Jan 20, 2011

Today, 30 days before starting our sabbatical, we are inaugurating officially our sabbatical blog. Given a large group of our Polish and English speaking friends we commit to be running the blog in both languages.

To make our life simpler, all blog entries in both languages will be available chronologically on the Blog link. You will also be able to sort through single language version by clicking the language categories links (Polish, English) on the right side bar.

Thirty days is not a lot of time given the amount of work still ahead. We need to juggle it with our daily duties. The vision of the incredible adventure is making all the effort easier. What make it sweeter also are those magic moments that happen daily in our lives. For example, we learned from voice emission expert that our son, Wojtus, a happy and proud member of the Wroclaw Cathedral Choir (Pueri Cantores Wratislaviensis), has a unique opera voice.  His conductor, Father Stanislav, cannot praise Wojtus enough for his vocal talents. When he learned we were leaving he wished us … bad luck in planning the trip. Sounds mean of him, yet he just does not want to miss for a year one of his best students.
We are hopeful that both Wojtes and Ania, who is passionate about ballet dancing, will have a chance to develop their passions while en route.

While talking to the voice expert we also learned whom to listen to and whom to avoid. In the first group were obviously the famous three tenors. In the latter, Andrea Bocceli, who being a self-taught singer generally has a “messy” voice. Besides avoiding romantic singer not to pick up too early the vibrato technique was recommend. Anyway, that’s the trivia I love learning and sharing. Stay tuned for more …

Generally, we feel very well, particularly being after a round of necessary vaccinations (7 shots per adults, 3 per kids). Despite a few tears shed kids took the whole process bravely. Vaccinations for a four-person family are not cheap, ca. $1000. In addition there is a whole bunch of medicine necessary for the trip including the bloody expensive anti-malaria drug, Malarone. The kids are learning now to swallow pills, which is not easy.

We must admit that in the last two months of preparations we learned a couple of new skills. Here are some of them:

• creating a blog/Web page
• home schooling children in Poland
• tropical deseases prevention
• volunteering in Latin America
• „travelling light” etc.

Among the many benefits of sabbatical preparation there is one more particular, i.e. house cleaning. We managed to rent our house during our absence. Therefore it is necessary to get it ready for rental. It’s amazing how much stuff we have accumulated in 10 years of our marriage! There also comes a series of necessary medical check ups. Luckily, we are all healthy. As for “spiritual” cleaning, its time will come as well.

Taking this opportunity we would like to thank Beata and Blażej Kotełko, who along with their two kids, made a similar trip a year ago, for sharing their experience with us. During their trip they made a blog at www.hoparoundtheglobe.com, which we highly recommend.
That’s it for now.

Anything is Possibile!

W.A.W.A.