Welcome to Italy

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So, I arrived by myself on Saturday morning around 8. I got really worried cause Charlotte didn't show and didn't show and by 10:30 I was pretty scared. I had all this luggage and didn't know what to do. It took me about an hour to figure out how to call her and then when I did, I couldn't get through.

Finally, I called ry, and asked him to call her and told him I would call him back. Of course as soon as I heard his voice and he was being all nice, I burst into tears. Anyway, Charlotte slept through her alarm and her cell phone battery was dead so Ry managed to get her at her regular number.

She came to get me around 12.

The next day we had a meeting with a professor who needs to put together a proposal for a federal grant and has never been through it before. They had no idea that I was a technical writer. They just thought I knew computers and could speak English. So it turned out that I was a really good fit for what they needed. They are drafting up a work contract which I can then use to apply for a type of work visa.


So, Charlotte and her boyfriend’s family have been really helpful and great to me. They have helped me get some important documents and have taken my stuff to the dry cleaners etc. etc. As fate would have it, this furnished apartment just opened up in the building and nobody here rents for less than a year and you practically have to prove that your first born has a job lined up to even get them to consider you.

Well, somehow they managed to get the real estate agent to talk to the family that owns the place and get them to agree to rent the place to me for a little bit more for just 6 months. I am doing a 'vacation rental' which is the only legal way to do a lease for under a year in this country! So, right now, Charlotte and Signora Crippa are down at the power company to get my utilities turned on cause only a Italian born in Italy can do this!

The dollar is really strong against the lire right now! 1000 lire buys about what a dollar buys there and the dollar is worth 2000 lire so everything is like half the price here. Except contact solution which is 19,000 lire! can you believe it? Also, our apartment ‘aint exactly cheap either. After the real estate agent's fees and the spese (condo fees) we are paying about $700/month for a one bedroom. But at least it's furnished. Though we need a sofa and a washing machine.

They don't really do dryers here. And they are terrified of air conditioners. Of course it's miserably hot and humid in the summer with very little breeze, and I really am starting to understand the whole siesta thing cause you really can't do much else when it's that hot.

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