We're paying $4,200/mo in rent, for starters. Since I'm no longer able to work, and to top it off, having lived outside the U.S., when I came back to claim my Veteran's disability benefits, it came with a heavy price. We never intended to return to the states, so I never paid in to Medicare Part B, which is useless outside the states, the Social Security Admin docked me more than one year of any Social Security, and on top of that, the docked me 10% of my Social Security money for each year I wasn't paying for Part B. Right off the bat, I lost more than $700/mo for the rest of my life. Then, my wife was unable to find a full-time job in her profession--all her previous jobs had been contracted out, so she's now working as an independent contractor, paying for private insurance--very expensive. Monterey has the worst Medicare coverage along the CA coastal region and since I'm unable to drive, I have to take a shuttle to Palo Alto, stay overnight in a VA motel, get to my appointment and then spend another night in a motel for every visit to either the VA Hospital or Stanford, where I get the only decent healthcare around. We live more than two hours from Palo Alto. The good doctors in our area are not taking new patients, and that's if you can even find one. Doctors have fled the area due to the cost of living in CA. The Research Triangle area would cost us half of what we pay here in rent alone, and that doesn't take into consideration taxes and other out of pocket expenses. I've been researching the country for the past six months and the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area looks like a hot spot for cultural stimulation, beauty--mountains, and Durham has an excellent VA Hospital with shuttle service if you live withing 40 miles of the Hospital, and if you live further away, they offer community care--local providers paid for by the VA and several healthcare alliances that work with the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide health care for veterans in North Carolina. In CA, I'm stuck with TriWest, which is hit and miss when it comes to connecting veterans with medical care. After a lifetime of surfing around the world, this will be my first and last vacation, and my wife and I have already been to Europe, S. America, the Pacific islands, and other places that most working folk only dream about. So, I'm ready to settle down. We're probably not going to buy a home and NC doesn't have rent control, so if we don't like it there, we can always move back to either Brazil--a bit violent and likely turning into a totalitarian dictatorship, but that's where the U.S. is headed, or we can go back to Portugal and live inland where we have friends and the people are quite friendly, and of course there's universal healthcare. It's a bit provincial, but we're both slowing down to the speed of life. We'll have an amiable life somewhere. I've always believed "the universe provides," and as a fourteen year old runaway child, it all works out. I just went through a major depression, but I'm doing well for now.

As far as meds go, they're poison. I enjoyed a small glass of Chardonnay with the spaghetti squash and ricotta cheese I made yesterday. It worked as well as the tremor medication I've been taking. The doctors in the U.S. seem to feel that Big Pharma is the answer for everything. I had a rough night sleeping last night--racing thoughts and tension, but am feeling great after attending my bi-weekly water aerobics class which is free for those of us with multiple sclerosis or PD. Socialization, rest, exercise, and diet are far better than drugs.