La Transumanza - When the Cows Come Home!

Ever hear of the term "doing something until the cows come home". I always thought it was a weird one. Where were those pesky cows, and exactly when would they be getting back?? Well on a cold day in September in the little town of Poianella, all of my questions were answered...

Poianella is a small town about 10 minutes drive southeast from our place in Montecchio Precalcino, and is the home of our good friends, Ann and Roland. The story of the cows is something like this: The ranching and dairy industry still follows the seasonal customs of taking their herds to the mountains and high plains north of Asiago during the warm summer months. Then as the cooler weather of autumn settles in, they march the herds back down from the highlands to warmer pastures. The trek is over 70 kilometers (some 42 miles) and is accomplished in just a few days. Considering the maniacal driving habits on most Italian streets, the process sounds like a recipe for disaster, but somehow the Italian cowboys manage to pull it off every year. After our friends shared this tale, we just had to check this thing out. So on a rather cold September weekend, just one day before my birthday, we piled in our little Blue Bunny, and headed over to Ann and Roland's.

It was about three in the afternoon and already there were throngs of people lining the roads around Poianella. We tried to make a left on to the street that would take us directly to Ann's door, but a police officer with a yellow warning baton directed us in another direction. Luckily we found some parking at the local church, and we started the 5 minute stroll up the road to Ann's house. The excitement was palpable as dozens of small groups assembled around garages and driveways along the route. We met Ann and her sister, Kay, halfway to the house, and within minutes were back at their place pouring ourselves glasses of prosecco, our favorite white wine.

We knew that getting to see a bunch of cows being herded right outside our friends door was going to be cool, but we had no idea how big the parade was going to be that preceded the event. First came the parade of cars starting with my personal favorite, the Ferraris. There were over 15 of them in the bunch: all red, shiny and purring with that signature Italian-engineered machinery under the hood. Then dozens of other cars, Minis, Lancias, Fiats. It was quite a show from the classic roadsters to the newest racers. That was followed with a parade of tractors, both modern and ancient. Then Vespa scooters, a marching band, cultural groups, and the Mayor.

This old timer was checking text messages on his cell!








Luigina tries to get a little luck for the returning cows!

Then after a long, agonizing pause in the processional, a truck bearing a sign that read, "Arriva La Transumanza" rolled into view. Then came the cows, and the cows, and still more cows!! Dairy heifers with their enormous, pendulous udders; Juicy looking cows that were going to be dinner; and spotted cows that would make a great Naugahyde couch! And all around the meandering beasts were the cowboys wearing leather and denim and looking right out of a western. Boy, it was great!! I got right down on the street in front of Ann's house to take some pictures. Right in the middle of the clanging cacophony of their huge cowbells. I was close enough to touch 'em. In fact, that's when the hilarity happened.

Right next to Ann and Roland's house is a large empty lot. Several of the herd decided that they needed a break from their Bataan death march, detoured into the grassy lot, and started leisurely munching on the sweet, green grasses and weeds that were found there. Well the cowboys weren't going to allow this disorderly conduct on their parade, and a few of them quickly separated themselves from the processional and moved in with their dogs to round up the wayward bovine. I also quickly moved to the corner of Ann's yard to get a better view of the action.

A few cattle take a detour

The cowboys quickly encircled the delinquent heifers and started pushing them back to the road and on with the march. The obedient beasts soon fell in line and started taking the quickest route back to the road, and the only thing standing in their way was... ME!!
Now I wasn't just standing so close I could touch them, I had to touch them in an effort to keep them from running me over!! It was scary and hilarious all at the same time!!

Cyn and the crew watch my plight from a safe position...



Future couch in a trendy night club.

After all of that fun, Ann and Roland's landlords, Mariano and Luigina, invited us over for a real Italian meal. We had lasagna with homemade noodles and pot roast and cooked veggies. Luigina kept bringing out more food and even though she only spoke Italian, we understood perfectly that she wanted us to eat, Eat, EAT!!! And even the food wasn't enough. When Ann tried to pour herself a glass of water, Luigina protested, "Anna!! No aqua, VINO!!". They were very gracious to Cyn and me especially when they learned it was my birthday the next day. It was so great to feel like part of a family, and it really made me miss my family back home.

Where else in the world can you do something like this!?!

Ciao for now,
M

Mike gets a little birthday love!

La Partita A Scacchi - The Game of Chess

About 30 minutes north of our house is the beautiful walled city of Marostica. In 1454, two noblemen, Rinaldo D'Angarano and Vieri da Vallonara, both fell in love with the same woman; Lionora, the daughter of Taddeo Parisio, the Lord of Marostica Castle. As was the custom in that day, the two gentlemen challenged each other to duel to win the hand of the fair maiden.

However Taddeo Parisio forbade the duel as he did not want to risk losing one of his brave knights. On the other hand, he did not want to offend their families by arbitrarily deciding the issue. He struck upon the idea that the two suitors should play a chess match, and the winner of said match would receive Lionora's hand in marriage, while the loser would still join his family be marrying Lionora's younger sister, Oldrada.

Parisio's Proclamation: "Thus we repeat that such single, bloody duel ought in no way to take place under pain of death for the transgressor, and we order instead that the challenge will be a noble game of chess and the winner will have as reward marriage with Madonna Lionora, and that such game be played on the twelfth of September 1454, upon the big square of the Castle between tall and living pieces, all armed and marked with the noble colours of Black and White, and said challenge be honoured with a display of armoured men and fireworks and public illumination and dances and music".

The first re-enactment of this epic event took place on it's 500th anniversary in 1954. And it has been re-enacted on every even numbered year since. Well after all that, we just had to go!

There were huge throngs of people clamoring to take their seats in the grandstands overlooking Marostica's townsquare. The grandstands surround the square on three sides with the great castle gate along the fourth edge. Since it was the first night, the ushers were having a tough time managing the crowd. The redhead and I took a few wrong turns, and progress through the crowd was slow, but finally we managed to jostle ourselves up the steep bleacher steps to our very tiny seats (The seats were really tiny. I think Emma would have fit perfectly. As for me, my fat butt sort of spilled over the sides. I felt bad for the lady sitting next to me...)

The event started about 30 minutes late (AKA Italian Time), and the lights dimmed over the square. The torches in the high windows of the castle gate gave an eerie glow of anticipation...

A booming voice filled the night air and demanded that the archers fire their arrows to commence the show. Two fiery bolts flew down from the tower and set the chessboard ablaze!


After that great beginning there were several processionals of dancers, jugglers, and merchants.


Taddeo Parisio and his two daughters enter the townsquare to oversee the proceedings. And they were followed in by several noble families with their attendants.


Every phase of the show was full of festivity and pageantry. Phalanxes of halbardiers, crossbowmen, and mounted knights, were followed by drummers, standard bearers and falconers. And ever single person was in full costume and regalia... Even the cameramen!


Quite comfortable in their masculinity, the Italian men dress up in colorful tights and proceed with the twirling of the pretty flags!




After much anticipation and with great fanfare, the living chess pieces emerge from the mouth of the castle gate and take the field!



The game proceeded with the two noblemen making their moves on a small chessboard, and the herald calling out each move so that the living pieces could follow suit. After roughly 12 moves, White, in stunning fashion, sacrificed his Queen to open up a lane for his rook! On the next move, the White rook comes down and crushes the Black King. Checkmate!

As promised, Parisio marries the two couples in the middle of the townsquare.



And to complete the celebration the lights are once again dimmed and the night sky explodes with showers of fireworks.


Despite the fact that I couldn't feel my legs after sitting in my cramped seat for so long, the event was incredible to watch. The pageant won't be shown again until September of 2010, so if you would like to witness this unique event, plan your trips accordingly.

VIVA SAN MARCO!
VIVA MAROSTICA!
e VIVA SCACCHI!

La nostra casa in Italia.

We apologize for the long delay in getting our blog updated but there was a lot of important, but not necessarily "blog worthy" activities over the past couple of months. To force ourselves to resurrect the blog, we decided to try a tag team approach. Stuff I wrote is in Blue. Stuff Cyn wrote is in red.

First Cindy Lou Who went back to the US of A for a little family time. She had a really good trip in Minnesota and Seattle. Mike was too stupid to go for that vacation stuff, and proceeded to work for 3 weeks straight without a day off. Our warriors came back from Afghanistan and as part of the return process they all needed to be checked out by the clinic docs, so we were running 7 days a week. On top of that we were scheduled for a computer audit for the end of July, and us computer guys could only do our thing after the clinic closed. So while Cynthia was whooping it up on vacation, I lived alone for 3 weeks and did nothing but sleep on borrowed furniture and go to work. Oh that and we bought a new car. A sweet, 2.5 Liter VW Rabbit. We call it the "Blue Bunny".

We live in a little town called Montecchio Precalcino, just north of Vicenza. Here's a picture of our house:

Oh no... wait... This is our house:

Luckily Christmas came early for us when we received our household goods from Hawaii mid August. We opened box after box delighting in the contents and glad to have our familiar things around us. Of course there were some, “Why the heck did we pack this?! as we peered into a box with some worthless or obscure value. Only 3 items were damaged: 2 scratches on furniture, and one completely busted LCD TV. We're filing a claim for that one!

There are distinct differences in an Italian home when compared to homes in the US. For example – there are no closets – Seriously. Every room is just 4 walls, a door, and a window. No place to put your clothes. No hall closet for the linens. The bathrooms don't have towel racks or a medicine chest, or even a toilet roll dispenser! We ended up buying an "armadio"; a super duper armoir from a local furniture place. We are very fortunate that our place came with a very nice kitchen cupboards since Italians treat the kitchen cupboards and sinks like furniture – they take it with them when they move. We also have really nice windows, but there are no screens, so it's BugCity every time we try to catch a cool breeze. And cool breezes were hard to come by this summer. It has been "Caldo, Caldo, Caldo" over here. Some weeks we're up in the "30's", that's high 90's to low 100's for you Fahrenheit-loving Americans. And yet oddly enough we still had the occasional HAIL STORM every once in awhile. The weather is freaky. I can't wait until winter.

Electricity and the various wall outlets are another challenge. So Europe, as we were well informed, is on the 110 voltage as USA is on 220 volts (OK Cynthia wrote that last sentence. She's lived here for 4 months and she still can't get the voltage right USA=110V and Europe=220V -Mike). Making sure that all the items we are plugging into our walls is the correct voltage is one thing but we also have to use Italian adapters of various size so they will fit in the socket as one home can have multiple different sizes. And not only are the wall outlets apt to have different size holes, the stuff you're plugging in may have different size prongs. A lot of the appliances and surge strips come with German-style Schuko plugs which have fat prongs that "fit" into Italian wall outlets. But when you try to remove them, the fat prong ends up almost pulling the face plate off the wall. Mama mia (they really do say that!). The good news is that we haven’t been electrocuted and have only blown out a few light balls as we “adjusted” some of the lamps we brought from Hawaii (I also blew out a computer power supply at work. Ssshhh! Don't tell my boss. -Mike). We will be purchasing smoke detectors.

We have made several trips to the base PX, Ikea and other stores to make various purchases to get our home functional and to resemble some thing like “home.” So our Labor Day weekend was spent laboring around the house with some very good results. For those of you who will be visiting us in bella Italia – we are still working on your guest room. No problema – it will be lovely, but not for a few months, so don't start buying tickets yet! heh!

Our home domestic activities have been curbed since Cynthia aka the director of domestic operations has started working at the Army clinic in the primary care department– part time. That means three days a week. Cynthia hasn’t performed patient care in over 10 years – but the clinic was desperate and since she still has an current RN license she was hired. The hiring process for civilians usually takes months – but the right phone call from the right colonel – and just like that she was in orientation. Having never worked for the government let alone an Army clinic it has been interesting. The good news is since Cynthia is a wiz with the electronic medical record since her most recent job was teaching doctors and nurses to use them. Now she has vowed to not abuse her connections with the staff in the Information Management Department but if she has to barter with sexual favors to get her computer fixed – so be it. Cynthia says “any thing to support our guys and gals in uniform.” What a patriot! FYI – Michael works in the IMD department at the same clinic (Yeah but there are 2 other guys that work in IMD!! Let's be a little exclusive with the sexual favors, OK? And what's up with speaking in the third person?)

August was a domestic-focused month but September is looking good for some Italian adventures and in October we are headed to Tuscany (remember the movie “Under the Tuscan Sun?) to stay in a Villa and pick olives.

Hope you had a safe and happy Labor Day Weekend.

Ciao for now.

The Prize of the Contradas

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...

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!!

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...

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!