Buh-bye Switzerland

Well, that's done.

We have finally moved out of our apartment and have officially left Switzerland. After more than a week straight of packing, moving, cleaning and traveling (we are currently in southern France at V's dad's house), I am too exhausted to write anything clever or profound.

It has not hit us at all that we have actually left and no longer have a home- it still feels like we are on vacation and will go back in a few days. I doubt we will realize that we aren't going back until we are packing our backpacks and flying to the States.

Even when we left the apartment for the last time, we weren't that emotional, simply because it hadn't hit us. We were a little sad, but it was more like, "Bye dude, it's been great," than, "Waaaaaaaah!!!" We were both so tired and stressed from the move that there was little room for much else emotionally. Here's an idea of how we felt during our last 30 seconds in our empty apartment, where we spent three wonderful, cozy, comfortable years in a place we loved:

Bye, Switzerland, it's been great...

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Weepy and Weird

I'll start with the bad news: this post might be a downer. Things are getting pretty emotional over here and I don't even have a hilarious Vincent picture to make it better.

At least there is some good news: this post won't be quite as long as the last one. I've gotten the ranting out of my system. At least for now....

These last few weeks have been much harder than I imagined. We are in full-on moving mode: packing up everything in our apartment, finalizing the administrative stuff and saying our good-byes, one by one.

The good-byes are the hardest because it feels like everything is a goodbye. Our last trip to Geneva, the last time we see certain friends here, the last fondue in front of the fireplace, our last hike in the Jura. As the clock counts down (10 more days!), nearly everything we do is a "last."

We've both moved enough in the last ten years that we should be jaded and immune to it all by now, but unfortunately for my tear ducts, that's not the case.

Leaving Switzerland is really, really hard for both of us, especially me. Part of it is that we love living here and will miss it, but I suspect the real reason it is so difficult to say goodbye is because Switzerland was the first time Vincent and I were able to actually start our life together as a couple. We had moved around so much and been apart for so long before moving here that it felt like our little haven where we could finally be together and build our future. Leaving Switzerland feels like we are saying goodbye to those wonderful memories of being a newly married couple embarking on a new adventure together.

The trip of course is another adventure altogether. It's totally cheesy, but it really feels like we are closing one chapter of our lives and opening a new one.

But this in-between phase is seriously wearing on us. I have been randomly bursting into tears on a nearly daily basis, which is exhausting for poor Vincent and straight up embarrassing for me. Today, we said goodbye to our friends Michael and Celine (Salut les Auvergnats!), and as soon as we were out of their sight, I dissolved into a blubbering mess. It wasn't that I can't go a year without seeing people I care about- I'm pretty used to that by now. What made me cry- and still makes me cry when I think about it- was the feeling that we are ending a phase of our lives that has been so important and formative and enjoyable, and we have no idea what to expect from the next phase.

This coming week will present even more goodbyes- to the rest of our friends, to my car (my poor little Clio, sniff sniff...), and lastly, to Gingins and our apartment. Needless to say, I expect to be an emotional disaster in the coming days.

And speaking of disaster- this is the state our sweet, innocent apartment is currently in due to our packing efforts:

 

If you've never seen our apartment, we don't normally live like animals.... In fact, here's an idea of what our place usually looks like.

Awww man, I'm going to miss our apartment....

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Obligatory anti-materialism post

So here it is, my rant against consumerism (conveniently posted before I reveal just how much this trip will cost us...). Brace yourself, this might get ugly...

I assume that anyone who willingly restricts their belongings to what will fit into a backpack for a year goes through some realization during their trip that they normally live with much more than they actually need. I expected to go through that well into the trip, during that freeing moment when my pathetically limited choice of clothing stops being a restriction and starts being a form of liberation. I certainly didn't expect to feel this way before we even left.

We are currently preparing ourselves for the move out of our apartment and part of that process has been going through everything we own and trying to get rid of what we can. Now, I will give us a little credit here: both V and I are really good about minimizing clutter. Neither of us are packrats by any means and for the most part, we don't let ourselves get emotionally attached to material things. If you look around our apartment, we don't have a lot of random objects that just sit on shelves or in drawers in that purgatory of being kept "just in case." You know what I'm talking about- that drawer everyone has full of pens that no longer work, batteries that may or may not be dead, broken jewelry or dishes that you plan to repair one day, little trinkets that people have brought you back from vacation... Generally, we are pretty good about getting rid of that kind of stuff.

That said, going through all of my belongings this past weekend made me realize that I have SO much stuff, and that I don't need or even want the vast majority of it. That realization and the ensuing purging of said stuff was both freeing and depressing.

The act of giving away a bunch of my clothes, shoes and beauty products- all of the random things I've accumulated over the years- felt so liberating. I feel lighter, more streamlined, and feel like I can see what I have more clearly and actually appreciate my belongings. I gave away or donated (or, in the case of old t-shirts and undies, simply threw out) five huge bags of stuff that I don't need, use or want. Don't believe me? These are just the "give away" bags:

And these are all of the beauty products that I've barely used and jewelry that I never wear.

All of those bottles, boxes and tubes are completely FULL.

Why it took me this long to get rid of all of this crap and why I even had it in the first place is beyond me.

Which brings me to the depressing side of my epiphany.

As I went through my stuff-- shoes that were too uncomfortable to wear, jeans that had been too big for four years (thank you, active Swiss lifestyle) but that I had kept just in case the chunk came back, perfume and make-up that I had bought just because I was bored-- I was forced to acknowledge that I had made some pretty terrible choices as both a consumer and an owner of goods. I had several items of clothing that I had worn maybe once but that I had never been able to bring myself to get rid of  just in case I wanted to wear them again. I had half-empty bottles of lotion, perfume and make-up that I was always saving for a special occasion and that had since gone bad. I had, and this is where it really got difficult, tons of clothes, accessories and jewelry that people had given me as gifts and that I didn't actually like or use but felt bad about giving away.

I realized that all of it- the clothes, the products, the gifts- weighed on me. They distracted me and took space, time and energy away from the things I had that I actually liked. Every morning when I got ready for the day, I would open my closet and have to mentally separate the wearable from the unwearable. Then I'd sort through the jewelry that I never used to find the pieces that I actually liked. Then I'd have to push aside mostly empty bottles of old lotion to get to the one that had something in it. I never realized just how much energy that took until I didn't have to do it anymore. It feels incredible.

Decidedly less incredible was the process of actually sorting through it all- note my dejection as I realized just how much crap we had:

Going through the contents of our bathroom cabinet and hating life.

During the course of my purging, I also separated the clothes that I will need in the coming weeks before the trip from those that can go directly into storage until we get back. I grabbed around 25 of my favorite pieces from which I will choose to clothe myself for the next two months. It will take some creativity to mix things up and not wear the same five outfits every week, however I'd rather be challenged to get the most out of what I have rather than keep more than I need. Just opening my closet and only seeing the things that I love to wear has turned me into a born-again minimalist.

The point of all of this is that I want to learn from this experience and remember how this feels so that when we come back from the trip, I will change my consuming habits. Granted, I still love clothes and make-up and don't plan to become a hunter gatherer or anything, but I can make small changes to become a more discerning buyer so that everything I acquire actually goes to use.

I promise I'm wrapping this up, but at the risk of sounding even more like a sanctimonious a-hole, I want to end this with a quick round-up of the needless waste that made me feel the worst, the goal being that I can read this later and not make the same mistakes.

Of all of the things I got rid of, the following made me hate myself the most:

• A massive amount of half-empty bottles of beauty products, make-up compacts, boxes of medicine, etc. I was horrified to actually have to look at the pile of stuff that was going to waste just because I didn't finish a product before buying a replacement or because I had been saving a product for special occasions and then forgotten about it completely. And I want to share my horror with you:

It looks innocent enough, but let me assure you, that pile was taking over my bathroom floor.

• A trash bag full of cheap clothes. While I put aside a few bags of nicer things to give to friends, I still had a full bag of clothes that were of such poor quality that I was embarrassed to offer them to people I knew because they looked like hell after one or two wears. It's too easy to go into one of those cheap stores (I'm looking at you, H&M) and buy a bunch of crap I don't need simply because it doesn't cost much. In the end, I can't get much use out of what I bought because it falls apart easily or fits poorly, making it much worse of a deal in the long run than a more expensive, quality item that I wear all the time. Ditto for sale items that I would never buy at full price but that I just can't pass up because it's such a good deal! Cost per use and quality over quantity are my new mottoes.

• Travel products taken from business hotels. Now, I love an adorable miniature shoe shine sponge as much as the next gal, but seriously, do I really need four (FOUR!) gallon-sized ziploc bags of hotel shampoos, shower gels, and the like? Of course not. I'm lucky enough to be able to afford shampoo, and chances are, so are you, so believe me when I say that it is not worth it. Not only is it a waste when you don't use them, but even if you do, the amount of plastic that goes towards producing those cute little bottles is heartbreaking.

• Gifts. This one really makes me feel like an a-hole, but if I want to be honest about what I've learned, I need to address it. If you are someone who may need to give me a gift in the future, please don't. I'm serious. From now on, please, if you absolutely must give me something, make it consumable, i.e. edible, drinkable or able to fit in an envelope. No more things, I'm begging you. I am picky to the point that I can hardly buy for myself, so it is an exercise in futility for others to try to pick something out for me. Of course, I appreciate the thought and generosity, but 9 times out of 10, the gifts I receive sit in the back of my closet, jewelry box or drawer of batteries until I give it away. I realize just how awful that sounded, but if it saves even one person I care about from wasting money on a gift I will never use, it will be worth it.

So there they are, my life lessons learned from one weekend of clearing out our apartment. I can't even imagine how enlightened I'll be by the end of this trip. Step aside, Buddha.

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Packin' heat

I'm taking a little break from strangling my husband over our ever-changing itinerary to write a post that I've been looking forward to for months now. Well, to be honest, it's not the post itself that I've been excited about, it's the fact that clothes are involved.

Packing!!

Basically since we decided to do this trip, V and I have been obsessing over what to bring. We each have 60+10 liter bags (that's 70 liters for you Communications majors...) and while a 70L bag is considered big, we still have very limited space.

Now, while the hard-core, experienced backpackers will scoff at our massive, snail-like backpacks, the idea of fitting clothes for all events and climates during a year of travelling in a backpack of any size is daunting. V and I have spent hours upon hours discussing the best clothes, tecnical gear, packing techniques, etc. to minimize what we are bringing and maximize the space available to us. I'm not exaggerating (yes I am), we have agonized over a 50L bag vs. 70L bag, a sleeping bag vs. a sleep sheet, hiking boots vs. hiking shoes, daypack vs. no pack. I personally spent the better part of an afternoon looking for the perfect rubber sandal that I can wear both in the shower and in a nightclub. We each have painstakingly researched, searched for and chosen every item we are bringing.

So here it is (almost, I actually haven't yet purchased the holy grail of rubber sandals). Vincent hasn't done his test pack, so this post only covers my gear, but honestly, who cares what Vincent is bringing? :)

Behold- the bounty of my backpack:

That's it. FOR A YEAR. It looks like a lot, but I assure you, just the idea of clothing myself with these twenty-odd items for an entire year is enough to make me hyperventilate.

And now it's time for the break down- click on any picture to enlarge:

 

Tops: Collared hiking shirt, 2x Long sleeve t-shirts, 2x T-shirts, 2x sport tanks,  long tank

Bottoms: 2x trekking pants (1 convertable, both roll-up), long john pants, hiking shorts and sleep shorts

 Outerwear: Mid layer, micro-fleece, rain/ wind shell

Underwear and bras (sport and regular), socks (4x hiking, 1 regular), hat, swim suit, scarf, 2x bandanas. And a dress. I'm bringing a dress, damn it.

Light-weight water trainers, hiking shoes, temporary fill-in for my rubber sandals (for test-packing purposes)

All the extras (Click to enlarge). Missing from this picture: Kindle, collapsible water bottle, nylon sack, inflatable pillow. Vincent's carrying other extras like drain plug, knife, converters, etc..

So there you have it. I did a test run and packed all of this in my bag, adding a 1-pound book to make up for missing items.

Grand total weight? 22pounds or 10kg with everything in the bag except my hiking shoes. Not bad, if I do say so. I've always been told that 10-12kg is really the weight limit if you expect to do any trekking with your bag. As we don't want to be limited in the amount of time we spend with our bags and want to be able to trek with them, we were shooting for less than 12kg. Mission accomplished, so far.

To give you an idea of what a mostly full 70L bag looks like, feast your eyes on this:

Feelin' pretty awkward in my nightgown and hiking shoes. You're welcome.

Now that your hotness quota has been filled for the day, back to packing.

As mentioned, I'm still in the process of purchasing the last few remaining items. I will be sure to document any massive changes, but hopefully this is what will actually leave with me. What will come back with me is another story. We have spent the last nine months planning what to bring, now watch our bags get stolen after a week. Right now, we are completely obsessed with the smallest, lightest, fastest-drying, but give it a few months and we'll be traipsing around Bolivia in wool ponchos.

When we do, I'll be sure to post pictures.

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And then we fought about the Amazon...

Ahhh trip-planning. I guess it's comparable to wedding planning in that it turns you into a crazy person. A crazy person that picks fights over enormous geographic wonders...

So we are still truckin' along in our planning and making huge, albeit terrifying strides towards our departure. 

Checked off the to-do list in the past few weeks:

• We have rented our apartment out-- to our good friends Joe and Lisa! Woohoo! I couldn't ask for two better people to take over our life!
• Sold our cars- Vincent's to Joe and Lisa, who seriously are buying our life- it's awesome; and mine to a guy from my work.
• Got our first round of vaccines: yellow fever, booster shots and Hep A & B. We need to go back next month for round two and to pick up our malaria prescriptions.

We are currently in the process of:

• Buying health/ travel insurance for the trip (A lot less straightforward than it should be...)
• Closing/ consolidating bank accounts (My Swiss bank will only let me keep my account open if I have $50,000 in it. Back to the American banking system it is...)
• Finalizing our finances and methods of payment (credit cards, cash cards, etc.)
• Applying for/ researching visas (Just the fact that I'm American will make my visas in South America around $600 more expensive than Vincent's. Thanks US Immigration and reciprocal visa fee policies...)
• Starting to pack up our belongings to move out :(

We only have 6 more weeks in Switzerland! Six! Time is flying and while it's totally cliché, it really is bittersweet. We are so excited for this trip and the next stage of our lives, but we are also really sad to leave. We have loved our time in Switzerland and are saying good bye to some great friends and a lifestyle that we love. Of course, I can't complain (I know, I want to smack myself too), but the excitement of what's next doesn't negate the sadness of leaving.

Oh, did I mention that we are completely changing our route in South America? 

Basically, we had a plan for the first six months of our trip preparation and now, two months before we get there, we are changing everything. I guess that's part of the adventure, right? Once we have an idea of what the hell we are doing, I'll update our itinerary. We are still flying into Santa Cruz on Dec 28th, but now instead of going North through Peru and Brazil, we are considering heading South to Argentina. Who knows what we'll end up doing. Part of the fun is that we are completely open and can change the plan at any second, however we also need to take into consideration that we will need to set dates for volunteering at least a month in advance and that we want to be able to get through our itinerary in South America in four months. 

Which brings us to our fight about the Amazon...

In any other stage of our relationship, we'd be fighting about who has to do the dishes or who left the dirty sponge on the counter (Hint: it was Vincent. It's always Vincent.), but now we find our more heated discussion are about things like whether we will take a boat from Peru to Brazil or whether we will skip Iguazu Falls in order to spend more time in Patagonia. Just like our idea of a romantic evening in is spending hours on our couch extolling the virtues of convertible trekking pants and nylon packing sacs.

I'm telling you, trip-planning turns you into a crazy person...

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Ok, We Admit It: We’re Scared.

Seriously, we are.

Not sure why it just started; maybe because now we have both quit our jobs or because we are actively planning our move out of Switzerland, but it seems like just in the past week, it has really hit both of us what we are planning to do and what it is going to mean for us.

Maybe fear isn’t the correct emotion- it’s more like apprehension. We are just now realizing that we are giving up our amazing quality of life, our comfortable apartment, our good jobs, our great friends- all of that, and in return, we are choosing to put ourselves through significant discomfort for a year. OF COURSE there are massive benefits to what we are going to do and I’m sure we will appreciate those so much that we will forget the feelings we have right now. It’s just that at this point, we are only seeing what we are giving up and haven’t started seeing what we are giving it all up for, and that is what is so scary.

We were talking the other day about how we were feeling and admitted to each other for the first time that the nervous, borderline-negative feelings were creeping into our consciousnesses, almost to the point of being equal to the excitement we have about the trip.  Just saying it out loud and realizing that we both felt the same way was a relief. It is normal to be a little scared; we are making a huge life change and taking big risks.

We also might have been a little naïve in our excitement before. We were just so thrilled to be doing this and were so caught up in the planning that we didn’t give a lot of thought to the reality of traveling for a full year. Also, before the last few weeks, the trip was far enough away that it wasn’t yet real. Now, we have two more months in Switzerland and three more months before the start of our trip and time just seems to be flying. It’s overwhelming, and frankly, terrifying.

All of that said, I think the fear is a good thing because it is making us look at the trip more realistically. For example, we are starting to talk about and plan for what we will do if things don’t go as well as expected or if we find ourselves in a dodgy position. We don’t want to psych ourselves out, but it is important to mentally prepare for discomfort, confusion, aggression, sickness, and all of the million other negative things that we could, and probably will, face during the trip.

In terms of where we are in our planning: we are in full ‘leaving Switzerland’ mode. We have the moving out plan set (special thanks to Christian and Michelle, who will help us move all of our shit out of our apartment and into the Bertots’ place in Burgundy), we have our cars and apartment ads up, we have all of our doctor’s visits out of the way, we are getting vaccinations in the next few weeks, we have cancelled all of our contracts. Basically, all of our energy is focused on the inconvenient leaving stuff, and not at all on the exciting travelling stuff, which can probably explain the emotional funk we are in.

Next steps are to do more research about volunteering in South America and get that finalized, get our travelers insurance, and buy any gear that we won’t get in the States. Once we get back into trip planning instead of leaving preparation, our apprehension will probably dissipate and our excitement will return. At least, let’s hope so…

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Resignation and Rabies

So now it's official- I gave my notice to my job this week. This was the last step to take before we start screaming our plans from the rooftops (although we have been mostly doing that for months- hence this blog...). My two supervisors reacted very well, with emotions ranging from relief that I was leaving for personal, not professional, reasons, to disappointment that I had only been with the company for a little over a year, to excitement and support for what we are planning to do. I really couldn't have asked for a better response.

Next on our to-do list: vaccines. We went for a consultation at the vaccination center this week and sat through a two hour monologue by a young doctor about all of the different exotic diseases we are going to die from during the trip. She gave us her recommendations, some of which we will ignore, and we'll start getting the shots in October. She recommended measles, mumps, diphtheria and tetanus, which we will get; rabies, which we won't; yellow fever, hepatitis A and B, which we will get; Japanese encephalitis and typhoid, which we probably won't; and emergency malaria pills. She also explained that we need to prepare ourselves to basically have diarrhea the entire trip. Awesome. Honestly, we aren't all that worried about the big diseases. We of course want to protect ourselves with vaccinations and knowledge about the risks, but we do not want to load up on vaccinations that are only 50% effective, like typhoid. Where I personally am concerned is my stomach during the trip. I have a super-sensitive stomach and no self control when it comes to what I eat, so I'm expecting to suffer considerably as a result of my eating choices (like the time I had a fish sandwich from a street vendor in Morocco in 90 degree heat. Terrible decision.)

Beyond confirming our departure with our companies and worrying about diarrhea, we are now working to figure out volunteering for South America, planning our moving out plan of attack and finalizing our equipment. Vincent is nearly finished with his equipment and is ready for a test-pack. I'm still lagging behind, but once I have everything, we will do an equipment post to show what we are bringing. We plan to try to carry less than 12 kilos on our backs and I would really like to shoot for 10, so packing will be a challenge. I will document that adventure when we come to it. In the meantime, this is our current packing list, which I am religiously following and Vincent is pointedly ignoring: RTW 2012 Packing list

So, as we are finally getting serious about our planning, I will be posting more often with updates on our progress. It's coming up so quickly!!

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