Next stop: Monte-who-where?

It’s been really fun coming up with ideas for places to live for three-month stints. Some in the EU, some out (see Ryan’s 90/180 post).

What hasn’t been fun is taking that always-growing list and trying to decide where to start. We thought about whittling down our choices to just a few, then writing those few largely on a piece of paper, putting treats next to each one, and letting the dog loose on the treats. The first treat he gobbled would be the place we’d go first. I even thought about videotaping the whole thing and posting it so you all could see how the choice was made at random, and it would be a kind of fun “unveiling.”

Well, we couldn’t whittle down our list because it was just too difficult, so we ended up looking at maps and photos of the places on our list. (No worries, Louis still got his treats.) Also, our new buddy T.W. from Marginal Boundaries told us, in a much nicer way than I’m about to put it, to just suck it up and pick a place already. Making up your mind on where you want to go is apparently 90% of the battle.

So when we got to looking at Montenegro, our jaws dropped in awe at the sheer beauty. So this is where we’ve decided that we will start our journey. It’s safe according to the 90/180 rule (it’s outside of the Schengen area), and it’s not too far away from where we currently are.

It’s funny how everyone we’ve told has no idea where Montenegro is – never even heard of it – Europeans and Americans alike. Quite honestly, I would never have known where it was had I not been looking so closely at a map. Besides, I’ve never been a geography buff. (That’s Ryan’s forté.) To be completely honest, if you gave me a blank map of the States (ahem…where I lived for the first 32 years of my life!), and asked me to write in the names of every state, I would only be able to fill in about…oh…60% of it. And that’s being generous to myself. (We actually did that experiment a few months back, and Ryan never knew how geographically ignorant I was…until that day. I will never be the same in his eyes. Disappointing, I know, right? I’m good at math and science, though, so I’m right on track with my Asian stereotype quota-filling. So, yeah, I’ve got that going for me.)

Anyhoo…Montenegro. Bordered by Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, and Albania, Montenegro sits on the eastern side of the Adriatic Sea, opposite Italy. It’s a tiny little country (relatively speaking), and we want to stay on the coast, with its amazing sea views.

We’re looking at spending the months of September, October, and November there – by then, high season will be over, and the majority of the tourists will be gone. Also, the price of rent drops during low season. We’ve been quoted prices for these three months, and are thrilled that it costs less to rent an apartment in a coastal town of Montenegro for three months total, than it does to rent our apartment for just one month in Berlin. Looks like we’re headed in the right direction.

So yeah, Montenegro. Google it. Then pick your chin up off your desk and start making plans to get your arse out there. You know when we’ll be there, so come and visit us if you can! Of course, we’ll be posting about everything once we’re there, so if you just want to be a voyeur or live vicariously through us, you can do that, too.