Health and Wellness Tourism in the Algarve - The Resort Begins to Take Shape!

The Project for which we are going to the Algarve in Portugal has just made it one step closer to opening.  We are proud to announce the NEW Health and Wellness Resort Program at Solcosta.  This Program will open in the Summer of 2010! and is a wonderful addition to the Health Tourism Resorts that the Algarve is fast becoming known for!  Visit our website for more information about our Programs and Activities at this stunning resort in the heart of the Algarve Resort Community.

 We look forward to seeing you there!

http://www.solcostawellness.com/

Solcosta Resort - where you can find the multiple convenience of Self Catering Holiday Apartments, in the heart of the Algarve, yet conveniently located away from the concentration of tourist development, offering you a combination of quiet rural landscapes, only 4 Km away from the beach and the centre of Albufeira.

There is also a Dental Clinic and a Natural Health Clinic with bilingual staff, within the premises of the Resort.

Regardless if you stay with us as part of our Health and Wellness Packages, or simply as a guest of our Self Catering Holiday Apartments, we promise you will have an unforgettable experience you will certainly want to repeat again.

Contact us at: solcostawellness@live.com for more information and bookings!

We Are in the Home Stretch! Do I Dance, or Do I Cry?!

"The journey begins with just one step."

That is true...now we are nearing our next steps...the ones that take us from this Continent to our New Home on another Continent. 

We are in the last 30 days and it is, well it's stressful and wonderful! 

For those who have moved from one Country to another and had to cross an Ocean or a long distance...so if you are in Canada that means moving from one Province to another...we're a big place; you have certainly felt some of what we are feeling - anxiety, stress, fear, joy, excitement, wonder...and so on!

The emotions are so mixed that it is hard to get your bearings.  You are in a grief cycle at the same time you are in evolution/growth cycle.  Some say one informs the other, and I agree and that is why you find yourself...or I find myself, feeling joy one minute and anger the next...or depression and then happiness...all in the same 15 minutes sometimes.

I think if I were to be asked by someone else what moving on this scale is like - and what single thing would help them through the process, I'd say 'let it all hang out - keep it all together'. 

That may appear opposite in its advice but let's look at it - moving at any time, let alone on this scale is a process that must be experienced as it comes...trying to control too many elements at once will only increase the stress - so when the mood strikes you and you feel like crying - do it!  And when you feel like dancing in circles and singing at the top of your lungs - do it!  And when it comes time to go to the Consulate and fill out the stack of paperwork that makes you feel like you are 'buying the Country', 'Keep It Together!'

Hold on - don't bite the consultate employees hand because you filled out your paperwork in the wrong colour of pen and have to do it all over again - \keep it together' and smile or at the very least keep a neutral expression. 

The fact that you have let yourself cry and dance and sing when you need to - with people you trust - will help you when those challenging and sometimes unfair situations arise.  You will be able to find the strength to 'hold it together!'

Then when you get home you can throw the styrofoam packing noodles around that almost empty house and dance on them until you fall down crying and laughing!

So advice to those who dare to be adventurous enough to move countries - 'let it all hang out & keep it together' when you need to!  In other words go with the flow, don't try to swim upstream cause you'll only make it more stressful!

So we are in the last 30 days and the mood is one of joy and sorrrow and excitement and anger and happiness and depression and joy and so on!

I think I'll go dance on some styrofoam noodles now and see if I can get the paperwork sorted!!!

See you on the other side!

Stay well. 

We Have A Move Date!!!!

Well it's happened...we have a moving date.  It is amazing what a date will do for your mental health...not to mention your sleep! Not too long ago we were mired in the unknown...dates were things that we couldn't even pick because of the paperwork and many other factors that were just all seeming to keep this move in a state of chaos.  Now we have a date.  We still need to complete a mountain of paperwork and we are still trying to coordinate the timing of this paperwork so we don't have to do too much back tracking or country hopping; but the date of the move is now a reality.

We are now getting into high-gear and packing everything that isn't nailed down in anticipation of filling the container in time for its departure.  It's amazing how much stuff you accumulate.  I mean when we moved houses before it always seemed alot, but now we are having to quantify the number of boxes and furniture in a way that we never did before.  Things have to fit into a 40 foot trailer.  Now that sounds big and it sounds small, dependent on whether you are spatially challenged like me or not; however, I can assure you that we will fill that trailer and only have a little room left over for anyone who wants to ship something with us because they don't have enough for a whole trailer.

I am just thankful, and relieved, and now a little bit excited that there is a date in the near future that isn't a "sort of", "maybe kind of", "maybe not", or a "will see" date...it is an actual date on a calendar that I can look at and work towards.

Thank 'whatever you pray to' for small mercies!

Now all I have to do is make sure I don't pack things I will need while I live out of a suitcase for a month...because my house will be on a boat for 30 days and I'll be waiting for it to arrive!

The journey begins with just one step.

Happy New Year, oh and we're still here....

Well here we are...it's 2010 and we are still packing and living between two Countries.  The reasons for this lie in several areas, and all are somewhat outside our direct influence.  The paperwork has been very slow, in both Countries and the money to move has been slow in coming too.  The economic crisis that was felt around the world has had a negative impact on us and we are doing our best to recover but this has put our departure date beyond our original expectations.  The good news is that we have had some good news in the last two days on both these fronts. This means that chances are the container will go at the end of March, if we don't suffer anymore setbacks.

 

So here I sit amongst the boxes...thinking about what comes next. 

The most difficult part of this whole thing for me is the fact that things are moving at a pace that is akin to Molasses in December.  This cannot be changed.  I have tried and found that again I will need to just let things move at their pace and sit patiently.  It's kind of like waiting to give birth.  You have a due date, but of course this is just a projected date; the actual date being dependent on many factors that are actually outside your direct influence.  The labour can be short or long or difficult or not.  You might be in for the long haul, going 40 hours only to find out that after that exhausting effort you aren't having a regular delivery, but a C-section instead.  This can bring all kinds of complications, not to mention the prolonged healing and the need to have more help with the baby then you had planned.

Projects are like this and what I have found is that this one in particular, the move and the new venture together, are now like I have passed my due date and I have started that labour and it's going to be a long and painful one. 

In these moments where I feel like the woman in labour who is relying on everyone else to help the process along, I have to remember that the end result is a gift...all the hard work pays off.  Women in labour finally get to meet their babies and people who work long and hard and face the obstacles and keep going, get to see their projects become realities.

Okay so here I sit amongst the boxes, taking deep breaths, and remembering that the hardwork and pain of waiting will all be worth it in the end.

Packing...where to start...?!

PACKING, this is a word that strikes 'fear' into the hearts of even the most steadfast of wanderers. 
For me packing is about taking ALL the things in your life and somehow categorizing them and then stuffing them into boxes; which if you are smart you will label before you tape it shut, and shipping them to wherever it is you are moving.. 

Sounds easy enough when you write it down, but I can tell you that it is one of the most exhausting, harrowing, and emotionally charged events in life; at least it is in our house.

I know people who love to pack, just not unpack.  These people happily categorize, box, and label their belongings with the greatest of ease; making the whole thing look effortless.  However, when they have to unpack these same lovingly prepared boxes, these same people become chaotic and emotional.  Running from here to there, unpacking in a wild state and looking like something out of a horror movie (hair in disarray, yesterday's mismatched clothes on, 5 days growth of beard, dark circles under the eyes, and a cold cup of tea in their hands which could be mistaken for a weapon).

And then there are the other people. The people who hate to pack but love to unpack.  For these people the same characteristics described in the unpackers above are the same ones displayed by the packers in this example.  They run from room to room packing wildly, all the while muttering profanities under their breath and occasionally throwing their tape gun in a fit of anger when it runs out.  Now to be fair, the people who hate packing are absolutely glorious at unpacking.  They seem to move through this task with grace and precision, knowing exactly where everything should go and how it should look.  They make settling into a new home a great experience. 

It is important to note that I have not met any people who like both packing and unpacking, but I have met plenty who hate both tasks with equal zeal.

Because my partner is the person who loves to unpack and not pack and I am a person who equally hates both tasks you can understand that we are now experiencing that pre-packing angst.  We are now only 3 months (4 on the outside) away from moving countries and we haven't started packing.  To be fair we do have a storage locker with a lot of our things already packed in there and we have many items still in boxes from our last move stored in our loft because they were meant to go to Portugal and not be used in this current space. So we could say we are half packed already.  But honestly it still feels like we have a mountain of packing to do before we can put everything in a container.

And while we are talking containers, we also have to label and catalog everything that is going in that container.  We can do this for the stuff already packed and stored, but it's the items that we are still using, that are not packed, that we will need to catalog as we go.  This shouldn't be too arduous a task but since I am a person who hates packing as much as my partner, I feel that we are fast approaching the time when our stress levels are going to hit stratospheric heights if we are not careful.  We will definitely need to work as a tea and we are going to have to plan when and how we're going to accomplish this job called 'packing'.  Because honestly if I had the money, I'd pay someone right now to do this for us. I can dream!

Today as I write this I can tell you that I can't even imagine folding a box and putting a thing inside of it.

But in a very short time that's exactly what we'll be doing and hopefully we will have the good sense to make sure that we make this fun somehow; because if not, it's going to be a long 3 months of living amongst boxes and trying not to tape each other to the walls.

I can only imagine what Christmas is going to be like this year.  Probably something right of the Dr. Seuss book: The Grinch Who Stole Christmas; complete with wires hanging on the walls and the last can of 'who hash' being loaded into a box for shipment to Mount Crumpet (a.k.a. The Algarve).

The journey begins with just one step.

In between homes...

Many people accept, as I have, that moving within a country, not to mention to another country, is a stressful event. But what do we do with that stress? Why don't we create environments that would reduce that stress? What I have witnessed is many people not considering taking care of themselves during this moving process and making choices, like living with family, that only add to their stress. We have decided that we are not going to do this but finding the right place to "lay our hat" in between homes is proving a bit of a challenge.

My home in Canada is a loft and it has been my home for about 2 years. I am used to living in buildings that have many people in them.  So I have never lived in a home that didn't have many people co-existing under one roof. 

When we move to the Algarve, it will be the same.  We are going to live in a 2 bedroom apartment that is part of the Resort Complex (pictured).  So again I will live in a home that has many people under one roof.  I am not unhappy for this prospect, because it's something I know.  What has me concerned is that I don't know where I will live from the time that I pack my house in Canada and send it in a container to the time when I step onto a plane to go to my new home.  There is going to be a one or two month period between these two dates and so we are looking at our options right now.

We spoke to our family and our friends about this dilemma and of course everyone offered to take us in but we want this to be a period that is focused on the move, and not a period of added stress.  Family should be the people you can go to for anything but I have found that this is not always the case.  The reasons for this are many, but the most important thing you need to do to figure out if family is the right choice requires you to answer the question: "If I live with my family will this reduce my stress or increase it?" If the answer is, 'It will Increase it', then family might be an option you should rethink.  And that is exactly what we're doing. 

For us there are a number of things about living with family that will only serve to increase our stress.  One of these is location. They are 1 hour from the city and so getting our jobs would require a long commute.  The other issues are the inability to live under a family members roof without some kind of tension.  It's inevitable that our way of life would be incompatible to their way of life.  And even though it is for a short time, it is an added stress that I would rather not inflict on any of us. 

So we are examining other accomodation options.

One of those other options inlcudes living with our friends in the City.  They have offered and this seems our best option at this point. It will allow us to live close to our work so the stress of commuting is not there.  Also it's a living arrangement my partner is familiar with.  He lived with this friend, when they were both single, for a couple of years and so they are similar in their lifestyles and habits, and at the very least tolerant of each others approach to life.  I think living for a short time with these friends is our best option.

Many things need to be attended to when you move from one Country to another, and especially if you are crossing an Ocean. Taking care of your mental, emotional, and physical health during this transition period should be top of your list of things to do, but often it is close to the bottom or not on the list at all.  For us it's now close to the top of the list and I believe we have found, by choosing our friends to live with, a way that will serve to combat our stress and make this period of time more enjoyable.

Now all we have to do is start packing....but that's another story.

The journey begins with just one step.

On the Inside Looking Out, You're Here and it's There...

Over the last year we have been working to mobilize a Health and Wellness Tourism Project in the Algarve, as this will be one of the main sources of income for us when we are there.  This has presented several problems, not the least of which is the fact that 'we are here, and the project is there.'

To compound this, we have been preparing to 'move' to the Algarve in the first quarter of 2010.  The timeline being very much influenced by the 'launch' of this project which is targeted for May 2010. 

So there are two things, no there are four things that require our attention right now.  The Project, The Move, Current Jobs, Family Obligations.  All needing a high level of attention from one or both of us.  This truly is when I have to be very careful and maintain a 'self-care' routine that involves, blogging, spending time with friends, spending time with my husband, and spending time ALONE.  Because if I neglect this self-care routine, the other 4 things that need my attention will start to feel like 'chores' and I will start finding every excuse not to give them the attention they need.  This of course would have disastrous results.

So our first task in getting this project mobilized was to establish a partnership with an existing resort in the Algarve.  This acutally proved to be less difficult than I thought, because through networking with other expats in the Algarve my husband was able to make a connection with the owner of just such a resort and a partnership was born. 

The project (Health and Wellness Tourism) was spawned from the current Medical Tourism model that much of Europe is embracing, whereby, individuals under the European Union are travelling to one another's countries for medical procedures with the added benefit of Healing in a Spa Hotel/Resort.  We also are incorporating the recently popular Experiential Tourism model, whereby individuals travel and stay in countries and learn about the culture of that country by integrating themselves into that culture during their stay.

The people travelling to our Resort won't be coming for Medical Procedures, but will be coming to experience Healing in the setting of a Resort that offers a Holistic experience. 

Travellers will be able to partake of Natural Medicine services, learn to cook Portuguese Dishes, learn to create Ceramics in the Traditional Portuguese way, go on Historical, Gastronomical, and Natural tours and generally have a holiday that is more about learning to "take back" some things that they can 'Integrate' into their lives at home.

The point is to travel, learn, and experience another approach to life, giving you the opportunity to enhance your current lifestyle and inspiring you to a holistic approach to living.

Of course this concept has taken most of a year of 'brainstorming' to get it to where we can begin to mobilize it.  That's what we are doing now.

The place we started about 3 months ago was the Website.  We are working with designers in Canada and the Resort owners in the Algarve to get a website that will communicate just the concept I described.  That has it's own challenges, including the fact that I am the 'coordinator' for the website. 

In addition to having a full time job as a counsellor/trainer and managing the ups and downs of a family, and managing the ups and downs of 'the move', I am also having to make sure that what is going into the website is what all the stakeholders want.  Should be easy, but to be honest with the time differential between Portugal and Canada and the many misunderstandings that can go on when you are using email, I have been having a hard time getting this website to meet its targets.  But I know that it will happen, I just need to persevere.

At least we have the place we are going to live figured out...it's right on the Resort.  Very convenient.  Now all we have to do is figure out how to put the contents of our space now (3000 sq. feet) into a two bedrooom apartment.  One more challenge!  More about that later.

The journey begins with just one step.