Home Life

So now we’ve been in the ol’ apartment for three whole weeks today!  It’s our three week-aversary! 

We’ve opened every box by now.  They have been broken down or stuffed with excess paper and are all sitting on our balcony until such time as I stop being forgetful and call the moving company to come back and take them all away.  (I’ll write that note to myself yet again in my daytimer…)  The first two weeks involved several calls between Perla, the poor woman at housing whose name we actually remember and thus call regularly to help us, and our landlord.  We’d call Perla in a frantic state because the key to the laundry room was missing, the DSL password is still isn’t correct or because the AC in our bedroom still doesn’t work.  There are flowers in store for Perla very soon...  Most recently, I wrote poor ol’ Perla an email because the alarm company came out and something needs to be fixed before our alarm will work.  The guy spoke some English and when he left, we both muddled through “You practice English, I’ll practice Italian before we meet again.”  To that end, I’ve done the first 4 lessons in my Italian grammar book and made Tom about 500 flashcards of common phrases.  We’ll have to start hitting the books harder when our neighbors start coming back into town.

This week was Ferragosto, the celebration of the Assumption of Mary, our neighborhood has been a ghost town.  Most everyone in our neighborhood is somewhere else vacationing right now.  I mean it, everyone!  The Agip where we park has been locked up since Sunday, when I filled out my ration card to get gas.  The night/Sunday watchman must take some other week off because he’s been there every day!  He and poor Ella, the skinny dog that lives at the gas station, who loves our CRV because it’s the only car tall enough for her to sleep under. 

In Italy, hand guestures are very popular.  I took a class on them and it’s been remarkably helpful.  The most important one, I’ve discovered, is to put your hand out like a finger gun.  Are you doing it?  I’m doing it as I type this to make sure that I’m explaining it correctly.  So, finger gun out, then turn your whole hand on the 90 degree axis from right to left repeatedly.  This means the following:

1.       It doesn’t work (common when your tv, alarm system or AC are broken and the technician can’t tell you why)

2.       I’m not working (this is most common in taxis, buses or gas stations are on strike or closed)

3.       I don’t have any money (this one seems odd, but it’s very helpful when gypsies approach you in the Ikea parking lot.  They are normally unphased and follow you around shouting Italian curse words.)

This is the hand gesture that the parking attendant uses to tell me that he won’t take my ration card, the sign our landlord gives me when I try to tell him that the DSL doesn’t work and the sign that the alarm technician gave me when the alarm wouldn’t turn on.

Speaking of Ikea: That place is amazing.  Difficult, but amazing.  If normal Ikea wasn’t hard enough when trying to figure out if the Fromburhan is something that you actually want to buy, it’s even harder when the description of said item is in Italian.  Luckily, we got all of the right things, with the exception of a kitchen cart for our very wide kitchen hallway.  I have this sneaking suspicion that we may never own an actual cart there, as Ikea doesn’t ever have them in stock and no one in the States will ship them to our PO box.  Drat!  But anywho, we came back from Ikea with a coat rack, two rugs (oh the feeling of rugs on your feet is amazing after standing on marble tile all day!), a collection of placemats and my personal favorite, a little cart to put my groceries in.  It’s black and white polka dots and I’m sure Tom will feel remarkably masculine filling it up with groceries out of the trunk of the car!  And today, we bought the other most important thing: a fan for our bedroom.  The AC hasn’t worked in a week and with all of the windows open, we tend to hear that alarm that goes off EVERY night.  What is it to?  Why does it always go off?  What in the name of Pete triggers it at 2:30 every morning!?!?  Alas, these are things that we will hopefully get used to, or we can drown out a little more with the fake air movement of a fan.  It’s the simple things in life that really do it for me. 

I’ve included some pictures of the before and not-entirely-after shots.  We’ve still got some artwork that needs to be hung up and various piles of things that need a home.  For some reason, when it’s 85% complete, I’m more inclined to just not look at the piles of things that still have to be put away.  Plus, with both of us working, it’s been a bit tough to find the time and energy at night to continue working on the house.  But, we’ll get there eventually! 

Will try to keep everyone posted as we start our own personal tourist season.  The travel plans for now include:

Amalfi Coast Day Cruise on Saturday, August 20

Naples Underground Tour Sunday, August 28

The Cinque Terre over Labor Day Weekend

Ireland Oct 1 for the Valentia Island Half Marathon

Stuttgart to visit my friend, Anna, from UVA over Oktoberfest!

Somewhere for our anniversary that Tom’s in charge of