Hi family and friends, Yesterday was a relaxing day for us. We finally got to relax a little and not run around completing the reams of paperwork that is necessary to live and work in Italy. Our last suitcase was located in Paris. Air France flew it in to Naples yesterday. Poor Brian had to go to the airport, go back through Customs, wait 35 minutes until they had verified it had arrived, then they let him loose in this vast underground basement filled with suitcases and told him to find ours. Thank God he did as it contained the receipts from the last 10 days for reimbursement from the Government for our 10 days in the hotel and the meals and incidentals from those 10 days. If we did not have those, we lose all of the reimbursement and that would have been painful.... Of course we could have obtained a duplicate hotel receipt, but all the others would have been lost....All of Brians documents for work were in there as well as his pillow. The suitcase itself looks a little worse for wear, even though we bought it brand new the day before the flight. I am not sure where it has been for the last 5 days, but it looks like it has had a good time...... We finished unpacking the last of what we need for the next 3 weeks or so while we are here at the hotel. It is good to be back here even though it is a little further from Brians work than other hotels. Here, we are already family and everyone is so nice. They greet us like long lost friends, and go out of their way to make us comfortable. The housekeeper comes in each day, we teach each other Italian and English, and talk about our lives. She lights up when she sees me, and we talk like old friends about what is going on in our lives. Of course she is talking in Italian and I am talking in English, but somehow we manage to get the message across. Lots of hand gestures help..... We went to the Support Site which is the site where all the military families live. This is a complete city which supports all of the military families. The commissary is there, the NEX (think Macys with a little Target thrown in), a mini mall with drycleaner, spa, theater with movies in English, food court (A&W, Taco Bell, KFC, Subway) the Navy Lodge where a lot of Government workers stay, fire dept., Navy Hospital, etc... The military families live there and their children go to school right on the base. It is small town America in a gated community in Italy. You have to go through tight Security to get in and you are also IDd by every store and the commissary. Brian got his haircut and told the barber what he wanted. What he got was a military haircut! Very short all around. He looks so cute, but I refuse to salute him..... I went for the paraffin pedicure and manicure special. The young girl who did my manicure questioned me because after 30 years of being in nursing, my fingernails are always short and I wear no polish on my fingernails. I am old school nursing and I believe that my fingernails should be very short and scrupulously clean so I do not transmit any bacteria to my patients underneath them. I am not working right now, but as they say, Old habits die hard!. So the young girl looks at me and says, what did you want me to do for your fingers? I replied, cuticles, and the sides of my fingernails are rough... She laughed outright! Okay she says, and started working on my manicure. Now, when she got to my pedicure the smile was wiped right off of her face. I had not had a pedicure in 4 months since I left the US. She filed the bottom of my feet down for about 20 minutes, dipped them in hot paraffin numerous times all the while muttering..... I had to laugh because she is about 17 years old and believes she knows it all right now. I had a child or 3 that felt that same exact way....All in all, I came away with exactly what I wanted, scrupulously clean and soft fingernails and toenails. It was relaxing as the pedicure chair had an awesome massager that massaged my entire back during the scrubbing marathon.... I have realized that Brian is a little crazy with the driving here. Since we have returned, it has taken me a little time to get used to the driving here again. I am in the passenger seat trying to hold in my omgs, my yikes, my what the hell?, my we are gonna die, and have been successful 1/3 of the time. Brian, on the other hand, revels in it. He has this grin that is very scary, guns the engine and he is off. He actually said yesterday, I love Italian driving. I think he missed his calling as a NASCAR driver because he is absolutely nuts on the road. He drives exactly like the Italians, but with American attitude....MAMMA MIA, I am scared..... We made it back home safely though, and unpacked the suitcase. We put all the receipts together making the first expense report of many so Brian could pass it on on Tuesday. Tuesday, we also go to Pass and ID to get our IDs and sign 837,000 documents, front and back...... Wednesday we have to go to some registry type place in a town called NOLA and get the car ID checked and sign 721,942 documents, front and back. Thursday we have to go get fingerprinted for the official signing of 650,189 documents, front and back, and Friday we start the 6 day orientation process where we will be signing the remaining 582,999 documents front and back. Once all this is complete, someone will lose approximately 1/2 of those signed documents, so we will be repeating 1/2 of this in the future.... Oh well, when you are dealing with 2 Governments, US and Italy, things fall through the very wide cracks.....No complaints from me though as I get to live in Italy for 3 years in a beautiful villa, with gorgeous weather, wonderful friends (and more to come), adventures aplenty, with the man I have shared my life with (34 years so far)... NO COMPLAINTS HERE! We stopped by The Gardenia Restaurant to place our name on the list for the pork rotisserie that night for dinner. You have to pre-order these because they only do the pork on Saturday nights and they go very fast. They are ready at 2100 (9pm). Brian went to get our order at 2100 and he comes home with 4 bags... ??? I open the first bag and it is a small stuffed artichoke-he knows I love artichokes and they had them stuffed and grilled-the stuffing was delicious. The next bag contained chicken wings from the rotisserie-these are so delicious as they cook them in the fire with some special marinade-crunchy, soft, flavorful, YUM. The next bag had the patatas which are the cubed potatoes that they roast under the rotisserie which soaks in all of the juices of the meats on the rotisserie and the smokiness of the fire-absolutely delicious, crunchy on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside-they also put fresh rosemary on the patatas....I assumed that the last bag contained the boneless pork we had pre-ordered...NOPE, when I opened the bag I saw a long bone with some meat around it. Now the pork was a boneless roast so I knew there had been some mix-up. It was a huge turkey leg!! Now how that happened, we may never know because it was now 2130 (9:30pm) and Brian was not going back to get our correct order. So we ate the turkey leg (which was juicy and delicious, but not pork) and the rest of the meal. We finished at 22:30 (10:30) watched a new series Jen introduced us to called Burn Notice (thanks Jen, we enjoy it) and finally went to bed at midnight. This was our first restful day back in Italy, and today is going to be even better-the Italian sun is calling..... My European education continues.....
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 07:50:32 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015