Swan Song

[Note: I started writing this post about a week ago.  Had several paragraphs written, but then I had to shelve it for a while.  When I went back to it later, it was gone.  I blame the software I’m now using to publish to the blog: Windows Live Writer.  It somehow lost or deleted my draft.  Anyway, the following is take 2.]

We have been remiss.  Very, very remiss.  When we left the UK, this blog was supposed to turn into a “repatriation” blog with stories of our trials and tribulations of integrating with American society after a long time away.  Using a newfound perspective, I was going to spend our first year back remarking on the differences between American and European society and sharing our repatriation experience.  It would bring this 5+ year journey to a nice, neat close; ready to publish as a bathroom or coffee-table book (OK, maybe not).

Well, it didn’t quite work out that way.  You see, we kind of just got too busy living the experience to sit down and write about it.  That sounds incredibly self-important, but it’s the truth.  Too, part of it was that I just got a little bit lazy about blogging.  What with looking for a place to live, hunting for jobs, acquiring both, and then getting more and more busy with everything that goes along with those things, I ended up re-prioritizing things a bit.  The closest I have come to blogging is posting updates on Facebook and Twitter.  Eventually, we decided that we would just go ahead and wrap it up early.  Premature closure is better than no closure at all.  That kind of thing.  After all, we’re pretty much repatriated already.  It was easier than we thought it would be!

Sure, when we arrived last November, we were pretty overwhelmed (too much whelm, much too much).  In fact, we were initially in a kind of psychic recovery position.  So much going on.  Drama at home (don’t want to go into the details), new awesome President elected, Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, tons of mail to go through, getting to grips with being back, etc.  It was impossible to concentrate enough to write an email, even less a blog.  A few weeks later, I was able to muster the strength to coalesce a few of the thoughts and emotions into a stream-of-consciousness piece about the arrival.  Then it was time to start concentrating on our move to the opposite corner of the United States.  Look for a job.  Then a place to live.  Then plan our road trip across the country.  We bought a car.  We got mobile phones.  We had a Christmas From Hell (long story).  And then we set off.  Great road trip that put us in Eugene, OR just in time for New Year’s.  But we were so tired that we couldn’t even stay up to midnight, though we did watch some of the East Coast celebrations on TV with Nanny.

After a couple of days catching up with ourselves in Eugene, we headed out to Central Oregon to stay at Kristen’s aunt & uncle’s ranch in Sisters.  We had been invited to stay there for as long as we needed to.  Looking back now, I don’t think we would have recuperated from the stress of November and December (well, probably the stress of all of last year, if we’re honest) if we had not had this opportunity.  Staying out there in the peace and solace of Willows Ranch was just the kind of panacea we needed.  We’re just sad we couldn’t stay longer!  We pretty much were just there for the month of January, a month that saw the most Project: Expatriated blog posts of 2009.  It didn’t take very long for one of us to find a job (me getting hired on an Americorps contract at Portland YouthBuilders) – that was our plan: stay in Sisters until one of us found a job and then we would look for a place to live near that job.

At the end of January, I was hired as a Learning Coordinator at at the Computer Technology site of Portland YouthBuilders and I started a mere week later on February 5th.  The week before that we found an apartment in Milwaukie, OR (just south of the Sellwood neighborhood of Portland) and moved in almost immediately.  I hit the ground running with this job and time has just been FLYING by.  And I just love it.  It has really cemented my aspirations to go into secondary education (high school or middle school).

Kristen had a bit more of a challenge finding a suitable job.  What can I say?  She’s got a more specialized skillset!  She went the networking route (the way most people find a job in Portland, Oregon) and eventually was hired as a Program Manager of the Project Management course at Portland State University’s Professional Development Center.  She loves her job, too.

Speaking of loving stuff, we just LOVE Portland.  We say that to ourselves on a regular basis.  “I love this town!”  It has EVERYTHING we could possibly want.  Great: food, culture, beer, people, activities, character, bands/music/venues, neighborhoods, and resources.  It’s cosmopolitan, liberal, forward-thinking, cool, and just plain awesome.  And it’s kind of below the radar.  People seem to think it just rains in Oregon and the lumber comes from here.  And to be honest, as hypocritical as this sounds, we like it that way.  We don’t want more people to move here (except for my sister, her fiance, and my mom).  Really.  Don’t.  If that doesn’t convince you, let me just say that it is REALLY HARD to find a job here.  Oregon’s economy is syrupy slow at the best of times.  From what I’ve been told by friends and colleagues here, Kristen and I are INSANELY fortunate to have found the jobs that we did so quickly.  It usually takes up to a year or more to find anything viable.  Not sure what we did to make it happen so easily, but it’s apparently rare.  Who knows what will happen when my Americorps contract runs out?

We really like the place we live.  It’s a great apartment complex/community (Waverley Greens).  We have great neighbors and we are in close proximity to all necessities and within walking distance of Old Town Milwaukie.  It ain’t cool or hip like areas in Portland (not yet anyway), but it’s quiet, affordable, and cozy.  Sort of old school, in a way.  It’s 5.6 miles from my current workplace and about 6 miles from Kristen’s office.  We have a nice little one-bed flat on the ground floor with a sizable back patio, covered parking, amenities, and a communal garden plot.  Things were a bit bare at first, but after a couple of months here, we have made this into a cozy little abode.  A place we intended to stay for at least a year.  [Yeah, I wrote intended.]

This past week (July 20th until now) has been action-packed!  Kristen has been looking at the real estate market in Portland for almost a year.  Checking all the neighborhoods we are interested in for houses.  Just to keep a toe in the water, really.  We haven’t really looked at any in person because we have been operating under the assumption that this is something we will do in a year or two.

We had an impromptu tour of another house several weeks ago just because we walked by and the owner was there.  It was a wonderful little place that we briefly entertained going for, but then changed out minds because we felt we weren’t ready.  Then last Saturday she found a house with a good price tag in a nearby neighborhood and scheduled a viewing.  Just for fun. 

It rocked our world.  Though small, it had EVERYTHING on our wish-list plus a GIANT backyard.  We fell deeply in love with it.  And we enlisted the house listing agent as our realtor.  And we viewed another property with her, just as a contrast.  And we MADE A FRIGGIN’ OFFER on the first house we viewed!  It sounds crazy, but it’s not.  Trust me. 

Well, this past Friday, while my sister was here visiting from Florida, we won the bid.  Kristen had a tense afternoon back and forth on the phone with the listing agent/our realtor.  There was another buyer interested in the house (interested almost as much as us), so we entered into a bit of a bidding war.  A war that we won.  And we still got a great deal on the house.  It’s a place we can see ourselves staying for a LONG time.  But this is all so crazy and sudden that it hasn’t really sunken in yet.  We have a tentative closing date of September 15th.  Both of us are SO looking forward to taking over this house, though we’re not too thrilled with the prospect of moving again as we only got to this apartment in February!  At least a lot of our boxes are still unpacked!  (Yeah, stashed in a couple of closets and in Nanny’s garage).

In our not-too-distant-future, we will be homeowners and we will be able to get a dog, some chickens, a lush garden, and the home we have been craving for so long.  A new adventure begins.

So, without further a-do, we would like to call Project: Expatriation/Expatriated/Repatriation to a successful close.  It’s been an amazing journey.  We hope you have enjoyed following along.

PS – As this new adventure begins to unfold, we will have plenty of things to share, but we are going to do it in a different format.  That of a private Ning social network.  We would like to invite our loyal readers to join our network “The RK Corral” where we will post photos, blog entries, videos, and other goodies on a semi-regular, informal basis.  It’s a private network, so you will need to sign in to view it.  Friends and family will receive an invitation when we are ready to go live with the site.  Otherwise, surf on over to it and submit a request to become a member.  Don’t worry, it’s free and easy to join.

Our stuff

We finally heard from the moving company on Friday (well, Kristen actually had to contact them) and we have been informed that our shipment is due to arrive in Oregon by the end of this coming week. They will inform us of the exact date when it's a day or two away. We will have to pay a fee because customs decided to x-ray the container our stuff was in. Luckily, this is something we budgeted for.

I'm going to try to arrange to get the day off so we can drive down to Eugene. We're going to need a moving van. Really looking forward to getting our stuff back, especially my bicycle so I can start riding my bike to work.

By the way, the moving company picked up our stuff in England on Nov. 14th. Surface shipping takes a LONG time!

January Update

We're still out on the ranch in Central Oregon. And LOVING it! When we're next in a big city, it's going to be culture shock!

It was unseasonably warm today at about 55 deg F. That's really warm for this time of year, even in this part of Oregon. Weather like that makes you think twice about moving to the more cloudy, rainy Willamette Valley! Though, personally, I don't mind rain. More water for making beer with!

On the job front, it's looking a bit sparse, but there are definitely jobs out there for us. I've applied for three or four jobs, ones that would actually be pretty good jobs (i.e.- not scraping the bottom of the barrel). Kristen has also found a couple that she has applied for. Sure, under normal circumstances, there would be more jobs out there, but it's not as bad as the Media makes it out to be. Then again, we're not in the industries that are hardest hit. In Oregon, that's all the industries related to construction, particularly the lumber industry.

Oh, and we still haven't fully "detached" ourselves from England. The deposit from our flat is still in hock. Can you believe it!? I've been contacting the management company periodically since we found out that the landlord wanted to charge us for some stuff. That was in late November. It was not until last Thursday that finally received the list of charges. And they were a little bit absurd. I wrote a frank letter back to them to refute some of the charges and to make counter-offers against the rest of them (basically 50%) based on the validity of the charges, the "hardships" we endured during our tenancy, and the long time that has passed since we moved out of the flat (50 days at the time of writing the letter). Still have not heard anything back from them. Hopefully tomorrow.

What else... we are taking the car in for a check-up at the dealership tomorrow. It's still under warranty, so we thought we'd take advantage of that and have it checked after its long road-trip. Also, during the trip, I broke the latch in the center console armrest (I just barely touched it!). Hopefully, they will fix that under warranty.

On Wednesday, we're going to Portland to have a bit of a look around and to hang with Kristen's sister. Also, my renewed Danish passport is ready for collection at the embassy (it was due to expire on December 24th, so I renewed it in Florida and they were kind enough to ship it to Portland). Then on Thursday, we are having a "face to face" with someone who might be able to give us some good job leads in Portland. After that, we'll head down to Eugene to stay the night before driving back to Sisters on Friday. The unseasonably warm weather should allow us to drive there and back without snow trouble.

Keep an eye on the Sisters, OR photo album as we have been adding pictures periodically.

A stream-of-consciousness (free writing) summary of how it feels to be back -- because it's too hard to formulate this into concrete thought

Numb at first.  

Are we really staying for good?  Isn't this just a vacation?  

Warm.  Florida sunshine.  Tropical.  Food.  Unlimited icecubes.  Tumble dryer.  Amenities that we grew up with.  Thanksgiving.  Random people saying Hello.  Taco Bell.  Pollo Tropical.

Authority.  Police presence.  Immigration.  Citizenship.

Space to breathe.  Space to drive.  Opportunity.

Barack Obama.  New America.  Optimism.  Can-do attitude.  New beginning.  Rebirth.  The road ahead.  Civic duty.

Endless television.  Endless television commercials.

Relief.  All our stuff!  Driving on the right side of the road.  No cars parked in the street.  Yellow school buses.  

Going to the gym.  Suburbia.  Neighborhoods.  Yards.  Lawns.

Commerce.  Consumer freedoms.  Malls.  Giant parking lots.  Car dealerships.  

Have a nice day!

Home.

Recovery Position

It's been almost two weeks now that we have been back in the US and we're both having trouble crystallizing our feelings about it. I've been trying to write this blog entry for about 2 hours, but I keep switching to other web pages to procrastinate. Don't get me wrong; we're really happy to be back and we are really enjoying the time off. We've been sleeping-in (a bit) and have already joined a gym. We've been doing some chores around the house and had a nice Thanksgiving. Kristen has even had a job interview (over the phone), but I guess it's still too soon to talk about it. It's still too soon to put it into words.

It's like we're in a psychic recovery position.

---

Well, for now... here are some pictures from our time in Coral Springs so far.

We're baaaaack!

It's been a LONG day, but we're now back on American soil. The trip was a trouble-free (so we must be doing the right thing!).

Now time for a shower and then a good long sleep! Repatriation starts tomorrow!

Final Fleeting Images of our Life In England

The end of an era

This is it.

This is the end of our last day in England. The last day in Europe. And the last day of our 5-year stint living outside the US. We turn our ship now towards the "New World" once again. It will have changed A LOT in the 5 years we were away and we now return at the precipice of great Change. It is both immensely exciting and somewhat scary. The future is still uncertain and unpredictable, but we are looking forward to it, whatever the outcome.

---

Today has been a hectic churn of activity, making our way through our To Do list. All the little things you normally need to do when moving out of a property, plus a few extra concerns that need to be taken care of when moving out of a country. Things like:

-Mail a check to the moving company (happy to report that the cost of shipping is quite a bit cheaper than the original estimate);
-Give a set of keys to the tenancy management company;
-Get rid of some furniture and the remaining contents of our pantry and refrigerator (most of this went to my work colleagues);
-Report the final meter reading to the the gas/electric company;
-Online flight check-in;
-Deposit some money (from the sale of furniture, etc.);
-Put everything back the way it was when we moved in (furnished apartment);
-Donate things to thrift shops;
-Clean the hell out of the flat.

Laced through these menial chores are lots of "lasts". The last time going to the Post Office (well, the Royal Mail Post Office). The last time riding the A bus. The last time having a shower in our horrible shower stall.

We just got back from our last dinner at our favorite restaurant in Westbourne: The Coffee Club. Before that, we stopped at our "local" for the last time and I had a last pint of real ale (Ringwood's Old Thumper from cask is just devine!). Right now, as we're packing, we're watching a last bit of British television (I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here). And I'm writing our last blog entry in England.

---

We were talking about how we are feeling about this whole thing. I mean, it's quite a big deal! We've been out of the country for 5 years. Yeah, we're used to moving, so that's no big deal, but this time we're moving out of England and back into the US, a country that is familiar and foreign now. Despite all this, we feel mostly... well, numb. Like we're just moving down the street or something. It's weird. I've had a few little pangs here and there when realizing that I might not see certain people again. Or for example, when we were in the pub and I was looking at the pump clips (the emblems on the real ale pump handles), I had a mild, wistful thought that it's going to be a long time before I have that again. I guess it's the realization of losing the things you have been taking for granted. This whole thing is going to hit home in stages, I think.

Right now, we're REALLY ready to go home (that's one thing that is contributing to the ambivalent feelings), but there are things I/we are going to miss about England:

(Uh oh, another list)

-Terry Wogan's Eurovision commentary
-London
-British comedy
-Brendan Westwood (our martial arts instructor)
-The quality of their dairy products and produce
-PAL video standard
-Wagtails (one of the cutest birds on Earth!) and Jays (an elusive bird that looks like it's assembled from the parts of other birds)
-Real Ale
-Branston baked beans
-Roundabouts
-Fewer television commercials (or none at all!)
-Bournemouth (living near the sea)
-Colleagues
-And probably a fair few things we don't realize yet.

Well, it's time to unplug our internet connection, pack up this ol' laptop, and finish packing so we can get some shut-eye before catching our 6.00am bus to Heathrow tomorrow morning. Not that we'll be able to sleep very soundly!

In about 24 hours, we will have landed in Miami to start the next leg of our journey. When PROJECT: REPATRIATION kicks into gear. We will keep this blog going for as long as it takes us to fully settle into life in America. After that, who knows what will happen?

Two major hurdles jumped in one day

Yesterday was kind of a big day in terms of our repatriation to the US. It was my last day of work and the day the movers came to pack up all the stuff we're shipping to Portland.

My workday went by in a bewildering, frantic flash. Because I had to do one-on-one assessment (grading) with 35 students from Monday through Thursday, I didn't have any time to do all the stuff you need to do to effectively hand over your job to someone else. I had to try to pack it all into one day, which didn't really work because I had so much to do. And I had a lot of students coming by to say goodbye with various tokens of their appreciation. It was overwhelming, but really nice to get so much good feedback and know that I will be missed.

During the last couple of hours of the day I was rushing around like a headless chicken giving this stuff to that person, dropping these off in the office over there, saying bye to various colleagues, and generally fretting about all the stuff I didn't get to finish. In fact, I was the last person to leave the office because I carried on working for an hour after the college closed. My plan to leave a clean, clear desk and all the loose ends tied up had been severely downgraded to getting the bare essentials done and getting out of there.

Then I had a somewhat odd final exit of the building. Because I had decided to leave my office keys on the manager's desk, I had to lock the office from the inside and then exit from the fire escape into the back courtyard. I was in a bit of a rush because my bus was due in about 5 minutes, so I tried to cut back around the side and into the ground floor of the building so I could go out the doors nearest the bus stop, but when I got inside I discovered the main doors locked. So I had to make my way down a pitch-black corridor, past the film studios, up a small flight stairs and out another fire exit (luckily, all the fire exits in this building have non-functioning alarms), which I then had trouble closing from the outside despite the fact that EVERY other time anyone has exited from there they have to take extra precautions to make sure the door didn't latch closed if they needed to get back in that way.

Alas, I made my escape, in a hurry, and made it to the bus stop just in time to be able to wait around for the 10-minutes-late bus. Then it started to dawn on me that I am actually quite annoyed that I couldn't have a nice, calm last day saying farewell to people, walking around the campus to see things for the last time, and then leave peacefully. I suppose my exit is in keeping with the tumultuous nature of how things work there, especially on the film course. Oh well!

While all this was happening at work, Kristen was at home waiting for the movers to pack up our stuff and load it on a truck. It went quite smoothly and we actually came in under the original 180 cubic foot estimate; our stuff totaling about 120 instead. That should make it a bit cheaper. They came around 11am and it only took them 2-3 hours to finish. Now our boxes are probably sitting on a palette in London somewhere, waiting to be loaded into a shipping container bound for the Port of Los Angeles. I think it's kind of cool that our stuff is going to get on a ship and travel through the Panama Canal. Oh, the things it will see!

This flat is furnished, so when you walk around, it kind of seems like the movers haven't been here, which only adds to the illusion that we're not actually moving. We're just packing our suitcases and going on vacation.

Last night, Kristen and I met up with my (now) former colleagues and went to a couple of pubs. Not Kristen's preferred activity by any stretch of the imagination, but she relented! It was fun to pal around with them a bit and I was able to resist their attempts to get me completely smashed. Though no one vomited, it was a great display of British drunkenness on a "night out". Particularly in the second (and last) pub we went to, The Goat & Tricycle. As we were getting ready to leave, a pugilistic, drunk couple of girls started arguing with one of my colleagues (who admittedly is a bit of a shit-stirrer). They made us leave by separate entrances and then we stood outside on the sidewalk carrying on for about 15 minutes. It was a fitting end to our social life in England, except for one last thing: they're taking me paintballing on Sunday. I have heard rumors that I will be target Numero Uno, so I have a feeling I am going to have a lot of bruises and welts by the end of the day!

On Monday, Kristen is going to her campus for the last time to have a final meeting and lunch with her PhD supervisor, as well as making arrangements to have her PhD printed and bound in leather (as required by the university). We could have gotten that done a long time ago if the external examiners would have acted a bit quicker. Kristen finally heard back from one of them (an approval of her changes), but is still waiting on the second one (the one that asked for the most changes). We will probably end up having to do the printing from the US. Luckily, there is a company on the Arts Institute campus that can do it and we have enlisted the help of one of my colleagues to collect them when they are done and deliver them to the university.

Though we only have a little over three days left here, we are anxious to leave. No point hanging around here any longer!

America [Disclaimer: Yes, we know we're cheeseballs!]

We're at the 10 days-to-go milestone now. In ten days, we will be touching down on American soil using our one-way tickets with Virgin-Atlantic. It doesn't seem that long ago that we were forlornly thinking about the 300+ days to go. Time has just flown by. This week will be no different. Not only will I be very busy at work, but we have a lot of things to do still. For one, we haven't packed a damn thing yet! That's worse than it sounds because we only have to worry about the stuff we're bringing to Florida in the four suitcases we have. Everything else that we're keeping will be packed by the moving company on Friday.

Last month was very stressful. We didn't realize how much the election was weighing on us until it was over and the huge weight lifted from our shoulders. Now, five days later, we are still stopping to marvel at this historic moment. We have just fallen in love with America again and we are just filled with hope and optimism. So much so that we might not even need Virgin-Atlantic to get back to the US -- we can just float back on our cloud of hope and pride!

I just downloaded Neil Diamond's "America". We listened to it twice this morning. It has taken on new meaning and resonance for us (see the lyrics below).


Far
We've been travelling far
Without a home
But not without a star

Free
Only want to be free
We huddle close
Hang on to a dream

On the boats and on the planes
They're coming to America
Never looking back again
They're coming to America

Home, don't it seem so far away
Oh, we're travelling light today
In the eye of the storm
In the eye of the storm

Home, to a new and a shiny place
Make our bed, and we'll say our grace
Freedom's light burning warm
Freedom's light burning warm

Everywhere around the world
They're coming to America
Every time that flag's unfurled
They're coming to America

Got a dream to take them there
They're coming to America
Got a dream they've come to share
They're coming to America

They're coming to America
They're coming to America
They're coming to America
They're coming to America
Today, today, today, today, today

My country 'tis of thee
(Today)
Sweet land of liberty
(today)
Of thee I sing
(today)
Of thee I sing
(today)

(today)

(today)

(today)

Woah

We have three more Saturdays and three more Sundays.
We have four more Mondays and four more Tuesdays.
We have three more Wednesdays and three more Thursdays and three more Fridays.
And then we're coming home.

Crazy.

Putting our Exit Strategy into action

We've been quiet for a while on here. Time has just been flying by! Both of us have been very busy with work. Term started for me on September 22nd and when the students return, my workload always increases by 100-fold; to the point when you can't really get much done because there are so many plates up in the air to keep spinning. Kristen has been working on her PhD changes (just finished them), doing a couple of research projects for CEMP and still volunteering at the Y. Every Friday for the past few weeks, we've just been shocked that another week has gone by. The weekends have been busy, too. Between my dad visiting, another two-day martial arts seminar, planning/executing our return to the US, keeping an eye on the election, and our usual chores, there's not much time for rest! That's why we are REALLY looking forward to our one-way flight to Florida on November 19th. It will be so nice to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas at my mom's. But before that happens, we have a lot of things to get done. Kristen and I were talking about it last night. There are so many little things that need to be planned and considered.

• Decide what we want to take with us. When we made our initial trek to Europe over 5 years ago, we came with two suitcases each. Little by little, we have amassed more belongings purchased here as well as the things we have been bringing over from our various trips back to the States. It's not a lot of stuff by American standards, but definitely enough to warrant bulk shipping. And we're still selling some things.
  
• Schedule an "inventory" appointment with the estate agent so that we can get our deposit back. Because we are flying out on the 19th in the morning, we need to leave the flat on the 18th, which means the appointment needs to be on that morning. By that point, we need to have the apartment spic-n-span and our suitcases packed so we can just walk out the door after they've checked the place. Then we're going to stay in a hotel near Heathrow that night so we can have a relatively stress-free morning on our departure day. As bad as appointments with various external parties usually go in this country, I am a little paranoid that the estate agent won't stick to it. Therefore, I'm going to be on them like a hound-dog to make sure they don't screw it up for us.
  
• We've picked an overseas "removals" (moving) company and have paid a deposit. They will come by to do a quote based on what we are going to ship. We have scheduled the collection day for November 14th (when they will come to our apartment to pack everything, put it on pallets and take it away). But it's sort of difficult to figure out what we want to ship and what we will put in our suitcases. Obviously, most of our stuff will be shipped, but which articles of clothing will we pack for Nov./Dec. in Florida (pretty mild temperatures, but sometimes a little nippy) knowing that, come January, we will be driving across country to Portland, OR through parts of the country that are going to be butt-ass cold. Which items do we not mind being without for 8-12 weeks as our belongings float across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, into the Pacific and then up the West coast? And what about our bed linen? And other daily-use items? We're staying here for 5 days after the removals company takes our stuff. Plus there's the futon mattress that we've put on top of the mattress that came with the flat. Do we just surreptitiously leave that behind? Or do we need to try to dump it somewhere? What if we miscalculate how much stuff to send with the shipping company and how much to pack in our suitcases? I suppose we might need to do a "dry run" of packing the suitcases to be sure.
  
• We also need to cancel all our utilities. That needs to happen fairly soon because most of them require 30 days notice.
  
• Another issue is our mail. We don't really get that much, but we need to make sure that people aren't receiving our post here long after we're gone. We'll cancel any subscriptions we can and also purchase overseas mail-forwarding from the Royal Mail. Either 3 months or 6 months.
• Set up health insurance for when we arrive in the US. No more NHS after the 19th! We will take advantage of it before we go, though. Free health check-ups and teeth check-ups.
  
• Figure out if we need to get part time jobs in Florida for the 1-2 months we're there.
• Give away/throw away condiments, spices, flour, liquor and stuff like that if we haven't used it by the time we are cleaning the flat for the last time.
• Re-hang all of the landlord's frames and artwork.
• Transfer all of our £s to the US and make sure that we will be able to close our bank account without being there. We will have to leave it open until our last paychecks go through and we receive our deposit back from the flat. Related to this, we need to cancel all direct debits.
• Take a last couple of touristy trips. Probably just up to London for a day soon. There are still a couple of places we wanted to see there. I really want to go to the Tate Modern. It's a great city, so we really just want to see it one more time and say farewell. Probably won't be there again for a very, very long time.
• Keep our fingers crossed that we won't be moving back to 4 years of McCain/Palin. Yak, gag, shiver with fright!
  

Sale! Sale! Everything must go!

We've started selling some of our stuff, in preparation for re-patriating (which is now 72 days away). The most important thing to sell is the BMW. It will hopefully pay for most of the cost of shipping the belongings we do want to keep back to the US because that won't be cheap! We're trying to sell the B'mer for £1000, the exact price it is valued at.

The things we're selling:

The BMW
Clothing Rack
File cabinet
Widescreen television
Xbox + games
Dining room table
Stereo
Vacuum cleaner
Stereo rack

The things we're shipping:

Books
CDs
DVDs
Files
Yoga mats
Beer glasses
Drinks glasses and mugs
Spanish pottery
Rug
Banjo
Bicycle
Waffle maker
Some utensils
Some plates and bowls
A couple of pots and pans
Mementos
Shoes
Clothing
Bed Linen
Bits and pieces
HDD/DVD player

(We've been getting lots of different quotes from shipping companies. Most of them are consolidators. That is, they pack your stuff in boxes and it gets lumped in with other people's boxes in a container. Then it will go by sea. Shipping will take about 8-12 weeks.)

Everything else will be donated to charities, friends, and students.

PS - By the way, we've decided to move to Portland, OR. More about that later!

Another landmark

I know we keep announcing these "fatalistic" time-based landmarks relating to our evermore imminent departure from these isles, but this one is quite significant which kind of struck us unawares this morning.

Exactly 3 months from this point (around 9:30 on November 19th, barring any air traffic delays) we will be seated in the airplane that is taking us one-way-ticket back to the US.

3 months. That's nothing! It will be gone in an instant.

It's scary and exciting all at once. How we will feel exactly when we arrive is any body's guess. Doubtless it will take some time to settle in, at which point we will try to think back to the day we landed in Brussels with one-way tickets -- at the start of this adventure -- with nary but our suitcases and the clothes on our backs.

We've broken the 100 day barrier

Today we have hit a landmark. There are only 99 days left before we move back to the US. Just a little more than 3 months. Things are really moving quickly now. We have cleared two of our major hurdles as of last week.

Kristen passed her PhD viva. And last Monday, I notified my line manager that I would be leaving in November. Something I had been worrying over for a long time (sometimes it filled me with dread), but it went REALLY well! Though he was disappointed, he was really happy for me and offered to give me a reference letter and to put me in contact with some people he knows at a production company in Portland, OR. He adores Portland, too. Afterwards, I felt really silly for worrying about it in the first place (deep down, I knew that would be the case) and I felt a HUGE weight off my shoulders. I've been telling my colleagues little by little.

Both of us have found some interesting job prospects in Portland. We applied for them yesterday. The one for me was actually at the company my line manager recommended. There was actually an opening there!

We are getting close to figuring out which company we want to use for shipping our stuff to the US. We've got a re-patriation budget put together (Kristen did that).

I'm really looking forward to it. It's going to be a whole new adventure. Both the end of an amazing era and the beginning of an exciting new one.

Where Our Sights Are Set

We have just hit the 145-day mark in our countdown to repatriation. Every once in a while one of us has a tiny little "freak-out" about the whole thing. It's kind of scary actually. K probably feels like I did when we moved to Europe (not as scared because it's almost like going home). We will just have some major readjusting to do and we have no idea where fate will take us.

The US is an enormous country, but strangely, we have been having a tough time picking a place we would like to live. We would like to try to maintain a "European lifestyle" (public transportation or walking, small neighborhood with good independent shops and restaurants, etc.); have good job opportunities to do something we enjoy; be near family and/or friends; have good transport links to easily see family and friends that don't live near us; not rely on a car; vibrant cultural scene (concerts, movie theatres, festivals); liberal political atmosphere with opportunities for activism of various kinds; good beer brewing; the possibility outdoor fitness activities; and a chance for us to buy a nice, reasonably priced house.

So, we have a list of places. A list that keeps fluctuating. Sometimes there's just one place on it, other times there have been a lot of places on it. This is something that has been going on for well over a year, but now that repatriation is imminent, we are looking at it much more seriously. By this time next year, we will hopefully be firmly ensconced in this new place of our dreams. The plan is to move "there" in January 2009.

Below is the list. It is divided into three sections. THE LIST! is a list of the places we like the most. If you were to say it out loud, you would have to put one or two thumbs up and say it with gusto and a smile. The List is the "batter's box" for places that we like, but don't necessarily tick off enough of our criteria to make it into THE LIST!, though might jump up there at some point. Again, to say it out loud, you say it somewhat flatly, but with a positive inflection in your voice. Finally, the list is for places that we definitely do not want to live in. Pronounce it with a slight hiss and contempt in your voice. Without further ado, in no particular order:

THE LIST!
St. Petersburg (or Tampa area), FL
Portland, OR
San Francisco (area), CA
Austin, TX
Idaho
Seattle, WA

The List
Charleston, SC
Savannah, GA
Arizona
Montana
Washington DC
New Hampshire
Colorado
New Mexico
Hawaii

the list
Everywhere not listed above

---

Hmm... decisions, decisions!

145 Days, 12 Hours, 46 Minutes

Things To Do Before Re-Patriating

Before moving back to the US, there are a few things we would like to accomplish/do. Herewith, a bullet-point list of those things. Some are things we both want to achieve/do and a few are personal. You can probably guess which is which. We've got about 170 days to cross everything off!

• Dentist and health check-up at a free NHS clinic
• Lose 10-15 lbs.
• Visit an English hop farm at or near harvest-time
• Visit a brewery or two
• Go to a pub Quiz Night
• Review, on BeerAdvocate, all the CAMRA-listed local pubs
• Trip to Brussels (maybe)
• Trip to Barcelona
• Trip to Italy? (probably won't be able to squeeze this in)
• Sell the car
• Go to Eden Project
• See Phantom of the Opera - DONE!
  
• Volunteer at the Great British Beer Festival
• Achieve Level 2 grading in Kali
• Graduate with a Doctoral degree
• Hike to Durdle Door and Studland
• Go to Brownsea Island (and hopefully see the native brown squirrels)
• Trip to Copenhagen and Nordjylland
• Buy England mementos and/or furniture
  

Our Exit Strategy

While the Bush Administration and the Military Industrial Complex wrangles with "the Liberals" over an exit strategy for Iraq, K and I have come up with ours for leaving England/Europe. It is called Project: Repatriation. You'll notice that the title of our blog has changed to thus.

We concocted this plan late last year. I say "we" but it was really K who came up with it. We had decided that we definitely were going to move back to the US soon after her PhD graduation (this Fall). It was a real mind-f*ck to contemplate the subject. Where do we move back to? How do we apply for jobs from here? How do we bring our stuff back over? How do we tie up loose ends here? Just too many factors to make sense of. That's when K had the brilliant idea: use Florida as an intermediate step/launch-pad.

It would go something like this. Move to my parents' house in South Florida initially for a couple of months of re-acclimating to American life and getting our feet under us. Basically, staying there for the holidays and then move "somewhere" yet-to-be-determined in the beginning of 2009. We would get rid of all the stuff here that we don't want to keep and ship the rest to the Florida address. It should arrive by the time we are ready to move "somewhere". K's e-Employment plus our savings from earning Pounds Sterling will be enough to cover the basics for a couple of months. We will sell the BMW which should cover the cost of shipping our belongings with a bit left over. The deposit from our UK apartment will be put towards a new computer and other necessities. Additionally, we have been "feathering our nest" by purchasing household items on Amazon.com (taking advantage of the exchange rate and free shipping). This structured, meticulous strategy should allow us to maintain our current quality of life without going into major debt like we did when we moved to Europe. Less like starting from scratch!

During our re-acclimation period in Florida, we will apply for jobs in various places we would like to live (more about that in a future post) and possibly take up some part-time employment, but mostly, we will be relaxing a bit and helping my mom fix stuff around the house. And, hey, I might try to write a book about these 5 years in Europe/England using this blog as a basis.

We're looking forward to repatriation, but we will definitely have a wistful departure. It's been a great adventure. K has utmost confidence in this process and doesn't seem to have any fear about it. I'm a bit frightened, though. This is going to be a major change and a shock to the system and it means I will be pulling myself out of the momentum of my job here and sort of starting again. It would be great if I could transplant my job to the US. And I've always considered myself European, so it will be hard for me to leave. Having said that, I feel just as much of a pull to go back to the US (slightly different reasons than K, though). We just don't see ourselves living in Europe, certainly not England, for the rest of our lives. The main reason is family. As I said before, we're just tired of being so far away from everyone. And, man, are we tired of trans-Atlantic flights!

But tonight we're going to revel in our Europeaness and watch The Eurovision Song Contest!

Countdown: 178 Days, 15 Hours, 41 Minutes