July 11th – After a 7-ish hour flight, we made it to the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Neither Adam nor I can sleep on planes, so after getting only 3 hours of sleep the previous night, and close to no sleep on our overnight plane ride, we were both exhausted.  We were hoping that since our plane was grounded in NY for 1.5 hours, that our bags made it on…wishful thinking.

Waiting at the baggage carousel proved us wrong.  Our bags were stuck in NY.  We were in Paris. Neither of us can say more than “bonjour”, “merci”, “croissant”, and “chocolat” in French.  Thank goodness for English speaking American Airlines reps!!  The nice lady at the counter spoke English very well, and after finding out we were from Herndon, VA, she mentioned that she was previously an au pair in Reston!! score!! We found a connection with the baggage lady!

She was nice enough to call someone or another to confirm that our bags never left NY, and said they would be on the next flight to Paris and that someone would deliver our bags to us immediately after they arrived.  We also got some helpful tips on taking the metro instead of taxi to our hotel (or studio in our case since we are using airbnb.com for the majority of our stay in Europe) because it would be lot cheaper, but since both of us were exhausted, we  (or at least I was) 1) were looking for the quickest way to our room, and 2) couldn’t really understand all her directions due to her French accent and so didn’t remember most of what she said.

We decided to take a taxi anyway to get from point A to B asap.

Walking out of the terminal, some guy approached us and asked us if we needed a taxi, and informed us that the line for taxis had a 1+ hour wait and that his company could get us in a car immediately….for a price of 85 euros.  He seemed to give somewhat of a sales pitch, and we were at first thinking that was way too much, but then considering that we were about 40ish minutes outside of Paris (we stayed near the Eiffel Tower), a cab ride may cost around 40+ euros, plus we’d have to wait in line for a long time.

Eventually we caved, and decided to suck it up and pay the 85 euros to get us to our room.  The guy then walked over to another 2 guys….one looked like he could have been in the Russian mafia – tall, bald, wore all black, and not friendly seeming, and another who looked equally as sketchy but shorter and kind of a mix of middle-eastern and Amish.  Both of these guys were in street clothes, and none looked like they worked for any professional taxi service.  The first guy we talked to assigned the shorter guy to drive us.

We followed our driver out of the airport and to a black car waiting at the curb. There were no markings on the car saying “Taxi” there was no meter on the dashboard, there was nothing at all that told us that this was an actual valid taxi. Adam and I looked at each other….realizing that this was a bad idea, and Adam said something to the guy about no meter and questioned if this was a real taxi or not.  The guy responded “pre-vat car, pre-vat car” (private car)….ugh, I had a bad feeling about this….but we both hesitantly got in.

At that moment, I was certain that we were going to be driven to some dark alley and murdered, or mugged and left in some ditch, or told to get out of the car with our bags stolen.  We didn’t speak French, we honestly had no idea how to actually get to our room, and Charles de Gaulle was 30-40 min outside of Paris, so this guy could have pretty much taken us anywhere he wanted and we would have had no idea where we were or now to communicate with anyone to get help.

We spent the first few minutes in awkward silence, with all sorts of horrible scenarios racing through my mind, until our driver tried to start up a conversation in his broken English.  I have no idea how, but MMA was brought up, and it was then that Adam was able to form  somewhat of a “hey don’t kill us” bond with this guy over juijitsu/UFC talk for the next 20 or so minutes.  phew….  no muggings or murders for these world travelers!

We finally made it safely to our studio in Paris, ready to start our 5 month long adventure….85 euros poorer, but hey, it got us out of standing in long taxi lines, and possibly getting lost on the metro (little did we know the Parisian metro is actually really easy to navigate as we later found out).

What’s the first thing we did in Paris, you ask?  took a long nap!

July 9th – After non-stop packing for days, we were finally nearing the finish line.  Our flight to Paris was at 6pm on Thursday, July 10th, and we’ve still got more to pack up and put into storage, and then finally finish packing our luggage for the trip.

I left my least favorite room – the kitchen – for last.  Dozens of dishes, glasses, and other odds and ends still needed to be wrapped and stored safely in boxes, and moved to our storage room.  Luckily, my parents volunteered to help.

Around 6pm on Wednesday (24 hours till our flight took off) both my parents came over and got to work wrapping dish by dish, glass by glass.  Adam was still packing his “man room” so it was just 3 of us tackling the kitchen.  We finished the kitchen, surprisingly efficiently, in about 2 hours! What a relief! It would have taken me all night to do it myself!  Thank you mama and papa!!

Once they left, Adam and I finished up the last of our odds and ends, wound up staying up till 3am before deciding to call it a night and head over to my parents for a few hours of sleep.  Needless to say, we were out cold once our heads hit the pillows.  Waking up at 6am on the 10th, we went back over to our house to load up my mom’s van and the lexus with the last load of boxes.

We cut it incredibly close, locking the storage room for the last time till December around noon or 1pm, and then back over to the house to pack up our bags.  We decided to travel as lightly as possible, each of us only bringing 3 bags – an Osprey convertible wheeled bag, the day pack that came with the Osprey bag, and one other bag (for me a large purse, for Adam a large lap-top messenger.  Finally packed, we made it over to my parents around 3pm, just in time to leave for the airport.

We were done. Finally!  (or so we thought) 6pm came around and we were on the plane ready for take off….but nope! Bad storms rolled around the area so all flights got cancelled JUST before our plane went down the runway.  Here’s what it looked like for roughly 1.5 hours as we sat in our plane at Reagan Airport:

Just slightly delayed…

As you can see (or not see), visibility was no more than .25 miles. Ugh, our flight from DCA went to New York JFK before heading over to Paris.  We had about 1 hr 45 min layover in NY, so I was expecting to stay the night in NY due to the delay.

We made it to NY minutes (5 or less) before the NY – Paris flight was scheduled to take off.  Luckily, our next flight was in the same terminal, and we literally ran to the gate.  I suppose the Paris flight was expecting us and knew our original flight was delayed, and they actually held the doors open and waited for just the 2 of us.  We finally saw the gate, and the 3 flight attendants who were expecting us as they started waving at us to hurry…which we did.  WE MADE IT!

Our bags on the other hand…a different story…

July 4th, 2014 – Day #1 of sabbatical for me (and the end of the 3rd week for Adam)…and what’s a better way to celebrate this 6 month long vacation than with fireworks! Independence Day had a different meaning this year. We celebrated in DC, seeing the best fireworks show I’d ever seen before.

It didn’t feel real that I wouldn’t be going back to work in a couple days….for the next half a year!  When was the last time I didn’t have to do any work or go to school for 6 months at a time? Summer breaks for school and college are only 3-4 months, and I started working full time right out of college, so that means it had to have been when I was…..4? Possibly younger? wow!  Guess this really is an opportunity of a lifetime!  Until retirement, that is…

Hope everyone had a happy 4th!

~S

This is my first attempt at blogging, and also with Word Press. Just as a heads up to all of you who are reading this – I am not a writer.  I am an accountant.  I like numbers, facts, logical things.  Not so much opinions or stories.  But, for all of our friends and family who are living vicariously through us in our travels, I will try my hardest to actually post our adventures here.  well…at least I will try to post pictures 😉

~S

For as long as we’ve known each other (which is 14 years now…), Adam has talked about living overseas. Originally, the plan was to live in one place for a year to year and half, but something always got in the way. After getting married, there were job changes, home purchases, masters degrees…something always seemed to be going on that pushed this trip off.

So, here we are in 2014, married for 7 years now, and we do want to have a family some day (Adam seems to think we’re still having 5 kids….I’m not so sure about that!) so it’s now or never!

We decided on 6 months…leaving in July, returning in December, but Adam will go traveling on his own in January through February. We will be spending half the time in Europe, and the other half in Asia, traveling from place to place, staying in each until we’re ready to move on. There is no itinerary. There is no real plan. But we’re doing it! Renting our house, selling our cars, packing up and just leaving! Some probably think we’re crazy (sometimes I do myself), but life is short….and I don’t want to be on my death bed someday thinking about how average my life was. So, we’re doing it…living life, experiencing different places, people, and best of all..FOOD!

So far, the plan (and I use that term loosely) is a couple weeks spent in France, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, and then on to India, Thailand, and possibly the Philippines, Cambodia, and other south east Asian countries nearby. I am lucky enough to be able to take a 6 month leave of absence from work, and return to my job in January. Adam, however, is resigning in mid-June.

In 2015, we rebuild our lives….start from almost scratch, and prepare for yet another adventure….starting a family! But for now..time to live in the present, enjoy every moment, and do what very few people do…become world travelers!