And so it begins…
The adventure begins, even if the trip does not, just quite yet.
To recap, about three years ago La Fille ™ had this crazy, goofy idea. Since we’re both teachers, thought she, why don’t we take advantage of the fine negotiating skills of our union, and do the “three for four” thing? (For those of you who aren’t teachers, it’s a salary deferral program whereby we spread out three year’s worth of salary over four, with that fourth year to be used as you wish.
We wish to travel.
And so we did. Well, she did. I promised to save my salary, which I’ve sorta done. The upshot of this all is that for the past three years, we’ve lived on diminished incomes, and this will allow us to live (we hope) like Kings for a year, abroad.
We’ll start in Greece, where the Parental Units have an apartment, and thus, a base of operations for a month or two before moving on. The plan (so far, and very subject to change) is to start off in the Greek Islands, and then to chase summer east towards Thailand, returning to southern Italy in March or April.
Around a year from now, come to think about it…
All of this to say that plans are progressing. Two weeks ago, we met with La Directrice of Elliotte’s school, and set up home-school options (she’ll be in second grade next year). No problem there. A week ago, I got confirmation of approval for my own leave from the CBE (thanks CBE!). Largely a formality, but you never know. This week, La Fille ™ confirmed her own leave from the CSSD (yeah, we work in different school boards).
And last night, we bought our tickets to Athens. One way, September 7. 9.5 hours on an Air TRANSAT Airbus A320-200. Bulkhead seats, priority seating and luggage, and a 120 kg baggage allowance. As I’ve said elsewhere, His Noodly Appendage help us if we can’t come in under that for a year.
La Fille ™ et moi have already been having… words about that. Gonna have to put my foot down and limit her to six pairs of shoes. 🙂
We have 155 days to sort that out.