We Moved!

If you read our blog “Ready, Steady, Go”, you know that we decided to buy an apartment.  We came to the conclusion that we needed to do this based on many things.  Mostly, I wanted to have my own house.  Mike was more flexible, but he agreed that it would be nice to be able to decorate and furnish to our choice.  After viewing many houses and apartments, we finally found one that seemed to fit our requirements.  Now that we’ve been here for three weeks, we are pretty sure that we’ve made a good decision.  Not perfect, but close.

The buzzer at the building's entry has two buttons for us: one for our main apartment, one for the attic.

On March 8, we met with the notario, a lawyer who specializes in real estate and is licensed to make real estate transactions, our agent, the owners of the property and their agent, and a translator to make sure Mike and I understood everything that was going on.  Two hours later, after reading aloud, word for word, the 13-page deed (with the translator and Margaret following along in English), we exchanged our check for their keys to the apartment.  A very Italian thing then happened.  A bottle of prosecco was opened and a big tray of sweets appeared.  Bravo!  We all saluted each other on a successful transaction.  What fun!

Giorgia Russo, our realtor, then took us for lunch at her favorite restaurant in Chieti where we were introduced to a traditional Abruzzo dish with ceci beans and pasta.  Such good food we have here! 

Since we had no furniture to move into the apartment, Mike and I rented a B&B close to the apartment for a few days.  We had ordered a bed from Ikea, and it was delivered on Saturday.  We had arranged for a handyman from a company called Task Rabbit to come on Monday and build it.  We’ve built too many Ikea things in the past to even think about attempting to build this bed.  Time to let a pro take over.  Francesco showed up on time, and in 90 minutes the bed was finished! We had a place to sleep.

This was the beginning of money flying out the window.  When a house or apartment is sold here in Italy, the owners take everything.  Including lighting fixtures.  They left the kitchen because we asked for it in our offer to buy the apartment.  This almost cost us the deal, because the wife didn’t want to give up her kitchen.  It’s a common practice to take your kitchen with you when you leave.  Even apartments don’t come with a kitchen.  But I knew that even though I hated her blue kitchen and wouldn’t be keeping it, that I would need a kitchen and wanted to have one asap.  I can wait to decide what kind of kitchen to buy.  Plus, I’m told that selling the blue kitchen will be easy and it’s worth a fair amount of money.

We had arranged for a number of painters to come by on the Saturday after the closing to look at the rooms and give us an estimate on painting.  We really needed to have the bedrooms painted.  The main bedroom was violet, and the two smaller bedrooms were a bright green, like Shrek green. UGH!  One man, Leonardo, who speaks fluent English and is a general contractor, showed up with his geometra, which is a kind of blend between architect and a structural engineer.  Any building or remodeling done in Italy needs to be approved by a geometra and filed and approved by the local comune (city).  And since we had mentioned that we wanted to expand the arch between the kitchen and the living area, he thought the geometra could give us a better idea of what could be done.  Leonardo impressed us with his construction knowledge and business acumen.  The geometra even went up to our “attic” to see what would need to be done to make it a livable space.  He gave us free advice regarding a wall that divided the room: The wall was built because there is a law in Italy that there must be a certain amount of sunlight per square meter.  Without the wall, there wouldn’t be enough natural light, since the skylights are the only windows and are too small.  He also told us that the area we thought was ready to make into a bathroom was recorded as a laundry.  So, to make it a bathroom would be illegal.  Any changes to the attic would require hiring a geometra and getting approval from the comune.  Typical Italian bureaucracy. 

We also wanted to move the TV to the other side of the living area.  Leonardo showed up a couple of days later with two technicians and in about an hour, the TV outlet was moved!  (No charge.)

Thankfully, Leonardo was able to get his painter in promptly and begin painting.  We chose a light cream for the two small bedrooms, which was a mistake.  It took seven (7) coats to cover the green in the first small room. Well, to be fair, paint here in Italy is not like the USA.  There is no such thing as Lowe’s One Coat will cover.  The paint here is thick, then watered down, then color is added and mixed.  All on site.  So, for the second room, we went a little darker cream.  Our bedroom is now a nice warm grey. 

Leonardo’s father and his friend are builders and specialize in brick.  So Leonardo brought them by to look at the arch to see how they could widen it.  They argued a bit with each other (in Italian) but finally agreed on how it could be done.  After searching several suppliers, Leonardo found bricks that would work.  Here's photo of what it looks like now. They will begin demolition and construction next week.  We’ll have to get a B&B for a few days, to avoid the dust.

While this was going on, Mike and I shopped.  We needed nine ceiling lights and a washer and dryer.  There’s a couple of hardware stores near us, a LeRoy Merlin and a Brico, that are kind of like Menard’s in the USA.  We also need to buy a bathroom sink, vanity, and mirror for each of the bathrooms.  The previous owners took the nice ones and left us old used ones.  In fact, the main bathroom doesn’t even have a mirror.  We finally ordered one for the utility bath, but it won’t be available until April 15.  That’s okay, though, because the arch needs to be built and the living area needs to be painted.  We will continue to shop for the main bathroom fixtures.

A big purchase is a new washer/dryer.  In Italy, it’s not common to have a dryer.  We really didn’t need one in Casalanguida because most of the time the weather was nice enough to hang clothes outside. If not, we had a big room where we could hang clothes to dry.  Here, not so much.  We have the balcony, but …   So we shopped around and were overwhelmed by options.  At one electronics store, Trony, we found a combination washer/dryer that is the latest model.  It’s interesting that dryers here work differently from those in the States.  The dryers pull water from the clothes and then heat them.  Most dryers empty the water into a bin that then needs to be emptied manually.  Because the unit we bought is combined, the water from the dryer empties the same way as the water from the washer.  It’s pretty cool.

Another interesting life style here is that bedrooms do not have closets.  People buy stand-alone wardrobes.  And, of course, they take them with when they move.  So now Mike and I are looking for a wardrobe for our bedroom.  In the meantime, we have a temporary clothes rack.  After many days of shopping and surfing the net, I think we’ve agreed on a wardrobe from Ikea.  Thursday at Ikea a nice young lady who spoke pretty good English helped us with a design.  We need to confirm measurements and we may change our minds about the doors.  But I think that’s a decision pretty much made. We’ll definitely have Francesco come back to build it.

As with any move, there are lots of administrative things to do.  But here in Italy, it’s much more complicated.  First, we had to go to the comune and register ourselves as residents.  A friend who lives near us, Laura Ruggierio, is fluent in Italian and English and she took us to the village to register.  We will have to go back next week with photos and apply for new ID cards. 

We also have to arrange for garbage pick-up.  Last Wednesday, Laura took us to the office in the comune to sign up for it.  After filling out numerous forms, we were told we had to go to another location to pick up our trash cans.  They would be ready for us in a few days.  Turns out that the cans are labeled specifically for us.  And a different can for each type of refuse:  plastic and tin, glass, food waste, general waste, and paper.  We get a calendar that shows us what days which can is picked up.  As in Casalanguida, we will set a can out the night before it is to be picked up.  Hopefully we will get our cans this week, as our garbage is piling up!

Laura also referred us to a dentist in Montesilvano.  I’ve been having some pain on my right side, so it was important.  The dentist is a nice young woman who spoke a little English, and she says that the x-rays show that I have a couple of root canals on that side.  This could be the cause of the pain.  I went back on Thursday for a cleaning that was excellent.  I’ll go again next week to see a specialist.  Mike will get a cleaning then too.  The whole bill was 60 euros (dental work is not covered by the health system). 

We will go next week to arrange for a new health card and sign up for a new primary care physician.  When you go to the ASL office (health office), you show them your new residency documents, and they tell you to pick a doctor from a list available.  How do you know who to pick? (In Casalanguida that wasn’t a problem because there was only one doctor.)  I’m a member of a Citta’ Sant’Angelo Facebook group, so I posted the question.  Several recommended the same doctor, so that’s who I’ll choose.  Mike will message his cardiologist in Vasto to see if he can recommend a cardiologist here.

Our new apartment has a security system designed with Italian engineering.  The technician came out and updated the phone numbers in the system, and told us we needed to get a SIM card without a PIN.  Then he would come back and finish setting it up.  So we went to the WinTre office (out cell phones are through them) to (1) complain about reception and (2) to buy a SIM card.  The nice young woman at the desk said that WinTre doesn’t work well here and that they don’t have SIM cards without a PIN.  She said we need to go to TIM, a competitor.  Well isn’t that nice? 

Actually it was.  We walked over the TIM store, about 100 meters away and found out that our building has fiber optic.  And we can switch our phones over to them for about half the cost of WinTre.  Three days later, a couple of technicians showed up and ran the wires the wires and we now have fiber optic.  We hadn’t paid them a euro yet.  Last Thursday afternoon we went back to the TIM store, it took about 2 hours, but we got our phones changed over and signed up for the Disney Channel.  Payment is drawn directly from my account at UniCredit, so the phone account is in my name.  I had to sign my name in at least two dozen places! 

We still haven’t met any of our neighbors.  We know that the family next door has a young infant, because we hear him cry.  And a lot of neighbors have dogs, we know because we hear them bark.  There are lots of kids who play in the park, and it’s fun to watch them.  They love to play soccer and chase each other around.  Like kids do everywhere.

We miss our neighbors and friends in Casalanguida: our short walk across the yard to have coffee with Maria and Robert, listening to Paul's struggles with his remodeling and car repair projects, chatting with Giuseppe and Angela, hearing Cathey and Nicky's tales of taking care of horses, coffee at Cinzia's bar, and the crochet group that Margaret had helped a little.

We are very happy to have found some really good restaurants near us.  Our first week here we drove only nine minutes to a restaurant called Da Carletta and had an amazing seafood meal.  And another evening we went to a restaurant just two minutes away for another great seafood meal.  There are several more pizza places that we want to try.

Oh, I have to tell you about the mall.  Just two minutes away is a GIANT mall. A huge supermarket, and so many shops!  I almost don’t like grocery shopping at the supermarket because it’s so big.  I really like going to village markets and supporting local farmers. In the old town of Citta’ Sant’Angelo there is a market on Wednesdays, and we plan to go next week. 

Our apartment is about a ten-minute drive up the hill to the old town, and about ten minutes to the sea.  From our balcony, we can see the mountains and on a clear day we can see a rim of the Adriatic Sea. 

After three weeks in our new place, we are beginning to feel comfortable.  We had ordered a new sofa/sleeper and a recliner for Mike, and they should arrive mid-April. We bought a chair and ottoman from Ikea for Margaret.  Our things from our storage locker are enroute from Chicago and should arrive sometime in May.  We bought dishes and silverware at Ikea, and wire shelving to store things in the kitchen and storage room.  We also bought an outdoor-type table and chairs to use until our table and chairs arrive from Chicago. 

Next week when the work begins on the arch, we will go to a B&B for a couple of days.  We plan to check out beach clubs in Silvi and Montesilvano.  We’ll also be shopping for fixtures for the main bathroom. 

It’s been a crazy busy month for us.  But the sticky notes with to-dos that we put up are coming down methodically, and soon we will be nestled in our own home. A future blog should have us living in a remodeled apartment, with a mix of old and new furniture and a balcony set up for enjoying the outdoors.