Speculation

How to expatriate to the Czech Republic. I typed that sentence into Google yesterday. I was looking for advice both technically and emotionally. Logistically how do you get a work visa, how do you find a job, how do you get a bank account? Emotionally how do you leave your home, what do you tell your children, how do you shed 11 years of accumulated stuff? I got a few international moving companies, a few expat resources, one on retiring to the CR but I didn't find what I was looking for the most. I want reassurance that this is a good idea, that uprooting my families life, just to pursue a youthful dream, won't be the biggest mistake we've ever made. My husband and I met in French class in high school. I was 17, he was a baby at 15. We've always wanted to live in Paris, you know if we won the lottery that we don't play. Living in Paris is a dream an ideal that may never happen. We married in 2005 and decided that Europe was the place for us. Sasha took a CELTA course in 2004 so he was going to teach English. We decided on Prague because at the time it was a "fringe" country, not yet part of the EU, so hopefully easier to get a job. My father-in-law also has business contacts in the CR so it's not an unfamiliar city to Sasha. He took a trip in April, before our wedding in June. He met with a few language schools and actually got a position! So we were set to move to Prague in August 2005. Then life intervened. Out of the blue Sasha got a call from Mark Kalin, the world famous magician. He was responding to a letter Sasha had sent several years before looking for a position with his magic show. In the interim they had scaled down the show and bought their own theater, but he'd kept Sasha's phone number. They sat down for a meeting that ended with Mark offering Sasha an unpaid internship learning light and sound for Magic Underground. There was already a light technician and a sound technician so now there were 3 big men crowded around a board really only big enough for one to operate. He learned lights, he learned sound and then one day he was running the whole board by himself. And then one day he was in the show, assisting. And then one day he had taken over for their lead assistant and was running the theater. And then one day the theater closed. In the meantime he had turned down the job offer in Prague, we had bought a house and had our son Dacian. So Sasha went back to school and got his teaching credential to teach French and Drama. We had our daughter Chiara. Now 6 years later we are underwater on our house and have two little kids. Why Prague? Why now? We've become stuck in a rut, not a bad one, not in a negative way. But it would be very easy to live in Reno for the rest of our lives. And that is not what we want. Dacian should start school next year so now's the time to go. I'm not saying that it's not going to be hard. I'm not saying we're going to be there forever. But this is an adventure, one we'll take as a family.