So here we are. The last of the furniture goes out the door next week and possession on our home is June 20th. It's Box spring and mattress on the floor time.
You know, It is really strange staring at bare walls and watching the digital clock doing it's thing on the oven.......time is ticking by. It was only this morning Donna said to me "I am getting excited now". Me too! I replied.
Now is the hardest part. Getting rid of clothes Hmm! What to keep and what to give away. It's a big deal. I have five suits, hardly ever worn.......I won't use them again, so they may as well go to someone who is looking for employment, my size, and hasn't the money to equip themselves out in new clothes. In any event, I can't see me hob-nobbing around the Amazon Jungle in a suit and tie, dress shoes, Tuxedo (dinner jacket for the British audience). It's hard but necessary, and trimming your belongings down to two suitcases each is NOT as easy as it sounds, especially when you are approaching 65 years of age and have collected so many treasures, but is has to be done.
This week was spent at our storage space we have rented putting up shelves to handle the seven years of corporate files we are required to save for the two companies we owned in case Canada Revenue Agency decides to audit us later on.
The space is filling up, but there will be room for what we absolutely cannot take with us this time around. Family pictures, awards, certificates, medals etc. and stuff we just cannot part with without a great deal of thought behind it or that we just cannot sell but also cannot give away this time around.
We will be coming back during the summer months to be with family and the grandchildren, so we will attempt to sell off the remaining articles then, but until that happens it's storage time for what we can get into an 8X12 storage locker.
One of the restrictions that the government of Ecuador places on permanent residents of the country is that for the first two years, we can only leave for a total of 90 days in each year. After that, we can be gone for up to 18 months without losing our permanent resident status.
I haven't got my documents back from the UK yet, confirming that I am the real person on the birth certificate and that my Military Pension is what is written on the papers. Those items need to be Notarized, Legalized at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London and the need for those documents to be Appostiled.....(more about that later), so we can get our other papers that originated in Canada in order - Marriage Certificate, two passport photos each or us, CPP, OAS documents verifying our pensions etc, our Criminal Background Checks done and copies of our Passports all need to be notarized and legalized here in Canada so we can drive out to Vancouver to meet with the Consul General of Ecuador (who has been incredibly helpful). He's the guy that will give us the official go-ahead to proceed.
If anyone is interested in finding out about living in Ecuador, we can point you to the right places so you can find out all about it. Just let us know. We are learning every day. If you go as a pensioner for example, you must show and prove to the Consul General of Ecuador, you have the necessary funds to live on, which happens to be a minimum of $800 US per month plus a further $100 per month for each accompanying dependent. Oh, and by the way, you don't have to be 65 to go on a pensioners Visa.
It doesn't matter if you have over a million dollars in the bank - that won't cut it. As the Consul General said to me the other day, you could go to a casino and blow that in a day and where would that leave the Ecuador Government. No, it's guaranteed funds they are looking for. Pensions, annuities, CPP, OAS, Private Pensions, Government Pensions are all OK, but they have to be notarized and legalized before any go ahead is given.
Because Canada never joined in on the Haigh Convention back in 1948, where many countries agreed to adopt the apostille stamp as a recognition that the documents being used have been properly checked over. Many countries signed on to the Apostille route, that an appostile in one country would be accepted in any other country who were a part of the agreement at the Haigh Convention. Canada refused to be a part of it and so we Canadians have to jump through different hoops. More about that once we have been through the process and are resident in Ecuador.
We are looking forward to the Spanish Immersion part of the exercise where for the first three months, we are going to attend full Spanish Immersion classes maybe twice or three times per week in order to get going in quick time.........More in a few weeks.
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