to, when the time came.

The Turnbow Foundation
Ms. Senior Arizona Pageant
The Cameo Ball
The Cameo Foundation
Save The Family
Butterfly House
Tempe Chamber of Commerce

Mike’s partner of several years and he ended their partnership in the spring, not over any disagreements but due to the fact that we were planning to be abroad for an indefinite time period.  We were starting to investigate things we could do to earn money abroad that would help us stretch our savings and were encouraged by what we found.  Writing, proofreading, photography and many other things in addition to teaching English were all things we could do anywhere we found ourselves, provided we had access to the internet.   We both still had to maintain our existing clients while investigating these alternatives and otherwise preparing our lives.  We were busy!

It was a beautiful Sunday morning on Father’s Day and I had no plans to play golf.  Marilyn was running a few errands and I settled down to watch the final round of the US Open golf tournament, my usual Father’s Day thing.

Then my cell phone rang and I answered to the sound of my wife’s sobbing and shaken voice……”I’ve had an accident.”

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.

The other eye and other delays.

The New Year brought good news, bad news and news; well we were unsure how to classify some of it.

The Peace Corps informed us that there was no hurry to complete our medical evaluations because, due to budget problems in Washington DC, they weren’t going to send any volunteers in the second half of the year.  It would be at least a year before we would be called to serve so we had some time for my eyes to recover.  This also meant that we didn’t have to rush to put our house on the market in the spring. 

Most importantly, I couldn’t see in one eye and that had to be dealt with.  On January 4^th we returned to my ophthalmologist’s office for another biweekly visit; only this time it was different.  The doctor, with Marilyn watching, had his assistant hold my head against a padded bracket and proceeded, by hand, to poke a needle into my eye repeatedly.  Even though we had discussed the possibility of my needing this procedure; it was still a little bit of a shock.

By my next visit to the doctor I was seeing better if having double vision can be called “seeing better”.  We didn’t know it then but my eye was finally on the way to recovery and it continued to improve throughout the month of January.

At this time we were still evaluating whether to sell our house or simply rent it out.  We were looking at the possibility of purchasing rental properties and were seriously considering traveling to Nicaragua to look at investing in a small casita in a golf course development on the Pacific coast.  A positive aspect to these possibilities was that we would always have a place to live and a place in which to store some of our remaining stuff.  Obviously, we hadn’t quite yet let go of the little house on the golf course retirement concept and were still planning to keep some of our “stuff”.

We had been working diligently to convert our banking, insurance, tax filing, credit cards and other bills to be completely electronic.  Believe it or not; it can be rather difficult to go completely “paperless” with the insurance and investment community being the hardest cases.  We looked at the rows of filing cabinets in our garage containing past financial records, client information, research, writing and 50 years of photographs and realized that we had an incredibly large scanning and shredding project in front of us.  Thus, began a very long project that, at times, we were unsure if we would ever finish.

We had been reading periodicals such as International Living, Live and Invest Overseas, and The Overseas Retirement Letter  which had sparked our interest in a variety of places that we might want to visit or even live for a period of time.  Places such as Spain, France, Italy, Thailand, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Columbia and Uruguay were touted as having a high quality of life while remaining reasonably inexpensive.  These countries, and others, reportedly welcomed expats and some even had straightforward visa, residency, banking, tax and importation regulations for those wishing to live, invest or retire there.  The idea of traveling extensively after serving in the Peace Corps was starting to take hold.

By early February I could see 20/15 in my problem eye and it was time to turn our attention to the other one.  The procedure this time would be different and it was expected that it would take 3 to 6 months for my eye to heal completely and achieve the best possible vision.  The procedure went as expected and once again, for several weeks, I could only see well through one eye; the other one now but other than readers, no more glasses!

My golf game was in tatters, I was 15 pounds heavier and in terrible physical condition and my old back problem was beginning to resurface after spending 3 months doing nothing but sitting on the couch while I couldn’t see well enough to do anything.  I needed to get back to work immediately because several of my clients were experiencing significant difficulties.  This meant a lot of travel and stress. 

About this time I had a conversation with my friend and physical therapist Widd Workman at Diamondback Physical Therapy.  Widd had worked with me to rehab my shoulder after rotator cuff surgery and I had been very pleased with the results.  Widd developed program for me to strengthen my back, legs and core and I started to put my poor old, neglected, out of shape body back to work.

Back home again.....

Well, after more than a month away, we returned to a long list of things we needed to do.  Prior to leaving we had established free Gmail accounts because we knew would not be able to use our cable company’s email when we unsubscribed.  We took the opportunity on this trip to begin training our friends and clients to use the Gmail accounts.  We had also set up free Skype accounts and traded contact information with clients, family and close friends.

Needless to say, client issues didn’t stop just because we were focused 24/7 on becoming English teachers.  Legal documents, financial projections and emergency consultations were needed as always but we soon ran into a snag.  Our Gmail and Skype arrangements were available and worked as advertised but the problem is this: Spain time is 8 or 9 hours ahead of Arizona time depending upon the time of year leaving a narrow and undesirable window of time to communicate by voice or video with your clients when you are teaching until 9pm and clients don’t want to wait until weekends.  We were beginning to realize that maybe we just couldn’t take our current jobs with us when we were traveling.

We both had plenty of fires to put out and in addition, while we were gone, two very large packages had arrived for us from the Peace Corps.  Our medical packages had arrived along with our nomination to serve beginning in September in North Africa (Morocco had the only business consultant programs in that region).  Pleasantly surprised at the idea of serving in Morocco we opened the packages and were immediately overwhelmed by the sheer volume of comprehensive and seemingly repetitive information required.

We were going to need to obtain medical records from as long as 30 years ago, schedule appointments with multiple physicians and dentists, obtain labwork, vaccine boosters, x-rays, MRIs, colonoscopies; the list went on forever and although there is a small amount of reimbursement available from the Peace Corps for this, it was still going to be expensive. 

Additionally, we noticed that the Peace Corps required you to bring two pair of eyeglasses which for me was problematic because I had regular lenses for driving and normal activities, bifocals for reading and working and very expensive prescription sunglasses.  Mike really did not want to haul six pairs of glasses around the world.  The holidays were coming up, business travel was required and he had an appointment to see an ophthalmologist about Lasik surgery.

By Thanksgiving we had everything business related back under control and it was time to deal with a series of domestic matters.  We had to evaluate what we wanted to do with the house (sell or rent), how much stuff to put in storage and what to sell, what to do with our vehicles and how to complete our medical package for the Peace Corps.  After our visit to the ophthalmologist to learn about Lasik we decided that this was a good step to take in the simplification process of our lives.

It was wonderful to be back among friends and to share the holiday with our family.  We also found ourselves missing the people we had just spent a very intense month with in Granada.  Both friends and family soon realized that we had fallen in love with Spain in general and Granada in particular and we were learning how important Facebook was going to be for us.

A quick word about Facebook:  The younger generation tends to live their lives online and very publicly and this held, and still holds, no interest for us.  Sharing interesting experiences, mostly through photos, is why we use Facebook because it is a forum in which we can share with our selected family and friends in an efficient manner; basically update everybody at once.  You have a certain amount of control with whom you share and communication can be public or private. 

Facebook is also a way to stay in touch with new or old friends who are a long way away and we have found ourselves frustrated in the effort to stay in touch with our friends that don’t use Facebook because it is significantly more difficult.  Also, quality access to the internet is not guaranteed and can sometimes be sporadic while traveling.  We had seen how the young, European and Australian contingent of our TEFL group used a combination of cheap cell phones, Skype and Facebook to stay in touch, we were gradually learning.

Then it was time for Mike to have Lasik surgery and our world came to a screeching halt.

The Alhambra in Granada, Spain

The Alhambra looms over Granada and is Spain’s primary tourist attraction.  This fortress has a long and rich Moorish and Christian history far beyond the scope of this blog.  We are history buffs and indulged in a lot of reading before ever seeing it first hand, for us, the place is magical.  If you plan to visit, familiarize yourself with at least a bit of the history of the Alhambra and the related history of Granada before you arrive, it will be time well spent.

On our first weekend in Granada we decided to visit the Alhambra with two of our TEFL mates (yes, one was an Aussie).  We had heard that it was best to either purchase tickets on line, in a local bookstore or at certain ATMs but we figured that early on a Sunday morning, in Spain, we should be able to easily purchase the tickets we desired.  Oooops, definitely purchase them in advance!

We hiked the very steep hill from Plaza Nueva to the Alhambra and found that a small part of the lower citadel is open to the public, a very small part.  We went in and by 11, after seeing all there was to be seen in about 30 minutes we found ourselves at the ticket counter.  Here we discovered there are two types of tickets; one ticket is for the lower citadel and includes the summer palace and gardens or “Generalife” and the other includes access to the Nasrid dynasty palaces.  The Generalife/lower citadel tickets cost 6 euro and the Nasrid palaces tickets were 12.  You could buy them both together for 16 euro.

Unfortunately, the Nasrid palaces tickets are much in demand and tour groups buy them up quickly or in advance.  These tickets provide a limited number of people access at various but specific times.  If you are not present for your entry time and miss your group’s entry, well too bad.  The first time available for purchase that day was 3:30 and we decided not to wait and wander around for more than four hours and that we’d save the Nasrid palaces for another day.  We purchased the Generalife/lower citadel tickets.

Figuring to start at the top and work our way down we climbed to the Palacio Generalife which was the Nasrid dynasty’s summer palace.  This summer palace is located a significant distance up the hill from the lower citadel and features seemingly endless gardens redolent with colorful, sweet smelling flowers and the sound of constantly running water. 

From the Generalife one can look down upon the lower citadel and view its many towers over the terraced gardens.  The city of Granada lies in the distance and the entire palace conveys a sense of tranquility and quiet contemplation.

The four of us wandered aimlessly through the gardens and simply enjoyed the fountains, pools, manicured hedges, pathways and views from the gardens and the palace windows.

 A long, curved, tree lined path led down through the palace gardens, across an arched bridge over what can only be called a moat, into the outer passageways of the lower citadel.

The walls of the lower citadel contain many breathtaking viewpoints of the Albayzin on the hill across the river Darro, of the city of Granada and of the cultivated plains beyond.

Many of the towers placed in strategic points along the walls are accessible and with a little patience, one can take advantage of a photo opportunity without other tourists in the frame.

Inside the walls, the lower citadel contains the remains of the barracks for the palace guard, a myriad of staircases linking towers to defensible areas along the walls and, of course, more gardens and fountains.  There is a basilica whose interior can be viewed when services are not being held and the huge palace of Carlos V can also be accessed with this type of ticket

The palace of Carlos V is square on the outside and circular on the inside, is two very tall stories high and has an impressive inner courtyard.  It contains a small historical museum and on this day had an exhibition of Monet paintings, for an additional entry fee of course.

By 1:30, after 3 hours of wandering this incredible structure we had had enough and exited to the forested path leading down to Plaza Nueva, the starting point for any excursion to the Alhambra.  We celebrated our tour with pints of Murphys Red and a fry up for breakfast at our favorite local Irish pub; but that’s another story. 

Granada, for the first time....

Arriving in Granada in the pouring rain at seven in the evening wouldn’t be any fun even if you knew where you were going and how to get there, which we didn’t.   We had arranged our accommodations through the TEFL school and were a bit nervous; we had made the very conscious decision to “go local”.  We had booked into their version of a “boarding house” called the “residencia”.  We had been able to secure a bedroom that had its own private bathroom attached but knew that the rest of the house for the most part was bedrooms with shared bathrooms in the hallway.  We would be sharing a kitchen and living area, an experience we had never encountered before and which we expected to be a significant learning experience.

Knowing only that it was located in the oldest part of the city, the Albayzin, in a renovated 16^th century building with tiny narrow streets that were like a labyrinth, being tired and carrying baggage we did the only intelligent thing and decided to forgo trying to learn the bus system for another day and just take a cab.  Much to our dismay there were other passengers waiting at the cab stand but no cabs……in the cold and the rain.  In hindsight we think the couple of lone cab drivers that showed up in the next 10 minutes to take the first few groups of passengers into town must have just called all their friends told them to take their cars to the airport.  Eventually we got in a cab that did not have a meter, signs or anything that remotely made this late model Mercedes look like a cab but the driver was taking us to town so off we went.  Stupid, but at the time there were not many alternatives.  We made it to our destination 45 minutes and 35 euros later, should have been 30 minutes and 20-25 euros but, what did we know?               

Thankfully the rain had stopped while we were in route and we were let off right in front of a big archway that led to what looked like a church with a big wooden door to the left that turned out to be our destination.  The residencia had originally housed a seminary and was where the young monks lived while preparing to enter the order.  The area had originally been part of a Moorish palace complex built in the 11^th century but that was destroyed by the Christians at the end of the 15^th century.  The monastery was built on the location in the 16^th century.

The architecture still carried the Moorish flavor and featured very thick walls to keep the heat in or cold out depending on the season.  When we entered the building it immediately charmed us with an inner courtyard that had a fountain and plants and that would be open to the sky three stories up when the weather was nice.

It was larger than we expected and as Antony, our contact from the school, showed us around we found that the building had a rooftop terrace with the most spectacular views of the Alhambra that we could imagine.

Our room was tiny with two twin beds that we made into a king, a small nightstand and a small desk.  All of the furnishings were very rustic antiques in keeping with style of the building.  The room had one window that opened into the interior courtyard but not to the outside.  The bathroom - a sink, toilet and shower crammed into less than 5 square feet was surprisingly functional.

The entire Albayzin , this oldest area of the city, is a protected UNESCO World Heritage site.  This means that no updating or remodeling can be done without very a very rigorous permitting process which makes it very time consuming and expensive.  Everything has to be done to protect the integrity of the original structures and this means that the foundations cannot be dug up and new pipes put in underground unless the old clay pipes fail and there is absolutely no other choice.  We discovered that this meant no paper of any kind goes in the toilets.  Every toilet has a basket next to it with plastic bags and you NEVER flush toilet paper… talk about new experiences.

Antony explained the cardinal rule of never getting lost in the Albaizyn.  You can only go two directions, up or down, no matter how far to the right or left you go you will always be able to find your way to your destination within a few minutes’ walk.  He walked us to the school; 2 minutes away so that we could find our way to class and showed us the most common way down to town so we would not get easily lost.  While in town we picked up a few basic supplies fearing that everything would be closed the following day, Sunday, and then got settled in.  Our house manager was a lovely little Ecuadorian lady who spoke no English at all but was more than able to make you understand her meaning when it came to the rules of the house.  She showed us where to store our stuff in the communal fridge and cupboards and we learned that in addition to the TEFL students there were other residents in the house, some for short stays others as longer term boarders.

Sunday we walked around the area in the daylight to get oriented and discovered that “everything is closed on Sunday” doesn’t really mean “everything”, we had a meal in a charming little restaurant near the church San Miguel Bajo and picked up a few more supplies for the kitchen.  Our fellow students were arriving and we had an orientation meeting scheduled that evening at 8pm.  This was our first real experience with people who live on a Spanish schedule and for them, 8pm is not considered late for a meeting to start.  Orientation was, as most are, 2 hours of information that could have been covered in 20 minutes, but then we did get to take a lovely group walk to the Mirador San Nicolas to see the Alhambra all lit up for the evening and we later stopped at Bar Kiki for a drink and a tapa before heading back to bed.  Granada is just about the only city left in Spain in which tapas are free when you buy your drink.

We were definitely the old folks of the group; our fellow students were significantly younger than us, all under 35 and most under 30.  Ten students, from 5 countries, it was quite a mix.  The young enthusiastic energy that this group created was great for us, and everyone was very accepting of each other, so it was with a very positive outlook that we all got ready to begin classes at 9:30 Monday morning.

On to Barcelona

Barcelona.  Nice large, modern airport.  We don’t care.  It’s four o’clock in the afternoon and after 22 hours of traveling we are tired, dirty and sore.  Not brave enough to try the bus, we garnered a taxi to our hotel.

The first thing we did absolutely right was our choice of hotel location.  We stayed in the hotel H10 PlazaCatalunya at the time it was less than 100euros a night and in Barcelona that was very reasonable.  Plaza Catalunya is at the top the La Rambla and is surrounded by bus stops and metro stations.  While our room was small by our standards, it was clean and comfortable, and once we walked around outside we confirmed that we were in the middle of everything.  We took showers and a nap.

Waking up around nine in evening we thought we had lost half a day in Barcelona.  Not necessarily true.  Walking outside the streets were jam packed and everything was open.  There was a restaurant next door to our hotel that had sidewalk tables and we found one, ordered beer, wine and seafood paella; a perfect introduction to Spain.  Expensive but perfect.

Not dealing with our jet-lag very well we returned to our hotel about 1am and tossed and turned until nearly 6am when we fell soundly asleep.  Awake at noon we once again thought we had wasted half a day in Barcelona.  Again, not true.

Restaurants were serving breakfast.  The Spanish version of breakfast turns out to be very different than the American version.  Coffee as Americans know it doesn’t exist in Spain although some restaurants provide a “Café Americano”; don’t do it.  Café is some form of espresso; single, double, with milk or cream etcetera.  Tostadas are the mainstay however and can be ordered with butter, jam, ham, cheese, tomato or any combination of these.  A tostada is a small (what we in the states would call a “French bread”) toasted on a grill.  So breakfast at noon is normal in Spain; weird for us.

We spent the afternoon wandering down La Rambla, wandering through the Boqueria (a huge indoor/outdoor fresh food market) and exploring the Gothic quarter.  There were crowds but since it was October they were not bad.  We absolutely stumbled upon the Picasso museum and were astounded at the sheer volume of sketches and “blue period” pieces that were on display.  We spent the better part of two hours there.  Of course now we needed to find the famous café where Picasso hung out as a teenager in Barcelona; 4 Cats or Quatre Gats.

On the way back to our hotel we passed a guitarist playing, and playing well, in a small courtyard surrounded by 3 and 4 story buildings.  The acoustics were simply incredible and we had to stay and listen for a bit.  We walked La Rambla back to our hotel and enjoyed the many street artists performing along the way.  That evening we slept well.

The next day we planned to take the metro to La SagradaFamilia.  This cathedral was designed by Gaudi and is very different type of gothic structure.  It has been under construction since 1882 and is still not finished.  At the risk of sounding irreverent or unappreciative of art or architecture, it looks from afar like several dripping candles.  Up close however, the detail is really incredible.

Even in October the lines at the Sagrada Familia were a block long but well worth the 45 minute wait.  We had a little trouble figuring out the Metro on the way there but, an apparently homeless person helped us by showing us how to work the ticket machine and we gave him a couple of euro for his assistance.  Another skill acquired.  Be careful though, this can be a common rip off scam so never give money in advance to an individual that approaches you like this.

That afternoon we went in search of “Quatre Gats”, in the El Barri Gotic or Gothic quarter and to explore El Raval.  We found Quatre Gats and were introduced to Barcelona’s version of tapas (a snack with your beverage).  It proved a very enjoyable rest and refreshment break in an incredible atmosphere.  There were pictures and posters on the walls by various famous artists, some of them quite old and I’m sure, quite valuable.  A significant number of tourists attempted to walk in and take pictures but were redirected by the staff.  Taking pictures is okay but you must be a paying customer.

The rest of our time in Barcelona passed quickly as we wandered this beautiful city.  The weather was perfect and the food delectable.  We had become brave enough to consider taking the bus to the airport.  We’d like to say that our day of departure came too quickly but for us, 4 days in Barcelona had been sufficient.

The morning of departure we walked across the plaza to the bus stop and got on the airport bus.  Arriving at the terminal we were absolutely unable to find our airline’s check in counter.  After 30 minutes of wandering around we realized that we were in the wrong terminal and needed to catch another bus to the correct terminal.  Tired and sweaty and out of time we arrived at our check-in counter (with very long lines) just in time to hear an announcement, in Spanish of course, concerning our flight.

Turns out, our 12:30pm flight had been delayed for at least one hour.  We checked our bags to Granada and proceeded to the gate.  By 2pm our flight had been cancelled along with the 1:30pm and 2:30pm flights.  It finally looked like we would be leaving by 3:30pm.  This fit the window we had arranged to meet the person who would check us into our accommodations.

For any of you that are irritated that messages in the United States (in airports or when calling a utility company for example) are repeated in Spanish or other languages I would invite you to an airport, bus station or train station in a country in which you do not speak the language, or don’t speak it very well.  If ever there is an announcement that concerns your travel, like a boarding announcement or a gate change, you will be grateful for that English repetition, trust me.

We finally boarded our aircraft at 4:30pm.  Four consecutive flights had been cancelled because, we think, the planes weren’t filled.  But now the flight was packed and we were unable to sit together during the 90 minute flight occupying instead, middle seats in different parts of the plane.  The captain then made an announcement that the flight had “missed its’ departure” slot due to the amount of time it took the passengers to board and would be delayed for 3 more hours. 

What ensued was probably the funniest thing I have ever seen on board an aircraft that had already left the gate.  Fully 80% of the passengers stood up and started pulling down their overhead luggage.  I cannot adequately describe the sound of over one hundred angry Spaniards all talking at once.  There was going to be a mutiny right there on the taxi way.  The captain had to come out of the cockpit to reassure the passengers and at first we thought they were going to string him up or at least throw him off the plane but eventually everybody calmed down and returned to their seats. 

Interestingly, we took off 15 minutes later.