Status update:

Shipment delivery starts tomorrow morning, expected to take 2 days.

Internet install is scheduled for Wednesday morning.

Blog updates are a pain in the ass from my phone.

We're expecting for the Mazda to arrive and start the inspection process in the next week or so.

Talk to y'all later!

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Moving day

We moved out of the hotel today. No high speed at the apartment yet, so blog updates will be sporadic and succinct for a little while. Becca and I are both still available via email on our phones though.

Till next time...

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Sorry we have been slacking on the blog, but our learning continues…

It is almost 10:30 and I just applied what I thought was body cream or lotion to my leg after a shower to learn that it was a body wash instead of lotion. Chalking it up to another lesson learned. Perhaps instead of writing the shopping list in English, I might have to write it in English and then find the translation into Italian before going to the store. See the picture to understand that I am not an idiot, it looks like a lotion type of bottle with the words ‘Skin Care’ and ‘crème’.

Also, we learned that Italian school supplies aren’t like the school supplies in the States. You get a list that seems easy enough, but there are some differences: The majority of the pencils don’t have erasers; None of the notebooks are spiral-bound; Binders have 4 rings instead of 3; Just little things like that.

We decided to open up an Italian bank account so we can get internet connection and a toll pass. My co-worker went with us to translate when we opened the account. Today I tried using my ATM card for the first time and it was all in Italian. I guess they assume if you open an Italian bank account, you must speak Italian – not so in my case. I got through telling it I wanted to withdraw and how much, I was pretty proud of myself at this point. But… then it asked another question and I had to ask somebody to translate it for me, it was asking if I want to donate to a telethon. I am learning a lot, but sometimes it isn’t a lot of fun to be the new one.

On another note, Rick finally got the ‘granny cart’ he has been wanting. He was pretty picky about his granny cart, so he had been holding out for the one that met his specifications. Now he has moved on to finding his “man purse”. Lord help us.

After six weeks in the hotel, tomorrow we move to the apartment. We’re pretty excited about this. We bought some pancake mix, syrup and sausage links to have a real breakfast in our real kitchen on Sunday morning. I also got a cake mix so we can bake some cupcakes too. The lady at the commissary must have thought I was crazy to be so excited about buying these things, but I know I am not the only one who has done the same thing.

Oh, our household goods shipment is in Rome now and we expect delivery next week some time; in the meantime we will be ‘camping out’ in the apartment with our new camping equipment. I think the kids will like the ‘camping’, but I am not sure that Rick and I are going to do too well with the sleeping part. I see massages in our future after sleeping on air mattresses. I just keep telling myself “this is the price of admission for living in Rome”.

More movies!

Trevi:





Pantheon:





Odd sighting:

Our apartment

The UAB contained our video camera, so I took a video of our apartment, and am trying this for the first time. A quick disclaimer first.... James Cameron, I'm not. Now grab some popcorn, and enjoy the flick.

House / Shipment news:

Becca and Christine did the walkthrough on our place yesterday, and there are only a couple of things that are left to be done. There's a railing outside of Palmer's room that needs to be painted, and the chimney needs to be cleaned out. Those are scheduled for today, along with.... (pause for effect)..... our UAB!

We caught a ride up there yesterday afternoon with our sponsor (one of the guys in the office), and looked at the whole place. There are immense (for here) amounts of storage, and I think we'll probably be fine on space, as far as our stuff is concerned.

Th work that was done over the past month didn't include the tile in either psychadelic bathroom, or in the kitchen. Just to remind everyone what we'll be looking at for the next 3 years - please ignore the text superimposed on each picture. The master bath is all white, the kids' bathroom is the brown one, and the blue one is a half bath downstairs.

Disclaimer: if there's a chance that you have epilepsy, you may want to skip these images - I don't want to be held responsible for any seizures.

Our air shipment is scheduled to be delivered to the house between noon & 2:00. The kids and I are tentatively planning on borrowing a car from one of the guys in the office and going up there to meet the shipment. If borrowing a car is not an option, we can cab up there from Becca's office... it's about a 15E cab ride.

I'll post more later, once the day's activities have concluded.