Selling Everything&Culture Shock.

Today marked the first day we embarked on our adventure in a foreign land. A place where nothing is familiar and we have to rely on each other more than we ever have before.
In the past few months of endless research, planning and selling everything we own to help make this trip possible, we have vomited up a roller coster of emotions. Letting go of all our worldly belongings, minus a waffle iron, dehydrator, and some old boxes of childhood things (weird combo of keep sakes eh..), has been rocky at moments but ultimately incredibly freeing! Some days during the open house sale were full of burden and pain of letting go. I saw my favorite things leave in the hands of strangers. Mobs of people flooding our small apparment rumaging through evry cuboard and closset. Finding things I had forgotten were even there (like my wedding ring) and emptying evrey last bit until just unwanted cloths were left. We sold every toy, all the furniture, a car, kitchen goods, baby items, sporting items, decor, cloths, a garage full of storage items and "keep sakes", the list goes on and on but eventually I just became numb as every last inch of the apartment was was being bought up. Everything, literally everything was for sale and It's the total cliché thing to say but it was surprisingly liberating  in the end. I never want to own that many things again in my life. It was like caring around junk from your past for years and not realizing unnecessary weight you've been packing. Once its gone your left wondering why you didn't do that years ago! I feel as though I can go anywhere and do anything, that nothing holds us back from doing what we've always waned to do. An odd feeling of emptiness that actually feels delightful.

In the joy of the newly lifted weight, gleamed an itinerary to our fast approaching adventure! I knew there would probably be many things we overlooked or wold find we missed in the planning altogether but one thing I didnt anticipate would be sheer butterflies and adrenaline that would soon hit my gut like a ton of butterfly bricks! I've moved a lot in my life and thought I could for the most part handle this as well. Our plane flight was amazing! In the boarding fist priority line, made up of kids and disabled people, I met a lovely younger woman and her family. She lives in Lima Peru and assured me that it was safe as long as we used common sense and that we would love our stay. She and her husband both speek english and spanish. She gave me her card with all her contact info, telling me to get in touch with her anytime and that she would do anything to help us in any way possible. My heart was full of gratitude. Its such a calming feeling every time we make a new friend and trustworthy contact. The kids slept the whole flight, (Pax is still recovering from the flew that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The sweet heart was not his normal, crazy rambunctious self the whole flight, but rather the exact opposite), we had great food on board and an extensive list of movies to watch on your own personal screen. After watching a full movie with almost no interruptions from the kids I felt as if I had a night out on the town to myself! It was fabulous! Sean and I would periodically glance at each other from across the rows and just smile knowing how much we both were enjoying ourselves. It was as if it was a little break we both deserved after so much hustle and bussle. Especially knowing the next six months will likely have little to no breaks at all.

To soon the kids were waking to the morning light and the plane was quickly descending. I dont think I will ever forget the feeling that came over me as I glanced out the window and realized the dead serious reality..."Holly shiz we are in a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY!" The buildings below were not really buildings at all but large concrete blocks with no glass, cloth used for shades I think blowing in the wind and an almost deserted feel over the land. My stomach hit the floor and I was petrified for a good few minutes. Finally when we were hitting the runway and I didn't have view of my surroundings, I peeled my eyes away from the window, turned my head and met Seans warm face already looking right at me. We both shook our heads and took a deep breath. Sitting here writing about it, almost makes me feel it all over again. Baggage claim went smoothly, we only had two checked bags and then we moved on to customs. We were worried for a minute when the woman would not grant us our visas because she was baffled at the length of our stay. She kept asking "how many days?" We kept repeating "180" days... six months." Finally she polled a man aside and was speaking in spanish to him. He knotted his head and we were granted out 180 day visas. Thank goodness. As we exited customs, we scanned a huge crowd of people and taxie drives shouting and holding signs with peoples names on them. After we didn't instantly see our name Sean said "just Keep looking." It was just seconds latter we spotted a humble, nice looking man holding a sign that read "Fean Davis." Sean was like thats it! I'm Fean! I was kinda worried thinking, what if there really is a Fean Davis and we are going with the wrong dude!? Sean kept going with pax in a backpack on his chest and poling a bag behind. I fallowed with Rowen in the wrap on my chest, holding Zara on a leash (Yes I said a leash. A darn leash I will explain another time, if you cant get passed the giggles on your own) and poling our other bag. 


We met with our humble and nice driver Juan who loaded us up and started off to the hotel in Mira Flores Peru. We were assured that Juan would take us to a nice Hostil for a very good rate but upon arrival both hostals were full. We then went with plan B. which ended up being an overpriced but nice Hotel a few miles away in still a very decent neighborhood. Our room is tiny and cramped with no air conditioner but clean and comfortable enough with free internet!















We plan to just stay one night here and then have Juan drive us around tomorrow morning to find a cheaper place but still in the Mia Flores district which is the nicest area in Lima. A special and deeply appreciative thank you to Ricky Martinez for going out of his way to set us up with his personal family driver to ensure we got safely to our hotel from the airport! Juan is fabulous  and though he doesn't speek English he still tried as hard as he could to help us and even got his daughter on the phone at times to translate. The driving around with Juan was our first glimpse into how massively we underestimated the difficulties of a language barrier.  Half way through the drive we busted out our English to Spanish phrase book. This book may be our bible the next few months as we also study the Rosetta Stone. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out and trying to nap in the hotel. We were exhausted and feeling completely overwhelmed by this point. Sean left with Juan to go buy some pre-paid cell phones and grab us some food. Apparently it was quite the mind game trying to stay positive as they struggled again through the language barrier for a couple hours. When Sean returned we were both stressed and totally maxed out. The kids were getting stir crazy and very hungry. So we scrapped ourselves up of the bed and loaded the kids in there wraps to venture out on the streets for our first time. Pax was loosing it before we got to the elevator. We figured he would calm down when we got outside and walking around. We thought the fresh air would feel good to him since he was still feeling pretty darn sick from the flew. We were wrong. The loud, crazy streets stressed him and us out and he cried harder. So we went into the fist place we saw and decided to order take out. Wow, it was brain damage trying to communicate a simple chicken and rice dinner to the waitress. She kept saying soda? soda? We repeatedly said "No soda... bottled water, agua!!! To our utter dismay we realized we forgot our spaish phrase book! The only useful thing to do wast point and used over exaggerated hand and face expressions. Finally she got it but kept getting our total wrong. The kids were all crying now and I was standing trying to comfort them while the waitress kept telling me to sit down. I refused to sit and just ignored her while Sean tried to work the whole thing out. The street was so bussy and loud!!! Honking cars, alarms, people yelling and crazy driving busses weaving in and out of traffic. Mind blowing, complete and utter culture shock. 

Finally we walked back to the hotel and devoured the food minus the practically raw fired egg that comes slapped on every meal. The chicken was very good but some of the meat Sean ordered was pretty sketchy. We prayed over it and let Zara down the pink chorizo! She loved it. Pax on the other had refused. The poor thing was miserable all nigh and so were we. Zara did pretty good watching a movie on the lap top but she was sad that we wouldn't let her out off the room to run around yet. Rowen was a gem as usual. It was a long night of Pax waking crying, comforting him, waking again....and then finally going to sleep for the night. As sean and my head are finally hitting the pillow we find ourselves totally disheartened, discouraged and speechless.