June 25: Just a Bit of Paperwork

Our hotel room for the first few nights was in a beautiful place…there was even a part of it that bridged over the street. The only problem was it looked out onto the main square in the middle of town, which makes it very scenic and very loud since there are many bars, restaurants and even a bad until late in the night. So needless to say nobody slept great between jetlagged body clocks and all of the noise outside. Never the less we had appointments and had to get rolling, slowly, at 8:30.
I had to take a driving test…Lauren passed on taking the test because we had to cram in the car on the way up and that didn’t jive with crazy Italian driving and her motion sickness. In the meantime I headed off to get the car registered, which is not here yet but cannot be shipped from Germany until it is first registered. This required a trip to the USAA office in town, where they did speak some English but I had to call the states to get most of the items done. With the insurance in hand I went over to the vehicle shipping place, about 3 miles by car, and paid 20 dollars and 5 Euros…they would not take anything but $20 cash and 5 Euro cash, very funny. After that we went over to see when the car might arrive…looks like mid to late July if we are lucky. The problem with all of these steps is I couldn’t remember our address and didn’t know our cell phone number (we only had one at this point), so there was a lot of making things up for now until I can straighten it out next week.
Back to an appointment with the housing office, and at this point the boys began to wear out. It was their naptime and we had about an hour and a half long appointment…on the high side negotiations for the house began; so that should mean we can get moved in earlier. By the end we were all running on fumes, and despite their very tired faces, and only a few pouts, the boys were hanging in there great.
The last stop, after being picked up was to get another phone for me and some groceries to survive on, like milk and cereal. A very dreary drive back to the hotel allowed the boys to get a little nap. We stayed in the room for dinner; Lauren fixed spaghetti, after that the boys and I walked around the square for a few minutes while Lauren got the place somewhat organized.
About dark it began to rain and it continued for most for most of the night; which kept the crowds away and let everyone get some much needed rest… it had been a very long but productive day.