Month November 2017

Milestones

navabruzzo Leave a comment

Moving to a new country definitely requires some paperwork, bureaucracy, patience, grunt work, prodding, copying, multiple appointments, misunderstandings, more patience and then finally success.

john cartaIt’s one thing to chat with our new Italian friends in our basic Italian and to have them take the time to make us understand or even speak a little English back to us. But when you need to get some official paperwork completed, such as a visa, you better be up on your Italian, have a friend come to interpret and pitch hit for you,  or you’ll be using Google translate and still be misunderstood and also not understand. All in a day becoming a new resident of this country.

I won’t bore you with all the details but here is the sequence we needed to follow and we’re just about there:

 

  • I applied (or could just wait for John ) for residency. I need to be acknowledge by the comune as a resident to get free health care.
  • John needed his Carta di Soggiorno (5 year visa) to get his Codice Fiscale ( I had mine already being a citizen).
  • John gets his Codice Fiscale (Italian Social Security number)
  • John applies for residency
  • We both go to get our Health Insurance card and assigned a primary physician. If you have a recommendation, you can pick your own.
  • Also at anytime now we can get our Carta Identita. ID Card so we don’t have to carry our passports around.

Does your brain hurt yet? Mine did a bit, but we’re at the end of the tunnel and this week we pick up our health cards and open a bank account.

……..

Update on on Tessera Sanitaria (Italian healthcare card) and bank… John and I got our cards today, so socialized healthcare is now part of our lives and we are very pleased, indeed. Went to open a bank account and, to get the best deal, we need our Carta Identita. John heads off to the grocery store this morning, where they have a photo booth, and get some pics taken. I have mine and Monday we will get our cards, then back to the bank. Everything is falling into place. And hopefully our car will be ready for us sooner than not. Still waiting on delivery to the dealer.

……

My good friend, Pam, recently asked me what I’ve been doing apart from all the great trekking through the vineyards with the dogs. Truthfully , not enough of seeing Italy.. Setting up a home takes more time than I remember, because we’re doing a lot from scratch and in a new land. And once all this paperwork is behind us, I sincerely hoping we’ll have MUCH more time to play!

Well, we did take a short trip out to another medieval hill town, as well as walk some more through our ‘home town’, Atri. When you come to Italy, you will be amazed by the number of these hill towns everywhere. The terrain lends itself to these strongholds against invasion, and today are cherished and lived in, thus preserving ancient structures and character. The environs are usually friendly, calling out a greeting, but you will find the ‘older’ group a bit more hesitant until they have given you the once-over. 😉 Here are a few shots of the streets, which we love to walk. Atri is high on our list to do more touring with eight museums, centuries old churches, cisterns and just some wonderful belvederes overlooking the mountains and sea.

 

Atri
Atri
Mutignano
Belvedere in Mutignano

 

Well, Thanksgiving, a very American holiday, just passed and oh, what a memorable one it was. True, we were not with family, and that is sad, but new friends made it a special day. Having this holiday with other English speaking residents, some from the United States (actually 6 of us out of the 8 for dinner were from Virginia!) and two lovely Brits, just seemed to balance life here in Italy. It’s one thing to make new Italian friends and be immersed, but there is a strong inherent draw to those of the ‘same’ kind. Allowing our brains to relax back into English, share similar stories, jokes and loves, make for a fun and relaxing evening. I put away my cellphone for the evening. No pics. Just be in the moment, eat great food, conversation running rampart and savor the moment.

CristinaA few weeks back, I mentioned us signing up for our Italian classes. Twice a week, we meet at a school, for our class. Our teacher, Cristina, is a lovely young lady, that speaks rapid fire Italian with just a smidge of English. And I mean a really small smidge! Sink or swim as John and I see it. It’s a good review for me, as I have had weekly Skype with Stef for over a year, and definitely a great start for John. The other students are all from Africa, progressing toward their work documents. Brave young men that risked all coming to Italy on a boat with many others. Last night we chatted with two young men from Nigeria, who both have high hopes of making it to the United States for jobs. They are all drawn to New York City, Chicago and LA. John and I admire their courage and determination, and wish them all the best. We will all be together in this class for the next 6 months, as 100 hours are required to complete.

So, Thanksgiving and Black Friday are now behind us. Time to pull out the Santas and start decorating! Get a tree and put up some lights….and to travel to different local towns for Christmas festivities! That can only mean more fun and food 😉

I’ll be back soon. Ciao for now….

 

Food & Friends

navabruzzo Leave a comment

Looking back, when we lived in Nelson County, VA, we kept more to ourselves, especially when we lived on the side of a mountain. We had an extremely steep driveway, and it just was off-putting to people. It was either too steep for their vehicles (a long climb on foot) or just too out of the way. So visits were few and far between.  Also, the atmosphere of the deep mountains of the Blue Ridge is reserved in the respect that folks kept to themselves more, enjoying their privacy. We unconsciously adapted that behavior.  Being in Italy and specifically on this farm, just on the edge of a road, makes dropping in or having a party an easy occurrence or event. And we are so enjoying the culture of being social.

So we’ve planned a dinner party. Our first here. Chef John is getting ready! John plans to use the wood oven as well as modern conveniences and he is stoked. We have enough furniture in place to make a small gathering happen. Now in Italy, you will find many of

table and sofa

Creative use of ironing board!

the rooms filled with extra tables and chairs. We laughed over this as we peruse real estate listings. Oh and extra beds everywhere. And I mean everywhere! Italy is all about family and eating, so their interior decorating definitely takes this into consideration. I am, in no way, making fun of the cultural difference,  but enjoying their resourcefulness. We’re not going to follow the Italian  model to its extent for our party, but will be adding small tables to our dining room and hall to accommodate our friends and all the food.

 

set for dinner

We’re ready!

This party evolved out of a promise..a thank you…. to Luigi for all his help getting the house ready for our arrival back at the beginning of October. He specifically asked for BBQ ribs, as he learned that John had just finished up his last job, prior to retirement, at Devils Backbone Brewery. We picked a date for the dinner with Luigi and it grew a bit, asking some of our neighbors and friends. When John and I moved here, we made a firm decision to immerse ourselves among the people of this land, and not resort to the familiarity of expat living. A few of our guests spoke no English, some a bit and one couple was from the same county in Virginia we had just moved from… small world. In the end, we all can laugh together and friendships grow in spite of the language differences. And of course, we’re learning more Italian each day.

 

 

As this is not a food blog, I won’t go into great details on John’s menu, but to say it was a mix of American and Italian elements. And his BBQ ribs were a big hit! He used his wood oven for a number of the dishes and to top off the evening, he and Luigi roasted some chestnuts. This brings me to the fact that our dinner party turned out to be on an Italian holiday; Feast of San Martino, November 11. San Martino was the patron saint of wine and wine making, the 11th signifies when the first sips of vino novello can be tasted. Also to be enjoyed are freshly pressed olive oil and roasted chestnuts. Stef and Ugo brought their new olive oil and Luigi supplied the chestnuts. Just a perfectly wonderful night of friends, food and traditions.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

 

 

Craziness

navabruzzo Leave a comment

Yes, we came here with eyes wide open. Different culture, government, customs are all a part of this jam-packed experience – life. So what kind of craziness are we experiencing and actually laughing over.

poster for italian lessons

Poster in Atri’s Municipal Bulding

How’s this… we sign up for Italian lessons, offered through our region at a very affordable price. BUT hardly any of the employees in that office speak any English to help us. We’re signing up to get better at Italian, but don’t understand enough of it to figure out what someone is saying 100 miles an hour.. Seem a little off to you? Does to John and I and we just laugh. Thankfully, our good (Italian) friend, Stef, called the office and got all the details. Then, trying to locate the class… Google said one thing, or maybe two… here we go again on navigation. Stef got other information when she called the office for us. In the end, we had to stop some young folks on the street to get to the building two blocks over from where we were. It all worked out fine and now we are in Italian classes 2x a week for the next 6 months!

Cellphones and internet. Very cheap here. Rather than doing a two year contract like we had back in Virginia with Verizon, we do a month to month SIM card. Internet is 30 euros a month for 30 GB. Two cellphones a month – 20 euros. Now that works for me. And the internet is SO much faster than what we had back in Nelson County. But, there is a little glitch…our international calling is messed up. Been on the blink for over three weeks and the provider is ‘working on it’. It really shouldn’t be this difficult to fix, but again this is Italy and things just work in a different manner. So we have email, FB, messenger, etc. to stay in contact when needed. Ok, update on the international calling as we stopped by the store yesterday evening. When the support ticket was placed, it was only placed for credits due us, not for the technical issue of the international calling. That is now in place and I’ve been promised it would be working in 24 hours or refund and new provider. Guess I’ll know by this evening… And we are still laughing… Good sign.

Deliveries to our house. Now this issue is a truly perplexing one. The mail lady was able to find us, so no issues with mail deliveries. Common courier is another story. As packages cannot be left here without a signature or a paper handed over to the receiver, a call is made from the courier asking if we are home at a certain time to receive the package. All well in good, but usually the caller is speaking Italian very fast. I’ll try to slow them down, we work out a timing, but it’s our address that throws them. First there is no street sign up at the intersection. Google has not named our road and we don’t think most of the drivers are using Google anyway. Another problem is no one has lived at this address for a long time, so there isn’t a reference for these younger drivers. It’s definitely a learning curve to get them down here, but slowly we are working through it. Some packages make it here, some down the road at the winery. One right now is lost in limbo and trying to get that solved. We’re not laughing as much about this craziness right yet…

But the craziness is just, once again, small stuff. It works itself out. Usually. What we remember mostly about each day are the beautifully unique places we visit, the people we meet and new friendships developing. Today Luigi, our property manager and new friend, stopped by to drop off some paperwork. Along with him was his friend, Massimo. They bring laughter and friendship into our home and we are blessed for it. Yesterday, a friend of Luigi’s, Arturo, delivered us a second load of firewood.  We’re stocking up for winter. Arturo was with his family at the local restaurant for dinner. We were there as well. At the end of our meal, desserts showed up. We remarked to our waitress that she must be delivering them to the wrong table, as we had just finished ours. She said the gentleman (Arturo) at the other table had bought them for us. How could we refuse! New friendships everywhere we turn in this rural community.

This afternoon, we finally drove a few miles up the coast to a beach town – Pineto. I say ‘finally’ as we’ve been living here a bit over a month and not visited the sea yet. The sea is in my blood. My mother’s family was from a seaport in Abruzzo and my father’s family from Naples. Both on the water and the traditions of the sea and seafood were handed down to me. I learned to swim at the Jersey shore with my dad as my instructor. So not to have gotten down to the sea, as close as it is to us here, is just crazy!

pineto beach

The beautiful Adriatic in November

pineto beach deserted

Deserted November beach – enjoy it now – super crowded in summer

So we took a break from the ‘setting up house’ thing and headed to Pineto. Not only does Pineto have a wide beautiful beach, of course deserted at this time of the year, but a shoreline of ancient, commanding pine trees. These imposing sentinels supply deep shade in the summer and today added mystery with the subdued lighting of fall. We were also pleasantly surprised by a food & crafts market along the village’s main road.  I’m just sorry I didn’t come more hungry. 😉

pine trees

 

pineto market red

olives

Olives Galore!

I would say John and I are changing. We can laugh through the craziness. It’s not something we did as readily in the US. Maybe it’s because we realize that we’d miss out on the gift of being here. Or it may be an acceptance that  it’s all part of this amazing life here in Italy.