H-hour minus 12 and it seems that everything is well.  Fingers crossed nothing comes up.  After yesterday's revelations and the attendant chaos we took a deep breath, and laughed.   We will contact the embassy in Madrid to see if we can get an extended visa but not at the expense of several weeks, given that as of this writing we have 90 days.  Our contacts in Europe and their son were somewhat bemused as well, because of course if you live in Europe and are a citizen of one of the countries this is not an issue.    Besides, at some point you go with the flow, so see ya on down the road Jack!

THUNDERSTRUCK!!!!!

Well it seems lightning can strike at any time.   La Viajera was out this morning and struck up a conversation with a woman at a garage sale, during the course of which comes up the topic of our impending travel.   The woman (either bless or curse her) mentions the 'Schengen Agreement'. Once again good things can come from garage sales.    It seems that the Schengen agreement was signed in the 90's in Europe to allow the countries to dispense with all the border crossing hassles, but it also has a provision that any non-Euro citizen is limited to a 90 day stay within any 180 day period without having a specific visa allowing them to stay over the 90 days.   And to get the longer term visa you have to apply, go over several bureaucratic hurdles dealing with finance, background, etc. and should be completed BEFORE you leave the U.S.  Now as most of you probably know we're due to leave in 2 days now.  DOH!(self-administerd headslap)   Seems we're up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

Of course, being a good red-blooded american I figured, well we're leaving Spain in 90 days and going to France so that should cover it.  But NOOOO, it applies to virtually all of Europe as if it were a single entity.   So next I figured, heh heh, what if we just stay longer than 90 days and deal with it on the way out, how bad can the fines be?  I found a thread regarding overstaying your welcome where one person missed it by 3 days and they were fined 500 Euro; another guy was fined 5000 euros for a 10 day overstay.   They could also be barred from coming back to any Shengen agreement country for up to 10 years.  So that's not so much an option.

So now we're looking a perhaps a stay in Croatia, which is outside the zone, for perhaps 90 days at which time our 90 day clock would be reset.  Or some combination thereof.   Our other option is to present ourselves at an official Spanish Immigration/Visa office and try to navigate through an extension which is supposed to be very difficult.  The stark fact is that as of this writing the European Union only wants our money for 90 days and no longer.   So maybe we'll see you all in January.

Anybody got a friend with connections in a European country or a friend with a non-expensive rental in Croatia?  

 I made reservations to return from London just after the new year which gives us a definite out, but I can change them if things work out to our benefit. It has also prompted us to review what baggage we're taking and resulted in a lighter load.

Cheers it's only lemons afterall and there must be a lemonade stand somewhere close.

Sept 28th - the perils of premature packing!

Gaacckkk! Just as I'm congratulating myself for getting packed so early I got eaten by the bear.  Went to brush my teeth last night and found to my great consternation that I had packed ALL of my floss... $h!t.   Luckily my basic travel kit which is not yet in a bag has some floss so all of it worked out.   However it's not an isolated incident I've now got track down the dongle for my Nook so that I can top up my battery (that sounds about half dirty), so bag diving is the order of the day.  As a last resort,  we've got notes on the mirror in the bathroom so that we don't leave our heads at home.

September 27^th - Today was an interesting day as we spent the day fine tuning our packing.  I’d been through a less rigorous attempt last week but today it dawned on me that if I didn’t actually pack everything I’d be doing it the night before leaving.   That may still happen but I’ve at least proved that I can get everything for a 6-8 month trip in two bags, one carry on and one checked bag, and still meet the weight restrictions.  Besides it’s not like we’re going somewhere that will punish you for the entire time you’re away if you forget some object, Madrid after all is around 6 million people.   Deb is basically setup in the same manner as me, except of course being smaller she can put her entire closet in two bags.  We’ve been dealing with a building tension around getting everything done prior to leaving, but the beauty of such a trip is that once you have dealt with the absolute essentials everything else is basically elective.  My biggest concern has been related to our cat Mapie, she was pretty nearly feral when we undertook trying to reclaim her and has made wonderful progress in her socialization.  I don’t want to leave her without somebody in the house to take care of her, so my lovely niece the goddess Elizabeth has consented to live in our house while we’re away.   Elizabeth is also a big sister to a young woman, Karina, who has recently graduated from high school and will live in the house as well; bottom line Mapie will have a contingent of servants to see to her needs.  It’s D minus 4 and counting till we leave.

This has been an ongoing saga to get ready but one of our biggest concerns has been reading material. So thanks to our great friend Walt, La Viajera was the recipient of a Nook reader and she has been loading up on things she wants to read. As for me, Deb got me a Nook for my birthday, so I'm also loading up on stuff to read. My reading list to date is as follows (don't laugh):

• A History of the Peninsular War by Charles Oman,
• A Campaign in New Mexico with Colonel Doniphan by Frank Edwards,
• Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain,
• Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon,
• Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon,
• A Little Tour in France by Henry James,
• The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather,
• Castillian Days by John Hay,
• A Handbook for Travellers in Spain by Richard Ford
• The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides.

 Now I understand that most of this stuff is (ahem) dated but it seemed to appeal and I'm really enjoying Oman. I've also gotten some electronic guides to Barcelona and Arles. I would like to start reading some Spanish language books too, like "Dick and Jane chase Spot" but I can get those on site. Also been watching the Telenovella, "Ma Vida Loca" created by the BBC.  I'll ask La Viajera for a list of her reading material, but she may demur.

In a very short time Deb (La Viajera)

and I will be embarking on an adventure that has been 20 or more years in the making. We determined that we wanted to spend a year abroad after we stopped working and were still able to stand the rigors of traveling. Our original plan was to go to a country that was foreign but not so different that we would be totally 'at sea'. Several years ago we did a house exchange in France, about 35 miles northwest of Marseille, near Arles. We enjoyed the exchange and kept in touch with the family with whom we exchanged and it transpired that the woman's mother had an apartment in Madrid. Last year the woman's mother died leaving the apartment to her daughter. We contacted them and asked if we might rent the apartment for an extended period of time and they agreed. So we are planning to spend October, November, and December in Madrid. We will be making regular trips throughout Spain to visit other areas such as Barcelona, Sevilla, Toledo, etc. At the end of the year we will travel to France to spend the New Year with our 'landlords' and at that time we will rent their house just outside Arles for January, February, and part of March after which we will decide where we want to be until May. We've only spent 3 days previously in Spain so it will be a new and exciting challenge for us. I've given up the El Pendejo blogname and am now to be known as El Viajero, and of course Deb will be known as Deb. I hope to be posting fairly regularly but our apartment doesn't have internet so my posts will be dependent upon our finding a wifi hotspot.