Planning, sorting, organizing, and packing

We left for our big Semester at Sea trip around the world a week ago! The first week has been great! Of course we are both very excited and for Christmas I got the book Creative Camera and that made me even more excited. Playing with new photography ideas, further exploring Miksang photography, and being in new places to inspire are some of the things I'm looking forward to during this voyage.

Months ago when we were invited on this voyage around the world the preparations began. We had to figure out what to do with our house, where to store our cars, who would take care of our dog, and figure out how we could make this trip as economical as possible. We suspended our cell phone service, cancelled our home phone, downgraded our car insurance, bought foreign currency for 10 different countries, bought visas for 4 countries, and set up a packing station in the spare bedroom so we could pack over time.

In the couple weeks before we left I found myself going back and forth between being really excited about the trip and being bummed with all the packing, sorting, organizing, and planning that goes into it. Of course it's worth it, but it was really draining.

There were piles of stuff getting organized in most every room in the house. The office/spare bedroom has bins where we've placed various things we collected during the last month - shampoo, the mosquito head net, the new super tiny, lightweight sleeping bag (called the Atom - isn't that a great name?), Malaria medicine, flashlight, tent, binoculars, etc. I realized why more people don’t travel around the world. The logistics can be overwhelming! Fortunately, we made it and now that I’m here looking out at the ocean I can barely remember the stress of that week. The highlight was hanging out with some close friends at the Harmony a couple nights before we left. It was a great time and a much needed break. I realized how much would miss my close friends while we are gone. We love you!

the bins that we used to stay organized while we packed

A few days before we left we laid out all the clothes and started weeding through what to put back. The guideline we heard was to layout everything you want to take and then put half of it back. Good advice. It's so hard to decide what to bring because you don't know what situations will come up and what you'll need to wear. Plus, the more clothes I bring the fewer toys I can bring like fun camera gear and art supplies.

sorting all our clothes

When all the packing was done we each had a large duffle and a small duffle to check and two carry-ons. We booked our flights with Southwest so our bags could fly free. No need to pay those silly extra fees.

our luggage for the next four months

When we told people about our journey around the world we experienced a wide range of reactions and got lots of questions. I wish I had written them all down, because some of them were pretty funny. Here were the most common ones.

What are you doing with your house?

Fortunately, a friend of ours is living in our house and paying us a small bit of rent. It was a challenge to find someone for the short time, especially because we wanted to leave most of our stuff in the house. We needed someone we could trust and who wouldn’t need us to move everything out. Although we still had to empty our dressers and bedroom closet, move two couches, and remove a lot of stuff out of the kitchen. The good thing is that all this packing has led to a garbage bag full of clothes and other things that are heading for the thrift store or perhaps the next garage sale. We have too much stuff. I know I'll feel that even more when we get back, after living in a tiny room and meeting people who live with much less than we do. We also have a great next door neighbor who is always willing to help and keep an eye on things.

What about your dog?

Jake, our adorable floppy-eared Doberman is staying at Julie’s brother’s house. They also have a dog named Maggie so this was an especially generous offer he and his family made to us. Before we left we needed to make sure the dogs would get along. Therefore, Maggie visited Jake for an afternoon and Jake spent a long Thanksgiving weekend at their house. All went well. Then, the day before we left the country we almost had a crisis. We dropped Jake off at their house on Thursday night in Milwaukee. We flew out Friday morning to Orlando to attend my cousin Mark’s wedding on Saturday evening. On Saturday afternoon Julie called her brother to find out how things were going with Jake. The two dogs had gotten in a fight! Jake attacked Maggie and latched on to her ear and wouldn’t let go then did the same thing to her tail. Fortunately, no blood was shed or physical damage was caused, but Maggie was really nervous after that. We were nervous that we would need to find a new place for Jake to stay and made a few calls. However, Julie’s brother and his family decided it was a fluke and really wanted to keep Jake. He’s a very sweet, calm dog and it sounded like Maggie provoked him. We were incredibly relieved, but our blood pressure did go up for a few hours. Thank you Mark and Kristi!

Be careful of pirates.

Some people say it in jest, but some are very serious. Really? First of all, how does one recognize a pirate? Do I look for an eye patch, a Jolly Roger tattoo, and a wooden leg? Then, what would I do? For those of you who are genuinely worried about this Julie’s dad had a great point. Pirates wouldn’t attack a cruise-type ship like ours with 1000 people because it’s too many people to manage. There’s not really any precious cargo and it would extremely difficult for them to keep that many people captive without some people thwarting their efforts. We also are not sailing in those areas where the pirates have been attacking. So rest assured, we aren’t going to get attacked by pirates. Argh!