How we nearly DIDN'T get here

I like reading honest blogs so I want to tell you the honest truth.

Life is hard, man.

It may seem like we are living a grand ol' life but it's harder than it looks to up and travel for so long. It felt like everything was trying to stop us from going, or at least making a miserable time of it.

Travel Block #1: Trying to sell our car. We were so close to cutting our losses and selling it for so much less than our spreadsheets had hoped for because of some rip off artists trying to squeeze as much as possible from us. It would have put a damper on our plans and I would have had to accept the dread of shared bathrooms in hostels or worse, we may have had to push a lot of things down and even accept defeat. It was a heavy stress to carry with weeks to go. Luckily, with some much needed advice, it sold just over a week before we left. It was such a blessing!

Travel Block #2: Landlords and their obsession with ripping everyone off. This was extremely disheartening and in the end, we still had to take this travel block with us and deal with it while in Italy. It is resolved now with a lot of frustration and very "fake" humility from us to accept fault to appease our landlord in hopes he would let things go. It worked but it also proved that what he was trying to get from us was all about his ego. No matter what we did from my previous tip re: house cleaner, if he had it against us, he would use his power to take as much as he can from us.

Travel Block #3: Our luggage broke. Up until the day we left, this suitcase worked fine. It was rough around the wheels of it anyway but with some hopeful Kiwi ingenuity, we were optimistic that it would survive the 9 month trek with us. Turns out, it didn't even want to come with us! And this was the one suitcase that decided to not let us into it. It literally wouldn't let us in. I tried every combination to try and open it (yes... 1000 options) and only after Nathan pried it open did it finally grant us permission to have its new code. Too late though! It no longer worked as it should. Thankfully, 4 weeks earlier I had dropped off a suitcase to my brother's house that he was going to store for us while we were away. When our suitcase broke, we were at his house again. The suitcase we had left there earlier was now an easy option to swap with the broken one! I know, awesome. As soon as we decided it was the right decision, I swapped them over and the wheel problems we thought would last, broke straight away as well. What a sign!

Travel Block #4: Now imagine, we couldn't get into our suitcase, we just solve the problem - or at least discuss the solution and are about to swap everything around and then we hear a crash outside my brother's house. We are literally right by the front door and can see and hear everything. Our rental car we hired to basically just get us to the airport, is parked on the side of the road right outside my brother's house. Surely, someone didn't hit the only thing that was out there. But it did. It side swiped our car! And the reason? A stupid Australian spider jumped out at the driver of the other car and trying to avoid it, he scraped against our car. Thankfully, we were insured and the driver of the other car said he would cover it but... this is now hours before we leave... HOURS!

Travel Block #5: Well this wasn't one thing but a combination of things. Everything went wrong the day before we left. Cleaning and landlord being the major. But nothing was going right that day. From Nathan's Dr's appointment being messed up to returning a few things we needed to, to just getting a stamp at a post office. Everything was stopping him from doing anything. I basically said to write the entire day off, we were getting nowhere. We said to ourselves that the next day would be kinder to us and we could get it all done then... obviously, before I knew the suitcase would break and the car would be hit. And just to throw something else in the mix, minutes before checking into our flight, Hadrian loses one of our travel pillows. Like, what the... ?

Thankfully, most of those blocks were sorted before we left.. some virtually minutes before. And we were able to leave with a lighter load on our shoulders. We weren't gonna let these things stop us from going but urge us even more to go. It wasn't easy and it felt like we were just not meant to go but we literally had to laugh at it... all the way to the plane.