How many bureaucrats does it take to screw in a light bulb? Wait... do they even do that?

If you were born with US citizenship, you have to know that you are pretty freaking lucky. And if you've only used your passport to travel but not actually live or study abroad, then you've probably been lucky enough to never have applied for a visa because US passports are pretty much allowed anywhere as long as you don't stay more than 90 days. Additionally, while we are used to the standard lines at the DMV, or the passport office, or any other place that involves bureaucracy - we are also used to bureaucrats in the US at least feigning that they care about customer service and that they'll try to avoid have adults melt into a tantrum fit while preparing and/or waiting... those interminable hours of waiting.

However, most other bureaucracies could not give a rat's ass if you lose your shit. They relish it. They thrive on it. They'll make you go to the back of the line and suffer some more. Now, I don't want to give the impression that the Spanish consulate is quite to this level but, that's because I'm not really sure if they are or not, since I did everything possible to avoid losing my shit, having my spouse lose his shit, and most of all making sure the preschooler didn't lose her shit AND looked cute and darling throughout the whole process. I did watch other people at the consulate lose their shit and boy, I wish I could have had some popcorn with me at the time because it was quite the show!

To begin with, the consulate's website is scarce with details on how to go about the whole process but here is what I recommend, because this is what I HAD to do:

Fill out the application and additional paperwork that is included on the website. Take any document that you have ever needed in your life to prove who you are (birth certificate, marriage certificate, US passports, written testimony of the doctor who delivered you), add in documentation that shows that you are on the up and up (FBI and your local state law enforcement agency - in our case CBI background checks, credit reports, bank account statements) and for good measure, make sure to have a medical certificate of good health signed and sealed by your primary care doc. You must also sign up for medical health insurance that will cover you in Spain with an international health insurance company. Have fun staying up until 2 AM and then trying to explain to a man with a thick Scottish brogue what the hell it is you need and why. As part of the completed packet that you'll be giving your consulate officer, you have to show documentation of the purchased health insurance.

Now, take all of your documents to your local Secretary of State to have them notarized and sealed with an apostille from the Hague Convention of 1961, then pay to have everything translated by an official translation agency (don't you dare do this yourself even if you have a Bachelor's Degree in Spanish NOR should you use Google Translate for this even though this would all be free), also have those translations notarized and sealed with an apostille.

Then - make copies! At least 4 of each piece of paper that you will be presenting to your consulate officer. OH!!! Did I forget to tell you that you need to make an appointment before all this? Yes, the appointment and interview process needs to be completed no more than 3 months before departure, and you "need" one for each person that is traveling - we managed to squeeze all three people into the one half-hour that I had been able to schedule online. You need two passport sized pictures of each family member as well. Don't get sassy about it like my spouse did asking "If they're getting copies of our US passports which have our pictures on them, why do they need us to take additional pictures?" - the answer is: I don't know, do as the bureaucrats want, sit down and shut up. Appointments are only offered Monday through Thursdays 9am to noon (at least this is the rule at the consulate we went to). They have a strict policy against answering any emails or phone calls so I don't suggest that you try to communicate with anyone that way.

After all of this, if you get approved, you must leave your US passports at the consulate while they work for up to 2 months on stamping them with your visa. However, when we went in it was only taking them about 2 weeks but just being without my passport for that long was making me breakout in hives. I mean, what if the zombie apocalypse took place and I need to flee to Canada or something....?!?!?! How could I do that without my passport?!?!?!

Overall, they were lovely at the consulate and as accommodating as bureaucrats can be. The cute kid who managed to hold it together until we were in the parking lot definitely helped (all done with the help of a bag full of snacks, water, and a tablet with some movies loaded onto it). If you ever want to go through this process yourself, contact me, I'll be happy to give you all the details that I can. In the end, it was a good preparation process for all the bureaucratic BS that we've had to deal with once we arrived in Spain, for example: You want to rent a place? You can't do that without your Spanish ID. You want your Spanish ID? You can't do that without a permanent Spanish address.

Remember that Wisconsin employer who was recently in the news for having his employees "voluntarily" get micro-chipped? I'm liking that idea more and more. Just micro-chip people with all the information any bureaucracy will ever need and then scan them when you need to go through some approval process. I swear it's like the whole world is conspiring to make my whole head into a shiny and sparkly, gray-haired disco ball well before my time.

Adventure starts with running away from home

Or with getting rid of a lot of junk stuff. At least our adventure does. And when you are married to someone who is great at holding on to junk things because you never know when it might come in handy, well, this process is just a freaking treat. This is when my training of watching many hours of shows on HGTV that entailed some form of purging came in handy.

Things get divided into 5 categories: save in storage, take with, sell, donate, trash. You have to go room by room, even if your house is less than 1000 square feet and has two small storage sheds, you'd be amazed by what pack-rats can stuff inside and want to hold onto. Because then you have to have a whole process of: Really? Do you really want to pay someone to move this for you all the way to another country? OR Do you really want to pay a storage facility to keep these unopened bottles of motor oil for a year or more? Yeah... this process is super fun (NOT).

Then, you hold a couple of yard sales because you live in Colorado and the weather cooperates Friday but not Saturday and then again just for the morning of Sunday, so you still have a bunch of stuff to get rid of and you really want to try and make a buck off of it so you put it all in the carport and then pull it all back out the following Thursday to see who you can sucker into buying this stuff that you no longer want/need/have room for. This was my first experience with a yard sale seeing as how in Costa Rica, yard sales are not a thing in any way, shape or form. They were fun and boring. It was weird to have people come into our yard and peruse our stuff. It was weirder still when a part of me that I never knew existed was actively trying to hawk our things. We made some money and got rid of lots of stuff. Our kiddo, who is 4, had somewhat of a hard time with mom "selling all of her toys" (which of course as with all 4 year olds, that's an exaggeration because we put plenty in storage and brought one and a half suitcases FULL of toys and books) and still brings this up 6 months later. She was also personally affronted when someone would come into the yard, perused and left without buying something. There were a lot of questions, asked multiple times: Why are we selling our stuff? Why doesn't that guy want to buy anything? What are we doing with the money we get? Can you buy me more toys with the money we get? And these are only the questions the 4 year old asks.

While all of this is going on (you know, the packing, putting in storage and getting rid of all the items that fill your home), you also should be taking care of ALL the other details. And you do, except well, some... well, some you just leave hanging in the wind until you can muster the strength and energy to deal with them.

This means details like: What are we doing with the cars? What about the dog and the cat? How do we get our stuff over to wherever we are going? How do we apply for a visa and where do we do this? And... you might have the propensity to have a panic attack or spring some new gray hairs every time your anxiety kicks in (I wouldn't know, anxiety doesn't tend to affect me, HAHAHAHA!!!!), but don't. Once you put the wheels in motion, things start falling into place, as if by magic. We had a lease, our broker called and asked if we were ready to trade it in after two years (so, a year early than what we leased it for), we said yes and it all worked out nicely and inexpensively.

As for the other car? Well, we owned that one outright and since my spouse had a car accident and totaled it 5 weeks before we were moving, well, that took care of that vehicle - yeah, I can tease and laugh about the accident now because he's okay and recovering but it wasn't that way for a few weeks. And let's just say that in this case, that isn't my idea of things working out nicely nor inexpensively... but I keep telling myself there must be a reason why this happened and that although I'm not understanding it at the moment, I hope to look back soon-ish and be able to see it.

The dog.... she's 11 and deaf. She's a ball of anxiety of her best days. Putting her on a plane to fly in cargo for many hours didn't sound like the best of ideas to us. My father-in-law graciously accepted to add her to his pack (he had two dogs already) and she seems to fit right in and be happy with them. He even rigged her up with a cow bell so that he can find her, since she can't hear him and respond when she's called. We do miss her dearly, though.

The cat has been through hell and back. She's a survivor. She came into our home when our child was a little over 2 years old and has put up with everything a toddler can put her through. Multiple lotion baths, carrying her here, there and everywhere, getting a door slammed on her tail and nearly severing it, and finally last December she survived a month out in the rocky mountain wilderness during a very snowy and cold time. This was courtesy of our pet-sitter who didn't heed our instruction that the cat is a daredevil who tries to escape out the door every chance she gets. When we came back from visiting our family in Costa Rica, the pet-sitter told us he was 100% sure she was dead, either because something ate her or because, you know, winter. She wasn't. I was ecstatic when we got the news. Of course we couldn't leave her behind! She's young enough and seems to have gotten over her PTSD from last December so I wasn't worried about having her travel for 22 hours and move to a new environment.

Taking a pet with you somewhere isn't necessarily easy though. First you need to figure out how your pet will travel. Some cargo company that specializes in this or a commercial airline? We traveled with Icelandair. They allow pets as cargo. We had to call them, tell them how much she weighed and the measurements of the travel container she would be in. They charged us $147 for her airfare.

Depending on the country you are traveling to, you need to meet certain requirements. We got lucky that Spain isn't very complicated (they just want health certificates for the animal) and they don't do a quarantine, although Iceland quarantines so we weren't allowed to see her during our layover. Our vet works with the USDA to give her an updated exam that had to be completed no more than 20 days before our flight and they filled out all of the necessary paperwork. Then the USDA vet has to sign the paperwork that your vet has completed and your pet is good to go. All of this paperwork varies in cost but you can plan on spending about $100 to $150 on this piece. More if your pet doesn't already have some things taken care of like an updated rabies vaccine and a universal microchip (both of which she had).

Finally, at the airport, she gets checked in at the check-in counter, but then the pet's carrier gets scanned in a special area of the airport (which is not right next to the check-in counters but a little walk away) and after that she is finally checked in and you don't see her again until your destination, where she arrives at looks at you like What. The. Hell. Feed her some wet food and hopefully she'll forget all about her recent ordeal.

The whole visa thing... that's for another post!

Throughout my research, I kept finding nomadic people giving advice saying you should always have a handful of things that make any place feel like your home. A blanket, a picture in a special picture frame, some book ends or a tchotchke that you've had forever. We brought a blanket with us that Sean and I have had since we met back in 1996. I went to a print shop nearby and printed a bunch of pictures right away at put them all over the place, and while we didn't bring any tchotchkes our kid's toys and books strewn all over the place give the place that homey feel. But what makes our new place feel mostly like home? Our cat. Because "What greater gift than the love of cat?" - Charles Dickens 

We have nothing to lose and a world to see

Okay, okay, so I know that you are just dying to figure out what in the world is going on with us and why oh why we moved to Spain (or, most likely you aren't but let me delude myself with self-importance here, after all, I'm writing a blog - about me, my life, my family - insert eye roll here).

Well, so, here goes. We moved to the Denver Metro Area back in 2003. It has been a great place to live. Denver has SO much going for it. The proximity to many outdoor activities and the mountains, tons of activities for singles, couples and families, a pretty diverse population, an awesome foodie paradise with a thriving medical and recreation marijuana industry - Denverites are spoiled rotten. We've loved being in Denver for (wait for it): four-teen years! We've built our community, our support system, our tribe there. We bought our first home there and had our first -and only- baby there.

We moved to Denver shortly after graduating from college and getting married. We knew a couple of people there and that was it. When we packed our Penske moving truck with all of our earthly possessions, our two cats and a dog and drove off from our apartment in Waukesha, WI, I kept thinking "it's like we are pioneers moving out West, except that it's 2003 and we have a moving truck and not covered wagons". It was, an adventure. I had been in the US for less than 10 years living in a comfy bubble of college life and post-college life in a place that I felt comfortable in and understood. Moving to Denver was a whole new ball game for me. Like all adventures, we had our ups and downs, but we learned so much and grew from it. Can you see where I'm going here....?

I've been itching for the past few years. Looking for jobs around the world. Applying for this and that and praying to the job gods that something comes through.... zip, zilch, nada. And then, I got laid off in the Fall of 2015, started my own business, acquired a kick-ass business partner and focused on that while doing a bunch of side projects and letting my creative juices flow. Slowly but surely, I started floating the idea of selling our house to my spouse and moving somewhere else. A lot of conversations were had, many things discussed and a lot of mulling over took place.

Where would we go? Anywhere. Canada, Costa Rica, and Mexico seemed like good choices because it wouldn't be hard to obtain residency in any of those places. While I love many parts of Canada and do speak some French, I wanted a place where our child would be immersed in Spanish - so that was out. The more research we did on Mexico, the more nervous I got about safety because the very specific part of the country I wanted to move to. It also seemed to familiar. And if Mexico seemed familiar, well, Costa Rica was then clearly out of the question being incredibly familiar - not really an adventure but more an extended stay vacation that would rarely pull us out of our comfort zone. And while the idea of our child being much more knowledgeable about where I grew up and being surrounded by friends and family was extremely appealing, it just didn't feel right.

So now, what? Ecuador? Peru? Argentina? Chile? Colombia? We wanted a place that was new to all of us, that was Spanish-speaking, where I would be happy with the weather most of the time (yeah, humidity and heat are not friends of mine and make me a really cranky person), that would allow us to explore and travel but also be enticing for our friends and family to come visit.... what about.... Spain? Extensive research was done, pros and cons weighed and well - we're in Spain!

Is it totally bonkers to sell your house, pick up and move to a country you have never been too before? Um, you know what the name of this blog is, right?

Don't get me wrong. Our life in Denver was good. It was steady and predictable in the most comforting of ways. I knew what to expect, how to navigate things and where to find anything I needed. And yet, I also had a very high level of anxiety and stress. Our family was in a perpetual state of "fine" and "chugging along". Which, by no means, should be categorized as something negative it just... isn't what we want out of our lives. Life is an amazing journey with so much adventure waiting to happen and we had a choice; we could stay or we could go. We could make things happen or stay complacent.

The poet Seamus Heaney wrote: The way we are living, timorous or bold, will have been our life.
Well, this is us. Being bold.