It is getting real

“The Golden State” – what’s not to love about it?

What I thought would be the biggest obstacle to our move has almost overnight solved itself.  A combination of my superior powers of persuasion and tenacity (in other words, staying on my mom relentlessly to use her network) and dumb luck (or as my highschool drop-out father likes to say charmingly to his Ph.D. daughter “girl, you got more luck than smarts”) I found us a house to rent.  It is expensive and compromises will have to be made but to the utter disbelieve of my local friends I found us a house in one of the most desirable neighborhoods.  I should be ecstatic.

I am glad.

I am freaked.

I will have to leave California.  I am not sure I can.  I love California.  The weather is wonderful and where will I get sushi, and Pho and there are no TJ’s in Germany and I can’t go shopping on Sundays and – oh my god, the weather, its freezing there now and I walk around in a short sleeve T here.  For a year I won’t see the Pacific, or the Sierra Nevada (Alps, I know), no Yosemite, no desert, no Redwood trees, no San Francisco, no … so many things.  I don’t know where to start.

My liberal friends and I (just to get one thing out of the way, I wear the label liberal with pride!) have complained so many times about politics here in this country but now I am thinking, it ain’t so bad, there are idiots in Germany, too, who have a tendency to flock into politics.  Moreover I don’t really live in America.  I live in California, coastal California.

It’s stupid, I know, I should be thrilled and on one level I am but the idea of leaving California is very unsettling.  I keep mumbling to myself  “I’ll be back” and then reminding myself that I really shouldn’t quote Arnie, like, ever.

Today I hit on another permutation of the theme.  We went to have Mexican food for lunch.  Not my favorite food but I do love Mexico.  We spent quite some time there years ago.  So I started thinking “Germany is so far from Mexico.  I’ll miss Mexico, darn, I miss it already”  and then went back to the comfort of  “it’s only for a year.  I will be back.”

Maybe I was right when I first came to California all these years ago and thought, knew and felt instinctively  “this is where I belong.  If live was fair, this is where I would have been born.”

Starting the Process

When our son was 3 1/2 we took a six month sabbatical and traveled to six different countries (the blog for that adventure is here) around the world.  We rented our house and rented apartments, houses wherever we went – so one should think that I know exactly what to do when it comes to planning long-term absences.  Yes, I do – and that’s exactly why I am, well, scared of the task ahead.

I am afraid that soon, this could be me. pic: acccbuzz.wordpress.com

It took me months the last time, literally, to get it organized and a lot of it was on the home front, so to speak.  Just getting the house ready to be rented out was a major undertaking in painting, fixing, cleaning, tossing, organizing. Then finding renters and doing things like canceling what ended up being 20 magazine subscriptions, dealing with the DMV over the driver’s license renewal which was due smack in the middle so I couldn’t do it before or after, paying property taxes, dealing with the cars,  health insurance, etc.

Abroad the situation was both easier and more complicated than it will be this time.  Easier because wherever we went, we didn’t really move there, we were visitors on a somewhat extended stay, we needed visa for India – and that was an annoying day in the embassy in San Francisco but it was just that an annoying day and then it was over – but no other paperwork was required.  This time things will be different, since we are going to spend a year and the Germans are somewhat anal when it comes to paper work and permits and such like.  For example, you can’t just up and leave and move to a new place in Germany (even as a German) you have to go to a special city office and hand in paper that you don’t live there anymore and then in your new place you have to do the same, you have so to speak, enroll in the new city.  And don’t even think about not following that rule, if they catch you it is going to be really expensive.

This type of stuff used to be normal to me but after 15 years here the mere idea of having my name and address in some computer at the local authorities makes me nervous.  What the heck are they doing with that?  Why do they need to know?

Bad thing is I have forgotten a lot of that stuff and new rules and regulations are now in existence.  I will have to do some real research on that – and the mere idea virtually puts me to sleep.

So, and now I will return to the garage where the cleaning activities have begun.