Moving In

Saturday, February 23, 2008
With only a few setbacks, we are now settled in our new home, with a variety of loaner furniture and equipment from the Navy- some things we are able to keep for the duration of our stay here (kitchen stove, washer and drier, fridge, microwave, and 5 big wardrobes) and the rest will be returned after our things are eventually delivered, hopefully in March sometime. We were rather frustrated to learn that all of the loaner dishes, sheets, towels, etc. are not delivered along with the rest of the furniture as we had expected. It turns out they are from a completely separate office and you must pick them up yourself. Luckily, we figured this out before their office closed for the day. The other big frustration has been the directions we received for the appliances. As was promised at orientation, they do all come with instructions, but none of them are translated into English. I also don’t happen to read Spanish, Portuguese, or Greek as was also included! I was pleased after lucking into getting the drier working and one load completed. The next load didn’t fare so well, and after 2-3 hours, all was still warm but quite damp. After Bill got home he sat down with the instructions and a very dining out dictionary, and found a few of the words. We eventually found that the drier is a condensing type and requires a reservoir of water to be dumped out after each load! I’d never even heard of such a thing before. So now I get to dump water into a bucket and carry it upstairs to dump out for each load. Sigh…..

Have I mentioned that Italian homes are cold- constructed of stone, concrete, and tile- and are particularly cold when the heat has been off while unoccupied? I think it was about 40 degrees when we got to the house and turned on the radiators. By bedtime, it had warmed up to a whopping 55 or so. (Little did I know that Bill had just been preparing me for things to come with our cold weekend in the lodge!). The individual heaters in the girl’s rooms worked great and we sent them to bed pretty toasty ( but with the electric heat turned back off as it would be too expensive to run), but ours did not work. After trying out the small double bed provided by the Navy, we had opted for our queen sized blow up bed. However, after shivering through the night buried under many blankets, I realized the double bed would have had ample room! It turned out the radiators had gone back off again and 50 degrees really does feel cold after awhile. On a positive note, I've discovered that the European bidet truly is a great part of a bathroom. When it's too cold to shower, it's still possible to clean the "essentials" while wearing warm slippers and a big wool sweater or coat as needed!

We now seem to have settled into keeping the two main floors at 60 (my crazy husband who seems to have a large internal furnace that overheats doesn’t seem to think it’s wise to get it much warmer than that….) So, I’m learning to like hot tea more, I’m thankful for the arrival of my warm sweaters and I’ve frequently worn the fleece overalls that a dear friend in Colorado had given me as a gift. My hunch is that I’ve worn my pair much more often than Micaela has worn the pair her husband gave her as well. Maybe by next winter we will have figured out how much propane and electricity we use and can afford. But, I think I will have to remind Bill this spring as he starts turning on the A/C that its tit for tat and we can’t run unlimited A/C either. : ) And in case you’re wondering, No, it’s not really that cold outside, its just not much warmer INSIDE!