You won’t hear about this on Facebook. 

This is what a glorious move to Europe really looks like.

Here’s the future Facebook post:

Well, we did it! We arrived in Europe! Weekends to Paris, biking to school through tulip fields and cold beer on the canal until the sun sets at 10 PM in the summer.

OK, I made all that up. But it sounds like fun and, who knows, maybe it will happen. I’d be happy with the biking to school part. We’ll see. In any case, we’re going.

But what you see in reality (or at least on the reality of Facebook) is what happens behind the scenes. How does that “magical trip” happen? Here’s part of how it happens:

1. Searching, digging and scavenging to find my wife’s old Dutch driver’s license because she called today and said it would be easier, cheaper and faster if we could find her old license than getting a new one. Three hours, 8 or 9 boxes, cabinets, bags, files and no driver’s license. I’l keep going tomorrow.
2. Here’s how much moving boxes cost: $0.77 for small, $1.29 for medium and $1.79 for large. It worries me that I know that. I bought as many as would fit in my car.
3. Every item that passes through my hands has 1 of 5 places to go. 1 of 5 decisions I make 87 times per day.
   1. Trash
   2. Donate
   3. Storage
   4. Mom’s attic
   5. Stays here
4. Weather. San Francisco: unseasonably 75 degrees and sunny. Holland: rain and cold. “It’s OK, it’s a dry heat.” No, wait, that’s Arizona. Pack rain slicker. Don’t pack shorts.
5. We can get car insurance once we have an address but we can’t officially declare our address until we move in (or something) but we’re not really going to move in until June 1 but we’ll actually be there June 13 so maybe my wife says she’s living at her mother’s unless that would cause confusion later. Maybe we’ll just bike. Also, see #1 on scavenger hunt.
6. It’ll all be worth it, I swear. No, really, I’m 100% confident we’ll look back on the coming year with, well, I don’t know, but it won’t be memories of boredom.
7. But for now, I’m a handyman, filing clerk, historical excavator, international legal immigration counsel and positive parent.

If there’s one thing going for us in the “positive” column, it really comes down to one word: adventure.

I’m a big believer in creating adventure and not just letting it come to you. It’s a bit like luck. How is it that some people are luckier than others? They’re not, they create their own luck. Adventure is similar.

On that note, maybe we’ll get lucky and find our driver’s licenses. Now that would be an adventure.