The pace of life. . .

I just got an e-mail from Braxton's school reminding us that school starts this week. "School begins each day at 8:30. Children need to be at school no later than 9:00"

A Random Observation

Since our arrival here I have noticed something about Italians, while they do everything in life very, very slowly; they drive very, very fast. At first I thought it might have something to do with the heat, but it’s not hot here all the time. Then maybe I thought that the semi-socialist society had bred a kind of laziness, but many of the people I’ve met so far are very hard working. As far as the driving goes I thought maybe that had something to do with their great racing heritage; you know Mario Andretti, Ferrari and Lamborghini and all that. But there is NASCAR all over the south and nobody there drives like this. So I remained perplexed, until recently.

I voiced my confusion at work one morning while having coffee with several of my co-workers from other nations. It is a two or three times daily occurrence that there is a large gathering, informally of course, around one of the coffee machines at work. Sometimes it is the best place to accomplish business, sometimes it is just to pass the time. At any rate, I was voicing my curiosity and one of the Germans who has been here for some time spoke up and said (you have to imagine Col. Klink’s voice here) “Zee pace of livef is za same evwewhere, zo if you take 2 howars to eat, you must drive to za next appointment very quickly.” Riddle solved.

Why are they staring at us, again?

Yesterday was my day to make to weekly mail run, which coincided nicely with the food exhaustion in our house. So after spending enough money to bail out GM and Fanny Mae, our kitchen is fully stocked and we have a grill to prepare dinner on. This now allows us to eat dinner at home, without melting the paint off the walls. Only problem was…SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED. No big deal, I moved all the parts into the lighted entry area and began to work on the grill assembly last night. But after 2 visits from the very nice older neighbors who live across the entryway and one from the upstairs neighbors (all concerning the strange noises) I decided to call it quits and finish later.
This afternoon I completed the assembly of the grill, which again required the strewing of parts and tools across the garden and several crashing sounds. All of this again drew the curiosity of our neighbors, but not as much as when I fired it up and the smell of charcoal smoke and cooking chicken began to fill the air. This brought them out to seriously investigate what exactly I was up to. So I explained (in English and broken Italian) and listened to their stories of BBQ’s (in Italian and broken English) and showed them the grill and what I was cooking. I told them that when the weather cooled we would have a party, and they would defiantly be invited. This prompted them to give me 2 bottles of wine, both of which he bottled himself, and they offered up their picnic table, chairs and tiki lamps.
Lauren astutely pointed out that most likely the reason why things seem so strange, both to us and to our neighbors, is the close proximity in which we live. In the States you can’t always see/hear/smell what your neighbors are doing, and it is probably best when they are up to weird things. But this is not the case here; everything is very conspicuous because we are all on top of each other. So I guess our neighbors are probably as fascinated, if not more so, by the “strange” things we do as we are by them.

Giorni di Cane di Estate

I’m hot, she’s hot, we’re hot, it’s hot…and we can’t do anything about it. We decided, after about a week of avoiding the stove/oven as if it had the swine flu, that we must break down and buy a small air conditioner to cool at least our room. The problem is this: first our house is over 500 years old and putting in central AC is impossible and is not allowed because our house is “historic”. Second it has been about 95 or more for the last 2 weeks. Third turning on the oven heats the inside of our house to about the same temperature as the Sun. Fourth, since the our room opens to the street, where the heat from the day is the worst, our windows remain shut while the boys’ room and windows on the back open to the garden and are able to cool. Fifth at the end of the day our room remains around 35(Celsius) and we sleep poorly. Sixth and finally we’re stuck because all stores were closed Sunday (which is usual) and Saturday (which is odd) for a holiday. So we continue to sweat, Texas in August doesn’t sound so bad; I think we’ll go there next time. Just like all the Italians, we’ll go on vacation

Speaking of which, literally everything closes for vacation: restaurants, coffee shops, retail stores, gas stations and hotels. That’s right, gas stations and even the major hotels close for a week or two in August. The combination of August and a holiday weekend left our small town nearly deserted this past weekend. But that wasn’t so bad, we had a great afternoon tour of the Castle downtown and a nice and very Italian dinner of Panini sandwiches on the cathedral square.

We decided, while taking in the scenery and enjoying the beautiful bells from the cathedral, that our little town is a magnificent and seemingly undiscovered gem. I’m sure that Rome, Venice or other more well know and popular places have a great number of beautiful things to see and do, but I would say that Ferrara rivals them, if only on a small scale. So despite the sweating, which we have decided to remedy at the next available opportunity, we like our new home.

At 8:00 this morning a car alarm went off and it was LOUD. Not the little beep beep of European cars but loud honk, honk, honk. This is the first car alarm I’ve heard in Italy. It goes on and on. People start opening their windows and yelling in Italian.

Finally I go to the window to see why no one has turned this alarm off. Of course, I look out the window and realize it is OUR big American cadi. So of course I panic. . . someone must be stealing our car and I’m in my pajamas and Matt is at work. What do I do, what do I do??? I start looking for the keys and can’t find them. Where did Matt put the keys?!?!? Then Will walks into the room holding the keys with his finger on the alarm button and proudly saying “I push button! I push button!” Must find a better place for the keys.

La Casa

It has been very nice to be settled in. Italy is starting to feel like home.
Although we did venture to the beach on Friday, our excursions have been limited to necessity rather than fun. We spent most of the weekend hanging the last remaining pictures and curtains. If it seems that it is taking a while to get unpacked, you’re right. We could not figure out why until recently. The problem is Italy has great wine and it is very cheap. So while the kids usually prevented Lauren from making progress while I was at work, a glass or two of wine with dinner really removes any ideas we may have had about getting work done after the kids went to bed. So, an ultimatum was issued “No wine until we finish the last few things”; which we promptly ignored and spent both Saturday and Sunday working.

The beach was pretty good and it was nice to relax; but I realized how spoiled we were in N.C. The public beaches here are full with beach chairs and umbrellas, and although there weren’t a lot of people, it gave the impression of a crowd. The water was warm and there were no waves to speak of. The Adriatic is not really known for waves and there are rock jetties about 500 yards off shore that break up any small surf that may disrupt the “football” games on shore. Fortunately there was not too much inappropriate Speedo wear and we were home for dinner, since it is only about a 35-45 min drive away.

All in all things are great but like Vincent Vega said; “It's the little differences. I mean they got the same stuff over there that they got here, but it's just, just there it's a little different.”

August 3: Big Monday and La Cucina

It has arrived, La Cucina (the kitchen)! Over the past week we have had a parade of folks in our house, none of whom spoke any English, taking out our old kitchen and installing the new one. (If you are lost on the kitchen, read the June 26 blog). The old kitchen was to be donated to the Italian version of Goodwill, and starting Thursday 2 older men in one very, very, very tiny truck began the removal. I felt bad watching them work without much equipment, expertise or joint mobility so I joined in the removal process.

Once the kitchen was out we were left without running water, which upset the oldest, older gentleman. He explained to me (all in Italian) that he felt bad leaving the bambino with no water and drew me a map to the hardware store, left his phone number and offered tools to ensure I could get the sink lines capped and restore water to the rest of the house…this took awhile, and several thousand hand motions and 2 trips to bablefish.com for some translations. Luckily I already knew the hardware store, but I let him draw the map anyway.
Friday morning, after round 2 of removal the cleaning crew arrived to remove the 400 years of dirt, mold and grease left under and behind the old kitchen. You could actually see a raised edge where the grease began on the backsplash!

Friday afternoon the install guys showed up, along with the plumber…but he would have to wait until Saturday for the installation to be completed to hook up water and gas. Finally Saturday afternoon, after a reappearance from the installation guys to correct some flaws in their work (the dishwasher would not open) the electrician showed up to complete the ordeal. Sunday evening we had dinner in our own house prepared by the beautiful hands of my wife, including chocolate chip cookies…can you believe that.

This afternoon we made the last push to rid our house of boxes, hang some pictures and the shower curtain…the end is in sight.