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I couldn’t be happier. Yesterday we found a giant home improvement store and not only did we get a hammer drill, lamps and some smaller stuff like bath mats and toilet brushes (very important) but they also had a few vegetable plant left. I already had gone to a nursery this morning and the woman just shock her head and said “verdura niente”. Even with the little Italian I know I immediately understood. It’s definitely a little late in the season but I am hoping we still get some tomatoes and peppers later in the year.

We rewarded ourself for 3 hours of shopping with a nice dinner at one of the smaller lakes in the area.

This morning I already unpacked all the tools so now we can start gardening and installing the lamps we bought.

Today’s challenge is signing up for trash service and getting our recycling supplies from the city of Ranco. We already know from the trash calendar that we have to separate our trash in 5 different categories, we are just unsure of what goes where. Luckily, I enjoy little challenges like this and it will be very satisfying when it actually works.

Yesterday was the big day. At 6am we put the cats in the car and started our trip to our new house. They weren’t excited about another trip but when we let them out of their carriers they did ok.

After 6.5 hours with 2 quick stops to charge the car we finally arrived

I immediately started unpacking and cleaning some drawers for our kitchen stuff and we had our first meal in our “new” 70th orange kitchen.

A walkthrough discovered a few interesting things, like old shovels and that we have no more lamps. We forgot that it is common in Europe to take the lamps when you move so today we need to make a trip to the hardware store.

We had a few pleasant surprises in the garden. We already have raspberries and some fruit trees: 1 cherry, 2 plums, 1 apple, 1 fig, 1 orange and 1 lemon. And the neighbor has a big walnut tree with limbs in our garden. Everything is green and covered in new growth. Looking forward to my trip to the garden center today while Thomas awaits the arrival of our mattress.

Thomas already had setup mobile internet last Friday but it was too slow, so he went and got Starlink until we get fiber. Wifi works fine in the part of the house that is close to the Starling router, but not at the other end. Having solid brick walls has its pros and cons. Thomas will setup a Wifi mesh tomorrow. After everything was unpacked and organized we celebrated with a bottle of prosecco and went to “bed” early.

I’m working on setting things up, so everything is ready for the handover of the house on Friday and the move in on Tuesday. Karina is still in Germany getting the cats ready and helping my parents. One big open item is home insurance.

I picked up a coffee maker plus chargers built for Italian sockets, so everything plugs in on day one.

The big lift was banking which is necessary of utilities. Setting up a Revolut account for Italy took more effort than expected: without the standard documents a resident would have on hand, I had to work around the usual onboarding path. The systems here assume you’re already settled, and we’re not quite there yet.

I got an Italian cell number but my tests at the house showed that all providers have a very weak signal at the house.

It’s official, Sheila and Toffee are now EU citizens. The vet was amazed by the amount of paperwork I had for them but after an hour of sifting through it she gave me their passports. Now they can freely roam anywhere in Europe.

Made bavarian potato salad with fish filets; feeding a whole family is a lot of work. I know why I normally don’t cook.

While Thomas is in Italy the cats and I stayed behind in Germany with my in-laws. I enjoy walking to the bakery every morning and getting fresh rolls and some sweets for our afternoon “Kaffee and Kuchen”. It’s an additional small snack that Germans have in the afternoon, similar to the British tea time, just with coffee and cake.
I also took over the cooking duties and so far everybody survived. My salad dressings are getting tastier but are still not as good as Thomas’s.

Besides that, I am trying to make myself useful in the garden. Gerd and I already organized the garden shed, the patio and half of the garage. We went shopping for plants today, so tomorrow I can get my hands dirty and plant tomatoes and zucchini. Can’t wait to do the same in my garden in Italy, I hope the garden centers are as well stocked as they are here.

I arrived early. The sellers had some issues with standard language in the contract and argued with my notary for about 15 minutes. The notary checked everything and requested additional information, such as the source of the funds, and the sellers wanted language about the sewer system included in the preliminary contract to be carried over to the final contract. Our realtor, John, prepared the translation of the document. The notary read the full contract to the sellers, and then John had to read the English translation to me. The notary was very nice and could speak English and some German. After everything was read, the signing began. Every page had to have 6 signatures: 2 from the sellers, my signature, John’s, and 2 witnesses. The whole process took about 2 hours, and by 1 p.m., it was done, and the notary handed me a document certifying that we had bought the house. Possession is on Friday, so I have to wait a few days to get the keys and bring the 7 bags into the house. It’s definitely very different from buying a house in the US. In the meantime, I’m planning to get a cellphone number, internet, and other things for the house. I’m celebrating by having a nice Italian lunch nearby.

I left early Sunday morning because I was a little concerned about holiday traffic. It’s Pentecost in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. I stopped a few times for a quick bite and to charge the EV,  but arrived in good time at the apartment in Monate. It is on the second floor, but luckily, there is an elevator, and I used one of my suitcases to move the bags.

So far, everything has gone mostly smoothly. The cat paperwork was definitely too tight for comfort. I’m a little nervous about how the signing will go tomorrow. I hope I have everything.

Our cats are doing ok. Sheila, our void, is checking everything out and is very curious. Toffee, on the other hand, is more reserved and does not leave our room under the roof very often. He was definitely very interested in some feather decorations. 

The cats were doing ok during the first part of the flight. Sheila started to get quite restless and meowed quite a bit. She was quiet when we took her to the bathroom and let her out. 

Getting through customs took quite a while, but the cats were admitted to Germany without a problem. We were struggling to produce a document showing that we  “unregistered” in the US. We finally settled with the customs officer on sending them the contract of our home sale. The only things we had that were less than 6 months old were our iPhones, which we bought 5.5 months ago. We had to pay a hefty toll for those two. 

Yesterday, we learned the USDA paperwork for our cats would arrive at the animal hospital on Tuesday. I spent the morning going back to the house, cleaning the garage and repacking the ski bag with gardening tools. Throughout the morning, I kept checking the tracking, but the paperwork remained out for delivery. Knowing our 7:30 pm flight required a 6 pm check-in, my stress mounted as the afternoon approached.

After lunch with a former colleague at the Southern Sun, I went to the animal hospital to check for the paperwork. By 1:30 pm, it hadn’t arrived, so I decided to charge my car and have an espresso. At 2 pm, I returned to wait and spent the time learning Italian. Around 3 pm, my hopes were high when a FedEx truck pulled in; however, it was only delivering packages. Growing nervous about returning our leased EV before going to the airport, I called Karina, who was packing our things at the hotel. She considered reaching out to a friend to see if they could return the car if time ran short. At 3:10 pm, another FedEx truck pulled into the parking lot across the street. I approached the driver, hoping it was our delivery, but she started to drive away. Desperate, I flagged her down and after providing all the package details she was convinced that the package was for us and retrieved it. I brought it to the vet, who confirmed everything was in order.

Relieved after securing the paperwork, I promptly returned the car to the Hyundai dealership, which took just 15 minutes. It was 4 pm by the time I got into an Uber for the ride to the airport hotel, feeling glad we were back on schedule before our evening flight.

At the hotel, we arranged luggage service for 6 pm to move our nine bags to the United check-in. When no one came by 6:05, I felt a little anxious and called. Five minutes after I called, assistance arrived, which was a relief.

Checking in took time because we had a total of nine bags, and the airline also had to verify our cats’ paperwork. Once we finally received our boarding passes and the cats’ tags, we proceeded to security. There, we requested a private screening so we could remove the cats from their carriers in a secure location and have TSA screen  the carriers. After we cleared security, we reached the boarding area about 10 minutes before departure. Karina and I were both relieved that we made it just on time.