we are here now for 1 month. time goes very fast when you enjoy it. the place here did not change dramaticly, but we are moving old stuff and dust out the house everyday and there is still a lot left. but the most time we spend was so far : cleaning the garden up and getting the papers going so we can get our container through costums. that is the main thing we have to work on. several visits to the comune in gualdo and 4 days in a row to macerata ( 41km single way). so far we got my residence here accomplished. Jon tried to get his done with no real success. he got all the papers together, but he cannot get an appointment for 
the fingerprints. there are oodles of people at the immigration with small kids in a room with no air movement (windows were looked). they all spoke more italian than we do, but no english. so we stand in a line just to hear somehow that we have to come next day. we did and after standing in line a policeman came and screamed something, what translated meant : today closed - no sign - nothing. i guess this is the ferragosto holiday. when everything is closed and all the people are somewhere else.
we needed a translation of the health insurance papers (we luckily did the last minute online in germany) and just that did cost us 2 drives to macerata 40euro and extra 4 bollos a 14.62 euros and - 1 policeman who speaks english (wife from NY) and 2 nice ladies willing to help us fasts and unbureaucratic. it took that lady 1/2 hour just to get all the stamps and signs on the photocopies.
but we have it!!!!!
now the moving company: they try to get out of our "door to door" contract and want us to figure out how to unload our stuff from that huge container and reload on a smaller truck what can make the curves to our house. this has to be solved next week. the container is postponed to arrival in livorno on the 16. of august--- did i say everybody is on vacation this week????
now to the smaller thing in our lives: i am thinking when ever i get across of one of these how some of my friends would react to these guys: scorpions - the only thing i have problems with where 2 i found in the bathroom: this one in the tub (easy to take a pic) but the other one was hanging over the toilet. and all the other once are not visible on that floor - - they say always wear shoes in the house.....
and than there
was a visitor in the middle of the night, i woke up from this strange noise - too sleepy to realize that fluttering noise, than i saw the fast dark shadow - a bat flew
in the bedroom and took care of the moscitos, what an excitement, we see them now every night and watch for them, flying over our heads into the kitchen door and out the window, that is really nice!
than of course were all the trips to the stores and figuring out what how works for what money. we have now a new fridge see picture) and a washer and stove. the stove was quiet a difficult buy.
we figured with the 3000 watt power coming in the house , we should not have an electric oven using 2500 watt- that might get us some blown fuse head age. so we decided on an all gas stove, - did you know there is no real temperature control, means no thermometer? how in the world can i make my banana bread right- i have already scraped twice the bananabreadcoal off. Jon did adjust the flame size, i hope i can now bake without burning everything.
he is doing much better with his bread baking, even with no control over anything (no scale so far) and different flour types, temperatures, he bakes many times and we are eating wonderful bread every day.
we are meeting more and more interesting people, yesterday we were in sarnano to the market and got some very good information from Melcom's friends how to enroll here in the health insurance and some phone numbers from people who
might be helpful with our container. tomorrow we are invited to other expats from the US who just came over, and have some interesting things to tell. and we have been at the local pizza on the
piazza festival and talked to the locals at our table - so many friendly italian's around us. and we see our friend the policeman from gualdo all the time - he is our biggest help here with informations and translating for our papers.
more about this soon, i hope....
the fingerprints. there are oodles of people at the immigration with small kids in a room with no air movement (windows were looked). they all spoke more italian than we do, but no english. so we stand in a line just to hear somehow that we have to come next day. we did and after standing in line a policeman came and screamed something, what translated meant : today closed - no sign - nothing. i guess this is the ferragosto holiday. when everything is closed and all the people are somewhere else.we needed a translation of the health insurance papers (we luckily did the last minute online in germany) and just that did cost us 2 drives to macerata 40euro and extra 4 bollos a 14.62 euros and - 1 policeman who speaks english (wife from NY) and 2 nice ladies willing to help us fasts and unbureaucratic. it took that lady 1/2 hour just to get all the stamps and signs on the photocopies.
but we have it!!!!!
now the moving company: they try to get out of our "door to door" contract and want us to figure out how to unload our stuff from that huge container and reload on a smaller truck what can make the curves to our house. this has to be solved next week. the container is postponed to arrival in livorno on the 16. of august--- did i say everybody is on vacation this week????
now to the smaller thing in our lives: i am thinking when ever i get across of one of these how some of my friends would react to these guys: scorpions - the only thing i have problems with where 2 i found in the bathroom: this one in the tub (easy to take a pic) but the other one was hanging over the toilet. and all the other once are not visible on that floor - - they say always wear shoes in the house.....and than there
was a visitor in the middle of the night, i woke up from this strange noise - too sleepy to realize that fluttering noise, than i saw the fast dark shadow - a bat flew
in the bedroom and took care of the moscitos, what an excitement, we see them now every night and watch for them, flying over our heads into the kitchen door and out the window, that is really nice!than of course were all the trips to the stores and figuring out what how works for what money. we have now a new fridge see picture) and a washer and stove. the stove was quiet a difficult buy.
we figured with the 3000 watt power coming in the house , we should not have an electric oven using 2500 watt- that might get us some blown fuse head age. so we decided on an all gas stove, - did you know there is no real temperature control, means no thermometer? how in the world can i make my banana bread right- i have already scraped twice the bananabreadcoal off. Jon did adjust the flame size, i hope i can now bake without burning everything.he is doing much better with his bread baking, even with no control over anything (no scale so far) and different flour types, temperatures, he bakes many times and we are eating wonderful bread every day.
we are meeting more and more interesting people, yesterday we were in sarnano to the market and got some very good information from Melcom's friends how to enroll here in the health insurance and some phone numbers from people who
might be helpful with our container. tomorrow we are invited to other expats from the US who just came over, and have some interesting things to tell. and we have been at the local pizza on the
piazza festival and talked to the locals at our table - so many friendly italian's around us. and we see our friend the policeman from gualdo all the time - he is our biggest help here with informations and translating for our papers.more about this soon, i hope....
