Portland via Europe

I have been a little mum on here about our long-term-goals (mostly because some of my co-workers read my blog, and I didn't want any awkwardness about it), BUT now it is the time to out with it.

Sebastien and I are moving to Portland, Oregon!

I am so happy (and so nervous)! For me, it will mean "moving back" to Portland; for Sebastien, it will mean moving to two hours away from where he grew up. This decision was a long time in coming, and came about with many different factors in mind (many of them having to do with border issues). We have thought long and hard about it, and are now putting our plan into action.

When we first said, "okay, now we can start thinking about a move" (we put it off for a long time, so we could get married), we asked ourselves what some of the opportunities were, and one was that we will both be unemployed at the same time for an extended (although hopefully not too extended) period of time. We thought, how long do we have to save to have an ample cushion for moving AND be able to have a bit of fun in between?

We talked about this a bit, and decided it was very important to go see Sebastien's family in France (his grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins), but we figured we might as well do some other things, "I mean, we're in Europe and all." At the very beginning of this conversation we realized that neither one of us knew that the other person really wanted to walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, from southern France across Spain. That, my dear friends is what we are going to do. We will visit his family for a few days at the beginning, go on a month-long walk (more on that, I am sure), visit Granada, and then head back to see his family again.

We are also using this time to visit my family in New York for a bit. I will finally meet my newest nephew Henry! I am very happy about that! It will be nice to have a solid chunk of time to visit them - I think we will be there around a week.

When we fly back to Portland, we will be coming back to a lot of uncertainty - at least that is how it looks now. We have our fingers crossed, and are doing everything we can to get prepared. As things progress, as I am sure they will, I will keep you up-to-date. Right now, we are happy that we have the resources to be able to do such a big move AND trip at the same time. We feel pretty lucky.