Gas strikes...

Today, they announced on the news that there is to be a gas strike throughout Italy. I think it is in protest of the G8 Summit being held in L'Aquile (the citta' where the earthquake was in March or April). Anyway, the strike started yesterday I believe and will continue until 7 am tomorrow.

Bad news for me is that I am running on less than a 1/4 of a tank of gas. I am supposed to pick up our missionary friend, Angie, her 2 daughers and Pam, the church intern for an afternoon on base and bowling. Whoops!

The only time I was out to get gas though was on Tuesday. And Tuesday after the huge storm that rolled through I was in a hurry to get home. I needed to be here between 1 and 5 for the temporary government furniture to be picked up. They didn't show up until 3:30 pm and I never left the house again.

Wasn't planning on being out yesterday but the opportunity for Jared to be in a commercial called and so we left. On my way home yesterday all the gas stations I saw had a sign out by the street that said "chiuso" which means closed. The OMV down the street looked to be open but I didn't stop to gas up.

Fortunately for me, we have a brand new gas can full of gas for the lawn mower. It has been used to put gas in the mower two times and holds 10 liters. So, I used that this morning to put some more fuel in my tank. If it weren't for the bowling etc I would just have waited until tomorrow but...I had already promised Angie and company that I would come and pick them up for the day since Titus is out on a church camping trip for the week and she is without a car.

Anyway, lesson learned. When in a foreign country - never let your car run below 1/2 tank. I knew this in Germany and this is mainly due to the long staus (traffic jams) that you would run in to. No kidding, sitting in your car with no place to exit the highway for hours on end. We once sat in a stau at the Brenner Pass, just out of the mountains from Germany and Austria into Italy, for over 2 hours. We were in view of a McDonald's but we couldn't get to it. No exits, no shoulder to pull over on, nothing. So, now I know, the Italians may not have long traffic jams but they do have gas strikes quite often I am learning.

Got to run. Need to finish up some schooling we didn't do because of all the moving, unpacking, etc.

And a Star is Born...

Today we received a phone call at 11:30 am asking if Jared wanted to be in an AFN (Armed Forces Network) television commercial. If he did we needed to be on base by 1 pm. His job, should he choose to accept it, would be to annoy the “mom” in the commercial, along with the 2 other children. He said that he thought he could do that.

At the time that we received the call I was at my friend’s house using her super hi-speed internet. So, we shut the computer down and raced home to eat lunch. Then we raced to the base so that we would make it on time.

This time I opted to take the tangenziale. The tangenziale is the road that runs alongside the Autostrada (which is a toll road). I decided to take this route because it is supposed to be faster. There are less rotari to take (traffic circles) and a faster speed limit. I was really nervous though because I had never taken this route before and didn’t want to get off on the wrong exit. Or worse, miss my exit. However, we did make it okay and on time.

We went to the AFN office and waited for the commercial to shoot. The kids had to sit in the back seat of a car and sing annoying songs while the “mom” rolled her eyes and then turned on AFN Eagle (the radio station). Because the car they were sitting in was American made it couldn’t actually pick up the radio station and that part had to be played on an IPOD. Too funny!

Shooting the commercial took over an hour. Jared said it was fun but a little hot. They did sit outside in the sun in a vehicle for most of that time. Glad he enjoyed it though.

Ci vidiamo!

How High's the Water, Mama??

Recognize that as the line from a Johnny Cash song? I do and I will tell you why I refer to it.

Yesterday (Tuesday) the boys and I went to the base around 9 in the morning to get our sogiorrno photos taken. This photo will be put onto an ID card that shows that the Italian government has given us permission to live here. The sogiorrno is in addition to the mandatory Visa we had to get in our passports. And it is a long process to get this too.

Anyway, after getting our picture taken, I went to check on a different internet provider while the boys went to the library to play on the computers and check out books. After checking on Goldnet internet service I headed to the PX because I knew that I needed to buy something. The problem was I forgot what I was in there to get. I walked around most of the place in hopes that I would jog my memory but alas that did not happen. (I didn’t actually remember until sometime last night at home). Then I headed to the library to check out books, surf the net and wait for James so we could eat lunch together. It was only about 10:30 or 11 am when I headed to the library.

I walked into the library and reminded Jared that the Summer Reading Program that I dropped him off to participate in was starting. I then took over at his computer and told Caleb he should look outside because it was getting pretty dark.
About 20 minutes later you could hear the thunder start rolling. Just going and going and going. Then we heard a loud rushing sound and looked out the window to see it pouring down. No kidding, the rain was coming down in sheets. The parking lot was full of water.

James was going to ride his bike to meet us for lunch but decided to wait until the rain stopped. I needed to get back to the house by 1 pm so that our temporary furniture could be picked up. (and of course they didn’t get to the house until 3 pm…bit I digress). So, I decided that I would brave the rain and pick up lunch and then we would drive over to James’ office and eat lunch with him.

Well, fortunately I was wearing sandals. The boys, on the other hand, we wearing tennis shoes and socks. I gave them money and told them to walk along the sidewalk and get in line for lunch. I would run our books out to the car and get an umbrella and move the car to a location where they could get in without soaking their feet. I took off my sandals and started to run through the water. But it was so deep that wasn’t really possible. I ended up just wading through water that was over my ankles and it was still raining quite heavily. And, silly me, I had left the umbrella in the car so I had no protection from the rain. Fortunately, for me, I am not made of sugar so I made it okay.

Right after I found a different parking spot and went inside to pick up the boys so we could take James lunch….it stopped raining. Of course! It did, however, rain off and on for most of the rest of the afternoon. Certainly cooled the temp down to the low 70s which was quite nice.

Just a little update here in the heart of Italy!

Ciao for now!

Happy Independence Day!

I know, I know it is not the 4th yet. However, today, Thursday on Caserma Ederle we are having our Freedom Fest. Carnival type games like dunk tank, car smash (both boys really want to do this), bull riding machine and more. Plus, there is free food and drink (except alcohol - this you have to pay for).

So, the boys and I loaded up the car and headed to the base to shop for our Fourth of July BBQ and stay for the Fest. Needed to come a little early to guarantee parking. Caserma Ederle is a very small base and on a good day (no Fest) it can sometimes be difficult to find parking. When you think about all the people who will be coming for the free food and drink you can see how parking might be a problem.

Coming to the base early also explains why I am using the library computers. Interesting side note: I am sitting next to a gentleman from Washington State. What a shocker for him our weather is - around 90 and humid. And the AC here is not like the US where it freezes you out. Here is barely takes the heat out and makes it roughly comfortable. Not sweating to death but you still know its hot outside. Anyway, he his here three weeks with some other folks (a group TDY). Started talking to him and they (the group) are not allowed to rent a car while here. However, they were told to go out and explore and have fun. What???!!!??? How are you supposed to do that when you have no vehicle and no internet where you are staying so that you can check out bus schedules and places nearby to visit? Silly government agencies. So, you all know me, I invited him and his friends (two other guys he hangs out with) to our Fabulous 4th BBQ! We are just having our missionary friends and a few others over. So this will be fun. Just a few people together enjoying the area while celebrating Independence Day with other Americans. James will have to go pick them up since they aren't allowed to rent a car but that shouldn't be a problem.

I purchased most of the items for the BBQ today. Still need to get the meat but I want to wait until right before the FEST to do that. That way I can stick the frozen meat in the cold storage bag and it will keep everything else cold until I can get home. (The cold storage bag keeps things cold and/or frozen for about 5 hours so I have plenty of time).

This means I really have to get cracking tonight and tomorrow on cleaning up the place. Most items are out of boxes and many are in "their" place but I still have some items that are just floating around on various surfaces. And, of course, nothing is on the wall yet. We may not get many of the pictures hung but we can at least have the boxes unpacked, things put away and the boxes stored neatly in a corner.

My craft room and the storage area next too are really bad. I have to take the doors off of my craft cabinet (from IKEA) to change the shelves around. So I can't load it up until I do that. I tried one of the screws yesterday but it was too tight for me and I didn't want to strip out the top so I am waiting for James to take the doors off for me. Then I can finish unpacking craft supplies, organize them and then organize the storage room with whatever is left or staying stored (like Christmas items, sleeping bags, etc.)

I did buy some flowers the other day so that brightens up the front step and the back patio. Looks more homey. I promise to take pictures either tonight or tomorrow and get them sized and posted soon.

Better run. Almost out of library computer time.

A dopo (until later)

Angy

Good news -- sorta

No, I didn't find the sapphire - YET!

However, the modem for our wireless internet service does seem to be working on the desktop computer. However, it is pretty slow. Probably not going to work very well for downloads or watching tv online. But it will work for checking email, banking (I hope) and hopefully updating and uploading pics to the blog. (I am at the library right now - so still no photos).

Ci vidiamo!

OH NO!!!

Just realized last night while at my friend's house using the internet that I lost the large sapphire stone in a ring James' bought me 11 Christmas' ago. Bummer...

I know I lost it recently as the prongs that hold the stone catch on things and has a very distinct feel to it. I must have lost it while unpacking boxes prior to heading to my friend's house. Probably not much chance that I will find it.

We have a split level house with many levels -

Top Floor: boys' bedroom
next floor: computer and craft room and bathroom
next floor: master bedroom and two bathrooms
down another level: living, dining rooms, & kitchen (main floor)
down again: garage and large bathroom with laundry facility
and down again: taverna (large living area)

The last two floors are underground and each level is about a 1/2 flight down. I was on each and every level yesterday. Unpacking boxes, doing laundry, carrying empty boxes and packing paper to the storage area and more. The stone could quite possibly be anywhere in the house. Or it could have fallen out while walking through the parking area to my friend's house. Either way, it will take some providence to find it.

This makes me very sad. However, it is just a ring and I have my health ;-)

ciao!

Fingers Crossed...

We have had some crazy, busy, frustrating times in the last week and I will attempt to tell you all about them.

Monday we had the final 5 of our 15 crates delivered. Not sure how they got separated into a split shipment but they did. It is my understanding that they are not supposed to separate our crates. They are all "supposed" to go into the same shipping container. However, it did happen and we are none the worse for it. On Monday, we received the couches (yeah something to sit on) and bath mats for the bathrooms. (silly thing to be excited about but I am - my mats are so comfy when getting out of the bath or shower and they wash up so well - a towel just doesn't cut it. And when you have ceramic tile floors you really do need something to set your tootsies on...don't want to slip and fall). I digress...

As most of you know we have also been having internet problems. What? You didn't know that?? Well, we did, we do and we will for a while probably. Apparently this quaint and beautiful country of Italy is still a third world country and backwards in many ways. Internet is just one of them. (As I have typed this portion I have just lost my connection. Last night when I lost my connection I could not reestablish the connection until around 3:30 this afternoon. Went out after about 20 minutes both times). Hopefully that is not a sign of what we will have to continually deal with. I will have to become a much faster typer and reader and surfer. I know I can type things up and save it as a document and then load it up but man I still like my internet service. Still waiting. Okay, I guess I will continue writing this and just save it to a word document if I am unable to get my connection back. Back to what I was saying about this being a third world country...It seems that the ASDL box for my neighborhood is completely saturated. Not one slot left for anyone. As the phone tech was here to set up a phone connection (which we have since decided against) someone pulled up in their car to talk to him. Apparently this gentleman has lived in our neighborhood for a year and is still waiting to get ASDL. Dial-up here can be very unreliable. Even the ASDL goes out periodically for no reason. So they can put me on a waiting list but, of course, I am behind everyone else. The tech did say that they have a plan in the works to add more underground service for our area. This means that my wait for high speed internet service is around 6 months or so.

So because of this we purchased a wireless modem and sim card yesterday for the laptop. This is theoretically supposed to allow us inlimited wireless internet for 30 days. We have to add time every 30 days (like a pay as you go cell phone). However, last night it took about 5 hours to get it set up. We finally had connectivity and started to check emails, etc. I had just cleaned out my email when I lost my connection. I was in the middle of composing an email at the time. I started walking around the house to see if I could get a better connection. I couldn't get a better connection and even lost the power completely to the modem. This morning we still couldn't get the laptop to recognize the wireless modem. Started trying to set up the desk tops to see if it was just an issue with our laptop (not enough power to support the modem through the USB port) but don't have all the cables, adapters etc that we need to get that done either. So, on a whim I came back downstairs to the laptop and tried again to see if I could get connected. Voila! It worked but alas, only for 20 minutes. Even now, as I type, I keep trying to see if I can get my signal back. Nothing as worked so far. Don't like this 20 minute shut-off thing. And when you pay that much for something you really would like for it to work continually and not sporadically.

Okay, now it has been over an hour and now the modem has no power and the computer isn’t even recognizing it. I have tried rebooting twice and even powered the entire thing off and then turned it on again. Something is wrong with this modem. We either need to take it back to the shop we got it at or figure out how to make it work. The good news is I have a friend who literally lives 3 minutes from us and she is out of town for the rest of the week. She left me her keys and last week we set up the laptop to recognize her wireless internet. (She has many security features and needed to verify that it was all set up and that my computer would recognize her connection – it did). So this evening after we eat we will head over to her house and connect. Then maybe James can check google and see what the issue with our modem or sim card might be. I will load this up at that time and post it so you can all feel my pain.

I guess I will have to start typing a daily log and then upload it when I have the chance. Particularly if these issues are going to be so persistent.

Wanted to tell you about more things but this has grown rather long as it is. I will try to add a little more later in the week – maybe even tomorrow.

Ciao for now!

****update - still no internet on the laptop - at least not with our new wireless modem. I think James does have it working on the desktop but very slowly. We are at my friend's house using her internet so that I can post this to the blog.