Forward Motion

No wonder these people drink so much wine.

In fact, I've drank more wine in the last 3 weeks that I have in my entire life.  I wish that I could accurately convey how very complicated the process of setting up a life is here.  Something as simple as buying a tank of gas requires a trip to the PX to purchase fuel coupons, then a trip to the right gas station that accepts these coupons, hopefully during the limited hours when they are open, then signing each coupon in order to get the gas.  There is no such thing as stopping at the 24 hr. convenience store and paying at the pump.  Everything is a multi-step process.

I keep thinking that once we get in the house, get our household goods, get settled, then it won't seem so complicated.  But really, I will only have learned my way, the complications won't have changed.  At the required briefing I attended this week to get our home phone and internet service set up, Michela (no idea how how he spelled it but that's how it sounded), the Italian man giving the briefing, said that it would take about 10 days after the paperwork was turned in before the service appointment.

Another soldier raised his hand and said, "I heard that sometimes it could take two months?"  Michela replied, "It could take a year and a half. This is Italy!"  And he laughed, but we all knew he wasn't really kidding.

Earlier this week, we met with our landlord.  He seems especially nice, although he speaks no English.  I wish I could have gotten a photo of him, because he is just SO Italian.  He seemed either delighted or amused at my fumbling attempts at Italian and I am very anxious to get those boxes that have my Italian books in them.  Right now I only have two small pocket guides for essential phrases, but in the boxes there are several serious books for learning the language.

In the meeting, we successfully negotiated for both window screens on all the windows and air conditioning both upstairs and downstairs.  I am SO glad that we did this, as it has been sinfully, brutally, miserably hot this week.  Happily, the cost for us only ended up adding about 40 Euro ($68) per month to our rent.  A very reasonable price for summertime relief.  On Thursday morning, I went downtown to the market.  After about an hour I decided it was way too hot for outdoor shopping and hopped on the first #1 bus that I found back to post.

In the house right now, the kitchen is an empty room with a few wires coming out of the wall and a hole for the sink plumbing.  Italians purchase their own kitchens and move them from home to home just like Americans do with say, bedroom furniture.  Ikea has some gorgeous kitchens.  The military will provide renters with cupboards, an oven, and a dishwasher if needed, but it's plain and utilitarian at best.

However, the landlord, Adriano, owns a furniture store and cheerfully agreed to put in a kitchen for us at no extra cost.  Judging from our housing coordinator/interpreter's reaction, this was a very generous and kind gesture.  He asked her what color I would like for the kitchen.  I replied that I didn't care, whatever he wanted to put in was fine with me.  I'm not buying it, after all, and it's his house.  He continued to ask and I began to get the impression that I was offending him buy not choosing a color.  Finally I told her to tell him that I would like any color except orange.  Blue, green, purple, red, or whatever kitchen was fine, but not orange.  This seemed to please him.

Yesterday, we signed our lease, which, make no mistake, is a Wonderful Thing.  It means that, assuming the many little details like the utility hookups get done, we'll be moving out of the hotel on August 1st.  It took about an hour and half to get the lease signed.  Many of the Italian requirements on both the landlord and us seemed so unnecessarily ridiculous.  My brain hurts from absorbing all that information.  I also have two pages of garbage regulations that I need to study so that I am not fined for committing any recycling crimes.  As of right now, I'm afraid to throw anything out.

Oh, and Adriano brought in a picture he'd printed out of the kitchen he's putting in.  It's RED.  And I do mean RED.  It also looks gorgeous, far nicer than anything the military would have loaned us.  I hope that I expressed enough enthusiasm over it, because I really am thrilled.  I can't wait to see it in person.

A few photos

We decided to find a new place to try for dinner tonight and figured why not drive out toward where we will be living and find something out there.  Except it started to rain really hard and then hail on our new-to-us Mercedes.  (Even though Mercedes is as common as Chevy over here, it still seems very luxurious to us.)  We drove heedlessly through the streets, just looking for some kind of overhang to hide under.  Finally we found a tree with generous branches that we hoped would not break off and fall onto us and impale us through the sunroof and waited out the storm.

When it quit raining so much, we realized we were right smack in the middle of our town, Costabissara.  I really, really like this little town.  There are plenty of places to walk and ride bikes to, but it feels like a neighborhood, not a city.  We went to a pizzeria that was nearby and had a rather delicious meal. 

Here's my pizza.  If you want one like this, ask for "Pizza con melazane (with eggplant), carciofi (artichokes), funghi (mushrooms), & gorgonzola (blue cheese)".

 

Yes, it's enormous. That's how they are served for one person and you eat them with a knife and fork.  I had to figure out how to ask for a to-go box in Italian tonight.  "Scatola porta via, per favore." 

Then we drove around for a bit, wandering the streets and decided to drive up the hillside looking for the church.  What we discovered was where the rich people of this area must live.  Oh, the houses!  They were amazing, gorgeous multi-level villas.  The views were fantastic.  I tried to take some photos, but the road was narrow and the trees were not cooperating and I stepped in something foul.

 

Imagine peeking through all those trees crowding the bottom of the photo and seeing the lovely little town below.  Our house is down there somewhere. 

After the scenic drive, we went to the gelateria that is right across the street from our house.  I'm not so sure this is a good thing.  They also have pastries, what appeared to be lots of flavors of daquiris, and many yummy things.  I may have to hike up that big church hill every day to work off the results of living in such close proximity to this place.

The sun was beginning to set, but I took a few photos of the duplex we hope to be living in soon.  Here's from the front.  The yellow paint on the left begins the neighbor's side of the duplex.  They are an older couple with a spectacular garden in the back.  I hope they'll share the zucchini.

 

Here is the side of the house.  This photo was taken from the yard of the gelateria, if that helps you understand how close it is.  The balcony you see over the garage is the one for Grace's room.  The balcony for our room is the open area to the left over the roof on the second level.  It's also visible in the above picture on the right of the second level.  Hard to tell, but the wall around it is several feet high.  The garage is tiled and so nicely finished that I think we'll use it as a den/office/classroom/storage area. 

 

We also went to the mall again today and bought alarm clocks and a few bottles of wine.  I have no clue about wine buying, but most everything is very, very cheap.  Few bottles were over 6 Euro (about 10 bucks), most were around 3 Euro, so it's not like you're out a lot of money if you don't like it.  We chose 2 bottles pretty much at random and will crack them open this weekend.

Stracciatella means chocolate chip....just so you know when you come visit me and order gelato.

I'm at the library this morning and I think I should check the website for the Weather Channel.  It seems that the sun has moved entirely to close to Italy.  I hope someone is working on that.  It's Alabama hot here this week with the mugginess to go along with it.

But on Wednesday I passed my driver's test and now I can drive our Mercedes!  With air conditioning!  I'm so pleased with this car.  It's going to be DH's car, but I do enjoy driving it.  It's 10 years old, but immaculate.  There's power everything, a sunroof, and heated seats (which we totally do not need at the moment).  It's also American specs, so we can bring it back to the States with us if we choose.  Plus, it has automatic transmission which I am relieved about.  I can drive a standard if I have to, but driving here takes enough concentration, I'd rather not have to focus on gears and clutches.

I'm doubly glad that DH has a nice car because there were no new houses to choose from this week and the deadline forced us to make a choice.  We picked the Costabissara house, the one with the balconies and the gelateria that is a long drive away.  I had so hoped there would be new listings for us to look at, but there were none on Monday (because the housing office had not done their job and updated, which was extremely frustrating).  On Tuesday there were 3 or 4 new ones, but none of them had the size we hoped for AND were closer to base.  We were so tired of the whole situation that we figued at least we like the Costabissara house, let's just take it.

In fact, I spent so much wasted time at the housing office that I finished the Yarn Love socks.  I still have the Bugga socks on the needles, but I cast on for a new pair with the Wollmeise Herzblut that I brought along with me.  I am going to have the the reddest red socks in all of Italy.

We had a pre-negotiation meeting on Thursday and we've asked for both window screens and air conditioning.  Yes, the house has neither.  No, I have no idea how people live without at least one of them.  Housing asks the landlord to pay for half of things like this, then they divide our half by 36 months.  So even if it is 3000 Euro for these (which is totally possible, there are a lot of windows.), we would likely end up paying less than 50 Euro per month extra.  Right now our housing allowance does not cover that, but when DH gets paid for that rank he is wearing in the coming months, it will.  The landlord is going to bring in estimates on Tuesday and there's optimistic talk that we could be moved in by the end of the month.

We are planning to drive out to the neighborhood tonight and take some photos and see how the ice cream tastes at that gelateria.  Overall, I am pretty disappointed that I am not closer to base and the friends we've made.  However, my van should be here in about 2 weeks.  At least the house has the space we need and we like the neighborhood. It was definite that we were not going to be able to get everything we wanted in a house.  We just didn't have the time and the choices.  Still, sitting on my bedroom balcony in the morning listening to the church bells while I knit and sip Diet Coke will hopefully make up for it!

Dilemma

Again, so much to tell!  Each week seems to last 3 months here.  This whole week has been about housing housing housing housing.  We have to find someplace to live.  Thursday was the day I cried.  A lot.

There is "on post" housing here.  It's not horrible, but the word "ghetto" does come to mind.  There are a lot of people living in very small homes in a very small neighborhood.  But they are all Americans, there's a pool and a shoppette, and a shuttle bus.  Many/most people stationed here live in the Italian towns off post. 

The rule is, if they have on post housing available for you, you have to take it or the military will not pay for you to live in the hotel.  So you feel the pressure of choosing a housing option.  Now for us, this isn't a major deal because we make enough in our normal housing allowance to cover the hotel costs.  Oh, and you can only reserve 2 off post houses at a time to look at and you may only reserve them for 24 hours. 

We have arrived at a very unfortunate time.  There are a great deal of personnel coming here right now and not very many people leaving, in order to beef up the units for the deployment in several months (don't ask, I'll tell you about it later).  So the off post housing is really sparse at the moment.

We did go and look at the on post housing.  It's about 1100 sq ft.  And I could have lived with the ghetto atmosphere, the construction of the new school across the street, the crowded on street parking, and the perpetual sound of screaming kids and barking dogs, if there had only been enough space for the kids.  Those bedrooms were ridiculous.  A single bed and a small dresser would have all that would have fit.  No room for a bookshelf or a desk or toys or room to play, or even room to move!  I'm not trying to be super-picky, demanding a 2000 sq. ft. villa with a vineyard here.  I just want a decent place to live. 

So off post it will be for us.  We have looked at 3 places so far.  One was an actual house on about an acre.  The house was small, but had possiblities.  The landlord was ancient and grumpy.  The yard was hilly and unfenced.  It really was too isolated from any neighbors for me to feel comfortable out there alone.  And the only access to the laundry room was out the house and down a path to the garage.  But it did have a GORGEOUS view.

Yesterday morning we looked at a duplex in a town known as Torri, only about a 10 min. drive to post.  It's near the shopping malls and other stores and many other Americans live in this town.  The house itself is interesting.  There's a full kitchen (although tiny, almost all kitchens here are tiny) in a large room on the ground level, called a taverna.  My interpretation of this is that it is a party room.  This would be used for my office and our schoolwork and general use stuff.  It opens onto a teensy yard, only about 5 ft. by 8 ft.  But that's all our little doggie needs anyway.

Up many lovely stairs in the main living area with another tiny kitchen with a tiny eating area, a living room, a laundry room, 2 nice full baths, and the bedrooms.  The bedrooms are quite small, but I do think we could cram all the necessary furniture in.  Remember, Italian homes have no closets, so you lose floor space for a wardrobe/standing closet.  The master bedroom has a small balcony that overlooks the neighbors yard and the parking area and a bunch of buildings.  It's a rather crowded neighborhood, but there is a gated entrance to our small garage.  We could walk and take the bus to many things.  It also has air conditioning, a big benefit that many houses lack.

It seemed like a great house, especially after the horror of the on post place.  Then we saw another place in the afternoon.  This is another duplex in a town called Costabissara.  Say it, it's fun.  Costabissara.  This house....oh....it's lovely.  Each bedroom has it's own balcony and the master bedroom balcony is big enough for a table and 4 chairs.  The kitchen is good sized, as is the eating area.  The living room is generous and has a door that closes it off.  The laundry room is downstairs and is in the "2nd" bath.  This bath is kind of ugly.  It has a big, low utility sink, and a standing shower that is maybe 24 inches square.

But!  The upstairs bathroom is nice.  The bedrooms are huge by Italian standards.  AND there's a basement!  It's gross and dark and creepy right now, but we could see using half of it as a rec room and the rest for storage.  There's a garage on the main level that looks so nice I thought it was another living room till I noticed the big garage door.  AND there's a carport and enough space outside that we would not need to put a car in there and so could use it for more living space.

AND the neighborhood is beautiful and quiet.  Our views are nice.  There is front and back yard.  There's a pomegranate tree in the front.  There's a gelateria (ice cream store) right across the streeet.  There are sidewalks and just down the block is a nice park with a playground and walking paths.

So why am I not sure about picking house #2?  It's a good 25 minute drive through city traffic to post.  And driving through the city here is a act of concentration, bravery, and white knuckles.  This is a huge, huge negative here.  DH will have to drive this every day.  I'll need to go to post much more often than I did in the states.  Our mail is picked up there, the commissary is there, the library.  When DH is home, he can get the mail, but he's going to be gone a lot.  The kids are going to want to socialize and do activities, all happening on post.  I just don't see me wanting to drive that drive so frequently.

The other issue is that we might get toooo comfy in the big house and not be as likely to go on trips and get out and see the country as often.  I would be far more isolated out there when DH is gone.  I think we can get used to living in a smaller space, but that drive is really going to wear on us.  And yet, when I told the kids we probably would not take the bigger house, they both cried.  It broke my heart.

At this point, I am really hoping that I will go into housing when it opens on Monday and find something else to look at.  New listings are put up first thing in the morning and once someone books a viewing, no one else can look at it for 24 hrs.  You can only have 2 bookings at once, so I have to let at least one house go in order to see anything new.  And we only get 5 trips with the interpreter, so we have 2 left.  The pressure!  I do hope we find a 3rd option on Monday, but someone is going to be dissatisfied or upset no matter what we choose. 

Ciao, bella!

(This reminds me of a guy I used to work with here.  As we’d drive through town into work every morning, he’d call out the window “Ciao, bella!” to all the girls.  Sometimes they’d wave back, but when they ignored him he’d moan, “Ooooh, DC - denied Ciao!”)

How are all of you doing?  I feel like it has been years since I left the USA, but apparently it has only been 4 days.  4 verrrry long days.  The journey was fine, things went as well as could be expected.  The dog was crammed in her carry-on container for about 14 hours and but did perfectly.  For all the hassle of getting her over here, the flight was really the easier part for her. 

There’s so much to tell you.  Rather than try and form a coherent post, let me just hit you with some random highlights.  Pardon the wacked out formatting, it's complicated.

-          We arrived just as nearly all of the post has gone on block leave.  Combined with the holiday weekend, it means that very few people are working and we aren’t getting much done. 

-          We are staying in temporary lodging, but whoaaa….it’s comfy.  We’ve got a 3 bdrm, 1.5 bath apartment, with a full kitchen and living room.  I have no complaints with where we are staying!  Okay, it would be nice if they had internet and I didn’t have to walk half a mile to do laundry, but otherwise….

-          We have our housing appointment on Wednesday.  We have heard various horror stories about the housing situation here.  Most of the stories center around the theme that the housing office will try and get you to take crappy houses and then threaten to take away your temporary lodging allowance that pays for you to stay in the hotel if you decline them.  Many people have gone outside the government system and used a private Italian realtor to find them decent places to live.  We shall see how it goes.

-          Within 24 hours of landing, my husband had already found 6 people than he knew from various places.  Supposedly, I knew all of them too, but there’s only one guy I vaguely remember.

-          It stays light really late here, till around 10 p.m.  We are having a terrible time adjusting.  No one can drag themselves out of bed before 9 or 10 in the morning and we can’t fall asleep at night.

-          With no vehicle and most everyone gone, we are walking walking walking walking.  I don’t mind it and the kids are getting used to it, but it does make it hard to buy things that are heavy or bulky and would be difficult to carry back.  If only it wasn’t so HOT.

-          In 15 years, so much has changed on post.  The Burger King, the chapel, and the movie theater are among the only things that are in the same place.  The PX is 5 times the size it was and there’s a new commissary.  I think I might have been a bit disheartened at the limited selection if I didn’t remember how much worse it used to be.  My barracks have been remodeled (they have air conditioning now!  Wusses.)  and there’s a new and bigger library.  This is still a very very very tiny post.  Maybe 2 square miles?  Certainly no more.  And although it is the same size as it was 15 years ago, there are easily twice as many people here now.

-          We’ve only been off post once.  We are usually so tired from walking to the PX and the library and the launderette and the bowling alley that going anywhere further just seems too wearying.  We did go out to dinner last night at the restaurant where we had our first Italian meal when we first lived here last night.  The same waiter was still working there and the food was still delicious.  It was a lot more expensive than back in the days of the lira and the strong dollar.  Today we’ve all been warned not to go off post because there are anti-American protesters who are unhappy with the planned expansion of the

US

post here.

 

-          Cell phones are THE most confusing thing ever here.  Your brain will absolutely explode trying to figure out how the plans work and forget understanding how much you are paying for when it’s all said & done.  The tiny, overheated store is always crowded and while the salespeople speak English, they speak it very quickly with an accent.  Things are prepaid, but not in minutes and by the month, but only in set amounts.  I still haven’t figured out exactly what I prepaid for. 

 

-          Nonetheless, I am getting an iPhone!  I’m so excited.  They have a waitlist for them, but told me I should have it by Monday.  I have no doubt that I will be paying gobs and gobs of money for the phone and its use, but this is DH’s “I made you move to

Italy

and if this makes you happy, then here you go.” gift.  I’m hoping things like the GPS and currency converter applications will make it more useful than the average phone.

-     I’m having a very

hard time getting used to not being able to get on the internet whenever I want.  There is no such thing as free wi-fi here.  The library and the community center have computers to use, but many sites – such as Facebook…wahhhhh – are restricted.  I can go to the bowling alley and pay to use unrestricted internet there at about $5 for 35 minutes.  I did buy the Italian version of a wireless USB air card.  But again, the plans are so strange, I finally just told the guy to give me the biggest plan there was, so I think I have 4.5 GB to use this month.  It’s kind of hard to have a job working online when the internet is so hard to get to.

-          It doesn’t feel like the 4^th of July today.  On July 2^nd, the post had a Freedom Fest celebration.  Free hot dogs, burgers, chips, sodas, and ice cream.  There were rides and games for the kids and the evening ended not with fireworks but a laser light show.  It was exactly 16 years ago on that day on this post at a very similar celebration that my then boyfriend turned to me during the fireworks and asked me to marry him.  Now there is a hospital under construction on that spot, but it was still good to be back there for that anniversary.

-          The Diet Coke here is Coca Cola Light and it does not taste right.  I can get the normal Diet Coke in a can from the commissary, but there is no Diet Cherry Coke to be found.

That’s all I can come up with for now.  I’ve hardly knit.  I worked on my sock on the airplane but I don’t think I’m going to use up the stash I brought with me.

Hopefully we’ll get out and about more soon.  DH is going to buy a vehicle, but the good ones get snapped up quite quickly so it may be a while.  My van won’t be here until the end of August.  I wish I had some photos for you, but like I said, we haven’t really left post yet.  Got any questions?  Let me know and I might be able to answer them.