Packing for Poland

There's a whole lotta thoughts coming out.. Fair warning. After four years in a place, things become normal.  For the past several weeks, I've been paying attention to the things which have become normal in an effort to condense my thoughts on leaving a place that has unintentionally become home. There's this strange thing that happens as a transition like this approaches, I've been through it several times and it's always the same. Transitions are part of the expat life, and it's the life we've chosen for ourselves and our kids.  During the decision process there's a tug-of-war inside. Is leaving really the best thing? What's so great "over there?" Would just one more year be a good idea? There's a feeling of total excitement when a decision is finally reached. You're moving on. It's going to be AMAZING! The lull of the next several months sits in - the waiting game. Still physically here, but there too. Our decision ca...

Wroclaw (Vrohts-wahf)  wasn't on our radar, in fact we had to google it before our interview so we knew where the school was. Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, they were on our radar because they're much more well known cities in Europe.  Wroclaw is situated in the south west of Poland, very near the borders of both Germany and the Czech Republic. Here are some of the specs: Population - 650,000 people - making it the 4th larges city in Poland (oddly, this will be a nice small feel for us as Doha has over two times as many people). Language - Polish (but from what we read, English is fairly common) University Town - Wroclaw boasts 13 major universities with over 150,000 students! I guess we'll be right at home. City of Rivers - Wroclaw is home to the Odra River and several minor rivers as well. It is the city of 100 bridges (Actually with all bridges including: river, canal and footbridges there are around 220! - I wonder if we'll find them all..). Due t...

When we made the decision to move to Qatar, the kids were small, too small to really understand or participate in the decision making process. Phoebe was 4 and Marek was nearly 3. It was the first time Adam and I had lived internationally with a family. For each of us, the decision to move to Morocco was something that only effected us directly. There was no us, there were no children, schools etc.  Just a decision to move.  In moving to Qatar, we needed a job for Adam that could support our family as I was home schooling the kids. Qatar provided the things we needed and has been a great adventure for our family. Phoebe - 4 and Marek - 3 announcing our move to Qatar Upon arriving in Doha in 2014, our plan was to stay for 2 years. 2 years has quickly become 4 and we realized last school year that we were ready for a new adventure. A couple of things which led us to this conclusion were the climate, pollution and lack of real access to the culture. The climate...

So I stopped blogging a while ago. Like 2016..  Life seemed to get normal and uninteresting, I know that seems odd as we're living a completely different life than most of our friends and family, but it did.  I should've kept up and blogged about our day to day adventures, but I didn't. Here's a quick wrap up of the past years: I got my MEd in International School Leadership in 13 months. We spent two summers in Spain while I did my studies. I LOVED the program and the kids and Adam LOVED their Madrid adventures. I lost two grandparents a year ago. The kids and I traveled to the US for my Grandmother's funeral (my Grandfather passed a month later, but we weren't able to travel due to my grad school). The kids have grown and changed so much during our time here in Qatar! Upon arriving back to Qatar from Spain, I received information that there was a job at a local international IB (international baccalaureate) school. I went in for a chat with the princip...