Day 5

See our photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/kgvVKF18snfgq5RR9

Here it is Sunday, our fifth day in our Italian home.

So much has happened in these first few days! I'll probably get the days mixed up, but that won't

not matter. It's what we've done and seen that's important.

Our flight to Rome was relatively uneventful. The plane was full, no empty seats. We flew through customs, no problem. The fastest ever. We followed the crowd outside, easily found where the bus stop is, and asked where the Dicarlobus stopped. Right in front of us! We had thought we would be taking a 1:00 pm bus because our plane arrived at 7:00 a.m. and we expected to have a long wait for customs. But it was only a little after 8:00 a.m. The next bus left at 9:00, so off we went, early. That hardly ever happens.

I texted Pamela (our landlord) that we would be arriving in Vasto at about 1:00 pm. It was nice to see her smiling face as the bus pulled in to the station. We managed to get all of our luggage into her little Volkswagen Polo and took off for Casalanguida.

The roads are narrow and winding. I thought the roads in the Black Hills were scary. But the scenery is magnificent. Rolling hills, charming stone houses. Just breathtaking. We pulled in to the drive, and I was very surprised to see that other houses were so close by. The house seemed smaller than the photos.

We spent the afternoon chatting with Pamela while she showed us the house, the garden, and the shed. The lock on one of the doors was jammed, so she was planning on bringing some WD40 to try to open it. She has prepared dinner for us-- cauliflower fresh from her garden in a wonderful cheese sauce. And fish sticks (oh well). She took the car to drive to her friend's house for the night.

I wish I could find words to describe how cold it was in the house. Even Mike was shivering. Our first night was not exactly pleasant. For me, the worst was the cold toilet seat. BRRRRR.

Wednesday. We did sleep well in spite of it all. In fact, we slept till 10:30. And Pamela was due to arrive at 11:00. She was a little late, so it all worked out. She needed to take us to the Commune to register us as tenants. So we took off to see the little town of Casalanguida. I learned that I had been pronouncing it incorrectly. Most Italian words accent on the second-last syllable, so I was pronouncing it CasalanGUIDa. I was duly corrected: CasaLANGuida. The first of many lessons.

Then we drove to Lanciano to pick up our "Yellow Packets" from the post office. This is the form we fill out to apply Elective Residency. We had lunch as a cute cafe in center of town. Then we dropped Pamela off at her friend's house. Mike took over the driving with just a little apprehension. But he did great, even on the round-abouts.

Thursday, our third day. We spent the better part of the day filling out the form for residency. First, though, Mike had to figure out how to turn on the printer so we could make a copy of the form. We used the copy as a draft. Once we completed the applications, we hopped in the car and took off to Vasto to go grocery shopping. It's about a 30 minute drive. We found a Lidl store and were able to pick up a several things to fill our pantry.

So, let me tell you a little about this house. It's a stone cottage, with walls 18 or more inches thick. Who knows how old it is. Pamela has updated it extensively. The second floor was empty, no rooms. She divided it into two bedrooms and a small bathroom. The first floor living room has a wood stove that is used to heat the whole area and the upstairs. It doesn't do very well. The kitchen was added and Pamela added a room off of it and put in another wood stove and a half bath with a washing machine. She also added the portico at the back of the house. There is a nice breeze, and the view is amazing.

Now, the garden. It needs lots of tender loving care. BUT we have three almond trees, a fig tree, a pine nut tree, some lemon trees, and a walnut tree. The vegetable garden has been started. I downloaded an app to identify the plants and the veggies.

We met our next door neighbor Paul. He's really nice. He's British and his wife is back in the UK working for now. He was repairing his sewer line and discovered that ours was tied in to his and also wasn't working so he went ahead and repaired ours too. Now that's a good neighbor!

Friday. With our yellow packets in hand, we took off for Lanciano. We needed to get an Italian phone because the form required it. After Googling and searching we found a Vodafone store with a nice lady who spoke a little (very little) English. She was most helpful. We decided to buy a separate phone for the Italian SIM to avoid having to swap out cards. Then back to the post office to turn in our packets.

Not so quick. First we had to show our Green Card. Which of course we don't have. But we had our CDC cards. Which confused them. They pulled out a booklet with a list of approved vaccines and found our Pfizer and Moderna vaccines on the list. They were impressed, though, that we had 4 shots: our first two, plus two boosters.

A very nice lady who did speak a little English was gracious and asked us what the fee is. We didn't understand. It took a while, but finally, we learned that there is another fee and we get that amount from the Questura (police station). We found our way there. The gate was locked. We pushed a button on the intercom and were let in. We asked the woman behind the counter if she could tell us the amount for elective residency. After some back and forth, she said "Who filled this out?" referring to our application forms. I said I did. She was appalled. "You can't do this! you need to go to a CAF and have them fill it out for you and they will tell you how much." A CAF is a commercialista (accountant,) In the end, she did tell us the amount: 70.46 euros. Crazy.

We then set out to find a CAF. A web search pointed us in many directions, non of which were successful. We decided that since we knew the amount we would just go back to the post office and see what they said. Again, the nice lady (I told her she was an angel) helped us with no problem. We have an appointment with the Questura on 12 April.

The paperwork says it's the Questura in Vasto and we were happy to think we didn't have to go back to the rude lady in Lanciano. But Paul tells us we do. So one day this week we'll go to the Questura in Vasto and ask. Just to double check.

Saturday. We met other neighbors Maria and Robert. They are also British. They've lived here for 11 years. Very nice people.

We did some laundry. It was kinda fun hanging clothes out to dry. I thought of my cousin Ginny who doesn't even own a clothes dryer. Very few people here do.

I was feeling more comfortable on the roads, so I drove us to Vasto to shop at the Conad grocery. It's much larger than Lidl and seems to have better quality products. It was fun to see the products. So many different kinds of pasta!

That evening I sent Mike out to the garden to cut a cauliflower. I made my special recipe with onions tomatoes and parmesan. And I roasted some chicken thighs. We had bought a bottle of Barolo. It was a very nice dinner. We are feeling more relaxed.

Sunday. We woke up to discover that the time has changed. Somehow we lost an hour. In the cupboard were aa couple dozen glass jars with various types of pasta, rice, flour, and unknowns in them that Pamela had left. I pulled them out, dumped the ingredients, and Mike washed each jar. One of the cupboards is tightly fixed to the wall, but the other isn't and it almost fell over on me. We're not quite sure what to do about that. Maybe Paul can help us.

Our neighbors Maria and Robert invited us over to their house for a drink. They have a beautiful garden and view. After 11 years here, they know many people and have offered to help us whenever.

Mike's computer has been giving him fits and he's busy trouble-shooting with Microsoft. I'm just getting ready to fix dinner and thinking about our next week here. Stay in touch!