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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. 

After 2 days of final sorting and packing we made it to the airport hotel.

The paperwork for the cats finally has been send out and is at the Fedex facility in Louisville, to be delivered to the vets office this morning. It should have been there on Friday so we spend a very anxious weekend not knowing if we are flying or not. Thomas will pick it up at lunch time together with the last bag from the house. Our flight leaves at 8:25pm, so unless FedEx screws something up we will be on our way to Germany this evening.

The cats are not happy about all of this

We will be staying with Thomas’s parents near Munich for a few weeks. We first need to register in Germany to get a EU drivers license. Italy does not allow us to exchange our US drivers license to an Italian one and we would have to take an Italian drivers test including driving lessons. Since our Italian skills barely allow us to order food we thought that was a bad idea.

Today’s the big day, the movers are coming. They are coming with a truck that has a 20ft mark; they will just load everything and bring it to a warehouse where it will be packed in a 20ft shipping container. We have two piles in the garage, things that we really want and things that are optional. I started packing four weeks ago but it still got a little hectic the last two days, we got up at 5am to pack the last boxes, but everything was ready when the truck arrived. The tricky/time consuming part was that everything had to be inventoried, so every box has pictures and a list of items that are in the box and I now have a giant spreadsheet with all our belongings. I thought after the fire we didn’t have a lot of things any more but boy was I wrong. At the end we had 18 large boxes, 15 medium and 20 little boxes, in addition to all the garden tools and furniture and other miscellaneous items that did not fit in boxes. Seriously, how do you pack a pickaxe or a weed whacker? I am glad we decided to get a container and not just move with what we can get on a flight. We still probably will be flying with 9 bags in addition to the cats.

All done ! Most of the optional stuff, the barstools and one rug did not fit but overall it went well. Let’s hope everything will arrive in Italy safe and sound.

The cats did not like the movers and all the loads noises associated with packing. Sheila and Toffee stayed close to us when possible or they were out in the yard.

Still waiting for the USDA certificate for the cats to be allowed to leave the country. I spent 2.5 hours at the vet on Thursday, 30min for an exam and then waiting for 2 hours for them to submit the paperwork. The certificate should arrive today but something must have gone wrong because I still don’t have a tracking number.

Luckily we have a Murphy bed in the guest room, so we will be staying at the house until Monday, then we move into the airport hotel until our flight Tuesday evening.

After living in the US for 30 years, Karina and I are starting a new chapter near Lake Maggiore in Italy.

We’ll use this site to share our experiences.

Friends from all over have asked, “How do we keep up with what you’re doing?” We’re still working out the details, but we’d rather share updates as they happen rather than send the same email over and over or let these moments slip by.

This is our first post, and there will be more from both of us. You’ll probably notice two different voices, since both Karina and Thomas will be writing here and sharing our own perspectives.

If you’ve found your way here, here are a few things to know.

• We’ll leave the US on May 19 and spend a few weeks near Munich with my parents. In early June, we plan to move to Ranco, near Lake Maggiore.
• We don’t have a set posting schedule. Some weeks might have several updates, while others could be quieter. We’ll post when we have something meaningful to share, so timing depends on what’s going on with us. If you want to check for new updates, looking once a week is a good idea.
• Comments are open, and we’d love to hear from you. But if you’d prefer to just read along, that’s fine.

We’ll share more updates soon.

Karina and Thomas