micheleandtom.com

Tom and I have decided that whenever we want to spend a protracted amount of time in a foreign country, we should send Ian as our advance man.

My brother has made our arrival in Argentina a breeze. He greeted us at the airport, whisked us into a gigantic van, well, really a shuttle bus, that could accommodate the five of us and all of our bags!! (They are very strict on the 4 people per taxi rule in Buenos Aires, something that Ian says is new, so we couldn’t do the minivan.)

Ian then took the girls on a bus/subway/playground adventure while Tom and I unpacked. Afterward, we had a city bus sojourn, courtesy of Ian, to a yummy steak restaurant (of course) where Tom, literally, just had a giant steak for dinner. Not even a token nod to the vegetables.

Which leads us to the obvious conclusion that no one should move overseas without an Ian.

The juxtaposition of experience after a long flight is always overwhelming. When I think back on today, many memories float across my consciousness:

• The Southerners at the Hot-lanta airport declaring, “Aahm goin’ to Argentina to hunt duuhhvs.”

• The Argentina city bus pulling away with the girls still hanging on in the open doorway while Tom and I stand, alarmed, behind them on the street.

• Not being able to sleep on the plane.

• Passing out in a bed with the roar of Buenos Aires as background noise.

• The deserted Portland Airport–we were there at both 7:00 am and 11:00 am and it was a ghost town–zero wait in security.

• A humongous city teeming with people where you can get gelato at midnight with your kids and no one bats an eye!

You start off very excited and optimistic…you are going to a far away land on a new adventure, just like how you feel when you are going to have a baby.

You obsess over every detail when you get on the plane, just like you do at the beginning of a pregnancy (you know, the baby is the size of a pea, a garbanzo bean, a kidney bean, etc.). On the plane, you check out your video display, how many rows to the exits, you situate your blankets and sleep masks (the girls especially), and you read the airline magazine to figure out food, movies, etc.

Then you hit the middle of the trip, which is much like the middle of a pregnancy…it seems to last forever. During both, you get uncomfortable, your feet swell, you can’t sleep, and food doesn’t sit quite right.

At the end, although you might be a bit nervous, you don’t care and just want the whole thing to be over. You are tired, crabby, and don’t want to deal with any of the associated paperwork (immigration and/or getting your baby’s social security number).

We are here…we have been birthed from the plane to Buenos Aires. More later!

Our last morning in Portland!

We woke up early and took our eight 50 pound bags to the airport at 7 am to check them. It was pretty cool, we could scan our passports in the automated check-in kiosks–that was new to me.

Next, we left the airport and went to Elmer’s Pancake House for our last American breakfast. I have to say, their cinnamon French toast was awesome. (Think cinnamon roll sliced, dipped in batter, and fried like French toast…mmm hmmm.)

Then, it was back to the airport hotel for a quick nap!! Man, I was tired. Okay…I still am.

Anyway, Tom the nervous-traveler-I-have-to-be-at-the-airport-super-early is rousting us all to head back to the aeropuerto so I must go.

Next post from Buenos Aires!

As we come to the end of the planning/preparation phase, the nerves are really starting to kick in.

When there isn’t stuff to obsess over in terms of packing, storing, calling, notifying, etc., then the knowledge of what we’re embarking upon is hard to avoid.

We will be getting into a big metal box tomorrow and 24 hours later, we will be in Buenos Aires. We will be living out of 8 bags that weigh less than 50 pounds each. We won’t own a house. We won’t own any cars.

Weird!

1. Start throwing things out the second you consider leaving the country–it is never too soon!

2. Don’t sell the kids’ beds early on Craigslist so that they have to sleep on camping mats on the floor for a month–they get really mad at you!!

3. Definitely build a gap between the time you move out of your house/apartment and the time that you leave the country. (Heretofore called the “GAP.”) We had a 9 day GAP, every hour of which it seems we have filled with the business of prepping for the trip. If we had left the day or two after moving out, I don’t know that we would have made it, and, we certainly would have been a complete, stressed-out mess.

4. Keep your bathroom scale out of storage so that you can weigh your luggage to make sure each piece comes in under the weight limit established by the airlines.

5. When you pack your crap into boxes to move to storage, use lots of white newsprint packing paper–buy about five more boxes of it than you think you will need!

6. Own cars with an eye toward who might buy them when you are selling down the road. We learned that in a recession, the only people with cash to buy cars are senior citizens, so make sure your car works for them!

7. Send your kids to the grandparents, uncles, cousins, aunts, and/or friends during the GAP (under the guise of, “this is your last chance to see the little tykes…”). You are much more productive when you are kid-free. If you can’t ship the wee ones off to a trusted friend or family member, double the length of time that you believe you may need to establish as the GAP!!!

The Setup: Sitting on the floor in the middle of the living room of my parents’ loft surrounded by a ring of stuff we think we want to take to Argentina.

The Challenge: Getting all of that crap into 8 checked bags. (It sounds like a lot of bags, but with a family of four…not so much. It does occur to me that we will look ridiculous at the airport with a zillion bags.)

The Bonus Round: We had weird stuff to pack besides clothes, including, but not limited to, the Lego Mindstorm robots, two large All Clad pans with lids (stock pot and large frying pan), the home pedicure kit from the Body Shop, a box with our speakers, a lot of tampons (they don’t have much brand variety, or in some cases availability in Argentina), and some large reference cookbooks.

The Winner: The Offermann/Reeves!!! Mmmmm Hmmmmm. That’s right. As of last night, we fit everything we had set out to pack in just 6 1/2 bags, and there is some extra room in 2 of those bags. “I feel like we’re not taking enough stuff now,” offered Tom.

We do have a wee bit o’ reshuffling to do, since two of our bags are a smidgen overweight (they have to be 50 pounds or less), but once I do that, I will have 6 bags, fully packed, easily under 50 pounds. Yes, that means that we will have some extra room to take Ian a few of the items that he has been requesting we bring him. I suppose that I can always hope that he doesn’t read this post…

Step 1: Move out of apartment.  Check.

Step 2: Clean apartment.  Check.

Step 3: Lock myself out of the apartment on the last night cleaning while Tom is unloading stuff at our storage space. Make sure that I am only wearing socks, no shoes, and that I don’t have a cell phone on me.  Check.

Step 4: Get really dry hands. (You know, the kind where the skin on your fingertips starts peeling up in tiny increments, catching on fabric all of the time.  The kind where it feels like you have a thousand tiny cuts on your hands when you use lotion.)  Check.

Step 5: Become so exhausted that you can’t remember where you are driving pretty much every time you get in the car. Check.

Step 6: Buy more luggage. Slated for Today.

Step 7: Sort through the huge pile of crap that is sitting in my parents’ loft to determine the final packing list of items that we will take. It has got to fit in 8 bags (that’s two per person, unless Delta changes their free baggage policy on international flights in the next few days.) Slated for Today and Tomorrow.

Step 8: Try to eat something fresh and green that does not have sugar. May Not Happen!

I’m afraid that my period of “we can fit everything in a 10X15 storage space” righteousness may be over.

Tom and I were coming down to the wire today and we knuckled. We couldn’t handle the truth…or at least, the stress that it might not all fit. So, we reserved a small storage space directly across from our current 10X15 unit, just in case.

Current thinking, (at 1:12 a.m. on Monday night/morning) is that we will use the add-on storage to just get it all out of the condo without worrying about stuffing it all in the 10X15. Then, at his leisure (in the next 9 days), Tom will see if he can artfully stuff the 10X15. If it all fits, we’ll just pay a minimal fee for the add-on space and ditch it.

Never a dull moment.

By the way, we are deliriously happy that we scheduled this nine day break between when we move out of the condo and when we actually leave for Argentina. As Tom said, if we were flying out in a day or two, these would be dark times indeed.

Moving limbo is finally getting to the girls.

The house is nearly empty and the only thing they can do is watch TV. Tom and I have no time for them and are constantly crabby. They have two days of school left.

IT IS REAL. Poor things. We had a long talk tonight about how tough it is to move, and to live “in-between,” as we are now. But I promised it would get better, and indeed, told them it would provide good fodder for future family stories. “Remember when we ran off to Argentina…”

“What do you mean?” Zoe asked me. I gave her lots of examples of crappy times in the Reeves family that have become classic family stories. (Dumping canoes, camping on rocks, driving the wrong way down a one-way street after Mom’s thyroid surgery.) She seemed to take some comfort in that!

Zelda, the child who loves drama of any sort, can’t wait to talk more about being in limbo, and suggested we all discuss it on the way to school tomorrow morning because we would all be together in the car!