Preparation before the journey

Ebimisami: 26.08.2019

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Before our dream could come true, the house had to be completed, then rented out, and then we could actually start..

That was the plan at least

But it wasn't as easy as we thought!

How naive of us 🤦🏻‍♀️

The entire renovation put our family to the test, we had no idea how intense it would be. One disaster after another, the construction just wouldn't finish, everything possible happened, and again and again we thought WTF..? Why does all this happen to us? I didn't expect that a renovation or refurbishment could bring a family to the brink of despair, but now I know that it can.

Only build a house if you really love each other and are strong, otherwise stay away from it!!!

I don't even remember how many times I said that I'm done at the end.

When the house was in the shell phase, we lived here and there for a while, for us who always led a structured life, it was absolutely terrible.

The nomadic life continues

And keep in mind that the school still had to be managed, teachers have little to no understanding for that, why should they, they have to follow their program.. It wasn't easy for the children with two parents who were stressed every day, as I unfortunately had to realize later, they did their best. The desire grew more and more each day to leave everyday life behind.

Time is money after all

Those who have elementary school children know what I'm talking about. Appointments after appointments 🙄

Project Escape

In 2016, due to the tense situation in Europe, we bought an apartment in a resort on the beautiful Philippine island of Tablas, we always wanted to have a plan B, it shouldn't sound like a conspiracy theory, but some things that our system dictates to us and the potential consequences unsettled us and we invested accordingly.

The birth of our journey.

Who would have thought that everything would happen so quickly in the end.

Important topic: Vaccination!

In July, we started with all the important vaccinations (a bit late but still okay), luckily the health insurance covers all vaccinations, otherwise we would have lost a small fortune before even starting the journey. The cost for a family of four is approximately €3000, of course, you have to pay for the vaccinations out of your own pocket, so I advise those for whom vaccinations are important like us, to start 6-12 months before the planned journey, this way you have no problems advancing the money and moreover, it is a huge burden for the body. Not like what we did 🤦🏻‍♀️, getting all the vaccinations in a short time, we constantly felt sick during the vaccination phase. Also consider, the respective health insurance company needs 2-3 weeks to process the submitted invoices. Inquire with your statutory health insurance company which vaccinations are covered and which are not, Barmer, by the way, is great, they covered all vaccinations.

We received the first vaccination consultation at the Tropical Institute in Munich, but it took 4 hours until we finally got to it.

Either go to a doctor who performs tropical vaccinations with an appointment, or if you are lucky and live in one of these cities like Berlin - Cologne - Dresden - Munich - Hamburg - Frankfurt, or Stuttgart, you can easily go to one of these well-known Outdoor Globetrotter stores without an appointment, there you will get an appointment relatively quickly for a travel consultation that costs €20 and immediately afterwards the necessary vaccinations

(Costs for the desired vaccinations vary greatly).

These invoices can also be easily submitted to the health insurance company. The good thing is that you don't have to wait forever and can quickly get your vaccination.

Means of transportation

If you have to apply for an international driver's license at the last minute (like us), no stress, it's quick and easy, if you already have the new one in card form, you will receive the international driver's license on the same day, cost €15 + passport photos about €8. Provided you are still registered in Munich.

De-registration from Germany

My husband and I went to the Kreisverwaltungsreferat in Munich without an appointment and without children, and to my surprise, it was quite simple, you receive a number at the reception, the time is immediately communicated to you, and after a while, the number is displayed on the display board.

I was a bit afraid because I didn't know which questions I had to answer, I imagined it like an interrogation (like you know from TV) why do you want to leave, what are the reasons why you want to go abroad with your children???.. etc etc.

In the end, they just wanted to know where we were going, they didn't even ask if the father agreed to it, after 5 minutes I had my deregistration document in hand, at that moment I had lost all the burden, no longer being bound by compulsory education. It was a really liberating feeling.. But it's not done with the deregistration here, you still have to go to the respective schools and submit the deregistration, with a two-liner attached, something like my child's name/first name/born, Germany will leave the country with the whole family from day X and will no longer attend school. With a signature and submit it, done! The child is officially deregistered from school and there are no further problems at the German airport, we flew to Asia one day before regular school start and no one asked any questions.