Buen Viaje!

as written Saturday December 3rd, 2011

Buen viaje (booen vee-ya-hey), bon voyage, safe journey! We are off! I am writing this while on the plane to Guatemala! We just had a layover in Miami, Florida and are on our final leg of the trip. We arrived in Miami around 11:00am and luckily did not have to go far to our connecting flight. From B16 to B6. As we were waiting to board the plane to Guatemala a women walked up, escorted by two people in uniform. At first I thought the people were police helping the woman to her terminal. Once they got closer I realized the badge said “Customs Border Patrol”. She was getting deported! Not something you see every day.

Anyways... 9 months of careful planning culminating to 6 hours of a plane ride. Sheesh. I feel like getting on the plane should have been more... should have had more.. umph. You know what I mean? More climactic. But I guess the climactic part is actually being in a different country. 

This past week of preparations has been a flurry of laundry, packing, and cleaning. As I look back on this week I wish we had done more cleaning! Here is a picture of what our bedroom looked like after the laundry and before we started packing...

Insane huh? Try packing light for 4 months! After washing our clothes we dumped them on the bed, as you can see, and separated them into 2 piles; clothes we want to take and clothes we don’t want to take. THEN we separated farther; clothes we don’t need and clothes we do need. Luis did a great job getting rid of clothes he didn’t need. His pile he was taking to Guatemala was far smaller than the pile he was leaving behind. Not so for me! It was so hard for me to decide! Who knows when I’ll need a white hoodie or denim jacket, my extra pair of chacos or an extra pair of sneakers!? Decisions, decisions! However, I was able to keep my luggage to the one carry-on and one big suitcase plan. I was even able to keep the weight close to 50 lbs. 55 lbs to be exact but the guy checking us in didn’t charge us extra, how nice! Here’s one of my first tips for you. I learned it from my Military father. Role your clothes instead of folding them! Saves SO MUCH SPACE! And bonus special: less wrinkles! Here’s a picture of my suitcase half packed...

If I had more time maybe I would have tried to fold the clothes and show you the difference but I’m not that organized... or motivated. Just take my word on it! Rolling clothes=much more space. 

The other thing we had to tackle this week was saying goodbye. I’m never good with goodbyes. I either show no emotion, or show too much. There’s never any happy medium. This time around saying goodbye to friends, co-workers, and family, I didn’t show very much emotion but just because I don’t show it doesn’t mean I don’t feel it! I am really going to miss my job, family, and friends. Really! It was just so surreal. Up till we had our layover and started hearing more spanish than english, I still didn’t quite feel like it was actually going to happen! Like it was some big joke and I’d show up for work Monday morning saying “surprise!”... but the joke would be on me. Weird I know but when you make such a drastic change in your life as we are doing, it doesn’t ever feel real. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I will be in a different country, speaking a different language (or trying to), going somewhere different each week, trying new foods, and who knows what else!

The one place I showed the most emotion this week actually surprised me. Saying goodbye to our dog Max. I cried! Sobbed! And I am NOT one of those insane dog people. I absolutely love him but I don’t dress him up or treat him like he’s my baby. He’s a dog. But I had the hardest time leaving him at our friends house. I just wish I could tell him that we aren’t abandoning him and that we still love him and that he would understand it! I wish we could take him but it just wasn’t possible. Another tip, if you are considering taking a pet on vacation out of the country check on the quarantine laws. Some countries require your pets to be quarantined before AND after your trip. And its not just a couple days, its a month, sometimes longer! It may be in your pet’s best interest to leave him with someone instead of sticking him in a kennel for 30 days, traveling on the plane (which can be extremely traumatic), and being in new places all the time. Hardest decision we had to make but we know Max will be happy. He gets to play with kids all day!

For Christmas my sister sent us the best gift ever. An almost life-size cutout of Max! She wrote saying he could now come with us on our trip. Such a great idea. Thanks Monica! Here’s the first picture of our trip, at Logan Airport waiting to board our plane, Max included! 

I have a feeling that a favorite part of our trip will be finding crazy places to take pictures of Max’s ‘almost life-size’ cutout. So keep your eyes peeled for him! 

My last tidbit of the day, before all electronics must be shut off and we land on Guatemalan soil (yay!), is that when you get on the plane that takes you to the different country they require you to fill out a form. Just regular questions like, destination, reason for traveling, country you’re from, passport #, stuff you would expect. On the bottom was a checklist. Check off if you’re bringing gifs into the country (check), any weapons (no check), live animals (no check), drug or medicines (check.... wait a second. I didn’t read the fine print, Drugs or medicine subject to special permission... uh, did I just admit to bringing marijuana? That’s what Luis said, hahaha. So start over with a new form. So THAT is what finally made me realize WE ARE DOING THIS! Are we crazy? Or just stupid? Oh well, whatever we are we’ll have a great time figuring it out in Guatemala!! 

Signing off for now... I'll write another post soon!