1. There are scorpions here. Let me say that again: THERE ARE FREAKING SCORPIONS HERE! GAH! So far, I have not been directly confronted with any of these devils, but I have squashed some large-ish earwhigs while fervently praying that they were not baby scorpions. Apparently scorpions like cool, flat places. Like basements. *shudder*
2. The weather is wildly varied and inconsistent. Thunderstorms can come up with very little warning. There is usually a breeze at my house. Weather.com sucks for the Vicenza area.
3. Sorting and taking out the trash and recyclables can be a full time job. Seriously, we got a four-page set of instructions. Organics can be picked up on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, but only from May to September. From October to April, it's just Tuesdays and Saturdays. Paper is picked up on Thursdays, every two weeks. Glass is picked up on the alternate Thursdays. Plastic and cans are retrieved on Mondays. The humid waste (organics) must be in biodegradable (preferable) or regular plastic bags, in the provided bucket. Paper and cardboard can only go in the proper yellow plastic box issued by the municipality, and all other trash goes in the provided bags, which are labelled for each municipality. Everything else must be delivered to the Ecocentro, which is open from 3-7pm M-F and 8-12/1-5 on Saturdays March through September, and 1-5pm M-F and 8-12/1-5 on Saturdays October through February. Whew. See what I mean? It's a good thing I have those flyers. They live on the side of the refrigerator. And I'm not above taking a grocery bag full of trash to base with me when I have to go check the mail or hit up the commissary to dispose of it there...
4. The stove is marked in degrees Celsius. I should probably get a conversion table and post it on the side of the refrigerator, too.
5. Electricity is fickle. And unreliable. It tends to go out without warning, for no reason. But the breakers are very easy to locate, even in the dark (but I keep a flashlight by the bed), and easy to reset. And when there's no power, I have to have a key to get OUT of the house through my front door. Otherwise I have to go out through one of the garage doors.
6. The roads are narrow. Especially in city centers and rural areas. I don't know why this continues to surprise me, even after two months here(!), but it does.
7. Northern Italians don't butter their bread. Nor do they dip it in olive oil. They just...eat it.
8. Ragu = bolognese, and alfredo is not an Italian sauce.
9. You order a pizza for yourself, and eat the whole thing. You will get funny looks if you decide to share.
10. The price of produce varies wildly. It's cherry (ciliegia) season, and you can buy them on the side of the road for dirt cheap. It's also asparagus season; I have no idea what it costs to buy them locally but we wanted a bunch from the commissary the other day and they wanted to charge us $9.86. Um, NO THANK YOU. Zucchinis sounded equally delicious.
11. Right-tighty, lefty-loosey does not always apply. Case in point: the drain in the bathtub.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Friday, May 16, 2014
May Days
I haven't forgotten to update this blog, I just haven't made it a priority. You know, life happens and all. Also, since we moved into our house (yayyyy!) we haven't had internet (booooo!) so when I've had access I've been doing things like paying bills, taking tests, and seeing what everyone else is up to on Facebook...
Our movers came just over a week ago, and we were very happy with the quality of service we got on both ends of the process. One of my bookshelves has a nice ding in it, but otherwise we haven't found a single thing broken. Even all of our foodstuffs and glassware survived the transatlantic voyage just fine. The house is coming together nicely, and we are really happy with it. It's starting to look like a home, now that we have a few things on the walls and my shoes are scattered all over the place. I think this weekend we will concentrate on some of the nice finishing touches, though of course it'll take a while for us to be fully settled here. We keep finding little quirks in the house, but there's nothing major or too annoying (yet). I think the funniest things are bathroom-related. We had to rig up two shower curtains in the main bathroom, because the tub has two exposed sides and one curtain was too short. In the other bathroom, the shower curtain doesn't reach the floor, so we haven't used it yet, although the wooden door has some water damage so we know previous tenants experienced the same problem. I'm sure we will eventually rig up something, but in the meantime it's just something to smile about and live with. One of my personal pet peeves overall is lack of storage space, shelving, and closets. A trip to Ikea helped a lot, but since we didn't really bring any office furniture we still have to find a home for a lot of random paperwork and our computer stuff. On the plus side, I love our main balcony and the view of the trees from our upstairs windows, plus the sounds of birds chirping. I'm pretty sure there's a dove nest in our palm tree, and our roses are in full bloom!
This afternoon I took my final exam for my government budgeting/finance class, which was much more interesting and enjoyable than I ever expected it to be. I think it went well, but it'll be a week or more before I get my grade. I decided to sign up for only one class next term as well; I'll be traveling for 3 weeks smack in the middle of the term and don't know what my workload or internet access will be. I think the tradeoff will be better for my sanity, and I'm still hoping to be able to finish up by December. Next week I don't have any school, since the summer term starts on May 26th, but next week I'm enrolled in Benvenuti class Wed-Fri. This is my Italian Cultural Orientation class! I'm excited for it; we get a crash course in how to ride the buses and trains, and get to take a couple of field trips. Hopefully I will meet some nice new people and find a few more fun places to visit.
A couple weekends ago Tony and I went to the Camisano Market. It's held on Sundays in the town of Camisano (duh) and is one of the bigger markets in the region. We knew that little tidbit going in, but we didn't understand just HOW big until we got there. We are talking several city blocks of vendors. Tents and tables full of fruits, vegetables, clothes, kitchenware, artwork, curtains, shoes, cheese, plants, and who knows what else! We walked around for a few hours and came home with a bunch of produce; we ate lunch while we were out and really enjoyed the experience despite the crowds. It's not too terribly far from our house, maybe 7-8 miles, and I can see myself whiling away many a Sunday morning there.
I'm trying to think what else we've been up to. Tony's been working very consistently now that we are pretty much settled in, and he's staying very busy. This job will require a lot of travel, and he may get to see more of Europe than I will! [Challenge accepted] While he worked the first half of this week, I went to Red Cross newcomers' orientation. Basically, I signed up for a bunch of accounts and took a bunch of online training, and completed a basic lifesaving course. I still have a lot more training to do now that my accounts have mostly been processed. A couple of them I have already taken through CG duties, but now I have to re-do them through the Army's databases. BLECH! Cyber-security awareness, phooey! (Just kidding, Big Brother, I know it is important and I promise to protect PII and not spill sensitive information to the Bad Guys.) I also had to take a FEMA course, but it took a few days to process because FEMA couldn't reconcile my SSN with my last name. Go figure. And my HIPAA training was expired, but I couldn't get in to take a refresher course; the old training kept popping up as completed and the only completion certificate I could get was my old one. These are the kinds of administrative kinks that make me twitchy, but I'm resigned to accepting that things are just different now, and may be redundant, and it's all just part of the process. Eventually I hope to volunteer in the pharmacy and as part of the Red Cross Disaster Assistance Team here; cross your fingers for me!
Oh, and yesterday I went rock-climbing! One of the women I met at the Red Cross Orientation mentioned it; I'd been on the fence, but she told me MWR was on the verge of canceling it due to low registration numbers. So I got to be a hero and save the day! I mean, I succumbed to peer pressure and signed up. Whatever, it was fun. The Outdoor Recreation Center put together a women-only climbing day. For $25 we got transportation to a real live outdoor climbing location (Lumignano, about 20-25 minutes away) and all the gear, plus instruction. It ended up being 4 customers plus two female ODR workers and we had a really fun time. They set us up on 5 different 10-meter routes; nothing too difficult since we were all beginners. I've climbed at a few different indoor gyms, but this was my first outdoor experience and I really enjoyed it. I finished 4 of the routes, but the last one I kept slipping and losing height, and after many attempts I finally gave up even though I only got about 2/3 of the way to the top. Oh well, next time, right?! I'm quite proud of myself. My body is feeling the exertion though. I definitely used some muscles I haven't worked out in a while; it feels great! On the way back to base we stopped at a little cafe and treated ourselves to ice cream. I think I deserved it. :)
Our movers came just over a week ago, and we were very happy with the quality of service we got on both ends of the process. One of my bookshelves has a nice ding in it, but otherwise we haven't found a single thing broken. Even all of our foodstuffs and glassware survived the transatlantic voyage just fine. The house is coming together nicely, and we are really happy with it. It's starting to look like a home, now that we have a few things on the walls and my shoes are scattered all over the place. I think this weekend we will concentrate on some of the nice finishing touches, though of course it'll take a while for us to be fully settled here. We keep finding little quirks in the house, but there's nothing major or too annoying (yet). I think the funniest things are bathroom-related. We had to rig up two shower curtains in the main bathroom, because the tub has two exposed sides and one curtain was too short. In the other bathroom, the shower curtain doesn't reach the floor, so we haven't used it yet, although the wooden door has some water damage so we know previous tenants experienced the same problem. I'm sure we will eventually rig up something, but in the meantime it's just something to smile about and live with. One of my personal pet peeves overall is lack of storage space, shelving, and closets. A trip to Ikea helped a lot, but since we didn't really bring any office furniture we still have to find a home for a lot of random paperwork and our computer stuff. On the plus side, I love our main balcony and the view of the trees from our upstairs windows, plus the sounds of birds chirping. I'm pretty sure there's a dove nest in our palm tree, and our roses are in full bloom!
This afternoon I took my final exam for my government budgeting/finance class, which was much more interesting and enjoyable than I ever expected it to be. I think it went well, but it'll be a week or more before I get my grade. I decided to sign up for only one class next term as well; I'll be traveling for 3 weeks smack in the middle of the term and don't know what my workload or internet access will be. I think the tradeoff will be better for my sanity, and I'm still hoping to be able to finish up by December. Next week I don't have any school, since the summer term starts on May 26th, but next week I'm enrolled in Benvenuti class Wed-Fri. This is my Italian Cultural Orientation class! I'm excited for it; we get a crash course in how to ride the buses and trains, and get to take a couple of field trips. Hopefully I will meet some nice new people and find a few more fun places to visit.
A couple weekends ago Tony and I went to the Camisano Market. It's held on Sundays in the town of Camisano (duh) and is one of the bigger markets in the region. We knew that little tidbit going in, but we didn't understand just HOW big until we got there. We are talking several city blocks of vendors. Tents and tables full of fruits, vegetables, clothes, kitchenware, artwork, curtains, shoes, cheese, plants, and who knows what else! We walked around for a few hours and came home with a bunch of produce; we ate lunch while we were out and really enjoyed the experience despite the crowds. It's not too terribly far from our house, maybe 7-8 miles, and I can see myself whiling away many a Sunday morning there.
I'm trying to think what else we've been up to. Tony's been working very consistently now that we are pretty much settled in, and he's staying very busy. This job will require a lot of travel, and he may get to see more of Europe than I will! [Challenge accepted] While he worked the first half of this week, I went to Red Cross newcomers' orientation. Basically, I signed up for a bunch of accounts and took a bunch of online training, and completed a basic lifesaving course. I still have a lot more training to do now that my accounts have mostly been processed. A couple of them I have already taken through CG duties, but now I have to re-do them through the Army's databases. BLECH! Cyber-security awareness, phooey! (Just kidding, Big Brother, I know it is important and I promise to protect PII and not spill sensitive information to the Bad Guys.) I also had to take a FEMA course, but it took a few days to process because FEMA couldn't reconcile my SSN with my last name. Go figure. And my HIPAA training was expired, but I couldn't get in to take a refresher course; the old training kept popping up as completed and the only completion certificate I could get was my old one. These are the kinds of administrative kinks that make me twitchy, but I'm resigned to accepting that things are just different now, and may be redundant, and it's all just part of the process. Eventually I hope to volunteer in the pharmacy and as part of the Red Cross Disaster Assistance Team here; cross your fingers for me!
Oh, and yesterday I went rock-climbing! One of the women I met at the Red Cross Orientation mentioned it; I'd been on the fence, but she told me MWR was on the verge of canceling it due to low registration numbers. So I got to be a hero and save the day! I mean, I succumbed to peer pressure and signed up. Whatever, it was fun. The Outdoor Recreation Center put together a women-only climbing day. For $25 we got transportation to a real live outdoor climbing location (Lumignano, about 20-25 minutes away) and all the gear, plus instruction. It ended up being 4 customers plus two female ODR workers and we had a really fun time. They set us up on 5 different 10-meter routes; nothing too difficult since we were all beginners. I've climbed at a few different indoor gyms, but this was my first outdoor experience and I really enjoyed it. I finished 4 of the routes, but the last one I kept slipping and losing height, and after many attempts I finally gave up even though I only got about 2/3 of the way to the top. Oh well, next time, right?! I'm quite proud of myself. My body is feeling the exertion though. I definitely used some muscles I haven't worked out in a while; it feels great! On the way back to base we stopped at a little cafe and treated ourselves to ice cream. I think I deserved it. :)
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