{"id":1955,"date":"2022-09-22T20:36:41","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T20:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teachlands.com\/?p=1955"},"modified":"2022-09-24T22:20:01","modified_gmt":"2022-09-24T22:20:01","slug":"homecoming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teachlands.com\/homecoming\/","title":{"rendered":"Homecoming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Last August, I wrote a post called &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/teachlands.com\/the-traffic-years-in-finland\/\">The Traffic Years<\/a>,&#8221; telling you that my life had changed. We no longer had any toddlers in the house and I felt, for the first time in years, that I had some breathing room. In other words, I could justify returning to blogging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As promised, I did <a href=\"https:\/\/teachlands.com\/7-reasons-why-we-moved-to-reggio-emilia-italy\/\">return<\/a> to writing once we moved to Reggio Emilia, Italy, but my comeback was short-lived. I wrote two blog posts in November and then published nothing. Until now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I can&#8217;t really explain what happened, except to say life got in the way. And life always beats out blogging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3>On the Move<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Moving our family to Italy was crazy. Returning to Finland and then relocating to the United States at the end of 2021 was even crazier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The move was unplanned, but it was something we needed to do (for reasons beyond the scope of this blog). For years, my wife and I had discussed the idea of moving back to the United States. We just didn&#8217;t think it would happen so soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Relocating across the pond was never going to be perfect. And it certainly wasn&#8217;t ideal when we relocated in December 2021. The whole thing felt like Mission Impossible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My wife Johanna and I had about one week to do three things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>pack up our stuff and clean out our rental in Italy<\/li><li>drive back to Finland with our three children (and dog) in our stuffed mini van<\/li><li>and then fly over to the U.S. (after a wild weekend of figuring out what to bring with us)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>My stress level had never been higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3>My Error<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>It was a smooth trip, with the exception of one big mistake. I confused the departure time of our ferry, the one that would get us from Travem\u00fcnde, Germany to Helsinki, Finland. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I read that our boat would leave at 2:45, so I assumed that it would depart in the afternoon. Well, I realized my error around 5:30 am. I checked the schedule on my iPhone and, sure enough, I had mixed it up. We missed our ferry and it cost us about 500 bucks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the end, it all worked out. On the next ferry to Helsinki the following day, they had one cabin available for our dog and the five of us. At 2:45 <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">am<\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3>Life in the U.S.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Thankfully, we survived the craziness of that week and the United States has been our home now for 9 months. Honestly, I still can&#8217;t believe it. Once a week or so, I&#8217;ll turn to my wife and say something like, &#8220;What are we doing here?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That might sound like complaining, but it&#8217;s not. We lived in Europe for 8.5 years and then, unexpectedly, we moved to the States in the span of a week. So, lots to process in a short period of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The good news is that, instead of making another transcontinental move in 2022, we&#8217;ve decided to stay put. The U.S. will be our home for at least the 2022-2023 school year, and we&#8217;re at peace with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You might be wondering if I&#8217;m teaching in the States this school year. I hold a master&#8217;s degree in elementary education and I spent six years teaching in Finland. Why wouldn&#8217;t I return to an American school, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the next blog post, I&#8217;ll tell you what I&#8217;m doing here and why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">***<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tim Walker is an American teacher, writer, and speaker living in Connecticut. He is the author of\u00a0Teach Like Finland: 33 Simple Strategies for Joyful Classrooms and he created two online courses: <a href=\"https:\/\/teachlands.teachable.com\/p\/the-finnish-education-insider\">The Finnish Education Insider<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/teachlands.teachable.com\/p\/thejoyfulreader\">The Joyful Reader<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/teachlands.com\/blog\/\"><em>Su<\/em><\/a><em><a href=\"https:\/\/teachlands.com\/blog\/\">bscribe<\/a> to the Teachlands blog and follow\u00a0Teachlands on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/instagram.com\/teachlands\">Instagram<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/teachlands\">Facebook<\/a>. And register for Tim&#8217;s free webinar about Finnish education <a href=\"https:\/\/dedicated-composer-4001.ck.page\/83b6dca868\">here<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last August, I wrote a post called &#8220;The Traffic Years,&#8221; telling you that my life had changed. We no longer had any toddlers in the house and I felt, for the first time in years, that I had some breathing room. In other words, I could justify returning to blogging. As promised, I did return&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Homecoming - Teachlands.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Moving our family to Italy was crazy. 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