We are going to have a home on the island of Rhodes, Greece, and it will be called McFalakis.
I have known this for a long time. Mariam and I have known this for a long time….but it has existed as only a dream for many years. We find it difficult to focus on but have nurtured the dream as circumstances permitted. Figuring our how to make it happen, if indeed it can happen, is the hard part. How do we define the path? Convincing human bodies entering their 7th decade of life to FILL & MOVE BOXES, PULL UP ROOTS, IGNORE YOUR LIFE SAVINGS’ INADEQUACY, LEAVE YOUR CHILDREN, and last but not least at our age, LEAVE YOUR HEALTHCARE.
As I write this, we are less than 36 hours away from selling our home at 5727 Abilene Trail in Austin, Texas. Five hours or so after that, we sell Mariam’s Ford Explorer named Ruby. Eighteen hours after that and we will be heading to Florida on the first destination in our vagabonding phase of goal fulfillment.
Motivation explored through the real questions we hear…
- Is this Empty-Nester wanderlust? it’s in the mix
- is this a retirement gesture? imagined as a pre-amble to retirement
- do we have trepidation? Yes
- Are we excited? Yes
- how will you survive? there is a semblance of a plan. this will likely unfold if we maintain this blog effort in the future. Right now it is an experiment.
- David, do you even speak Greek AT ALL? I took a year-long Greek class at church, but have forgotten much of it. I will grow in this skill set as a courtesy to our eventual hosts. As could be expected in a society where tourism is a substantial part of the GDP, Euros translate very well.
- What if the Turks attack? I have no idea [this topic is complex and steeped in history]
- What about health care? still trying to understand this aspect of the problem. Significant.
- How do you handle taxes? will seek experts on this topic.
- Aren’t you scared about the Russian/Ukrainian war? Concerned here or there
- Won’t you miss ____ ? YES
- Will you renounce your American citizenship? No. Mariam will be a dual-citizen while David will be an American holding a Greek “green card”, with citizenship coming after 365 days as long as Mariam is alive during that time.
- Will you ever return? most certainly.
- When will Mariam get her Greek citizenship? God only knows
How it Started…
It all started back in 2021 when we were vacationing in Rhodes and looking at properties. This was to be a 5 year plan of purchasing property, obtaining citizenship and retiring. However, we decided to speed things up a bit. With the housing market in Austin booming, the current situation of the country, and just general wanderlust, we decided to cash in and just do it.
One of the first properties we looked at was in the village of Theologos (Tholos). It was a beautiful 1 1/2 acre piece of property with fruit trees, high up on a hill overlooking the Aegean. We were sold! Unfortunately, there was a right of way going through the property which we were told a road may go through at some point (or never) in the future. We could only build in certain spots on the property, and not where we wanted.
Fast Forward to the journey of selling our house. Once we decided to sell, many things were sprung into motion. Our friend David E. became our representative as real estate agent. He had someone take a tour of our house and list recommendations for optimum price. We hired a contractor to do the work, and we started packing things up and moving them to storage.
No, it started long before that
If you attend a Greek festival, you become Greek for the day/weekend/week/year/decade/etc. I volunteered to help with the Clear Lake Greek Festival (southeast of Houston, Texas) a long time ago and was trying to figure out what to write on my name tag. Mariam wrote Χάος on hers (semi-famously), and our friend Cali decided I could be “David McFalakis”….so I went from Irish to Greek in a moment, but the name made me smile and it lingers still in our lives. It took on a life of its own.
Sometime after that, Mariam and I traveled to Greece together. We gratefully received the gift of hospitality, and were gobsmacked by the extraordinary physical beauty of the place. This would have been in the 2012 or 2013 time frame. We have been many times since. The idea of transplantation grows on you, and cannot be ignored.
Oh, and I married Χάος.
Mariam here…… Don’t let David fool you on the impeccably organized storage unit you see above. That picture was taken before all the remaining items were put in. Be warned – it’s not pretty.