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.
THE THORNY SAGA OF TRANSPORTING AND LEGALIZING THE CARS AND MOTORCYCLE
On October 12, as soon as we closed on the house, we contracted for a big container to ship everything in, movers to help Rhonda to pack and move stuff from her house to my container in Vallejo, and A DIFFERENT SPECIALIZED “NO WORRIES” COMPANY TO SHIP THE VEHICLES. This was the same firm that transported Ferrari’s Formula One team from race to race—an enormous task—so I figured that I was safe.
WRONG.
I signed the shipping contract, and specified November 27 as the pickup date for both cars and motorcycles. On October 16, I got a call from a guy who was right in front of my house, who wanted to pick up the bike. I told him the bike wasn’t ready, and I didn’t want it to get to Italy 6 weeks before I did, so…NO. I sent an email to the shipping company, and got no response. After three emails on the bike topic, the last one angry, I finally received a call from their Sales Manager, Christian, who told me he was sorry for the mistake, and verified pickup dates again. This should have clued me in that their communication was BAD, but, no...
Again, on October 26, the carrier was back to pick up the bike. Fifteen minutes' warning, but this time it was ready. I started it up and rode it into the trailer. I didn't know that it would be over four years (and counting!) before I could ever legally ride it again...
The car carrier arrived on December 1, and I loaded the cars up and signed bills of lading. They were to be trucked down to Gardena, California (420 miles, approximately) and then loaded onto a container ship at Port Of Los Angeles. The driver asked me if I wanted to leave the titles with him (as original titles are required by customs to release the cars onto the ship). I got Christian on the phone and he emphatically stated that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WAS I TO GIVE THE DRIVER THE TITLES.
Christian said he would email me when they were needed, and I should FedEx them to him at that time.
My mistake was in taking Christian at his word. He never emailed me, and as I was going through my papers on the 16th of December after I’d been in Italy 11 days and somehow thought the cars and bike had been shipped, I found the envelope with the original titles. I immediately emailed Christian and he emailed me back that I should send them via FedEx. The very next morning, I took them to FedEx Italy near my house, and sent them off. I emailed Christian that they would arrive on the 21st at his office, and told him that he should send me shipping information as soon as the cars were loaded onto the boat.
NEARLY TWO WEEKS WERE LOST BY THIS TIME. Meanwhile we were renting a car at $800/month.
No word from the shipper on the 21st or anytime until after the Holidays. Period. Finally, on January 2, I sent Christian an email asking what ship the vehicles were booked on, and when it was due to arrive in Genoa (200 miles away through the mountains, in the winter...)
HE WROTE BACK THAT HE NEVER RECEIVED THE TITLES.
This was TWO WEEKS after he should received them. Do you think he could call me on the 22nd to say they never arrived? If I hadn’t written him on the 2nd, I would still be in the dark about this.
I immediately called FedEx in Europe and on my fourth attempt a clerk in their Belgium hub sent me—against corporation rules— their internal tracking screen shot. The titles had left Modena on the 17th and arrived in Memphis, TN, USA, on the 18th...
…AND HAD PROMPTLY GONE MISSING. And had been missing by then for two weeks.
It took seven calls to FedEx in the USA on January 3rd to finally get a woman who agreed to do a trace. She said she would call to give me an update. (The six calls I made before I reached her got me six different answers and six dead ends.) Anyway, she never called back, and I began calling FedEx every day for updates. On the 9th, I got another lady who made the same promise, with no follow-up.
I assumed the titles are lost. Christian then put me in touch with their DMV facilitator, who steps in in cases like this. In several emails and two phone conversations, it became obvious that this lady hustler plainly knew diddly-squat about the DMV, as I had already researched procedures and spoke to the DMV help desk, and had the process and fees written down. This scam artist ("specialist") wrote me three useless emails that got the facts all wrong. I told her I would not consider using her. She then sent me an email anyway, with her fees to perform butthole surgery—$895 and four weeks waiting time.
LIKE HELL.
DMV fees are in fact $22 per duplicate title and maybe a couple of hundred on the motorcycle, as the title wasn’t in my name yet. But $895.00???
Meanwhile, the Jaguar, the Maserati, and the bike were in a warehouse in Gardena, SoCal, with dead batteries and high-value items in the trunks that I didn’t want to load into a container. (New iMac, my Jazz-Bo guitar, etc., my $$$ stereo…). The trunks would have to be emptied to charge the batteries. If they jump-start either car, they stand a chance of destroying both electrical systems.
They won’t be shipped, however, until the idiots at the shipping company have duplicate titles in my name.
I had two friends in the Bay Area running interference on the title issue, because in talking to the DMV, I was informed that I could do the whole thing online if I was willing to wait 6-8 weeks for processing. However, if I could present the paperwork in person (or proxy), this would shorten to 2-3 weeks.
So, at the very soonest, I thought I might see my cars in 60 days, or by, say, March 15? The shipping company’s total failure in communicating with me cost me at minimum $2400.00 additional in car rentals, plus registration, etc., not to mention lost time on the phone and frustration.
My biggest worry was the Maserati. I’ve owned for 6 years, with NEVER any reliability issues in 50K miles. I am very concerned at what will be the result of not starting its Nikasil Ferrari V8 for nearly 3 months and then having some warehouse guy jump start it and fire it up to drive it into the container.
This is compounded by the fact that the battery needs to be on a tender at the very least, but the battery was dead the week before I shipped it (I suspect a dead cell) and is most certainly sulfated by now after sitting dead for 5 weeks. I did not have time to replace the battery in the last minute rush to get the containers loaded, and I figured I would meet it in Genoa after 3 1/2 weeks, charge up the battery, and drive it home. Then replace the battery here. But NINE to TEN WEEKS? We’re in trouble territory here.
My two friends coordinated to meet at the DMV and process my duplicate titles on the spot. Another buddy, who I know from both Rickenbackers and exotic cars, and who is an excellent mechanic in his own right, agreed to take delivery of a brand new battery for the Maserati, and drive to the warehouse where the cars and bike were being stored, replace the battery, start the cars, and let them run until they were warmed up.
Thank you sincerely, Peter LaBarba. THere’s some Mille Millie memorabilia on its way to you as partial thanks!
Then, on January 19, I got an email that my titles had been found and were being delivered to the shipper in California the next day. The same day (January 20th) my friend Peter replaced the battery and checked out the vehicles' condition. He got both cars started and reported that everything was OK.
I had ASS-U-MEd that the cars would be loaded into a container within a couple of days of having been picked up (roughly before December 7th), and would spend the same amount of time on the water as our other containers--3 1/2 weeks.
WRONG, AGAIN.
The shipper finally informed me that they had been loaded onto the ship, the Rotterdam Express, on the 22nd, and it was due to leave the Port Of Long Beach on February 24th. This was a couple of days short of TWO months after they were picked up at my house. Christian informed me that they were due to arrive in Genoa on the 14th of April.
(NB: The Rotterdam Express was the same ship that was initially blamed for snagging the pipeline that cracked and fouled Huntington and Newport Beaches in December, 2022)
I logged onto a ship tracking site and began to follow the Rotterdam Express' transponder signals on a daily basis. It did NOT head right for the Panama Canal, as it had about a dozen stops to make first, running all the way North to Vancouver, BC, before heading South again, then to Mexico (2 stops), Panama City, Cartegena, Colombia, two more stops in South America, then finally across the Atlantic to Gibraltar, Marseilles, Livorno, and Genoa.
My cars finally arrived at the Port of Genoa on May 3rd, FIVE MONTHS and two days after I saw them off in Northern California. I booked a car carrier, as they were not registered in Italy, and thus illegal to drive on public roads. They finally were garaged at my new house on May 16th, 2021
(ABOVE) The Maserati in storage in Gardena, California, prior to shipping.
(ABOVE) Ducati, Maserati, and Jaguar on the day we opened the shipping container at the Port of Genoa; May 6, 2021.