We're back! With an update on your host's own leap-in-progress. Catch up on our highs, lows, and one big plot twist. (And, if you haven't yet, listen to Ep.8, where we first explain how and why we - with our 18-month toddler in tow! - left our Washington, DC apartment, sold our car, and resigned from a job (mine!) in pursuit of some big life changes.)
**And, as promised, follow more of our adventures on our new BLOG housed on on the Life Leaps Podcast homepage at https://lifeleapspodcast.com/leapinprogress-blog! (PS - pictures and other blog post edits/updates to come - but we decided to just GET the thing up there, imperfect as it is, for right now!)**
Check out Episode 13 and others on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts!
***
Have guest ideas? Can't wait to hear what leaps will be next?
Subscribe to Life Leaps Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts! Follow, rate and review us - we're *brand new* so, it means a lot - and be the first to know when we launch new episodes each week:
*ACCESSIBILITY: Transcripts are available for each episode here. (Just click your episode of choice, and then click the "transcript" tab! And if you have any issues at all don't hesitate to reach out.)
We're back! With an update on your host's own leap-in-progress. Catch up on our highs, lows, and one big plot twist. (And, if you haven't yet, listen to Ep.8, where we first explain how and why we - with our 18-month toddler in tow! - left our Washington, DC apartment, sold our car, and resigned from a job (mine!) in pursuit of some big life changes.)
**And, as promised, follow more of our adventures on our new BLOG housed on on the Life Leaps Podcast homepage at https://lifeleapspodcast.com/leapinprogress-blog! (PS - pictures and other blog post edits/updates to come - but we decided to just GET the thing up there, imperfect as it is, for right now!)**
Check out Episode 13 and others on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts!
***
Have guest ideas? Can't wait to hear what leaps will be next?
Subscribe to Life Leaps Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts! Follow, rate and review us - we're *brand new* so, it means a lot - and be the first to know when we launch new episodes each week:
*ACCESSIBILITY: Transcripts are available for each episode here. (Just click your episode of choice, and then click the "transcript" tab! And if you have any issues at all don't hesitate to reach out.)
13 - Karen + Juan - 2
[00:00:00] Juan Diaz: We made a leap and now we're pivoting.
Karen Tanenbaum: One way to put it.
Life Leaps Podcast: Welcome to Life Leaps podcast. Hear inspiring stories of ordinary people who made extraordinary life changes. What drove them, what almost held them back. Insights for the rest of us considering life leaps big or small, because hearing someone else do it reminds us that we can too.
Happy Wednesday. Everyone. This week, we're back with. An update from me, your host and my husband and occasional cohost. Host one. About. Our leap in progress. If you're not cut up on that check out episode. Eight where we explain how and why we temporarily relocate. Located our family 18 month toddler. Included to southern europe oh And i've gotten my act together with a blog for this adventure which i'll share more about At the end of this episode but we'll be on the life leaves podcast website That first a few [00:01:00] updates on our highs lows and a leap Plot twist
Karen: And we're live okay. Current snapshot. So we are huddled around a microphone, a computer, and a space heater. Oh wait, actually we don't even have the space heater anymore. We left it in the room with our toddler. So now we're ju we're just huddled.
Um, because turns out there is not a lot of heating. Portugal in Southern Europe generally. so we are huddled around the microphone and a would be heater in an Airbnb rental apartment in Lisbon, Portugal.
Well, there's heating, just not in, not for our budget.
There's just not like a lot of heat , we, there's not a lot of heat. Okay, but. . Yeah. So anyways, here [00:02:00] we are, we're not here
Juan: to trash this Airbnb ,
Karen: please leave us a good review,
Okay,updates we are currently. Oh my gosh. We're right at the one month mark.
Juan: Are we? Yeah, it's of today
Karen: actually. So a month ago we put everything in storage. Left our poor, unfortunate pets Actually quite lucky. Pets , with dear friends who are watching them, temporarily, probably better than us. Probably better than us, and, because they are friends who don't have toddlers. And so actually most certainly better than us, But left our pets and sold our car on a Tuesday and did my job, on a Wednesday.
And then on Thursday we flew out of Washington DC where we have both lived the last decade and. came to Europe, we flew into Porto in northern Portugal and, made our way. We spent a week in Porto, a week [00:03:00] in Lisbon, and then because everybody just, tough life needs a vacation from their vacation.
We went to Italy for, uh, a little under two weeks, To be with some friends and just got back to Lisbon a few days ago and now our leap has a plot twist.
We thought we were moving to Portugal that we are instead. Headed to live in Spain. That's right. We had a little learning to do here at Penn arrival. And we'll back up. Explain all of that. But first also want to give a quick disclaimer. We are absolutely exhausted. Very tired. But there's no way we're more tired than we were a month ago leading town. So I don't know. That's my only hope for this episode.
Juan: No, it's a, it's a different kind of time, but we were tired and excited. Now we're a little tired and tired, . mean, we're still excited, like it's still fun, but it's more,
Karen: we're so tired. We're saying tired twice and we [00:04:00] mean it.
Juan: Yeah. No, it was, I think it's just been, I think before we were tired, but excited for the move and all the moves and all the plans we had now we're tired and ready to be done with moving. I'm ready to settle down in a place for a slightly longer period of time, get back in our routines. I think that's the big difference.
Yeah. Yeah. And we always knew this was gonna be a lot of moving and it was gonna be the easiest thing, especially now with Luca, but,
Karen: our 18 month old
Juan: son. Yeah. But now that, it's been almost two months if you become of the holiday travel that we've been staying in a different place. a week or less.
We're ready to settle down a little bit.
Karen: So that is the deal is since December 16th, it's, yeah. We've been pretty much non-stop traveling. a week here with family, a week here with family, a week at a friend's house in DC where we were camping out after we'd picked up our apartment.
which we also did in that same, you know, several weeks [00:05:00] period. And yeah, I think we're just, we're a little worn out. I think we're looking forward to getting to Spain, which, That is our plot twist. So the fir , the first week into getting to Portugal, we did a little more research. we'd done some res, we'd done some pretty extensive research before we left on like why we chose Portugal and why we wanted to be in Southern Europe generally.
And,the visa that Portugal offered for digital nomads who could work from a, abroad and earn money outside the country, but live. however, it's a relatively new visa, only a couple of months old. And.
we had read some conflicting information on the internet. we now realize it was conflicting,about how you could get that visa and, we read that you could either get it from outside of the country, like in your home country or once you arrived in Portugal, if you expressed interest at one [00:06:00] of the local like immigration offices.
And so we were like, that's a no-brainer. One less thing to deal with before we leave dc. We will do that part upon arrival and just put it in the back of our heads. You can maybe see where this is going. Maybe not, So we surely didn't see where it was going. we arrived in Portugal and like a couple days in, our first stop in Porto,
I I had already joined this group called Americans in Portugal, and it's this massive, robust group of people who have moved over here who are thinking of moving over here, all the rest. So I'm starting to more deeply look through that.
Facebook group. And I think at one point I posted and I was like, hi everyone. So we're looking to, to get the VC here and something about what's the local immigration office or just has anybody had any experience? Anybody have any tips? I don't remember exactly what it was.
The bottom line, the responses started pouring in of people basically being like, you can't do this from [00:07:00] Portugal. . You have to be in your home country. You have to be in the US Like wherever you read that says you could, there's some really weird nuance thing where you can apply for this certain kind of permit from the country.
Nobody really cares. But the bottom line is the type of visa we wanted. You can't do it from Portugal, and so. . was a real wamp wamp moment,
we read that and we were like, oh, no.
So it took a little bit to sink in. In fact, I think for a day or two, really for quite some time, we were sort of in denial. We were like, well, maybe we'll just show up at the local immigration office and like see what they say. And then we were like, let's just Contact a Portuguese immigration attorney and let's just see what they say.
We were like, there's no way that. , this is actually the case cuz you were like, but the internet and anytime, just quick. Anytime you catch yourself being like, but the internet, you're probably wrong. As we were so turned out, we found [00:08:00] a, we talked to an attorney when we were in Italy. We talked to an attorney who specializes in all the things, Spain, Portugal, immigration related, whatever, and.
enter Spain to the rescue. How did it happen? One, you were reading a Washington Post article
Juan: Yeah, so
the Spanish digital NOMA Visa was just approved either December or January, and there was an article in the Washington Post about it. you can go to Spain, apply for the visa and
in the Washington Post they referenced a group of lawyers from Spain. So I clicked on the link and I figured, I send them a message, see what, see what's up. And we met with them a week ago now, and they said that.
Yeah, from Spain, you can apply from Spain, and it's actually ding,ding. Better if you apply from Spain.
Karen: So people, our pivot within our leap is . We leapt to Portugal. Now we're pivoting to Spain, Espania. [00:09:00] Here we come, which actually works super well for us. And here is why number one.
Juan's family is Spanish speaking and so it's super important for our kid to be bilingual and they speak Spanish in Spain, , they speak Portuguese and Portugal. And I will tell you, we thought we were gonna be really up on the Portuguese situation cuz we speak Spanish.
Obviously Juan better than me, but I was like, both of us speak Spanish, we're gonna know what's going on. I will tell you we know nothing of what is going on now. It's, , we're very lucky that most people hear speak English, so it's not a big deal. But that was number one learning experience. So, . It actually is super helpful to be in Spain again, number one, because Luco will speak, will learn Spanish, which is way better.
And number two, we're Spanish speaking. Number three, like Juan said, we can apply for the Spain Visa within Spain. No big deal. And number four, It can actually extend for more time. I think it's for several years. as Juan's trailing spouse, so to speak. Now, I can get a [00:10:00] work permit in Spain, which is amazing.
That's another big one. And there's some cool tax stuff, whatever. We won't bore you with the details, although feel free to holler if you wanna hear,offline. But bottom line, we just booked plane tickets for this Thursday to Malaga, which is in southern Spain, beach town and home. to Picasso or was home to Picasso.
Do we know anything else about Malaga? No, we do not. However, , we will let you know very soon. Yes, . So we're between a couple of places in Southern Spain that we will maybe one day soon. Call home. Anyone has suggestions? Oh my gosh. Please reach out. We kind of wanna be coast. we pretty much really wanna be coastal.
That's one of our goals. So if you are a loved one live in Spain, , or have any suggestions for where we should live in Spain, please contact us at Life Loops podcast@gmail.com. Information in the show notes for this episode. But it's funny because [00:11:00] I've gotta tell you, when we got the news that we couldn't apply for the Portuguese Visa from within Portugal like we thought we could. A lot of thoughts run through your head in that moment, but I'll tell you the thought that ran through my head, and this is utterly ridiculous, is this, A couple of nights into our trip, I had woken up in the middle of the night and thought, oh my gosh, I'm gonna write a book.
Have I ever written a book? No. Have I barely written a blog? Yeah, but that's about it. So I woke up and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna write a book. I was like, it's gonna be called Our Year in Portugal. Very original. I know. And I already envisioned the cover and I had, I don't know, it was just, you know how these things happened.
and when I found out we couldn't stay in Portugal, I swear to you, the first thing that went into my head was not like, oh, we like backed up everything and moved across the world, , to be in this place that we actually can't be in, at least not for more than 90 days with the tourist visa. I didn't think about all those things that came later.
What I first [00:12:00] thought about was, What about the title to my book? .
Juan: Really? I didn't notice ,
Karen: which I had conceived of 20 minutes before, two days, whatever. yeah, but it's okay. , not only is it okay because we've salvaged it, we're super excited to go to Spain, all the real reasons. But I also decided it was okay because I envisioned in my head, putting a big red X over the word Portugal and then writing Spain underneath, or like whatever it was underneath, and that being part of the story
So I decided it would be okay. and if we had to move again, I decided I would call it our year in motion. Iwho knows? I don't know. Maybe that name's taken, but. Life say. Okay, so this is the flash interview round number one.
by the way, hopefully there's no crying child in the background. Did we mention that we, it's 10 30 at night here and we just put Luca to sleep. we'll get to this part, but we have no childcare. This is our only time alone , so you're welcome for spending it [00:13:00] with you. Okay, so
Flash round. Okay. Juan, tell me a high point.
Juan: Meeting our friends. in Italy.
in Italy, it was really nice cause they, we crashed their trip. it was friends we hadn't seen in a long time. And they happened to be taking this trip and we really wanted to see them and it worked out that, We wanted to see them. We had to go to Italy, which we did. and but it, so that was very nice. And it was also in a very scenic, beautiful area in the mountains and the north. very beautiful Snow cover peaks, was just very nice.
Karen: We're fancy people who go to the Italian Alps. Now, we may stay in the cheapest rental apartments in those Italian Alps towns, with our like seven friends or whatever it was.
But we were in the Italian Alps baby.
What's your high point?
My favorite moment so far, and maybe this is our respective personalities, that your favorite moment was being in like a snow capped mountainous town on the side of a mountain[00:14:00] . and my favorite moment was actually the beach. our second week in Portugal. We stayed in an Airbnb about 40 minutes outside of Lisbon.
the capital Portugal where we are now. And we were in this little town called Estoria. And yeah, we just stayed across the street from a park, which was like a five minute walk from the beach. And in the mornings, or afternoons, whenever was my shift with Luca, cuz we're in doing shifts now.
just being out on the beach, shoes off, having Luca run around, climb little sand dunes. And then when I'd get him down for a nap, I would walk along with like boardwalk area and then he always, for whatever reason, that whole week happened to pass out in his stroll. in front of the same cafe and it was this cafe that overlooked the ocean.
And so I would stop at that same cafe and sit in one of the back tables and order like, [00:15:00] some sort of cappuccino, whatever, caffeinated beverage, And I would write, or I would work on this podcast. Catch up with a friend or whatever it was for that hour that Luca Blessedly slept, next to me and looked at the ocean.
So that was my favorite so far.
Juan: any time so far where you've been like, ugh, what are we doing? Should we not do this anymore? Do you want to turn around and go back?
Karen: Oh, you're turning my podcast questions on me,
yeah, probably not a, not a like concrete specific moment when I was like, we should go back. I think I have too much pride for that and I think we still both have too much of a, drive to go forward right now. But there have definitely been moments, I'd say a low point was like two days ago, when we,
As the plane was taking off from the flood of Venice, Italy, from Venice back to Lisbon, we were like desperately searching on hot wire for last minute [00:16:00] hotel deals, , and found one for like two days, which still left us scrambling for several more days.
So anyway, that's the backdrop. But two days in like on our final day. Hotel that we had booked last minute, we were then looking for Airbnbs in Lisbon, same city. And we found one very last minute, which we were like, ah, saving grace. Great, let's go to it. We haul all of our stuff into this Uber.
in like high traffic area.
We finally make it in Lucas hungry. I'm hungry, which is, you know, you're in danger. And we get to this place, which already doesn't really seem like the neighborhood we thought we were headed to. So we weren't super jazzed about the neighborhood, but we all load all of our stuff out of the place, get it on the sidewalk.
We're trying to get into this Airbnb, which is supposed to be self unlocking. and it's not like door doesn't open. Nothing happens. We're [00:17:00] standing on this little narrow cobblestoney strip of sidewalk traffic racing by stuff everywhere. Luca's like trying to like, take off into like never, never land.
child's always trying to run somewhere and we cannot get into this Airbnb. So basically to say, to spare you all the gory detail, We never got in. Okay. But , that was a low point.
Oh, and did I mention that Juan and I didn't have cell service Temporarily? His phone's about to die. Phones, yeah. Forgot we couldn't even get in. So we can't get into the place. We can't get access to our phones.
Our phones are dying. Service is messing up. We're stuck on this corner. I'm worried Luca's gonna run into traffic. And I just remember I had this moment where I was just like, what are we doing? ? . I'm glad you're laughing now cuz you, sir. Were not laughing in the moment. . I was nuts. We were, nobody was laughing in the moment.
Okay. [00:18:00] It was like, maybe Luca was, but. , he didn't know what was going on . So anyway, We're on a corner and finally we like round the corner to this little cafe space, which cafe's closed.
It's just more like a little patio space that seems like it gives us two more inches of space. I'm like, Juan, there's this narrow opening of six feet around the quarter rather than just like one foot that we're standing on. I'm like, come on, let's bring our 17 million bags.
But we don't wanna leave the bags alone and we're not really comfortable opening our laptops So we're like one by one carrying our bags. Like one of us is standing on the corner to see that the other bags are still there while the other one like scurries the bags slings them around the other corner.
Anyways, finally, Airbnb consents to allow us to cancel the dang place and get our money back. But it took an hour and a half. Yeah. Of like Luca running up and like scaling trees, scaling cafe tables at this closed down cafe. It was just, it was kind of like one of those nightmare moments where you're like, again, you [00:19:00] start to berate yourself.
You start to be like, this is our own failure to plan. we could have planned in advance and even if we hadn't, we could have had snacks with us. I always have snacks. I don't have snacks. we're hungry, we're cranky. It's, and it's just one of those moments where you're like, it would be so much easier to just be sitting at home in my apartment.
what was my apartment? in Washington DC Bathed in sunlight. I don't know, petting my cat or anything really. it's moments like that, that you crave the calm, quiet place that you left, until of course you remember that it was that same calm, quiet place Pushed you to leave in the first place. But anyway, that's a very long way of explaining my low point. Hmm.
I will say, we. Did find a cafe around the corner that was open. And lo and behold, it actually had been there all along. We just hadn't rounded the next corner. So we ran in the next second corner.
Yeah. Yeah. So we rounded that second corner. [00:20:00] We're able to haul all of our stuff in there and, get food and a beer, and. We found a new Airbnb,
They were very nice. They let us camp out there for several hours, while we booked a new Airbnb. where we are right now, which is in a great part of town and much better than the one we had booked, I do believe.
And Airbnb gave us a slight credit, which didn't hurt true. What's your low point?
Juan: There's no specific low point. I think just, what I am missing, I wanna try to remember that we'll get to is, more nature. Nature and natural space and where we are in Lisbon, it's a very good area for. Touristy and just being in the centrally located in the town, but there aren't that many parks.
It's not close to the sea. That's why I really miss, like I miss Rock Creek Park in DC for example. yeah. I just miss being in nature. And and one of the things I wanted to, for me in, in going on this, [00:21:00] in this adventure is to be in natural spaces and.
So my mind has started doing that thing where it's oh my gosh, what if, in the next place we go in Malaga, there's also no natural spaces. Or what if there's actually like,it's Europe and there's like less natural spaces here and you won't be, even if you have more time or more opportunities, you won't be able to do, go those natural spaces or just those, negative thoughts that are propping up.
that maybe this was a mistake that are like, starting to come up. And for me, those thoughts are on related to being in, yeah, in nice natural spaces, which you had, ready access in Rockery Park. So that's been
the low point thoughts that I've been fighting.
Karen: Okay. it sounds like your downs have been more related to. Feeling like you haven't gotten that access to nature, feeling like you haven't built into our agenda, the spaces we're staying, whatever your ability to bike, climb, run, do all those things that make you tick and make you happy[00:22:00] Yeah So my low points then have related to the times that I feel like we haven't properly planned with. and I properly planned. I think there's always a balance between preserving freedom.
to choose by like, not locking yourself in yet, right? Like not making a choice yet about where to stay. whatever it is. there's a balance between preserving freedom by not locking in and making a choice between that and waiting too long or doing too little in advance such.
you actually create more work or more stress for yourself later, right? And so I feel like so much of my life is dedicated to trying to find that sweet spot , where I keep enough things open-ended, that I have flexibility, that I feel that I have freedom, but then handle enough things in advance that it doesn't.
too much work later on or that, then your doors [00:23:00] close because, for example, you wait forever to book a place just traveling, for example. You work wait forever to book a place, and then all the places are booked, right? Versus. , doing it super, super in advance. And then you're locked into going to that place and maybe you wanna change again, there's the balance, right?
There's the dance, and sometimes we find that sweet spot and we do it just right. And other times we air too much on either one of those sides, right? Like we lock ourselves too early and we're bummed about that. Or we wait too long and we get screwed. And I feel like the last couple of days, Transitioning from Italy back to Portugal, we have missed the sweet spot and gone too far in the not planning direction such that again, our options were limited and we were more constrained.
So the very freedom we were trying to preserve bit us in the butt because we had less options and less freedom as a result. Anyways, that's a long way of saying I wanna get back to that space where we are living a flexible life, but one that. [00:24:00] A little less open-ended and more stable . Yeah,
Juan: and I think, I remember what we were saying today as well, that one of the things with moving so much, We have been un enabled to create those habits, those routines,
our mind. Have been just focusing on like the bones, basic things. So like, all right, where do we eat? Where is the supermarket? Where do we get diapers for Luca? Where do we change em? Where do we cook? As opposed to, all these things are just an autopilot, and our minds can focus on where do I go for a run?
Where do I spend time to meditate? Where do I go for a bike ride? Things like that. Like where I go out to nature as opposed to just I'm in the city and how do I, um, navigate the city just to, so I don't get lost and two days later I've never been in this neighborhood, in this city.
How do I not get
Karen: lost? Oh yeah. So we were talking about this earlier is basically it's only once your basic lower level needs are met that you can then, Be evolved enough to think about the higher level needs. and [00:25:00] we were also talking about, and we knew this from our trip around the world a couple years ago when we did, the nine month trip where we, you and I were constantly in motion is, traveling is its own kind of work and if you're gonna be full-time traveling,
That is your job, right? Like you, which is why we didn't intend to do this for the whole time. We were like, we can't full-time travel like we did before, because that's your job. There'll be no time for any other pursuits we're interested in, like work, creativity, whatever, which we both are wanting to do now.
. But yeah, bottom line, we don't realize the amount of capacity it takesto. Be in a new place. And remember, like you said, like where the dish soap is.
Where do you buy a new thing of toothpaste? Good question. Let's find out tomorrow, by the way, like the basic level needs that takes a lot of your life force and your capacity and your, we only have so much like juju in us each day to make decisions and deal with.
And when you're spinning all of that on really basic level stuff, you don't even to the point at all where you can, like, now I'm gonna get into a rhythm where I'm gonna meditate and blah, blah blah, like you said. [00:26:00] And so I think that is totally something that's missing.
And sometimes that level of disruption can be good because. When you go to create a new routine, you're everything's disrupted. And so you have to rebuild a new routine from scratch, which I think could be a good thing for us.
But too much of a good thing totally burns you out, and I think we're at the oh my gosh, burnout. We're ready to rebuild , whatever life is gonna look like on the other side of this type of phase. Yep. Okay, so I have two remaining questions for you. Number one
Juan, we've now been in motion for about two months in some form or another. How has this version of being in motion compared with us being in motion a couple years ago when we had no kids and we're traveling?
Juan: There's no break. I'm either working.
or watching Luca, and that's it, right? So with no childcare.[00:27:00]
And it's great because I feel more connected to him than I probably ever have before. And it's really fun because I get to see him say a new word every day or play in a different way. I hadn't seen it before. It's just a lot of work. and comes at the expense of other things that I like to do as well.
When there's the childcare.
Yeah, he really is like so much fun right now. And. I have to, we have to remember. And I think we do remember usually that we feel so grateful to have this time with him. But it's how do we also carve out other time for us, for life, for all the things. And I think this is the dance that every parent does.
throughout their kids' lives, especially when there are young kids involved. And I think we are just doing that dance, at the moment on steroids.
Juan: Yeah
But
Karen: you guys, we need childcare. that's, there's no two ways about it.
the last few days. We all caught colds and I think. . Even [00:28:00] for him, the level of moving around was starting to wear him out a little bit, which is what really freaked me out the most. I was like, okay, full stop.
Juan: cuz up until now, Luca has been, so cheerful, enjoying everything so much. saying hi to strangers all the time. Like he's just a very outgoing kid, now. So strangers love kids here. That's the one we thing to notice, like everybody will go up to your child and touch his head, touch his belly and give him a candy bar literal.
Get candy bars. Like every Or a tupa Chop. . Yeah. A lollipop or a chocolate coin. That's what he's been getting like every day from random
Karen: strangers. Luckily for us, he doesn't know how to take the wrapper off . He doesn't quite know what it is, but it's only a matter of time .
So that's what really freaked me out.
I was like, when I felt like Luca was starting to get worn out with his cold and all the moving, that's when I think we were like, okay, full stop. .
Juan: Yeah, I agree.
Karen: So
We're gonna get childcare. Okay.
Okay. One thing you've learned
I feel like I relearn over and over again just how much I, my life is made [00:29:00] better when I. Can get out to nature and can exercise and have time to meditate and sleep well and journal. And so I think that's just a lesson I keep relearning every couple of months.
Juan: And I learned on the ski slopes,
because I was going with the friends who are much better skiers than I am. I'm not a good skier at all, but they, um, mistakenly let me down a black level ski slope, which I've never gone down on. And I realized, this is, I think scary, but II was able to get to the bottom.
Mostly intact on your bottom ,
Karen: or no?
Juan: Only for a little bit. sometimes you just have to trust and go
Karen: What have you learned?
I think I like that you said relearned, because you're right.
something that I've relearned is, rat race brain. So It's that brain we all have. It's like we're all on the hamster wheel. We're all running all the time. And[00:30:00] then even when we don't have to, there's that muscle memory, of you keep doing it, you keep going.
And I think I have experienced that and I know I have. , those last few weeks in DC were really intense for, they were intense for both of us, cuz obviously we were packing up our home and moving and handling a bunch of logistics. But they were also like uniquely intense for me because I was also finishing my job and, all of the emotional and logistical stuff that, that goes with, all that.
And anyways for me, like I was just racing so hard, so fast, so much, and once I arrived in Portugal, I kept thinking like when I got there I was like, oh yeah, when I get there, when the plane takes off, like I'll be completely relieved. It'll be like a weight lifts off of me. You know how we all think.
Well, my friends, that plane took off and that plane landed, and I was still in Rat race, brain , [00:31:00] which for me means like thinking about the next step, thinking about what I could have forgotten, thinking about what I need to do, thinking about, I don't know, you just give me something to stress about and like I'll find something.
So I was still running on the hamster wheel and I say that the beach was one of my favorite moments, like two weeks in, and I think that's because , that's when R'S brainin really started to fade for me.
it's almost like there's an adrenal come down.
There's like a come down period that your body, that your mind has to come off of. Otherwise you just keep racing. And, anyways, I feel like I've experienced that with this trip. it took a while to start to come down.
but frankly it picked back up again with more travel to Italy and all the travel now and figuring out the Spain details. And so I think what I'm really hoping with getting back in a rhythm is that rat race frame will once again, they can to recede. because I do think that we have to retrain our minds to calm down and we think sometimes that the removal of certain [00:32:00] stressors or things we have to do or checking your item off the list will make that better.
But if our mind is in the mode to raise, it doesn't really matter. It's like an assembly line. doesn't really matter what you feed it, it's race and baby. It's gonna keep doing it. and I remember feeling like that a little bit, even when we were traveling around the world.
Like we made some joke. You and I, we were like different country, dammit, still same old me, . You know what I mean? Like we had this whole thing but yeah, so I think just trying to give ourselves a little bit of a break to do the resetting that we intended to do that I think will really start when we're finally in one place.
So, that to say, my friends, stay tuned for the next installment in a couple weeks, month, whatever it is. when we are hopefully in one place have tamed the rat race, brain recovered from our current stuffed up noses and colds and whatever. And hopefully Juan will also be [00:33:00] doing some good bike riding , and I'll be by the beach Let's.
Fingers crossed. yeah, stay tuned. Talk to you guys all very soon. Oh, And also I started a blog, so why don't I kept this blog for our trip around the world that we updated here and there it was like, we're in the world.
Or Karen Juan. and we really liked it. And at the moment, sometimes it was kind of a drag to write, but it gave us something really special to look back on and really helped friends, family, whoever found it to feel of like connected to our experiences and have ideas and whatever. So we have decided to do that again.
with one twist, so last time we were doing these sort of like really long entries, maybe once a month, every time we were in a different country this time. I don't have time for all that. So what I'm doing and also is making me very happy still, is basically writing like little posts here and there about fun, random parts of our adventure.
little observations we make along the way. Moments [00:34:00] learned, things we laughed at, mishaps, whatever. we're including pictures when we can, but yeah, we're basically just gonna try and do on the go updates here and there. we may be able to figure out a way that you can email, subscribe.
I have not even gotten to that level yet, but I am gonna have by the time this episode airs in like a day or two. I will have a blog tab on the Lively podcast page, which is your host's Sleep in Progress. I don't know, seem like the right place to put it.
Already had the website , so there it will be. yeah. And very open to feedback. Questions, thoughts, ideas. We always love to hear from people. We heard from tons of people after our last episode. and we really appreciate the outreach. talk to you all soon and till next time.
Life Leaps Podcast: .
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