Preparing for take-off

My three-month sojourn in Spain has turned into five months (feels like a year), and now I’m preparing to close up shop and move to France for six weeks.  Je suis vraiment enthousiaste!

Every time I say I’m going to France, I think of the Coneheads!

As always, my life is a bit complicated.  I’m packing summer clothes, with a couple of sweaters and jackets, just in case, to wear in France; things I will leave here in the apartment’s storage closet – household goods and coats, robes, boots I only wear here; some winter clothes to take back to the US; and the clothes and things I don’t need for France but I definitely want to have when I get back to the states – I’m taking these things with me in case I have an opportunity to fly to the US from Paris.  This is bound to go perfectly, right?

I also have to try to clean and fix all the things I’ve broken or stained while I was here.  That is a challenge!

I’m going to pick up my new car next week.  France’s lease program of their cars (Peugeot, Renault, and Citroen) has a hard maximum of 175 days.  France is the only country that has this type of long-term lease available of brand new cars with total insurance coverage, no deductible.  It’s expensive, but less so than renting a car from a traditional car rental agency.  They deliver the cars to the Barcelona Airport.  So, I’m turning in the Peugeot for a Citroen.  I had a Renault last year and I wasn’t impressed, so we’ll see how the Citroen fares.  So far, Peugeot is my favorite – good acceleration (maybe too good, I got four tickets last year – by MAIL!) and most importantly, the GPS feature was easy to use.  The Audi I rented last year when the hoodlums broke the window of my Renault had a system that was impossible to intuit, and I couldn’t read the instructions, which were in German.  Helpful.

There are some things that I like to do that most people don’t.  One is grocery shopping  and another is moving.  I like looking at my things as I pack them away and then taking them out at the next destination and deciding where they should go.  I also like packing for trips which I’ve been known to do it months in advance!  As my friend Mario said, I’m a “monton de rara” – a mountain of weirdness.

One thing I am worried about now is that if I have to stay past September 20, I’ll be overstaying my 90-day tourist visa.  I’ve been told that it’s not terribly serious, but I really don’t like the idea of getting in trouble with the Spanish government.  It used to be run by Franco, and they still have the Guardia Civil!  If I’m not able to get out by the deadline, one solution would be to go to a non-EU country for 90 days before I return to Spain.  I thought of Andorra, which is not an EU country, but upon further research, that wouldn’t work because as it’s basically embedded between EU countries France and Spain, they don’t even maintain a border, so…nevermind.  And I’m not going to Morocco for 90 days!! I am seriously trying to get home, but I’m not willing to sacrifice the well being of my dogs.  And at this point, I’m in a much safer place.

I’m rambling…more next week.