Moving Abroad

Volare…Flying to Italy

Today is the day! The long awaited day. It is now Monday, July 11, 2016. We woke up with a sense of anticipation. One last breakfast at our friends’ Eve and Ken’s house, then packing up our remaining belongings into our suitcases.

Farewell, Car

We just accomplished our last major milestone before heading off to live in Italy. Up to this point, we had sold or given away all of our furniture and most of the possessions we owned. This included Larry’s prized “Il Corvo Pedicab.” Our only remaining possession was our car.

Good-Bye, House

So much has happened since we sold the house in April 2016. Our new owners were generous to let us stay here until the end of June, rent-free. This gave us time to sell the rest of the furniture, pack up the items that went into the crate and to pack up the remaining items we were taking with us in…

Buon Viaggio Potluck Party

Ciao a tutti!! Our crate is making its journey to Parma, Italy. We will be making our own journey on July 11, 2016, arriving in Parma on July 12, 2016.

Join us at our “buon viaggio” potluck party at the Knuckle Down Saloon…

Tracking the Crate

June 14, 2016: CRATE UPDATE 1. Our crate safely arrived in the South Carolina warehouse today!! We had last seen it on June 10, 2016, in Milwaukee. Now, the shipping company will arrange for its passage overseas on a container ship. Once the shipping company has confirmation from the shipping…

Loading up the Crate

As previously mentioned, we decided the most efficient way to move our belongings to Italy was to rent a 200-cubic foot crate. This crate would be put into a shipping container, trucked to South Carolina and loaded onto a ship where it would sail to an English-speaking European Union…

Selling the House

One of the biggest decisions we had to make was whether we should sell our house or rent it out. We had lived in our house for almost 28 years. We no longer had a mortgage. We liked to garden and had small, but well landscaped, front and back yards. In fact, people were wondering why we were…

Time to Retire

For the last four to five years, I had been telling my work colleagues that I would be retiring and moving to Italy. I almost did it in 2015, but then I undertook a challenging work assignment and decided to stay another year to see it through. I’m a planner, so I started to get into “serious planning…

Move to Italy??

It all started when I realized I could become an Italian citizen. I am one-half Italian, one-quarter Irish and one-quarter French…