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.

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. 

How it all started....

Kids are grown, sold the house, got rid of all the stuff, said good-bye to family and friends and off we go into a new life with two duffle bags and a back pack each.  Sounds simple....

We realized as we entered that empty nester stage in our late 40s that we were bored with our life and had  little left in common after spending years with our focus on making money to raise the kids.  Retirement had always been a nebulous thing that looked something like a little house on a golf course, and a nice trip somewhere exciting once a year.  All of sudden we found that it just didn't sound fun anymore, and if retirement wasn't going to be fun, well then, what were we working for?

There began the journey, first we had to figure out if the two us us could find a life that would be fun and fulfilling for us together, or if it was time to do the empty nest divorce route that we have seen in so many friends.  We had to figure out when we would be able to afford such a life if we could find it, and we had to figure how to get from where we were to where we wanted to go.  Not so simple anymore.....

This blog is a bit of the journey, we hope anyone who reads any of this will enjoy it maybe learn something from it.  We have done things and been places we never thought we would, and plan to continue this unprecedented behavior as far into the future as possible.  We made a very calculated trade, the old life valued money and possessions, the new life values only people and experiences.