We Prepare

 A GIRL NEEDS HER STUFF


It is one week before we embark upon our excellent retirement adventure. One week!  Our three-month sojourn in Italy began as an offhanded remark from Harold a year ago.

"What if we were to spend a year in Europe?" he asked during a commercial break from an excruciatingly boring Netflix show.  I'd name the show so my readers could avoid it, but it was excruciatingly boring so I forgot the name.  

I did not ask if he was serious. I did not take so much as a nanosecond to consider my job, our family, our dog, our bank account, or the fact that I couldn't possibly trust a random beauty salon to match my hair color.  I simply got out of my chair, and visited Google to learn if this was possible.  It was not.  We learned that foreigners cannot spend more than ninety consecutive days in Europe before having to register as temporary residents, which involves many financial disclosures, lots of paperwork etc...so our year abroad quickly became a three month stay in Italy. By quickly, I mean I had rented an apartment in Florence before Harold could say, "Let's seriously consider this."

And here we are, a week before our trip.  I am trying to pack light,  "trying" being the operative word here.  A GIRL NEEDS HER STUFF!  Yes, I know Italy is a first world country and I can buy anything there that I can buy in the US, but I want MY hair care products and MY sensitive skin sunscreen and MY makeup and especially MY hair color.  (Monsieur Harold will be coloring my hair during our stay, having completed his internship during the pandemic lockdown.)

This is a photo of my "products suitcase."  Bear in mind, this is NOT a carry-on, but a large suitcase.  When my daughter-in-law, Kristen, was here for a family wedding, she suggested I could save weight and room by taking everything out of the boxes.  I did that.  I saved a half pound and four square inches.

The good news is that I will use up all this stuff in Italy, which will leave me with a large, empty suitcase to hold all the Italian shoes, clothing and tchotchkes I plan to purchase in Italia.




In addition to this product-heavy suitcase, I have a five-inch stack of paperwork that includes hotel reservations in Sicily, Lake Como, Venice, Siena and the Amalfi Coast,  dinner reservations (yes, Sean, I made some dinner reservations at places I know are much in demand) tours, rental car agreements, Covid regulations, declaration pages for the airlines, etc...

It would be nice if I had some room to pack clothing, but oh well. Italy is the fashion capital of the world.
I will just have to shop. Poor me.

Shoes are a challenge. Having reached an age when comfort trumps sex appeal,  I am packing a couple pairs of super comfortable sneakers and a pair of flat sandals for special occasions. I am sad. I do love sexy shoes. But the day of the come-hither foot is long gone. Our apartment is a one-mile walk into the center of Florence. One mile in sexy shoes is the Podiatric Apocalypse for me. Sigh.

I will be keeping a blog of our three-month adventure.  I do not post on Facebook because I believe Mark Zuckerberg is the devil and Facebook is the harbinger of the demise of civil society.  Please do not feel obliged to follow this blog. I am writing to imprint this experience on my memory, so in my dotage I can remind myself of the good times I had.  See you in Firenze!

Comments

  1. Harold the traveling partnerApril 23, 2022 at 4:09 PM

    I'm sooo excited!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Italy per KKApril 24, 2022 at 3:16 PM

    Love your writing and this great idea. I will need help remembering you're sooo far away for sooo long! Have fun and thanks for remembering us :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Harold the traveling partnerMay 15, 2022 at 10:27 PM

    Just trying to post and publish another comment as some of you have had difficulty posting. It seems that you may have to log in through Google allow posting. I can see a button to push at the bottom of each blog entry to permit this (which I pushed an it brought me to this place). Perhaps you need a google account to enable this. Harold

    ReplyDelete

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