6 days to go...

Today is Christmas. We will be leaving for Portugal in only 6 days. We did manage to get our plane tickets cleared up with a few problems attached to our horrendous itinerary – nevertheless we will be flying out on December 31.

I am experiencing an overall sense of calm in these days leading up to our journey. I attribute this to our present reality – which isn’t reality at all because we are in Florida enjoying family, warmth, sunshine and the absence of all the stressors in our life. We took Marcos to Disney World on Friday and had an incredible day. On Saturday Marcos and I were able to see the musical production of the Lion King which was also incredible. Sunday and Monday were spent with family in Cocoa Beach. Spending time with my family these days feels more precious than ever due to our impending departure. The health issues that those close to me are struggling with are heartbreaking. Every moment matters as well as every spoken word. I am focusing on living in the present.

And so we will fly home on the 27th from Florida. We’ll spend 3 days preparing our house, our bags, our jobs and our selves for the next 6 months. It’s difficult to visualize our lives there in that tiny home in that little village in that ancient country. Though I have visited Portugal many times – the entire experience still seems unfathomable. I don’t know what to expect…

What I anticipate is a small, damp home with electronic church bells clanging outside our window every fifteen minutes. Will I be able to sleep? Granite walls, scrapes on my children’s knees. I think I will feel awkward as our family will be foreigners in a native village. What we will do each day? How will our time be structured? Will we all get along? I imagine the time will pass quickly – yet also feel long at times. I will be in my husband’s world without my friends, my job, my belongings,– is that ok? We will travel to beautiful places. Life will be more interesting. We will have time… time for all of the things we never seem to have time for…most importantly time with our kids. I am glad to leave behind the guilt I feel every morning when I drop Jenna and Marcos at daycare. This move to Portugal is big and I will do my best to embrace it as I realize this will be a defining experience in my life. I long for a NEW PERSPECTIVE on everything.

I feel brave and adventurous, scared and nervous.

Will we get there?

6 months in Portugal...ahhh...6 months of travel, new adventures, a new culture, a new language, time with family and change from our all too familiar everyday routine. How did this come about? Actually it has been in our life plan since Duarte began work as a professor at PSU. The tenure process was long and tough and downright exhausting. For many, getting tenure is the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. For Duarte, sabbatical was the light at the end of the tunnel. We made it, now we'll take 6 months to live, work and play in Duarte's hometown - Chaves, Portugal. Duarte will be getting paid while he is on sabbatical. I'll be taking a leave of absence from work.

The next step is getting there...We booked our plane tickets in May - on the very day that Duarte received word that he was promoted and tenured. We found an incredible deal and booked the tickets right out of State College. Perfect... almost. We booked our tickets through a budget travel company. Big mistake. From the moment we booked those tickets there were problems. They charged us about 18 times for our 3 tickets and then they were resistent to refund the incorrect charges. It's been a few months and now that we are in the homestretch, I called United to be sure everything was in order. Nope, nothing is in order. Our tickets were voided by Airfare.com. It has been 6 days since we found this out and we still haven't had the problem resolved. Will we get to Portugal with the tickets we paid for 18 times or will be be delaying our trip or will be be buying new tickets at full price at this point?

And so we continue with our life, work and home preparations in hopes that this will be resolved soon. There is so much to do. So much...to do.... I can't wait to get to the point where we are packing up those suitcases - 6 in total for 4 of us for 6 months. I look forward to the challenge of fitting it all in those bags that must weigh no more than 50 lbs.

We will get there.

Susanne