Exodus

After accepting the position, the next natural question was “when am I going?”

The answer, “as soon as possible.”

Oh. So you’re saying I should probably get a passport then. It’s true. I had never been out of the country before. Quit laughing.

I was a little relieved when I found out it would take at least a month and a half to two months to get my passport and employment visa stuff worked out, so at least the “as soon as possible” didn’t mean the next week. But I think that’s when the whole thing started to seem real. I needed to prepare myself to leave my life as I knew it behind for six months.

One fun thing about the two months leading up to my departure was getting to practice a bucket list. Sure, it’s not like a bucket list before you die, but when you know you’re not going to have certain things available to you for 6 months, you want to pack as much in as you can. It was then that I realized how much my life revolves around food and beer. My bucket list pretty much consisted of restaurants I wanted to go to and throwing happy hours/going away parties. Now that I think of it, I can’t think of anything else that was even on my bucket list. If you knew that all of the finer comforts in life would be taken away from you for six months, what would you do?

Another thing I got a kick out of was the different reactions I got when people found out I was moving to India. They ranged from, “are you crazy!?” to “Oh, I’m so jealous” to blank stares to apathy to shock to my favorite coming from my dad “you realize that’s a whole nother country, right?”.   It was fun to see how different people viewed the opportunity. Some were very predictable with their reactions, and some were surprising. (side note: maybe it’s a Kansas thing, I don’t know, but I feel like I use the phrase “a whole nother” a lot. The red squiggly line under it is trying to tell me that “nother”  isn’t a word. Until I right click and say “add to dictionary. Take that, Merriam Webster.) 

Anyways, those two months flew by and before I knew it, it was time to leave. Packing didn’t take much time, as I only got two suitcases and a carry on to take with me. I think my hardest decision there was whether or not I could make room for a pair of cowboy boots (which didn’t make the cut). I did get a pearl snap in the mix, though.

If anything could ease my apprehension at that time, it was for sure sitting in business class on the flights. I always walk by the people sitting in first/business class on my way to coach and automatically label them as smug, rich pricks. Holy cow, people can call me a smug prick all they want, it’s worth it. On my plane from Chicago to Frankfort, Germany, I had my own little pod, completely separated from the person next to me. I had my own 20” TV screen where I could watch my choice of movie or TV show on the way. My seat reclined all the way where I could be completely horizontal if I wanted to, which made sleeping a breeze. The stewardess offered all sorts of neat stuff all the time, and I enjoyed “gourmet” food and wine the entire flight. That’s how flying should be! It made the inter-continental legs of my trip seem much shorter. And before I knew it, the wheels touched down in India.

Here we go……