WELL THAT WAS UNEXPECTED.

International moves require the careful coordination of two things — relocating boxes and relocating bodies — such that both ideally arrive at their final destination around the same time. Aaron and I spent months carefully planning the sequence of events, and we really thought we'd choreographed it perfectly: our boxes would leave by boat on May 2 for a 4-6 week journey, our selves would leave by air on May 31 for a 12-hour journey, and we'd all reunite in Barcelona in early June.

But an international move that goes off without a hitch would be so boring. What would I blog about if everything went as planned? 

If you'd asked me a week ago which parts of the coordination puzzle — the boxes or the bodies — would most likely go wrong, I would've given you a very confident answer: the boxes were obviously going to be late. Before saying goodbye to our cargo container, I'd made peace with the very real possibility that I might not see our stuff again for 2-3 months. The scheduled delivery date was early- to mid-June, but I knew any delay in Customs could tack on unanticipated extra weeks. Okay fine. Worst case, we'd arrive on June 1 and maybe have to be without furniture for (another) month or two. All part of the game, part of the choice we made. That—that I was ready for. 

But in the end, the boxes weren't the problem: what we're actually facing is an unexpected delay in body relocation.

Turns out it's going to take us longer to get to Spain than our furniture. I won't bore with details, but the issue boils down to taxes and the number of days we'll be in Spain in 2016. Bad things happen if we're there for more than 183 days; as planned, we were going to be there for 214. The overpriced tax advisors we retained in December failed to flag this issue, and it was only thanks to Aaron's poring over Spanish tax code that it was discovered at all. For various reasons, it won't be a problem for 2017, but it would've been a really bad one for 2016. 

The result: We can't afford to enter the country until after July 4.

So now what? We become homeless on Friday (we're turning the keys over to our condo's new owners on May 27) and are booked on a one-way flight from Boston to Barcelona via London next Tuesday (May 31). Can't stay in Brookline, can't land in Spain, so as of today, the plan is to board the Boston-to-London flight, ditch the last leg, and deplane at Heathrow. We booked a BritRail pass and a four-night AirBnB in London, but after that, who knows. The only thing we know for sure is that we'll be traveling around anywhere-but-Spain for the entire month of June and early part of July.

I can't say I was elated when we figured this out; it's surprising, to say the least, to have a tax attorney tell you 11 days before your move that no, in fact, you should not enter Spain as planned. I had my "holy-sh*t-we're-going-to-be-nomads" day of quasi-panic earlier in the week, but I've come around. The adventure just got more adventurey. The logistics of backpacking around Europe [with two small children on <2 weeks' notice] are sure to be complicated (e.g., we can only bring carry-on luggage since our bags would get checked all the way through to Barcelona), but it isn't everyday that you get dropped off in London and told you get to/have to kill 5 or 6 weeks doing whatever you want.