Stage one of Project Beans is complete. I applied for three school terms off (April to December) and after my anxious wait, checking my email multiple times per day every day for a month or so, my leave request was approved. As you may well imagine this had me bouncing off the walls with excitement!!

Since then I have been investigating what countries I want to go to and what I want to see – this is where my plans are still slowly taking form. The only definite plan (though not booked, so really not that definite I suppose) is to finish work on April 2nd and head straight to South America to spend just under two months seeing and experiencing as much as South America as possible (the current idea is to see some of Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil). From there it’s a mad dash to The Netherlands to celebrate the wedding of a cousin in June.

After that things are a bit up in the air at this point in time, but I certainly have loads of amazing ideas for places to go, things to do and see!

While I bide my time until this amazing adventure begins, I continue to turn up to work every day. I have some amazing students who each have unique talents and interests, which I love supporting. Even though these students are the highlight of each work day. The long, dark, cold days of winter have been getting to me. So rather than trudging down Struggle Street I took positive action and booked flights to somewhere warmer for the winter term break – Myanmar!

My amazingly supportive best man friend Mark, who coined ‘Project Beans’, will be joining me for a two week adventure. As Myanmar has only opened to tourists fairly recently we have heard that it is quite the challenge to get around, but that the people are lovely. We can’t wait to see this country, unspoiled by tourists, to soak up some cultural experiences and see the beautiful sights.