Tracy’s Swan Song

photo of a sunset
| Tracy

I retired yesterday. 

I drove to the office like it was any other day, AC/DC’s Highway to Hell on Apollo’s [my 2008 bright yellow Saturn Sky] stereo, caramel macchiato from Starbuck’s in the drink holder, keys clipped to the strap of my purse — a regular day. As I drove up the hill that I have driven up for 18 years it finally dawned on me — this is the last trip up this hill I will ever have to do. Wow! After 18 years you’d think that there would be something amiss with elated attitude, it almost seemed wrong to be so happy about leaving. But in the grand scheme of things someone must leave in order for the next person to promote and grow.

And besides, we have a schedule to adhere to. This is item number 2 on the “big list” of things to do before going to Italy and I’m just not sad about it. Number 1 was selling the house — downsizing, minimizing, moving to an apartment — check, done. Number 2 — Tracy retires and begins wrangling paperwork — check, done.

So yesterday morning I parked the car, grabbed my purse and my coffee and headed in to the office like any other day — except the only thing left to do was to write a farewell e-mail to my colleagues, turn in my keys, my checklist, my exit interview and meet a few friends, the husband and my boss for lunch at my favorite restaurant for what Barb (my boss of 3 years) called my “swan song.” We had a great time and laughed plenty, especially since the three friends that were there knew ALL of the stories from my 18 years at the college, every last goofy, slightly unprofessional, moronic thing I had done these three knew it all — I haven’t laughed that hard in a long, long time!

My farewell e-mail went something like:

It has been both a pleasure and a privilege to have worked with all of you during my 18 years at TMCC. I will be leaving today with great memories of such things as registering students manually for classes, the invention of the Tel-Reg system, the annual Poker Run, commencement at Rancho San Rafael, Welcome Back skits, Night of a Thousand Classes, the Tenure Celebration and much, much more.

I also want to say thanks to some of the professors I’ve had over the years — Kelsie Harder, Jim Roderick, Bill Gallegos, and my dear friend Carola Naumer — as I retire from TMCC with degrees in Art History and Fine Arts, largely due to their encouragement and teaching excellence.

Our next adventure starts January of 2013, when we move to Florence. Which is my next assignment — taking care of paperwork and all the loose ends that need to be tied prior to our departure.

It may not be La Dolce Vita but life in Italy will definitely feel like a retirement made in heaven.

Thank you and farewell.

What I didn’t expect was the 63 responses I received within a few hours of sending this message. I know most of the people at the college, but I still didn’t expect that many responses, especially since most of the faculty are away for the summer — it felt good to know I’ll be missed, you really can’t ask for more than that.

But even with such a wonderful out-pouring of support I cannot feel sad, I know that I’ll miss the people that I worked with for 18 years, there are some very nice people at TMCC and I really enjoyed working with them over the years, but I’m not sad and I won’t miss it. I had a great job, I loved what I did and I was pretty good at it [well at least people were kind and SAID I was good at it =) ] but it was just what I did during the day. It was always a job, never my life. Life was what happened between 5 pm and 8 am the rest was just work. Some days good, some not so much, but the job paid for the life and the life was at home — and that’s where I am now, home living my life and — largely due to an awesome husband, great kids and family and amazing friends — it’s a pretty good one.

Researching and Planning the Move

| Alan

“Wow! That was sudden.  You’re moving to Italy?”

It’s that old joke about a rock band performing for ten years in small halls and venues to suddenly make it big and become “an overnight sensation.”  Tracy and I have been considering and planning our retirement for about five years.

Tracy explained on the “Back Story” page that it all started with a cruise to the Mexican Rivera for Tracy, her mom, aunt, and sister.  Tracy fell in love with old colonial Mazatlan and came back told me we should consider retiring to Mexico.

That started the research for retiring to a locale where our pensions would stretch further and we could travel and explore more of the world.  We carefully considered Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, and Belize. After much thought and discussion, we discovered that one reason for looking for an inexpensive place to live was to have the ability to travel to Europe.  Rather than flying from Central or South America for occasional visits, why not live in Europe full-time?  In the current financial situation, Greece, Spain, Portugal,  Ireland, and Italy were all bargains for cost of living.  Tracy and I love art and with UNESCO saying 60% of the world’s great art being in Italy, we decide on relocating to the country of Tracy’s heritage, Italy.

In our constant “work in progress” for retirement planning, we started research in earnest. We have been asked over and over “How do you know that?”  Well these are the resources:

BOOKS:  We love books and started there when we were considering Latin America.  The problem you have to consider is the “lag time” between the book being written, publication, and the book being purchased.  We found many issues, like immigration rules, to be a “moving target” that is constantly changing.  Generally speaking, the more recent the book is, the more accurate and useful it is. Tracy was a graphic designer for over 15 years and truly understands that something is out of date the moment it goes to print.

“Living Abroad in Italy,” John Moretti, Moon Publishing

“Living and Working in Italy, ” Caroline Prosser, Survival Books

“Retirement without Borders, How to Retire Abroad–in Mexico, France, Italy, Spain, Costa Rica, Panama, and Other Sunny, Foreign Places (And the Secret to Making It Happen Without Stress),” Barry Golson with Thia Golson, Scribner Publishers

“How to Retire Overseas, Everything You Need To Know To Live Well (For Less) Abroad,” Kathleen Peddicord

“The Expert Expat, You Guide To Successful Relocation Abroad,” Melissa Brayer Hess and Patricia Linderman

“The Grown-Up’s Guide To Running Away From Home, Making A New Life Abroad,” Rosanne Knorr

PDF AND e-BOOKS:

With e-Readers and online publishing become more common, we found several of the above books found available as e-books.  The are also books available exclusively as e-books that were very helpful, even if they were non-traditionally published.  Many books are available from Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble, some directly from the authors, and some provided by travel sites, often as a courtesy or a “leader” for other services.  I have downloaded several to my Kindle e-reader.

“The DIY Guide To Moving Your Dog Abroad,” Kate and Rob Hash, Hash Consulting, LLC

“Italy From The Inside Out, The Definitive Survival Guide For Travelers,” Francesa Tosolini

WEB SITES AND FORUMS:

There are many Web sites with expats moving to Italy as their intended audience.  Like all Web sites, some are professional; some written by talented and dedicated amateurs who have a love for the topic; some by businesses hoping their well written site will attract you into purchasing a service they provide; and some accurate at the time they were written, but now out of date; and some are badly written and often just plain wrong (they often have an adjacent “Alien Abduction” or “You Never Have To Pay Taxes Again” Web site.)  Several Web sites are intended for British subjects and you have to remember that the rules may be different for citizens of the European Union than for citizens of the U.S.

“AngloINFO, The Global Expat Network.”

“Expats in Italy, For Those Who Dream And Those Who Live The Dream.”

“Italy Magazine, The Community For Lovers Of All Things Italian.”

“ExpatFocus, For Everyone Moving Or Living Abroad.”

“Life In Italy.”

EXPAT BLOGS:

What we have found is that there is no better way of learning how to become an Expat than to read about the recent exploits of people who accomplished just that.  Expat blogs are a great way of getting recent information. It’s important to remember the “moving target” factor that rules and laws change, people have their own unique circumstances, and there are geographic differences. With that in mind, blogs are still a great tool to learn from other people’s experiences. They also have the added bonus of being able to contact the blog’s author with a question.  Most bloggers are more than happy to share the answer.

“La Vita E Bella”

“An American In Italy”

“Italy Beyond The Obvious”

“Living In Italy by Melinda Gallo”

“Moving To Florence”

ENGLISH LANGUAGE LOCAL NEWSPAPERS:

A good way to understand the local culture is to read expat and English-language newspapers from your preferred destination.

“The American InItalia”

“The Florentine”

“ANSA.IT ANSA English”

GOVERNMENT WEB SITES:

The definitive source of information is government Web sites.  However, you may need to search through several sites to find the answers you need. Remember to check to see if it up to date. Most sites have a date of the last update somewhere near the bottom of the home page. Language may be an issue as not all government Web sites are bi-lingual. There are some translation sites like Google Translate that do a fair job of translating the information, but it can be time-consuming and is not always accurate. Again, the famous “moving target” factor is compounded by how well the site’s Webmaster does their job.

“The Italian Embassy”

“The Consolate General for Italy in Los Angeles”

“Italian Immigration”

“Italian State Police”

PLANNING:

After reading and researching tons of information, verifying known conflicts, we believe we have an understanding our goal now. We have moved onto the implementation stage our plan to retire to Italy.  Tracy is the “Queen of Organization.”  On the wall of our bedroom is now a project calendar listing all the remaining “To Do’s” that we need accomplish in the next six months.  We have the “To Do” lists in our computers and on our Kindles.  One reason Tracy is retiring six months prior to our departure is to make sure all “loose ends” get tied up and do not delay our scheduled move.  Our big move will not be an “overnight success,” but an achievement built on a lot of hard work.

Pre-Planning Communications Abroad

| Alan

A question we have repeatedly been asked is how Tracy and I plan to stay in touch with family and friends back in the States after we relocate to Italy.

We are planning to make maximum use of today’s communication technology.  We won’t have cash flow to make frequent trips make to the US, so we plan to stay in touch through the constantly evolving technology.  The cost of international phones calls and the nine hour time difference the west coast can make traditional telephone calls problematic.

SOCIAL NETWORKING:  Tracy and I started this WordPress Blog with the principle goal of staying in touch with family, old friends, and new friends we will make.  We wanted a central platform to journal our new lives, share travels and events, post photography and communicate.  We will also create “An Italian Point of View” FaceBook page and link it to this blog to mirror the posts and provide an easy second method of access for FaceBook users.  FaceBook Chat allows us real time communication when we and another person are online at the same time.  A third access method is to link the Blog postings to Twitter so people know when we have updated our Blog.

E-MAIL:  The Blog allows for an e-mail notice whenever there is a new posting to the Blog.  Tracy and I both have new G-mail addresses for traditional asynchronous e-mail.  Google Docs (soon to be Google Drive) allows us to create real-time, cooperative documents, like a vacation itinerary, that can be shared a with a friend planning to visit while updates and edits can be done on both sides of the Atlantic before their departure.

WEBCAM:  We have had good previous experiences using Skype and ooVoo for free video chats with family.  We hope to expand on that to see family and friends frequently and see the grandkids getting bigger over time.  G-mail also have a video chat service available that we want to explore more.  There is also a premium service from Skype and ooVoo that allows multiple participants in a video conference call that we intend to investigate.

WiFi:  Italian anti-terrorism and anti-mafia laws limits free WiFi Hotspots like we are used to in the States.  There are free and paid WiFi locations in Italy, but there is a more elaborate sign-in process. We will also have WiFi at our apartment, a MiFi system, or mobile WiFi cards for our laptops.  Broadband Internet is one “luxury” that we consider a necessity for our life abroad.  It is our key to staying in touch with family and friends in the US.

TELEPHONE:  Before leaving the US we will purchase an unlocked cellphone with an Italian phone number that we can share with family and friends in the event there is an emergency that requires that we be contacted immediately.  Cellular Abroad, sponsored by National Geographic, has unlocked cell phones available with the Italian SIM cards and a “pay as you go” payment option.  This is useful for us since we don’t plan to have much need for a phone in Italy immediately, but still need one for emergencies and business related calls.  Italian government agencies will often use phone text messaging for notifying clients.  Cellular Abroad provides its cell phone services through the Italian cell phone company, Vodafone, which provides phone service nationwide in Italy.  We don’t expect family and friends to pay international rates to chat on the telephone when video calls, text chats on the computer,  and e-mail is free, but we wanted the telephone option for an exceptional events, emergencies, and for our local use in Italy.

Ask us next year if these “best laid plans” worked as we intended.

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Alan’s Retirement: 200 Days and Counting

| Alan

Next week is Tracy’s final week at work prior to her retirement on June 29.  She is excited to start her retirement working full-time on our final visa paperwork and preparing all the logistics for our move to Florence.  She is the ultimate “Queen of Organization.”

I’m envious she is retiring first, but looking forward to be teaching one last semester at Truckee Meadows Community College while still helping Tracy with the moving process between classes.  I have a few days less than 200 to go until I “pull the pin” and join her in retirement.

Between careers in law enforcement and college teaching I have about 32 years in public service prior to retirement with five years working in the private sector before that.  I feel privileged to have had two challenging and rewarding careers serving my community and, with minimizing and simplifying our lifestyle, being able to retire young enough to fully embrace our expat adventure.

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Letting Go: The Art of Minimizing

| Alan

It has been big year for minimizing and downsizing our material world to prepare ourselves for retiring to Italy.

In July 2011, Tracy and I put our house up for sale.  After living in the same home for the last 12 years, it was a big commitment minimize our possessions to move into a one bedroom apartment in preparation for moving into what will probably be an even smaller living space in Florence.

We went through the contents of the house and donated, recycled, sold, and trashed, trashed, trashed. We disposed of everything that would not be going to Italy with us and we would not be using through 2012.  We delivered surplus household items to the Salvation Army, Goodwill, Committee to Aid Abused Women, Truckee Meadows Community College, Silver State Law Enforcement Museum, in-laws, children, friends, and Disposal Services.  The adult kids in town helped too with hauling things away.  Guess how quickly two college aged sons respond to the text message of, “Would you two want a bar for your apartment?”  I didn’t realize how much furniture sons Casey and Adam could fit in back of a Subaru hatchback.

Absolutely amazing the sheer volume of  material that can accumulate over the decades from two adults with eight children.  (Seriously, who still needs three bulletproof vests after being out of police work for a decade?) Even with trying to repurpose every item possible in the house, we filled one 14 cubic yard dumpster, two additional 6 cubic yard dumpters, and a 14 foot U-Haul truck with debris.  We mistakenly thought that the adult children had taken all their things with them when they moved out into the world.  No exactly true. Incredible how much is actually in what we thought was an “empty” house.

It’s incredibly liberating to free yourself from “stuff.”  Comedian George Carlin had a whole stage routine about “stuff” overtaking lives.  Tracy and my plan is to move to Italy with two large suitcases each.  We are passing keepsakes on to the adult children now and starting to live a minimalist life.

Moving from house to apartment was a huge step, next up is selling Tracy’s car over the summer and my car come November.  After years of used cars, minivans, station wagons, SUVs, Tracy and I love driving our two-seater convertibles, but they are not going to Italy with us so it’s time for the next major step in minimizing.

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7 days and counting

| Tracy

One week to go. In just seven short days, I’ll be retired after 18 years at the college. I won’t miss the work, but I’ll definitely miss the people. After so many years of driving to the same place, parking in the same place, seeing the same people for lunches, breaks, meetings and events they all feel like family. So many good memories over the last 18 years that it’s almost hard to believe there is so little time left. With such a great team of people who always have your back, it’s a little daunting to think that my “go to” people will no longer be a phone call away. Thank goodness I know all their e-mail addresses!

. . . in Italia!

| Tracy

While all of our preparations are coming along great for our “big move,” we still expect a certain amount of culture shock when we arrive in Florence.

One of the things we know will be challenging is the paperwork required by the city and country for our “extended” stay retirement visas. We read other blogs of those expats who have made the journey before us and know that we will face long lines, take a number and wait three hours only to find that we do not have the correct documents with us so we must start the process anew the following day. We expect this, we have planned for this and we are hoping that we are prepared each time we undertake such an excursion.

We have put together a binder with all of our most important documents, photocopies of our documents and are even planning to have many extra copies of passport style photos that we already know are required for different types of ID cards and such.

However, as life-long students in higher education as well as employees of the same, we know that things often change so even the well-prepared, pre-planned and organized fall victims to bureaucracy.

That’s were movie history comes in. Historical fantasies like Arthur (the Romans at Hadrian’s Wall, not the rich drunk) and Troy will serve in shaping our destiny a wee bit. You see we’ve noticed that warrior’s in the movies have “battle cries” to encourage their men and whip them into a frenzy of patriotism to face an impossible-to-win battle and come out victorious.

Our battle cry: “. . . in Italia!”  The reminder that no matter how daunting the bureaucracy becomes, no matter how tedious the requests, no matter the number of hours spent waiting only to come back the very next day . . . we’re doing it “in Italia!”

Dawning of a New Horizon

| Tracy

Retirement is now on the horizon. 64 days until I take a drastic cut in pay and start the next adventure in my life. I am exhilarated and worried all at the same time! An odd feeling to be sure but I have no doubt that my adventurous nature will win the day. OK, and the thought of not getting up at 5:30 in the morning is pretty cool too!