VISAS AND MOVING
VISAS: We began putting together a complex package to present to the Italian Consulate in Los Angeles. I had phoned the Consulate several times and connected with a very friendly and competent manager, Silvia, who handled the Extended Visa applications (for retirees) and walked me through the process. It took us a month to put together the presentation packages, and we scheduled a required P2P meeting for March 26, 2020, to get our Extended Visas reviewed and hopefully granted. The requirements for this are somewhat stringent, and we spent a lot of time nailing down the details. However, on the day before we were due to appear in person at the Consulate, we received a phone call from Silvia informing us that, due to the COVID situation in our new country, the Consulate would be closed to all business except extreme emergencies, “until further notice”, and we should check their website frequently for updates. So, every Monday morning, I would check the consulate’s website for news of their reopening.
In mid-September, I made my weekly website check and found out to my surprise that the Consulate had been reopened, and that night Rhonda and I drove through the night in order to appear in their office at opening time (8 a.m.). When we arrived at Century City, where the Consulate’s office was located, it felt post-apocoylptic. There were very few cars on the street or in the undergound lot, and only one security guard was on-site. He showed us a parking space and questioned us comprehensively when we exited Rhonda’s white Mercedes. We explained our reason for being there, and he informed us that he had no such information regarding the Consulate being open. We persisted, and he accompanied us to the office, where we found out that the website was in error, and we should wait and “keep checking”. Another 9-hour return trip to the Bay Area ensued, fortunately punctuated by a good prime rib lunch at Harris Ranch.
On October 1, 2023, they reopened. I immediately emailed them, and was told to wait for their call after which we could drive down and present our package for P2P review on the spot. We waited. And then we waited some more.
The scheduled pickup dates for our cars and the two household containers was December 1st, though at this time we had no idea when or whether our Extended Visas would be granted. At this point, we were acting on faith and surviving on nerves and coffee. Then on the evening of November 20, exactly a month after the Modena house closed, I got a call from the consulate asking if we could meet at 8 the next morning at their offices in Century City? Of course I replied in the positive, and told Rhonda that we had an all-night drive ahead of us.
(We ran the Visas through the Los Angeles consulate because the SF office had a reputation for poor attitude and service, and since we also had property and an address in Ventura County, we used that address for the Los Angeles office. They thought we were only 90 minutes from Century City when, in fact, we were more like nine hours if we took the driving easily).
We did manage to turn up on time the next morning, and after a breakfast at an IHOP on Centinela (I think), our document package was handed over for review.
Alas, we were refused!
It seems that they were not satisfied that our monthly passive income was sufficient to meet their requirements, though in fact it turned out to be only a missing form, as we had plenty of income both active—from my guitar business, and passive, from investments and rental income. We left Los Angeles dejected—time was running out!
About five hours later, in the car on the way North, “somewhere up Salinas way,” my phone rang. It was our contact at the consulate, Silvia. She asked if there was any way that we could draft a letter to them guaranteeing the correct numbers for passive income, and she would fill out the form to expedite our filing. We immediately called our financial adviser, Bill, who fired off a letter on the spot stating the sources and figures of our monthly passive income, and the visas were approved within two hours!
(ABOVE) The first of our three 40’ Hi-Cube containers, parked in front of my house in Vallejo, California, on December 1, 2020.
One container for 2 households of furniture and “stuff”, a second for my workshop machinery and equipment, and the third for 2 cars—my Maserati Quattroporte V and Jaguar S-Type “R”—and my Ducati 900SS motorcycle.
MOVING: After two hectic and exhausting days of packing the containers and cleaning my Vallejo house, we boarded a British Air flight in Business Class at SFO, with our two doggies in tow. We were two of only four passengers in the entire Business Class section of the widebody—maybe about 75 seats. We wore masks and visors; we presented quite a spectacle. The dogs were perfectly behaved, curled up on the carpeted shelves at our feet. We didn’t allow them any water, for fear they would pee on the carpeting. First flight was SFO-MUN. First glitch: Our remaining flight from Munich to Bologna was on Lufthansa, and we had cleared the dogs to fly in our cabin on that airline. However, we had been misinformed. Although their health papers and permits were all in order, we were refused boarding and had to purchase 2 overpriced crates and have both doggies re-cleared by an on-duty German veterinarian—additional delays and expenses that were a surprise.
Since we missed our original flight, we had to book another flight for the next afternoon, a hotel room that permitted dogs, and a cab to the hotel. Still, the balance of our journey went through with no problems.
(ABOVE) December 2, 2020. Us and the doggies. Two of only four occupants of the Business Class section on our SFO-BLQ flight.
We weren’t taking any chances with COVID, as you can see!
Our flight from Frankfurt to Bologna was about 2 ½ hours, and we landed in the dark in the middle of a pouring rain storm at a virtually-deserted airport. We were quite paranoid about even being admitted to Italy, though we had read many news reports and were present on a few expat forums. We still had generally negative impressions about our chances of passing through immigration without any hitches. We were prepared with our entire visa package, expecting to be grilled at length by immigration authorities, and wanting to prove that we would be a beneficial presence to our new Italian hosts.
However, instead of a hassle with Immigration, we were met at the gate by an attendant with a wheelchair (see knee injury, below), and wheeled right past customs and immigration into the passenger pickup area. (As it turned out, our immigration clearance was to the entire EU community, not specifically Italy, and was done in Germany the day before!) Sitting in the pickup area was a sparkling black Mercedes van-limousine. Our real estate agent met us and handed over our purchase folder and the keys to our new house! After a few minutes of polite small talk, she left, apologizing that it was her birthday and there was a party waiting for her.
Did we inspect our new place immediately? Nope. We were exhausted, and told the driver to take us to our pre-arranged B&B in Modena, which was about a mile from our new house. He dropped us off in more rain, and we settled in. For the next week, it was rain every day, we had no car, and many details to attend to on foot. I had injured my left knee in a bad bicycle accident a full five years previous, but all of the activity involved in packing and moving meant that I was (temporarily) using a cane. Combined with the necessary umbrella, it was quite a handful! We slept well that evening, and the next day we had our cell phones re-chipped with an Italian internet provider about six blocks from our B&B, then walked in the wrong direction to our car rental office. By the time we realized that the office we were looking for was on the North street address, and the actual office was on the South, we had walked a couple of km, and my cane had slowed us down considerably. We finally arrived soaking wet, made our arrangements, and were given the keys to a small diesel Renault. Ugh. At least we were mobile!
We finally made our way to our new house. Trepidation—would our first impressions hold? We had only seen the place twice for a total of perhaps an hour and a half. I unlocked the glass vestibule door and then the inner security door, and we were in. We were happy that it was daytime, as the power had been off for a month. First impression: it was COLD, as the furnace had been turned off, too, and, as it turned out, wouldn’t start, so a call to the real estate agent was in order. She, in turn, called the seller, who dropped by, fiddled with the furnace (it was plain that he did not have a clue!) and he called the service company, who promised to send a technician the next day. It was too cold to work, so we knocked off. The next day, it was repaired and within a couple of hours we had heat. We found out later that the seller, who was a real operater, had had the repair bill made out in OUR names. It took about six weeks to correct this “error”, due to our poor Italian comprehension.
That day (day #2), we wasted no time and bought paint and varnish at a home center all the way across town. (Within a week, we had located one only a km away, after driving by it for a week…) We spent a month varnishing the bamboo flooring in five coats, repainting the two bedrooms and the great room, and doing some rewiring, before our containers arrived right on schedule on January 11, 2021, with the furniture and my shop machinery. The movers showed up with a six-man crew right on time, and within five hours we were surrounded by our furniture and piles of boxes. Five hundred and seven boxes, to be exact, placed into their appropriate rooms and the basement space, as yet unfinished, because we were waiting for the lumberyard delivery.
The (American) transit company with whom we had booked the vehicles were colossally incompetent, neglecting to book them on the next ship to Genoa because their papers had been lost—by the transit company! In the end, we finally got a notice to inspect the vehicles in Genoa on May 5th, five months and four days after we sent them off. Two weeks later, all three vehicles arrived on a car hauler at our doorstep.
I covered this shipping saga in my column in a loooong post in my column in Peter MacCormack’s Rickenbacker Resource Forum (www.rickresource.com/forum), so I won’t repost it here. It was a real, world-class cockup, though, as we’d arranged it initially so that when we arrived in Modena, our cars and bike would be waiting for use in Genoa.
The garage was ready—cleaned, the long wall plastered and painted, and (most important!) the overhead sectional door was in place and operating flawlessly.