Last night we went to a town festival called Il Palio della Contrade (The Prize of the Contradas). The town we live in (Montecchio Precalcino) is adjacent to two other small towns (Lera and Preara). Each town is partitioned to make teams called Contrada. Because we leave near the river Astico, our team is called Astegoti and our team color is red. Each team sends players to compete in events in the Parco di Villa Cita (Park of Cita Villa). They had a watermelon eating contest, a dunk tank, crazy relays on stilts, waterballoon tossing, etc. Each team earns points for competing, and the team with the most points wins. This festival was only created 7 years ago, but it has really grown into a huge event. They run this thing for 3 nights!! The first 2 nights, only half the teams participate each night. I went on Thursday night after Cyn and I had walked to our local gelateria for ice cream. Cyn just wanted to go home because it was so hot and humid, but I was intrepid and sallied forth without her.
Unfortunately I wasn't exactly sure where the Villa Cita was. We asked the Gelateria Guy and after a few minutes of conversation in Italian I set off... and managed to immediately get lost. So I asked a lady sitting in her front yard, and she got me a little further down the road. And finally I asked a couple on the street walking their dog, and luckily they were headed to the Palio, so I just followed them on the winding, uphill road to the Villa. After all that, team Astegoti wasn't even playing on that night (they had played on Wednesday night). At least I could check it out.
I had shown up kind of late to the Palio at 9:30; about an hour before it ended for the night. I was just standing there enjoying the festivities near the orange team, el Roccolo. The current game was some kind of scavenger hunt, and each team's captain was standing out in the middle of the field in their team's ring. The referee was on the PA system announcing all of the types of people the teams had to find: un persone con cappelli rosso (a person with red hair) etc. The list had about 20 different types of people. Then the whistle blew and the team captains dashed off into the crowd to start bringing people that matched the descriptions back to their ring. El Roccolo had already collected about 5 people in their ring when I realized the team captain was standing on my right... and talking to ME!! I had no idea what he was saying, so I quickly shook my head and said "Non Capisco" (I don't understand). So he said it again and flexed his muscles. I think one of the types of people he needed was supposed to be strong, and apparently I fit the bill. I again shook my head No No No, but he said it one more time and that's when all of his El Roccolo teammates agreed with his assessment and they jumped me! After that it didn't matter how many "non capiscos" or "non parlo italianos" I said, I was going into that ring. My last chance was to grab the red shirt I was wearing and yell out "Astegoti, Astegoti" in an effort to stay loyal to my team. It was to no avail and I was dragged down the hill and put into El Roccolo's scavenger hunt ring. It was thrilling and embarassing and confusing all at the same time. While I was standing there trying to figure out what to do next I really wished I could speak Italian. There was a young teenage girl talking to her friend in the ring I was in, and she kept grabbing her breasts!! I don't know what kind of "persone" she was supposed to be but apparently it has something to do with her breasts! I need a translator!!
Saturday night's games were more of the same, but this time Cynthia decided to tag along, and thankfully I was not forced to participate. Unfortunately we forgot our camera, so no pics. It was a lot cooler since we had a HAIL storm earlier in the day, and there's nothing like a little ice to cool things off in the middle of summer. Crazy Italian weather. This time all of the teams competed together and the festivities ran well after midnight. In the end Astegoti won!! This was the seventh year that they had the event, and the first time Astegoti won. At the end of the awards ceremony there was a really nice fireworks show.
Next year I hope my Italian is good enough that I can understand all of the events (and perhaps decipher why that girl kept grabbing her rack). And the ultimate goal is to make the team!!
Wanna know more? Check out their website at www.paliocontrade.it oh yeah, and learn Italian...
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
No 2 Without 3...
Another catch-up posting from Saturday 21 June:
OK the first weekend after we moved in, we decided that we needed to find some decent furniture options for our new home. Marlene told us that the IKEA store was in Padova about 50 KM away. Although I had only been driving the Punty little Punto for a couple of days in the wild, wild West of Italian motorways, we figured we were up to challenge of getting on the Autostrada. Have GPS, Will Travel! We were really excited about our trip, so we got ready first thing in the morning and stepped out of the house. On our front stoop, Cynthia turned to me and asked if I had my house key. I had to sheepishly admit that I didn't. "Ha Ha!" she said triumphantly as she brandished her key ring. The ever ready redhead wasn't going to get caught out in the cold anymore. She inserted her key to let me back in, but it wouldn't turn...
You see, my dear friends, there is another important lesson to be learned about the front door locks in Italian homes. Although we already knew that they locked automatically as soon as they're closed, what we didn't know is that your key won't work if there is a key already in it. You see there is a key hole on both sides of the door: inside and out. Kind of like those high security deadbolts in the States. And if you happen to leave the key inserted in the key hole on
the inside, which I had, it is not going to matter if you have the key on the outside, which we did, because the lock is never going to turn, which it didn't.
The worst part was that we had locked that house up tighter than a drum. After Cynthia had witnessed first hand not one, but TWO, people easily climb up the balcony and "Thief her house", she wasn't taking any chances. We locked every balcony door and window in the joint and
lowered every shutter. I took the heat for this one because I left the key in the door, so I had to approach Caterina with our problem. I hung my head in shame and tried to explain the situation to her as best I could. I injected a lot of "mi scusi" (Excuse me) and "mi dispiace" (I'm sorry) into the conversation. After a minute assessing the windows and agreeing that route was not going to be fruitful, she went back to her half of the duplex to see if she had a spare key to our taverna, which I knew for a fact did not have a key on the inside of the keyhole. And as luck would have it, she did! As she unlocked the basement door and we all paraded into the cool humidity of our downstairs, we all breathed a long sigh of relief and got a little chuckle. In her broken English, our landlady explained to us that if we weren't able to get in this way, then the only other option would be to break in to house by removing the glass panel adjacent to the front door. It is a very
difficult and dangerous process. She knew this first hand because they had to do it for the last American tennants who locked themselves out the same way we did. I immediately recalled seeing some nasty looking cracks in the long glass panel next to our front door and could only imagine what it must have taken to get in through that route. Pay attention future writers of America, this is a technique called "foreshadowing".
Well after a few more minutes of choppy English phrases mingled in with some seriously ungrammatical Italian, we thanked Caterina for the 87th time and sent her back to her house to continue her morning's activities. We in turn headed up our basement steps to remove that infernal key from the front door. It was at the top of the basement steps that we ran into "unaltra problema", another problem. As I have explained previously, every single door (except the bathroom door) has a key and lock on it, including this door at the top of our basement steps. And Cynthia being the security minded person that she is, had locked and left the key in this door last night before retiring for bed. We were back at square one, and I had to walk back around to Caterina's house to explain our new situation. I was less ashamed this time, because Cynthia had locked this door not me.
Yep, you guessed it, kiddies. There was no way in except through that pane of glass next to the door. Caterina had to go and pick up her son, Stefano, who had been away at camp or something, so we patiently sat on our front steps and reflected on how we managed to botch this thing up royally. After about 10 minutes Caterina and Stefano returned, and Stefano (17) and Michele (16), went to work on removing the glass from the front door. I hovered near by trying to help as best I could; handing them tools or holding the screws they removed. Cynthia sat with Caterina and her daugher, Sofia (7), and watched us work. By this point it was almost noon, and the full heat and humidity of the Italian summer made our labor that much more arduous. After a half hour of persistent effort, we were able to remove the wood frame, but the double paned glass was wedged and glued in pretty tight. However by bending the pane near the bottom Caterina was able to slide her thin arm in and remove the key from the door. The entire time I thought that glass, which already had some cracks in it, would break through and slice her arm open, but thankfully it didn't. We spent the next half hour putting the frame back on the window. After 87 more thank you's for Stefano, Michele, Caterina, and even Sofia, who waited so patiently, we were finally on our way to IKEA.
The trip down there had it's few little ups and downs, but compared to our morning, it seems almost anticlimactic. Stay tuned for more of Mike and Cyn's Italian Adventures!!
OK the first weekend after we moved in, we decided that we needed to find some decent furniture options for our new home. Marlene told us that the IKEA store was in Padova about 50 KM away. Although I had only been driving the Punty little Punto for a couple of days in the wild, wild West of Italian motorways, we figured we were up to challenge of getting on the Autostrada. Have GPS, Will Travel! We were really excited about our trip, so we got ready first thing in the morning and stepped out of the house. On our front stoop, Cynthia turned to me and asked if I had my house key. I had to sheepishly admit that I didn't. "Ha Ha!" she said triumphantly as she brandished her key ring. The ever ready redhead wasn't going to get caught out in the cold anymore. She inserted her key to let me back in, but it wouldn't turn...
You see, my dear friends, there is another important lesson to be learned about the front door locks in Italian homes. Although we already knew that they locked automatically as soon as they're closed, what we didn't know is that your key won't work if there is a key already in it. You see there is a key hole on both sides of the door: inside and out. Kind of like those high security deadbolts in the States. And if you happen to leave the key inserted in the key hole on
the inside, which I had, it is not going to matter if you have the key on the outside, which we did, because the lock is never going to turn, which it didn't.
The worst part was that we had locked that house up tighter than a drum. After Cynthia had witnessed first hand not one, but TWO, people easily climb up the balcony and "Thief her house", she wasn't taking any chances. We locked every balcony door and window in the joint and
lowered every shutter. I took the heat for this one because I left the key in the door, so I had to approach Caterina with our problem. I hung my head in shame and tried to explain the situation to her as best I could. I injected a lot of "mi scusi" (Excuse me) and "mi dispiace" (I'm sorry) into the conversation. After a minute assessing the windows and agreeing that route was not going to be fruitful, she went back to her half of the duplex to see if she had a spare key to our taverna, which I knew for a fact did not have a key on the inside of the keyhole. And as luck would have it, she did! As she unlocked the basement door and we all paraded into the cool humidity of our downstairs, we all breathed a long sigh of relief and got a little chuckle. In her broken English, our landlady explained to us that if we weren't able to get in this way, then the only other option would be to break in to house by removing the glass panel adjacent to the front door. It is a very
difficult and dangerous process. She knew this first hand because they had to do it for the last American tennants who locked themselves out the same way we did. I immediately recalled seeing some nasty looking cracks in the long glass panel next to our front door and could only imagine what it must have taken to get in through that route. Pay attention future writers of America, this is a technique called "foreshadowing".
Well after a few more minutes of choppy English phrases mingled in with some seriously ungrammatical Italian, we thanked Caterina for the 87th time and sent her back to her house to continue her morning's activities. We in turn headed up our basement steps to remove that infernal key from the front door. It was at the top of the basement steps that we ran into "unaltra problema", another problem. As I have explained previously, every single door (except the bathroom door) has a key and lock on it, including this door at the top of our basement steps. And Cynthia being the security minded person that she is, had locked and left the key in this door last night before retiring for bed. We were back at square one, and I had to walk back around to Caterina's house to explain our new situation. I was less ashamed this time, because Cynthia had locked this door not me.
Yep, you guessed it, kiddies. There was no way in except through that pane of glass next to the door. Caterina had to go and pick up her son, Stefano, who had been away at camp or something, so we patiently sat on our front steps and reflected on how we managed to botch this thing up royally. After about 10 minutes Caterina and Stefano returned, and Stefano (17) and Michele (16), went to work on removing the glass from the front door. I hovered near by trying to help as best I could; handing them tools or holding the screws they removed. Cynthia sat with Caterina and her daugher, Sofia (7), and watched us work. By this point it was almost noon, and the full heat and humidity of the Italian summer made our labor that much more arduous. After a half hour of persistent effort, we were able to remove the wood frame, but the double paned glass was wedged and glued in pretty tight. However by bending the pane near the bottom Caterina was able to slide her thin arm in and remove the key from the door. The entire time I thought that glass, which already had some cracks in it, would break through and slice her arm open, but thankfully it didn't. We spent the next half hour putting the frame back on the window. After 87 more thank you's for Stefano, Michele, Caterina, and even Sofia, who waited so patiently, we were finally on our way to IKEA.
The trip down there had it's few little ups and downs, but compared to our morning, it seems almost anticlimactic. Stay tuned for more of Mike and Cyn's Italian Adventures!!
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Moved In!
June 19:
Although we are really excited about moving into our own home, we still haven't received our car yet. The website says it is "Enroute". It's been "Enroute" ever since we got here. Once we move to our house, I won't be able to walk to work anymore, and we just don't know when our car is going to get here. So we decided to get a VW Rabbit. My good friend Marlene (she's from Hawaii) has one and it's a great car. Consumer Reports rated it the number 1 compact hatchback. Problem solved, right? Nope. Even though the car is right there in the dealer showroom across the street from base, it has to be sent to Germany for military registration, then shipped back down for us. That will take a week, so we had to rent a "Punto" just to get by. At least we'll have a car and get ourselves around rather than mooching rides off of people all the time.
I call our car the "Punty little Punto". It's a stick shift, so Cynthia isn't doing much driving. Driving in Italy is a real adventure. Driving a stick shift in Italy is even more of an adventure. These Italians are crazy!! Sure in the movies it's all about the laid back lifestyle, the food, the wine, La Dolce Vita. But you put these people behind the wheel of a car and all of a sudden it's like they have their pregnant wife in the back seat and her water just broke. Once I was doing 40 mph on a "two-lane" country road that really is only a lane and a half with a 6 inch gravel shoulder and a 4 foot ditch on either side. Oncoming traffic is zooming by and the guy behind me on the moped thinks he can pass me. Nuts...
We moved into our house on the 19th and got some very important lessons about living in Italy. The first has to do with keys. Every single door in our house has a key. And not one master key that opens all of them, noooooo, separate individual keys for each one. Ironically enough, the only door that doesn't have a lock and key is our upstairs bathroom. That's already caused some exciting incidents, but nothing I want to include in the blog.
Now one of the nice things about using Franca as our real estate agent is that her husband Robert produces a guidebook for new renters. A recurring theme in Robert's guide is a warning about getting locked out of your house because Italian front doors lock automatically EVERY TIME they close. So you have to have your keys on you every time you leave your house. Cynthia learned this lesson REALLY well the first day.
After we got our telephone hooked up, I went in to work for a few hours, leaving Cynthia alone to receive our temporary furniture and our small shipment from Hawaii. The temporary furniture drop went well, but the furniture ain't the greatest. It will get us by until our stuff arrives. When our partial Hawaii shipment arrived, Cynthia went out front to open our gate... and let the front door close behind her. Of course she had no key. The delivery boys had another house to go to, so they started unloading our stuff on our front steps!! Eventually the redhead convinced one of the delivery boys to hop up on our front balcony and enter the house through the open balcony door. As he handed Cyn the keys he quipped, "I thief your house!"
Later that day, Catterina wanted to show Cynthia how to open the gate using the keys rather than the remote. Cynthia grabbed the gate keys, but not the front door key. Locked out again!! This time Catterina's son, Michele (that's Italian for Michael), drew the short straw and shimmied up the balcony to open up the house. Twice in one day... Catterina later told us about an Italian saying that goes something like, "There is no 2 without 3." Three is going to be a doozy, but that's another blog...
Although we are really excited about moving into our own home, we still haven't received our car yet. The website says it is "Enroute". It's been "Enroute" ever since we got here. Once we move to our house, I won't be able to walk to work anymore, and we just don't know when our car is going to get here. So we decided to get a VW Rabbit. My good friend Marlene (she's from Hawaii) has one and it's a great car. Consumer Reports rated it the number 1 compact hatchback. Problem solved, right? Nope. Even though the car is right there in the dealer showroom across the street from base, it has to be sent to Germany for military registration, then shipped back down for us. That will take a week, so we had to rent a "Punto" just to get by. At least we'll have a car and get ourselves around rather than mooching rides off of people all the time.
I call our car the "Punty little Punto". It's a stick shift, so Cynthia isn't doing much driving. Driving in Italy is a real adventure. Driving a stick shift in Italy is even more of an adventure. These Italians are crazy!! Sure in the movies it's all about the laid back lifestyle, the food, the wine, La Dolce Vita. But you put these people behind the wheel of a car and all of a sudden it's like they have their pregnant wife in the back seat and her water just broke. Once I was doing 40 mph on a "two-lane" country road that really is only a lane and a half with a 6 inch gravel shoulder and a 4 foot ditch on either side. Oncoming traffic is zooming by and the guy behind me on the moped thinks he can pass me. Nuts...
We moved into our house on the 19th and got some very important lessons about living in Italy. The first has to do with keys. Every single door in our house has a key. And not one master key that opens all of them, noooooo, separate individual keys for each one. Ironically enough, the only door that doesn't have a lock and key is our upstairs bathroom. That's already caused some exciting incidents, but nothing I want to include in the blog.
Now one of the nice things about using Franca as our real estate agent is that her husband Robert produces a guidebook for new renters. A recurring theme in Robert's guide is a warning about getting locked out of your house because Italian front doors lock automatically EVERY TIME they close. So you have to have your keys on you every time you leave your house. Cynthia learned this lesson REALLY well the first day.
After we got our telephone hooked up, I went in to work for a few hours, leaving Cynthia alone to receive our temporary furniture and our small shipment from Hawaii. The temporary furniture drop went well, but the furniture ain't the greatest. It will get us by until our stuff arrives. When our partial Hawaii shipment arrived, Cynthia went out front to open our gate... and let the front door close behind her. Of course she had no key. The delivery boys had another house to go to, so they started unloading our stuff on our front steps!! Eventually the redhead convinced one of the delivery boys to hop up on our front balcony and enter the house through the open balcony door. As he handed Cyn the keys he quipped, "I thief your house!"
Later that day, Catterina wanted to show Cynthia how to open the gate using the keys rather than the remote. Cynthia grabbed the gate keys, but not the front door key. Locked out again!! This time Catterina's son, Michele (that's Italian for Michael), drew the short straw and shimmied up the balcony to open up the house. Twice in one day... Catterina later told us about an Italian saying that goes something like, "There is no 2 without 3." Three is going to be a doozy, but that's another blog...
Finding a House... Italian Style
I know this blog is a little late. Like I said this blogging ain't my thing....
Wednesday June 18:
We move into our house tomorrow!! Renting a place in the states is a fairly simple affair. You check out the place, sign the lease, give the landlord a check in exchange for the keys, and a few phone calls to the utility company to hook you up. But not in Italy.
It took about 10 different appointments just to get to this point. The base housing office maintains an inventory of available units in the local economy. We had one all picked out in a little town called San Pietro in Gu. It was a little 3 bedroom duplex in a the quaintest little village. However there wasn't a lot of space and the kitchen left a lot to be desired. Italian rentals often do not come with a kitchen. Oh they have a room with a water and gas hookup that is the designated space for a kitchen, but you have to bring your own counter, cupboards, stove, and refrigerator. You bring everything including the kitchen sink. No pun intended. The San Pietro house was no exception. However being the silly Americans that we are, we didn't know any better and scheduled an appointment to lease the house.
But the weekend before that appointment, my good friends, Marlene and Ann, took us to their houses to show us some of the possibilities available in the Italian Rental Market. Wow what an eye opener. Ann's House was in a little town called Poianella. It was huge! 2 bedroom, 2 full baths, and a fully furnished kitchen. Full dining room and living room. And the piece de resistance: the Taverna; a basement with a kitchen traditionally used for the big family meals. Marlene's house was even bigger. 2 stories also with a huge taverna basement. Marlene must have the same square footage as our Hawaii house. As soon as I saw that I knew I needed a taverna... or as I call it, the Man-verna. It became clear to us that the selection of rentals available through the housing office was direly insufficient. Marlene gave us the name of her rental agent, Ms. Franca Ross, who helped Marlene find her lovely home. Franca lived in Canada for many years and spoke English well. Maybe she could help us find a great place.
Through a scheduling mixup, Cynthia booked our first appointment with Franca for the same time as her hair appointment. The first place that I looked at was a wonderful 3 bedroom duplex with an amazing kitchen (can you say marble counter tops?) and a large taverna in a little town called Montecchio Precalcino. We also looked at a few apartments in the heart of the city of Vicenza, but we have been establishing a trend where we choose the first one we look at. Of course we had to schedule up a follow up appointment so that Cynthia and her hair could take a look at the unit too. She agreed with my assessment, so we moved to phase 2.
We had to meet with the housing office to plan the next steps. This involved an appointment where we got some information and scheduled another appointment.
The following Monday we met with Franca and our new landlord, Catterina. I had to sign about 17 different times and initial about 82 different items. Seriously... it was like buying a house. But before we even got to the signing, we had to go to the base disbursement office and cash a $7000 check!! When you sign a lease here in Italy, the first month's rent, the security deposit, and real estate agent's fee (equal to 1 month rent) has to be paid in CASH. It's not like they're going to take a check from Bank of Hawaii, so we're traipsing around the place with 4,600 Euro in Cynthia's purse!
After we got all of the documents signed and were planning to move in on June 15th, we had another appointment with the housing office 2 days later. They always want to review the contract that was already signed. The housing agent didn't like a few provisions in our contract, so more calls to Franca, and more initials and signatures. After the lease was all settled, we had another appointment with the FMO agent. FMO is the temporary furniture that they provide to us since our furniture won't arrive until August.
The next problem was getting the utilities hooked up. Calling them wasn't good enough. Nooooo. I had to actually go down to the electric company with Dania, our Italian interpreter, just to get the electricity turned on. The day I went down there, their computers were down, so I just left my information there and hoped everything got executed properly.
Four days later I had to go to the gas company, again with Dania, to get the gas turned on. Cynthia went to the communications office on base for our telephone and internet hook up. At least they speak English there.
This continues to be a totally wild experience!
Wednesday June 18:
We move into our house tomorrow!! Renting a place in the states is a fairly simple affair. You check out the place, sign the lease, give the landlord a check in exchange for the keys, and a few phone calls to the utility company to hook you up. But not in Italy.
It took about 10 different appointments just to get to this point. The base housing office maintains an inventory of available units in the local economy. We had one all picked out in a little town called San Pietro in Gu. It was a little 3 bedroom duplex in a the quaintest little village. However there wasn't a lot of space and the kitchen left a lot to be desired. Italian rentals often do not come with a kitchen. Oh they have a room with a water and gas hookup that is the designated space for a kitchen, but you have to bring your own counter, cupboards, stove, and refrigerator. You bring everything including the kitchen sink. No pun intended. The San Pietro house was no exception. However being the silly Americans that we are, we didn't know any better and scheduled an appointment to lease the house.
But the weekend before that appointment, my good friends, Marlene and Ann, took us to their houses to show us some of the possibilities available in the Italian Rental Market. Wow what an eye opener. Ann's House was in a little town called Poianella. It was huge! 2 bedroom, 2 full baths, and a fully furnished kitchen. Full dining room and living room. And the piece de resistance: the Taverna; a basement with a kitchen traditionally used for the big family meals. Marlene's house was even bigger. 2 stories also with a huge taverna basement. Marlene must have the same square footage as our Hawaii house. As soon as I saw that I knew I needed a taverna... or as I call it, the Man-verna. It became clear to us that the selection of rentals available through the housing office was direly insufficient. Marlene gave us the name of her rental agent, Ms. Franca Ross, who helped Marlene find her lovely home. Franca lived in Canada for many years and spoke English well. Maybe she could help us find a great place.
Through a scheduling mixup, Cynthia booked our first appointment with Franca for the same time as her hair appointment. The first place that I looked at was a wonderful 3 bedroom duplex with an amazing kitchen (can you say marble counter tops?) and a large taverna in a little town called Montecchio Precalcino. We also looked at a few apartments in the heart of the city of Vicenza, but we have been establishing a trend where we choose the first one we look at. Of course we had to schedule up a follow up appointment so that Cynthia and her hair could take a look at the unit too. She agreed with my assessment, so we moved to phase 2.
We had to meet with the housing office to plan the next steps. This involved an appointment where we got some information and scheduled another appointment.
The following Monday we met with Franca and our new landlord, Catterina. I had to sign about 17 different times and initial about 82 different items. Seriously... it was like buying a house. But before we even got to the signing, we had to go to the base disbursement office and cash a $7000 check!! When you sign a lease here in Italy, the first month's rent, the security deposit, and real estate agent's fee (equal to 1 month rent) has to be paid in CASH. It's not like they're going to take a check from Bank of Hawaii, so we're traipsing around the place with 4,600 Euro in Cynthia's purse!
After we got all of the documents signed and were planning to move in on June 15th, we had another appointment with the housing office 2 days later. They always want to review the contract that was already signed. The housing agent didn't like a few provisions in our contract, so more calls to Franca, and more initials and signatures. After the lease was all settled, we had another appointment with the FMO agent. FMO is the temporary furniture that they provide to us since our furniture won't arrive until August.
The next problem was getting the utilities hooked up. Calling them wasn't good enough. Nooooo. I had to actually go down to the electric company with Dania, our Italian interpreter, just to get the electricity turned on. The day I went down there, their computers were down, so I just left my information there and hoped everything got executed properly.
Four days later I had to go to the gas company, again with Dania, to get the gas turned on. Cynthia went to the communications office on base for our telephone and internet hook up. At least they speak English there.
This continues to be a totally wild experience!
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