Episode 42 - From Business Trips to Cultural Exchanges Across Europe

Ever wondered what it's like to trade the familiar buzz of home for the charm of European living? Neil and Denise Johnson share their captivating stories of expatriate life, from the enchanting yet quiet winters of Sardinia to the vibrant streets of Milan and the cozy town of Słupsk. Get a taste of their unique experiences as they navigate cultural exchanges, like hosting a Thanksgiving dinner in Poland, and laugh along with them as they recount an unexpected hospital visit thanks to a washing machine malfunction. Their adventures offer a glimpse into the joys and challenges of living abroad, transforming Neil's business trips into unforgettable European escapades.

Join us as we explore the Johnsons' transition from bustling cityscapes to serene small-town life in Poland, and discover how events like French strikes shaped their long-term perspective. Beyond their personal tales, we provide insights into resources for global travel and invite you to engage with us through our blog, YouTube channel, and more. Plus, don't miss out on information about an exciting International Living Online Seminar, where I will discuss the art of roving retirement. Let's ensure life doesn't just pass us by—let's embrace the world together!

"How to Move Out of the USA" Online Seminar: https://pro.internationalliving.com/m/2407727

Chapters

• 0:08 Expatriate Life Experiences and Adjustments
• 15:42 Life in Small-Town Poland
• 29:36 Global Travel Resources and Seminar Information

Transcript

Jim Santos: 0:08

Welcome to Travels with Jim and Rita. I'm your host, jim Santos, along with my wife, rita, and welcome to the second season of our podcast. In the first season, we set in motion our crazy plan to outfox the real estate market in the US and actually increased our retirement nest egg by selling our home and car and spending the next three years or so living abroad and exploring the world. Now that plan is in disarray as I develop pancreatitis in Latvia, necessitating a return to the US for further treatment and surgery. Join us now as we adjust our goals and try to salvage our travel plans.

Jim Santos: 0:48

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Travels with Jim and Rita. Over the past years, we've talked about many styles of travel and many ways of discovering the world. Today, we'll be covering a topic we hadn't touched yet being temporarily relocated overseas because of your job. Our guests, Neil and Denise Johnson, have been through this process twice, once to Italy and again to Poland, two of our favorite countries, by the way. Denise Neil, welcome to Travels with Jim and Rita, thank you Thanks, glad to do it.

Denise Johnson: 1:24

This is one of our favorite topics.

Jim Santos: 1:26

Neil, what kind of work were you doing that took you overseas?

Neil Johnson: 1:30

Well for Italy. I worked for an air pollution control company. They're known through the world. They were later bought out by General Electric. At the time I was with that company with the purpose of restoring and bringing into compliance an out-of-compliance fossil power plant on the island of Sardinia which is about 30 minutes to the I think it's southwest of Milan by airplane. We spent some time there, about a month, and then off and on, I would go back and forth to get design information.

Denise Johnson: 2:11

He was there the month of February and that is not a typical tourist month because it's cold and there's nobody on the gorgeous beaches. You know it's June, july and August that Sardinia really starts hopping. We were in the northern part. We stayed at a hotel in Algira and he drove about 30 minutes to get to the power plant.

Rita Santos: 2:41

We kind of like it when there's no one around, yeah it was a remarkable place.

Neil Johnson: 2:46

I kind of look at it as wild and wonderful. There were a lot of blustery winds in February and rain, but just a good time to go into some of the wonderful restaurants. It's like seeing in a car.

Jim Santos: 3:01

Now, before this job opportunity came up. Had either of you done any travel overseas before?

Neil Johnson: 3:07

Yes, we both have.

Denise Johnson: 3:08

Neil got to travel pretty extensively while I stayed at home and looked after our three children. But when the three girls graduated from high school, then it was like, well, it's time that I get to travel too. So Neil and I traveled to Europe the even years starting in 2006. And for the first few trips it was a business trip, and then we would plan vacation around it, which made it a lot more affordable. They would pay for his airline ticket and then we just had to pay for mine and then the extra days in the hotel and all. So the first trip was Denmark.

Neil Johnson: 3:56

Just a short-duration test and then maybe a retest. And we were accompanied by a customer, so we were entertaining them as well.

Denise Johnson: 4:07

So I would buy a tour guide Fodders and there was another one too that was popular at the time, and then Rick Steves' tour books became more popular, so I switched to those. But we decided, looking at the airline options, that we would pair Denmark with Germany, and so we took a train and this was a really the most interesting part of that trip was we got the train in Copenhagen at the main train station and we got to the bottom of the island and the train got on a ferry and we got off the train and had dinner on the ferry and by the time we were done we had crossed the sea and so we got back on the train and then continued on land to Hamburg and then on to Munich a few days later and we flew out of Munich. So that was our first experience with Europe and we loved it. That was in 2006.

Denise Johnson: 5:11

In 2008 we went to Germany. He had another test that he had to be a part of, and so with that one we flew into Zurich and we took a rental car into Germany and we saw Basel and Lucerne, and then in 10, we went to France and we got a rental car and drove all over France and discovered that all the interstate toll roads can really rack up some expense in euros. But it was a great experience. We spent a little bit of time in paris, but a lot of it in the countryside, uh leon bond, uh tours. We like to ride bicycles and so almost every place we've gone overseas we've ridden bicycles. And then in that was 10 and then in 12. It was the first time we went to Europe, just purely pleasure, and we rented a canal boat near Birmingham.

Jim Santos: 6:12

Oh yeah, we've talked to people who have done that.

Denise Johnson: 6:14

And that was really fun. We liked the pastoral scenes that we saw and we docked a couple of nights in Birmingham and took a train over to Stratford-upon-Avon to see the Shakespeare stuff. So most of the time we tried to stay at least a week and a half, a lot of times two weeks.

Jim Santos: 6:36

So you had quite a bit of experience with travel before this, but going there to stay for an extended period of time is a little bit different, yeah.

Denise Johnson: 6:46

When we were in France, they went on strike. The second day we were there, they closed the port of Marseille. They closed the oil refinery in Lyon and it was hard to get gas at the gas stations. They closed the. They greatly reduced the number of trains that ran in the country. They were rebelling because the retirement age was going from 60 to 62. Right, so the French and Italians believe in striking if they don't like something. And so it made travel difficult and it made us wonder did we really want to consider living overseas? Neil's company offered short-term foreign assignments, if you were interested, and there was one that we passed over. That would have really been interesting. It was what? A year or two in Australia, but it was our senior year for our twin daughters, and so we just felt the timing was wrong.

Denise Johnson: 7:45

And then the experience in France with the strike and everything made us wonder, you know, did we really want to do that? But then we went to New York City and I really liked the atmosphere of a big urban city.

Rita Santos: 8:02

Right.

Denise Johnson: 8:03

And it made us think we might could handle it.

Rita Santos: 8:07

Yeah, I like big cities as well.

Jim Santos: 8:11

Now, when you first got the posting to Italy, how much time did you have to prepare to move overseas?

Neil Johnson: 8:17

It was a pretty brief period of time. We had, fortunately, our company had people that would help us do that with travel agents and in going to I think it was Detroit, to get the visa. So we had a lot of help, but it was a pretty brief period of time. There was one occasion where I inadvertently allowed my passport to expire, and so I had to expedite the passport process in Atlanta, In Atlanta.

Jim Santos: 8:47

Yeah, Did you own a home at that time. You were gone like six months right.

Denise Johnson: 8:52

Yeah, we've lived in this house for almost 30 years and so I mentioned earlier that we had three young adult daughters and fortunately the twins, the youngest ones, were able to stay in our home. They kind of took turns, Like one moved in with her boyfriend for a while and the other one wanted to travel some. But we always had a daughter living here. At one point one of them was getting kind of lonely and I told her if she wanted to have one of her friends move in, we wouldn't expect rent, and so she did that. It wasn't all that successful, but we never had to worry about our home. We knew that they would take care of it.

Jim Santos: 9:42

When you first got to Italy was there an adjustment period.

Neil Johnson: 9:45

Yeah, that was also, I could say, maybe a hardship in that, just getting used to the language and the uncertainty of things, the fact that we hadn't been to some of these places, you know, so we didn't know how to get around, and just being new there and not having, you know, a permanent mode of transportation was made us a little nervous. So, yes, that was. It took some hardship get through some of those days. In one case in poland for me, I wasn't the first person that the work supervisor wanted. He said neil, I'm not sure you're the right fit. That, of course, upset the apple cart quite a bit and made us pretty nervous. And so he said Neil, don't get settled in just yet, don't sign any leases?

Neil Johnson: 10:32

Yes, we want to check you out. And so, after a month of working with the customer, who was the Army Corps of Engineer, and developing a relationship with Sam, he said Neil, they like you. I think you'll be acceptable, so go ahead and find your place to stay.

Denise Johnson: 10:50

I think he needs to also point out that these two job assignments were very different. He got the one in Poland because he had had the European work experience, one of the hesitancies we had for doing a short-term assignment with Austin Power, which became GE. They said they would try to hold your local, your Tennessee job open but there were no guarantees. So it made it a little bit a little risky to move overseas, not knowing if you're going to have a job to come back to.

Jim Santos: 11:26

Right.

Rita Santos: 11:27

Do you have any interest in moving abroad? Just to retire and enjoy it?

Neil Johnson: 11:34

I think it's. Maybe it was a novelty for us. I didn't think we thought it was very realistic.

Rita Santos: 11:40

Okay.

Neil Johnson: 11:40

Especially since our family was over the ocean. But it occurred to us and it really sounds pretty interesting, as there have been a lot of places I'd love to see overseas but I think that I would be more up to short term living rather than committing to 2 or 3 years living someplace right yeah, that's why we like to keep moving around ourselves.

Rita Santos: 12:05

Yeah, there's so many places that we enjoy visiting and seeing, but it seems like the longer that we stay in one spot, the more acclimated we get to the culture and the people. It just depends on how long we stay in a certain section and how long we get tired of it and leave.

Jim Santos: 12:27

Denise, what were you doing during the day?

Denise Johnson: 12:29

Well, in Italy, that is such a fascinating city. The third day I was there I joined the Benvenuto Club, which was an English-speaking ladies club that was very active. We did day excursions and we had monthly meetings. There was a fashion show, so I met wonderful friends there. I met one lady that became a good friend, who had been a tour guide in America. She was an American married to an Italian man, and so she took me under her wings and she took me to the grocery store. To me, grocery stores are really fascinating overseas because they're different.

Jim Santos: 13:12

It's an adventure, yeah, yeah.

Denise Johnson: 13:15

And you try to figure out what's comparable to what you're familiar with.

Rita Santos: 13:19

Did you shop the markets or just the grocery stores?

Denise Johnson: 13:24

Oh, we did it all.

Rita Santos: 13:25

Yeah.

Denise Johnson: 13:26

There was a wonderful street market. It was Tuesday mornings and all day Saturday. That was like an eight or ten minute walk from our apartment.

Rita Santos: 13:36

Oh, that's nice.

Denise Johnson: 13:38

And so you know. We arrived in January in Italy. For me, it was February in Poland when I got there for the first time and I was surprised at the gorgeous fruits and vegetables that were in this outdoor market in. Italy, right, so I think a lot of it just came from the south of Italy. You know Sicily, or you know down near the bottom of the boot, you know.

Jim Santos: 14:08

I'm sorry. What city were you in again?

Denise Johnson: 14:10

We were in Milan. In Milan, so we're in the northern part of Italy we were in our train ride to get to Lake Como or Lake Maggiore, or Lake Maggiore, and the only time that we actually left Italy was to go to Switzerland, to let's see Lugana, I think was the name of it. It was a short bus ride from Lake Como and you could tell a difference, that you were in a different country, not only because of the currency, but the lack of graffiti. One of the things that I didn't like about Italy was graffiti everywhere and you would have it on these gorgeous, old, fancy buildings and street level. It would just have all kinds of stuff and the Italians, the government, didn't do much about it. They just felt like the people got to express themselves and if they wanted to do graffiti, then go for it If they didn't like something that was going on they would go on strike.

Denise Johnson: 15:30

Yeah, in a lot of countries that is a form of expression. Yeah, and most countries have graffiti, unfortunately, on beautiful buildings and it is disappointing. Yeah, but we didn't see it there in Switzerland, in this town, but, yeah, but, and you know, we saw a little of it in Poland. So in Poland, there's a huge difference between the two places where we lived. You know, milan at the time had over three million people. You know, in the greater milan area, right when we got to swupsk, poland, they had around 90 000 people. Now, what was?

Rita Santos: 16:00

that close to.

Denise Johnson: 16:01

It was two hours to Gdansk.

Jim Santos: 16:05

So it was in central Poland or toward the coast.

Denise Johnson: 16:08

That was the northern part. We were 30 minutes from the Baltic Sea and it took about what was it about? Two hours to get to the German border.

Rita Santos: 16:20

Did you go to Warsaw or Krakow while you were there?

Denise Johnson: 16:25

It takes a while to drive the roads. I mean, some of them are okay, but it's not like the Autobahn that you find in Germany and so, and the speed limit's not that great. So we didn't really do many driving trips. We I did some train excursions, right, but I flew to Warsaw a couple of times to get back to the States, but we did not do any sightseeing in Warsaw.

Jim Santos: 16:56

So what was life like in that smaller town then of only 90,000 there in Poland?

Denise Johnson: 17:00

There wasn't a lot to do as far as touristy things. I mean, they just didn't have many tourists. The biggest thing that happened to Swipsk was being selected to build this US missile defense base.

Rita Santos: 17:14

Okay.

Denise Johnson: 17:14

And it was an old, defunct airport that I believe Bush is the one who during his term is when it was bought. We became very close friends with a Polish family. The man was the pastor of this church, and they had four adult children that were very involved in it. One of them was a translator, so it was the only church where we could hear English. Okay, he preached Polish, and if it was just Neelah in the service, then she would sit between us and she had a gift that she could listen and translate at the same time.

Denise Johnson: 17:58

But if there were more Americans then she would stand on the podium beside her father and so it would take twice as long for the service. And I told her I felt kind of guilty that you know we were the cause of it. And she said no, they get a free English lesson, so they're benefiting. They didn't have a lot of outsiders, there was no university, and so there really wasn't a big reason for English-speaking people to come. Prior to building this base, the timing was good to have the American dollars come to this town because the church had bought some property it was a World War II German airport hangar and so they had to raise funds. The country won't lend money to a church and they really discriminate against Protestants because it's such a dominant Catholic country. I mean, I felt like there were a lot more devout Catholics in Poland than there were in Italy.

Denise Johnson: 19:06

One of my highlights, looking back, was making Thanksgiving dinner for this family. I think maybe about seven or so of them that came. I couldn't find a whole turkey in the grocery store over there, but they had a neighbor who raised turkeys and so he found out about. You know us wanting to do a Thanksgiving meal and he gave them one. It's the biggest turkey I have ever cooked in a tiny little stove. You know an oven. I was afraid that I was going to ruin it because juices started coming out the bottom of the oven about the time that it was done. Yeah, but I did the dressing and mashed potatoes and green beans and sweet potato casserole.

Rita Santos: 20:01

And they loved it. Oh, I'm sure it is amazing the appliances and how they cook meals. It is amazing Because it's certainly not the American standard.

Jim Santos: 20:13

I need to take a moment here to apologize to our listeners. They're doing some leaf blowing outside of our home at the moment, so the problem is not in your set as.

Denise Johnson: 20:23

I used to say yeah, neil needs to tell you about his appliance experience in Poland.

Neil Johnson: 20:31

Oh yeah.

Denise Johnson: 20:31

Okay.

Neil Johnson: 20:32

Okay, well, denise could probably tell the story better than me, because it was a medical incident, and Denise was actually the one that figured out what caused my medical incident. Early in the morning, about two in the morning, when I just fell out of the bed, I felt cold, clammy, vomiting, like I'd never felt this way before and I said, denise, we need to go to the hospital. I just have not felt this way before and there's something going on. To the hospital. I just have not felt this way before and there's something going on. But before that the landowner had installed a brand new washing machine. So the two are related to each other. Just remember as we go through the story. So I was holding on to it because I was trying to stop. It was walking across. I was trying to hold it. Still, I wasn't able to do it, but so I just let it go.

Denise Johnson: 21:23

The engineer brain was trying to figure out. Why is it moving? Just vibrating something fierce.

Neil Johnson: 21:31

Yeah, so we had a stick shift car.

Denise Johnson: 21:34

A rental car. Yeah, I'm not allowed to drive.

Neil Johnson: 21:37

And so this is two in the morning, so not a lot of traffic, fortunately, and the hospital was also very close, probably less than 10 minutes.

Denise Johnson: 21:47

It was about 10.

Neil Johnson: 21:48

I used.

Denise Johnson: 21:49

GPS to find it.

Neil Johnson: 21:51

So, as we were driving to the hospital, I had the window open because I was getting sick all the time, and so we were having to negotiate me getting being sick and leaning out the window, staying on the road and not having an accident, right. So we got to the hospital and I unloaded again in front of the hospital doors Very nice hospital, by the way. I was very impressed, and so they checked me in to the intensive care, hooked me up to an IV. That's really what I needed was the IV, because I'd lost so many fluids.

Denise Johnson: 22:29

So I'm waiting in the waiting room and I met one person. I'd been there for two weeks and I had met one person that was from Tennessee that Neil worked with. So I had his phone number. So the next morning I was able to let him know that Neil would not be at work. But the doctor talked to me and as soon as he got hooked to the IV he improved. But they wanted to keep him so at 630 in the morning.

Denise Johnson: 23:00

Well, they put me on a taxi, in a taxi to get back to my apartment. And I'm back at the apartment and the guy calls and said you need to talk to your husband because we don't know what caused this and we want to do tests and he wants to leave. And so I talked to him and said Neil, you really need to stay. So I came back a little bit later in a taxi and you know, you feel so hopeless when everything is in a foreign language that you don't know. You find a few consoles that speak English and you latch on to them and that's what I did. So she directed me up to the seventh floor where neurology was. They wanted to make sure he hadn't had a stroke.

Rita Santos: 23:47

Right.

Denise Johnson: 23:47

Because he thought that the only sign that I could look at that was in English was how to recognize a stroke victim, and I kept looking at that, thinking he didn't have a stroke. Those aren't you know. That's not right. So he stayed for 36 hours and he was told that it was the crystal. Let's see misalignment of the crystals in his ears. Oh, okay.

Neil Johnson: 24:12

You figured that out.

Denise Johnson: 24:13

No, that was the doctor's diagnosis. Didn't know exactly what caused it. And then, you know, I was looking at this video of him hugging this, this vibrating question machine, that's how you know. I put the two and two together. But they said, before he could be discharged, that you had to pay the bill. Oh, yeah, and definitely because, yeah, neil worked for this big international company, so we had had excellent insurance, but you know, they didn't want my insurance card when we checked in. They wanted my European card, which we didn't have, and so therefore, we had to pay cash for it. I didn't have no idea how much money that it was going to be. You want to take a guess how much? Probably in the er cost probably 200 no more than that.

Rita Santos: 25:05

It was like 530 yeah, very good yeah, well we've, we've, we've done these hospital stays and operations in foreign countries and they're they're very inexpensive and they're very it's always excellent care.

Denise Johnson: 25:20

So both times it was lucrative for us. Neil worked what? 60 hours, at least 54 for both of those jobs per week, so he didn't have time to do a lot of vacationing.

Neil Johnson: 25:37

Right, denise did the traveling and I did the working, but I would say that would make the list of the hardships for me was having to work 60 hours for close to a year and a half, but it turned out for the better, just for the memory, and it also just was just something I needed to do Now that I'm retired. You know I miss, miss my work experiences and I think I'm just a driven person. I like to be working.

Denise Johnson: 26:10

I mean people, the friendships and the scenery. You know, both countries are really pretty pretty. Swoops is an agricultural area. They grew what is it rape to make canola oil.

Neil Johnson: 26:28

Sunflowers, oh, and potatoes. That's the big crop in Poland is potatoes.

Denise Johnson: 26:33

Where we were especially, oh, they love beets. I don't like beets.

Rita Santos: 26:38

They love beets in the Balkans.

Jim Santos: 26:39

One of my nurses had a tattoo of a beet on her arm.

Rita Santos: 26:43

In.

Jim Santos: 26:43

Latvia, yeah.

Denise Johnson: 26:46

I feel like I didn't connect quite so much with Poland as a country. You know the people of Poland as I did Italy, because of the language barrier and I tried learning Polish. Polish is like the third most difficult language in the world it's right under Mandarin.

Rita Santos: 27:07

Chinese yeah.

Denise Johnson: 27:10

And I had one year of Latin in high school which helped a little bit. It does, but then I'm trying to learn my first foreign language at 59.

Rita Santos: 27:21

Yeah.

Denise Johnson: 27:22

Tough.

Jim Santos: 27:23

Do you have any travel plans for the future?

Denise Johnson: 27:25

Then I'm trying to learn my first foreign language at 59. Yeah, tough. Do you have any travel plans for the?

Rita Santos: 27:28

future. We have a bucket list.

Denise Johnson: 27:29

Okay, we want to go to Ireland and I'd like Scotland. We went to England but you know, didn't get further than Birmingham and just the Irish countryside. We would also love to go back to Italy. We hosted a brother and sister who came over with young life. They're from Madrid, spain, and the boy is now in Costa Rica. I mean, he's a grown man with two children, but his sister still lives in Madrid. So you know, we would love to go to Madrid and see her.

Neil Johnson: 28:09

One remarkable thing for both of us was seeing the cemeteries in Denmark and Italy, germany. They're really remarkable places, very peaceful, just to stroll around and maybe sit on a bench.

Denise Johnson: 28:23

Yeah, have y'all been to some of the cemeteries over there that you enjoyed?

Jim Santos: 28:28

Well, we went to the Jewish cemetery in Prague and that's a completely different experience. It's not exactly calming. But you know, I guess some of those cemeteries they've been there longer than the US has been a country.

Denise Johnson: 28:43

Right, oh yeah, the first one that we went to was in Denmark. It was Fun, the Middle Island, and it was beside a fort that was built in the 1100s, I think, and the cemetery you know was way older than the United States.

Jim Santos: 29:02

Well, we've been chatting with Neil and Denise Johnson about their experiences living and working in Italy and Poland and traveling to other spots in Europe. Well, guys, thanks for sharing with us.

Neil Johnson: 29:13

Thank you. Good to meet you, rita and Jim, and thank you for inviting us to talk about our adventures. We appreciate it.

Jim Santos: 29:30

Thank you. You've been listening to Travels with Jim and Rita. If you'd like to read more about where we've been, see some photos of the places you've been hearing about, check out our blog at jimsantosbookscom and our YouTube channel and Instagram for videos. Meanwhile, you can access my books, audiobooks and short stories at jimsantosnet and there are links to those sites Instagram, youtube, etc. In the show notes. We'd love to hear from our listeners as well, so if you have a question or a topic you'd like us to cover, or you just want to tell your own travel story, email me at jim at jimsantosbookscom. Don't forget too time is running out to sign up for the International Living Online Seminar how to Move Out of the US. Coming up February the 12th, I have a presentation on roving retirement, and 11 other experts will cover various topics as well. Check out the link in the show notes for more info or to register. Until next time, remember we travel not to escape life, but so that life does not escape us. Thank you.