So, WHAT exactly are we doing? We sold/gave away all of our earthly possessions except for what fit in six suitcases (two check-in pieces and one carry-on piece for each of us), retired from our careers, said goodbye to our precious family and friends, closed down our home in Austin, TX, and stepped into this new season of being "global nomads" - traveling the world, staying in one country for 1-3 months then moving on to another country.

We plan to live like this for as long as we can, but we're also seeking the place where we will eventually settle. We won't be returning to live in the U.S., but we will visit there from time to time.

As we go, we are immersing ourselves in the local culture, getting to know the people, learning about their lives, and seeing all we can.

We have a list of countries we want to go to, but we are holding the plans loosely because we know things can change as we go. There is so much we do not know. In fact, we have adopted several phrases we say to each other all the time, and one of them is "LEARNING CURVE." We know we're going to make mistakes; we know things aren't always going to work out the way they should, and we will face many twists and turns along the way. We are thankful that we're not rookies at this, so there is a lot we do know, but we've never travelled like this before, and the times have changed dramatically since the last time we travelled internationally, so we are definitely on a "LEARNING CURVE."

Thus we must have a lot of grace for one another and for ourselves. Melanie had a resident at Brookdale, where she recently retired from, who was an experienced world traveler, and she gave Melanie the best advice before we left. She said "Things aren't always going to go right. There will be lots of challenges. But problem-solving is all part of the adventure! Our brains get fired up by having to figure things out! It's great for strengthening our minds! Problem-solving is an opportunity to learn and grow!"

And even before we left we were encountering challenges and having to figure out how to solve them. We'll write a post about some of these challenges that happened later on, but every time something happened, we would think about Melanie’s dear friend, Shirley, and tell ourselves, "It's all part of the adventure!"