Finally.
Here is a shot of the front of the building (it is the orange one in the middle), with a veggie/fruit truck from Gaeta beautifully stationed in the front.
This is, apparently, what the square will look like on occasion, when the market is not in progress.
When we met last week for the inspection, we got a taste of what our neighborhood will be like on a more typical day... imagine chaos involving a daily market, not knowing exactly where to park, people, motorcycles, and cars parked three-deep everywhere - remember that video I shared a few posts back?
Our landlord finally advised us to park in the courtyard, between the two buildings.
Can't wait till the crane arrives to unload our furniture. Mamma mia.
So we met with the inspector...
There might have been a bit of tomfoolery involved in that meeting - something to do with our landlord not using the realtors working on base... we suspect everyone...
Have you ever tried to read body language when Italians are speaking?
Impossible.
It's solved. For the moment.
So then we swing by the housing warehouse, where we deliberate (and actually make a few trips to measure, estimate, and ponder) over which appliances we should select to make our stay as pleasant as possible.
This is an arduous task. Especially related to how the Italians do laundry. They use very small washers (there is one currently in the apartment that is 5.5 kilos). This allows for about two pieces of the Majors clothing at one time. And since the washers heat the water per load, it takes about ninety minutes to do a load. Do the math on that one.
Oh, AND, since electricity is so expensive, they don't generally use a clothes dryer - they put everything on the line outside. I remember doing this when I was a kid. In Nebraska.
We will have a dryer, but apparently they take around two hours to dry a load of clothes, and we could use the laundromat on base, but that will involve several flights of stairs, a very active bimba (soon to be toddler), and parking who knows where...
So... I have been practicing my clothes hanging technique in our current lodgings.
My mother should be proud.
The great news is that we have a contract signing date.
Monday.
Our stuff, and by this I mean *oh thank god I finally get to sleep in my own bed*, arrives on Thursday.
Barring any other interruptions.
For example, it rained a bit last week, which means that some of the streets were flooded. Which causes traffic jams - that's fairly normal. Apparently Major was in one such jam. "Allegedly" there were Italians (my favorite is when people pronounce this *I*-talians) driving on the sidewalk. Even motorcycles were jammed in. Someone (again "allegedly") started to bump from behind, which eventually pushed Major's car into the car in front, etc... Have you ever heard of people shoving one another in a traffic jam before? Ah, well, once again, welcome to Italy.
Throw in ANOTHER holiday (with fireworks all the day long OF COURSE), to create unpredictable traffic patterns, mysterious gatherings and liquefaction of saint's blood...
And then yesterday there was a strike at the NATO base. I was planning to attend a welcome coffee for the Allied Spouses club. They do charity things, I thought I would be a good wife and check it out... Major calls with news that he is still in the car. This is after 9:00 a.m. He left the house at 7:30, with a 1/2 hour drive to work... There is a massive jam-up in front of the base. Do I really want to bring the baby into that mess? Skipped the coffee.
So what could possibly go wrong next week? I'll let you know.
In the meantime, we will spend the weekend shopping for a teensy car that Major can barely fold himself into (that *might* fit into the garage), area rugs so Smalls doesn't crack her head open on the marble floors, transformers so that we can figure out what to plug in where... and a basket of laundry pins.
