Category: Repatriating

We are finished packing!!  What a challenge it was.  We kept rearranging and re-deciding what to take until we had all the cases below the airline weight limits.  My studio tenant, Elizabeth, came over and we had our last session together.  I do hope I can find someone in Switzerland as talented in massage!

While I was finishing with her, Jon fetched the Swiss couple we’re exchanging homes with from the bus depot.  What a joy they are! The wife, Melanie, is so consistently and gracefully considerate of our wishes with respect to the house, and keeps asking how WE want things done.  We feel very secure in leaving our home in their hands.

No – we still don’t know when we are going – but we cannot wait until we do before we start packing.  It now looks like we’re up against a wall, not knowing when we can go until 7 days before we must depart.  This international travel, dealing with the red tape and slow governments, getting permits and visas, is all new to us.  We’ve never travelled internationally without having our plane reservations months in advance.

Now we’re supposed to leave in less than two weeks, yet do not have visas or plane reservations yet.  In fact, the Swiss Consulate took Jon’s passport for “3-5 days” to issue the visa.  That was 9 days ago.

But we’re trying not to get nervous.  We’re proceeding as if we may still actually leave on May 12th.  So today Jon began doing our first major packing – the Tandem bicycle …

Our good friends Bob Friestad and Jim & Sandi Turner threw a going away party for us – even though we still don’t when, and even possibly if, we are going.  We mentioned that – and the decision was that if we don’t go – we’ll just have to have another – welcome home party – in a few weeks.

The most common queston we got asked was, “are you excited?”.  MC kept trying to come with different answers.  Jon had to admit he’s more anxious than excited.

But we had a wonderful time.  It was interesting being the center of attention, and not even needing to be hosts.  We thank all our wonderful friends and will miss them all dearly (unless, of course, they follow through and come visit us in Switzerland).

Today we heard from Nathalie who has been ushering our visas through the bureaucratic slog.  It is normal, when a couple is not legally married, that the partner’s visa takes 6 to 8 weeks longer to go through the canton’s process as the Federal authorities want to look over the file.  With the hoped-for departure date so near (May 12), we felt once again thrown into a tizzy.  We each went through a series of what-ifs and what-can-we-do-about-it-ifs.  Knowing we have no solid answers, we went about our day, trying to get whatever pieces of preparation done that were possible.  For me that meant working on irrigation plans; Jon, on tax data.

It has been amazing to me, how much work it has been to prepare for the year. Just getting ready to be away for a full year is a lot. How to receive and pay all the bills. How to vote this fall. How to put a car into storage. How to keep your phone numbers.
Then there is the set of tasks I would call, “getting your affairs in order”. You know, all those things you’ve always planned to do someday – but now you really need to. We’re refinancing, finishing the back deck, bottling the wine, repairing doors and cracks in the walls, gathering information about the house for the exchange, updating our trusts.
Then there’s all the paperwork needed: lots of passport photos, work permits, visa applications, fingerprinting and criminal records, international drivers licenses, tax preparations, health insurance. Thankfully Autodesk is doing an excellent job of assisting us through these processes!
And finally, there’s the packing and traveling itself. We’re still waiting on the visas, so still anxiously waiting to make our plane reservations. We’ve been researching the costs and availability of our medicines and vitamins, and in some cases, taking a year’s supply with us. Shipping is so extremely expensive that we will be taking everything with us on the plane – which for us means 3 bicycles – our two individual ones, and the Tandem, along with our camping gear.
To handle all this I’ve been tracking the lists with a database on my iPhone. As of today we are down to about 50 items left on the list – so are actually feeling like it’s all almost done and ready! 🙂
Just 4 weekends left: a family reunion this weekend – to say goodbye for now, packing, bottling and final yard cleanup, one last concert to sing with the Marin Symphony, then a few days to introduce the Dellenbachs to our house – and we’re off!
Bottom line is … Life is not dull. And as I awake on my last day in Lake Shastina, I look out on the snow capped mountains and am looking forward both to leaving, and returning a year from now – back to the northern California I love so much.
I’ve lived a year or more in 6 U.S. states, from Virginia to California – and liked every one of them. It will be fantastic to add a year in Switzerland to that list.