The Beginning...

After unsuccessfully cleaning/emptying of the apartment, we were off with our possessions which were contained in 2 big luggage bags, 1 small luggage bag, 2 backpacks, 1 gym bag, 2 bags, that's it..nice and simple....or that's what we thought....

Carrying around that amount of bags is no fun, quite simply getting to the bus station in Milwaukee was almost a nightmare.  First of all, carrying those bags down from the third floor is no picnic, then trying to drag them around the city, along with a very active child was almost impossible...  We thought it would be no big deal to take the local bus to the bus station but, it was pretty uncomfortable, we made everyone there uncomfortable too, probably, we were obstructing the way and taking forever to do anything..... it was ridiculous.  The bus left us a few blocks from the bus station, which would be like nothing in normal circumstances, but the way things were going, with us dragging along many super heavy bags and trying to get control of Sophia, there was no way we were gonna make it.  But some lady stopped and gave us a ride and we barely made it.  Thanks lady that was going to pick up her friend that was coming from Minneapolis!  Of course, since we barely made it to the bus that was going to take us to Chicago, we all had to sit separately, yes, that includes Sophia.  Thankfully, I was only one row away from her and I could keep tabs on her.  We had planned to take the subway to the airport, but the thought of dealing with the bags again made us change our mind and take a taxi.  Once we got to the airport, we had like 4 hours to kill, but at least we had made it.  Even checking in our bags was a pain, we had to switch things around to accommodate for the weight restrictions.  After that we just ate some sandwiches and lounged around until it was time to get on the plane.  The plane that would take us directly to London!!  In the airplane we were amused by watching tv or eating (they gave us both dinner and breakfast).  Sophie watched kid shows.  I watched a really bad comedy movie and listened to Chopin.  Chuy tested out his new earphones with good music, read and watched some football (soccer) highlights.  A few hours of sleep, and the ride was over rather quickly.

Apparently all immigration people are rude, have an attitude problem, and are mean, even in England.. 'how can it be possible that you come to live in England for a year without a place to live?!' in a very condescending voice....that's how we were received in London haha.  We were pretty tired, and still not wanting to deal with the bags, we decided that instead of taking the tube to London centre and from there the train to Colchester, we would instead take a bus directly to the Colchester with a layover at the other London airport.  We had to sacrifice some London experiences for some peace of mind, London will have to wait for us, but it will be revisited and explored soon.  Before getting in the bus, we noticed we were missing Sophie's luggage, and it was quite a struggle to get it back.  Security had to be called, but the phone number they had was wrong, it was a mess, I almost didn't make it back on time to take the bus.  At first, I thought I was too excited to fall asleep, but within five minutes we were all passing out, we were riding through the outskirts of London, so there was just a lot of green, a lot of trees and a lot of road and that's it, so I am pretty sure we didn't miss anything.  After the second bus, we were too excited about being close to our destination to even think about falling asleep.  We passed through a few towns and got a glimpse of England finally (besides airports).  Very narrow roads, like scarily narrow, and I didn't think the riding on the wrong side of the street would be a big deal, but it really does make a huge difference.  I felt disoriented with cars going all over and me not knowing which way was right anymore.  The houses are all very old but well kept.  We finally got to Colchester and even though everything in Colchester is close by... we still decided to take a taxi to the bed & breakfast we were staying at, we were tired, sore, sleepy and there's no way we wanted to drag the bags around in a city we didn't know.  We got to the Corner House, got our stuff in our double room (one full bed and one twin bed), and felt a sense of relief to have survived the long, eventful trip.

After pulling ourselves together with a shower and calling our respective parents, we took ventured out to find a place to eat. (And yes, it was raining.)  We were pretty spoiled in Milwaukee, I am not gonna deny that, we could go to countless restaurants near our house that were vegan friendly, so going out and having a hard time finding a restaurant in which we could eat anything was almost heart breaking haha.  After some browsing around, reading many menus, and feeling rejected, we found an Indian place to eat at.  It was pretty good.  We went back to our room and passed out for at least 12 hours.  The next day we woke up sore but adventurous and we went to find an electric converter for the electric plugs.  We had to ask around, and take a few wrong turns, but we finally found it.  This is definitely one of the things we would redo, buy the converters/adapters in the USA and bring a power strip.  We have to circulate all of our electricity hogging electronics through one adapter.  No fun.  After having accomplished our mission for the day, we went to have some breakfast, this time we didn't have too much trouble finding a place to eat, we did have to do the whole stepping in, looking at the menu on the wall while the employees are staring at us, and saying sorry but we are vegans and stepping out.  It's the whole stepping in, stepping out routine that vegans learn to master haha.  We had a grilled veggie sandwich, a samosa and a hummus/sun dried tomato/olive baguette.  We took a break in our room to get some info on apartments and make some calls.  After a few unsuccessful calls, we were starting to freak out about not being able to find an apartment.  So we went out to some letting offices we had seen in our search for food, and one the first one we went to we found a nice little house to rent.  We were outraged to find that there is such a thing as agency fees, which were extremely high, but we paid them almost happily for a peace of mind of not having to worry about where to live.  After that we set out to find a cellphone, and we found that they practically give smart phones away here.  For example, a Sony Ericsson Xperia was free when you had a monthly contract of 10 pounds.  That's crazy!!!  Anyway, we got out pay as you go phone, and we were set to go.  We found a place to eat, after looking around for quite a bit... we had some British breakfast meal consisting of fried mushrooms, veggie sausage, fried tomato, baked beans, hashbrowns, and bubble (potato pancake thingy).  We also got a veggie burger and chips (fries). After asking around we also found a grocery store, and a health store on the way.  We bought a few essentials and were sadden to see there was no tofu or hot sauce of any kind to be seen.  We were spoiled in the food department too in Milwaukee hahah.  After that we decided that we had had a very successful day and went to rest to our room.  (And yes, it was cloudy all day)

The next day, we discovered the Colchester Castle Park while walking about with no set place to go.  This park is beautiful.  It has several areas including a playground, it has a tiny lake and the river runs along it.  It's very green and very colorful with all the different garden areas.  And it has a castle, a real one, that was made like a thousand years ago, and I am not even exaggerating.  It is now a museum, and it's missing its upper levels, but still an impressive sight.  We spent most of our time in the playground because Sophie was really enjoying it.  After that very nice sight, we headed back to our room for some cheap lunch of instant noodles and bread hahah  We plan not to spend ALL of our savings on eating out haha.  After lounging around and watching a movie in our room, we went to buy more essentials at the grocery store.  We worked up some hunger after that, so we went out looking for Chuy's ever lasting craving of Chinese food.  It was difficult.  Chinese food restaurants here have odd hours and close in odd days.  At the end, we found one but they had no tofu dishes.  We were disappointed but we were willing to give them a try.  Out of desperation I asked if they had tofu, they said yeah, and charged us for tofu like if it was a delicacy, but at least we got our tofu!

We haven't seen the sun in three days.  It's really perfect weather here.  We are enjoying our adventure greatly until now.  Let's see where it takes us.

Five days left: preparing...

After getting acceptance from the university, we started looking into the visas.  The visa process is not an easy one, and we could not start it until it was 3 months prior to commencement of classes.  Thus we waited with calm anxiety to get the process started.  We didn't want to get our hopes up without the visas.  The time finally came in which we could start working on our visas, after a huge amount of paperwork, probing and answers.  I mean what kind of person keeps tabs of how many times they have spent outside the country in the past 10 years?  I had to guess hundreds.  We were getting nervous about getting all the documents together that they wanted, they wanted original documents only and sometimes that proved to be impossible.  For example, Chuy's pay stubs are made electronically, there is no such thing as a original copy of that...  We live in the electronic age, it is quite unreasonable to ask for original documents!  We also were asked for proof of funds, and the banks were confused when we asked for an original bank statement in letterhead paper...  That's how much business/people are moving away from hard copies.  We were quite worried about being denied because we lacked some original documents.  But we figured, we had to give it a try even if we thought we were doomed for failure.

Then came the appointments to get our fingerprints.  Well that was odd...  Entering government buildings always feels odd, they are usually cold, unfriendly places, with security barking orders at you.  Thankfully Lisa was there to accompany me and pass time, while I waited for quite a long while to get the fingerprints done.  The fingerprinting process was strange, they roll each finger multiple times along this pad...  But when the appointment was over, our wait to submit the applications was pretty much over.  We sent the applications and hoped for the best.  I got an email saying they received the applications, and they usually take 5-10 business days.  Each day that passed, we saw our visas getting farther and farther away.  By the ninth day, we were pretty much sure that we were not getting the visas.  But suddenly a check of inbox and we got an answer, and the answer was positive!!  That happened in the middle of the day while I was still at work, and I was pretty useless the rest of the day.  All I could think about was England!!  And that we were gonna be living there!!

After a celebratory eating out, feelings started to settle, and then we realized, oh man we are moving to England, in less than a month!  We need to get things rolling!  No time to lose.  We bought airplane tickets, canceled services, and started posting our possessions on craigslist.  That was hard.  Trying to price the objects that you have accumulated.  We felt ripped off the whole time,  but we saw our apartment getting emptier with a feeling of relief.  Freedom never felt stronger.  We felt so much relief from getting rid of our stuff, that we will try to be minimalists.  At least, less materialistic.  It is true, what 'they' say:  Things you own end up owning you.

At first we thought we were going to have to live by our savings since Chuy's job had refused to allow him to work remotely.  We looked ahead to a life of rice and beans, but we were still positive about the move and adventure that lay before us.  Then Chuy whipped out his negotiating skills and earned himself a contracting job, doing exactly what he does now, but remotely.  A huge relief.  I mean, going to place with no place to live, no one you know, and being from another culture is pretty hard already, so to not have to worry about the income is a welcomed with open arms.  We still have to get the apartment ready to leave, all clean and empty.  Our bags are half packed, and waiting to be processed.  Things are waiting around to see if they make it in the luggage.  There is very limited space.  We have weight restrictions to worry.  Our 800 discs will have to be separated and distributed among all the luggage...because apparently 800 discs weight a whole lot.

There is only 5 days to go, and the pressure is on.  The countdown has gone from days to hours.

England?! Why?

This could easily turn into a very long post. But we will try to keep it short and to the point. 


Neither one of us has ever been very enchanted with this country. We really can't put our finger on exactly how it started. Part of it may have been getting a whole different "history" in history class than what we learned in elementary school in Mexico. On the overlapping parts, it is like they were not even talking about the same events, but they were. That creates a sort of skeptic approach to any claims the US makes from that point on. And unfortunately, the more you look into US history, the more disillusioned you become. But the worst part, is its current state. Electing Bush, twice, kind of. Endless war, which is glorified. Healthcare depends on how much money you have. Its blind faith in capitalism and corporations. Its almost complete disregard for the environment. And a broken political system that is not responsive to what people want. We could go on and on. But this is not even the main point....


We had talked about where we would want to live. And we knew we wanted to move away from the US. We don't even feel right paying taxes that we know go to fund the very wars we hate. Geli has wanted to get her masters, and didn't feel right having left school without finishing it. So when she was laid off, and having such a difficult time finding another job, we looked into the option of going back to school. It was while doing this that we realized that this could be the ticket out of here. So she applied to schools in Canada(Vancouver), and England. We also looked at schools in New Zealand, Australia, and Spain. France, Switzerland, or Norway would have been awesome, but there is the language barrier. She got accepted to one school in Canada, and one in England. Canada would have been "safer," more familiar. But we ideally wanted to be in Europe. So England seemed to be the direction we wanted to go. It is not perfect, by any means. In fact, it is almost like the US's little sidekick when it comes to foreign policy. But at least it cares more about its people than the US. It provides them with healthcare, regardless of how much money they have.That, scores massive points in our book. We could retire, with 1 less thing to worry about. 


Believe it or not, this is the short version. We have so much to say. We have put so much thought into this. It is not easy to go even further from family and friends. It is not easy to leave everything you own behind. Leaving everything you've known. Embarking on a journey into the unknown. As a unit, as a tiny family...


On September 26th we set foot in a strange land...England. Leaving North America for the first time...

Define: foreigner

Our story is not a rare one, I am sure. But it does leave one in a strange sort of limbo when it comes to that feeling of belonging that most people have for a nation. We lived in Mexico most of our childhood. So most of our grade school was in Mexico(a great thing, as we would later find out). We moved across the border to El Paso, TX. Where we went to middle school, high school, and some college. We eventually graduated college from New Mexico State University. So most of our socializing, and all of our teenage years were in the US. At home, with family, we were Mexican, we felt Mexican. At school, with friends, at work, we always spoke English. This means we would never learn the lingo that people used in Spanish. So even though we could communicate with people when socializing in Spanish, to them, we were never true Mexicans. And in the US, even though we spoke English, studied there, worked there, we were always Mexicans. At 22, we moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, pursuing a job opportunity. We have been in Milwaukee until now (September, 2010). Needless to say, although we like Milwaukee, we definitely do not feel like we are from here either.

In Mexico, we are not true Mexicans. In the US we are not true Americans.

So this is why we really identify with this song....

A ship awaits me at the port

I know not where it will take me

I don't seek grandeur

I leave without thinking of the return

I don't mourn what I leave behind

I just know that what's left

I can carry in one bag

But where I am headed, I am known as a foreigner

Wherever I roam, I feel a foreigner

I am also a stranger in my homeland

even though I truly love it

but my heart counsels me:

nationalism, how it frightens me

No homeland, no flag

no race, no class

no limits, no borders

Foreigner, I am

Enrique Bunbury - 'El Extranjero'