Tout le (des)mond(e)

Well, we've done it.  We've completely clambered out of our relatively safe and comfortable American lives and settled into a, um, relatively safe and comfortable European life.  Ha!  We are currently living on a little street - Carrer Gravina - in Barcelona, Spain.  It may be worlds away for those not accustomed to European life or Spanish language, but I find that I'm probably more comfortable than my husband is considering that I do speak Castellano (Spanish).  So, I guess our move overseas doesn't quite have the adventure and exoticism that I've dreamt of having before, but we are taking baby steps to achieve that.

Billy was accepted into a business study exchange out here last year.  We decided to apply on a whim, not really thinking that we would ever leave St. Louis (we rather liked it there), but we liked having the option to go.  "Hey honey, wanna go to Barcelona next year?"  "Suuuuuure!"  As far as we knew, it wasn't gonna happen.  Then came the letter that let us know that Bill had been accepted to the program.  After a 15-minute discussion, we made the decision to go.  It was pretty easy to decide...one semester in Europe?  Yes, please.  I thought of all of the places we could visit (considering we frequently took road trips averaging 10 hours a day, driving 8 hours to Paris seemed ideal!) and started really looking forward to the experience.  Plus, exposing Des to even more Spanish culture and language was a definite plus.

One day last summer, Billy called me up and asked me if I would be open to taking 2 or 3 months after the course was done to do a bunch of traveling.  I thought about the amount of educational debt we both have incurred and the amount of money we currently had and balked at the idea at first.  I came around, though, since we don't have a house/mortgage and Billy wouldn't start his job until July/August.  Once I got used to the idea of being in Europe for about 6 months, Billy approached me with a new idea: we won't sell his business, we will try to expand it internationally, and we will spend a year doing so.  Again, I balked at the idea, but I've come around and now, we are planning to spend 5-6 months in Spain and divide the rest of the year between Croatia and Turkey.  Why Croatia and Turkey?  Well, initially, we were inspired by articles such as this, this, this, and this.  However, Croatia and Turkey are both centrally located (with Turkey straddling both Europe and Asia) and can afford us with fairly quick trips to international schools in Asia and Europe if necessary.

So, that's our life for the next year.  We are going to give it a shot and if it doesn't work out, then we will come back home and regroup to see what our next steps will be.  For now, I will enjoy fulfilling a life-long dream of living abroad, eating new foods, experiencing new cultures, and learning (or becoming acquainted with) new languages.  I will do my best to keep an account of our travels (mostly as a journal to myself) and specifically what our experience will be as parents of a very active toddler in a foreign country.