Hi everyone,
We recently took a huge leap of faith and packed up everything and have rented a house in Italy. When we decided during the summer that this would be a "good" idea, we only had a vague notion of the crazy logistics involved. As everything came down to the wire, we found we didn't have much of an occasion to get in touch with and see everyone we would have liked. [Of course, that's just all the more reason for you to consider an Italian vacation next year, right?]. The 40' container with all our worldly possessions was supposed to have arrived already, but we hear it won't be in Naples for another week. Then, who knows when it will make its way here...!? In the meantime, we're living out of what we could bring in 4 suitcases, some limited furniture we found in the house (including, fortunately, a bed), and some borrowed sheets and towels from Giovanni's folks in Rome. Our house in JP is in the process of being sold (keep your fingers crossed), though it's in that unpleasant nickel-&-diming stage.
Giovanni has been working on an Italian-style QuickBooks/MYOB and has hoped to have it finished and get it into circulation before the end of the year. This, we found (as with so many things Italian) will be hampered by bureaucracy. It would be very expensive for us to set up a company now because we found out that the whole series of rules for incorporating or setting up an LLC-style firm will all change in 2004. Since it costs some thousands to have a 'notaio' set up one's company (there's apparently no way to do it on the cheap, or to do-it-yourself), this would all have to be re-done in January, of course at an equivalent cost. Without the company established, attributing expenses, sales, and taxes can't really happen, so that's something of a setback. in the interim, we wanted to make up some business cards so at least he can lay the groundwork and perhaps get some consulting work; we are still waiting for the local printing estimate we asked for two weeks ago. Not to be deterred, last week I found a place in California that let me send a file; the cards were printed in one day (100 for $14.95), sent to my mother in RI, and are now in the mail to us. (Sigh.)
We sent our computers on ahead, and that is a story in itself. We paid $750 to get 2 machines, 2 monitors and the printer/fax sent in 3 days. In fact, we left them with UPS on Oct.8, and on Oct.10 they were in Treviso (a city in the north). Since we couldn't put "0", we put the value for customs at $1: as an Italian citizen, Giovanni has the right to bring in any personal goods without paying customs, and we attached a note to the shipment explaining these circumstances. After arriving in Rome Friday afternoon we purchased a cell phone, and found that we already had 2 messages from UPS; too bad that they were closed for the day by then. We left Rome on Saturday, the 11th, to see the house and found that the landlady was in possession of a telegram for us from UPS; too bad that after waiting 45 minutes on the 800 number, we found the offices of the UPS/'dogana' (customs) department were closed Saturday, as they would of course also be on Sunday. On Monday, after further extensive waiting on hold (UPS is impenetrable; it's the 800 number or nothing) we spoke to a woman that said that she couldn't release the shipment, since the declared value was 'incongruous' with the 5 large boxes. Ok, we said, let's put a nominal value of $500, if that will make you happy.. at any rate we won't be paying the customs. Fine, but she needed a fax from us confirming the change in value. Well, UPS has our fax machine, so we canvassed the tiny town and found that there is one public place from which you can send a fax, the tobacconist's. The tobacconist is closed on Monday. With our sad story, we cadge a free fax to Treviso from a small, swanky, local hotel. Tuesday the 14th, we call (again, interminable 800 number hell-hold) to check on the arrival of the fax and the ETA of our goods. Well, they won't release the goods unless we pay the IVA --value-added tax-- of 125 Euros. (Let's even overlook the fact that, at 19%, 125 Euros is NOT the IVA on $500.) After much real screaming at this point, Giovanni is promised that a supervisor will call him back. No one calls. I try another 800 number for 'technical assistance' and after another hell-hold, speak with a nice man from a call center in Holland or somewhere who has no idea what to make of the whole thing, and moreover can't furnish us with any direct numbers for anything or anyone. Wednesday, another 800 call, more screaming, now with the supervisor, who says, yes, in effect, we are right, we should NOT have to pay the IVA, but there is paperwork involved and this will take at least a month to process, so it's probably just better to pay the IVA and then it will be sent out right away. (Forget the fact that even if we wanted to pay the IVA... how?...with a check that would take more than a week to clear, not even counting mailing time?) More screaming: "I'll report you to the police! This is extortion! This is my right as a citizen! I need these machines to work; they are my bread! How will I get my bread? Should I come to eat at your house!?".. and so on! Come to find out, in reality, rather than having gone through customs at the airport, the goods have somehow gotten to the UPS warehouse in Treviso, UPS claiming now that the 125 euro charge is because they have to call the 'finanzieri' (the customs police) to make a special trip out to the warehouse to 'sdoganare' the goods (clear them through customs) and since for this service the finanzieri (supposedly) present UPS with an invoice, then that's why they have to charge us something!! More screaming from G., naturally: "WHAT??!?? This is a government service! Are you saying if my house is robbed, the carabinieri will come and present me with a bill?!??!" UPS:"Well, the carabinieri won't, but the finanzieri will.." ......................okaaaaay.............. Finally, the now-browbeaten UPS person thinks of a solution: they will "issue a T1" (whatever the heck that is) whereby the responsibility for the goods' clearing customs is transferred to Giovanni. They'll deliver the boxes to us in San Casciano and he can go to Siena to the customs office to clear them. Will he need to bring the entire shipment with him to Siena or just a representative piece? (Remember, these are five computer boxes that took up all of Giovanni's CR-V including the passenger seat. Here we have a tiny Daewoo Matiz.) No, no, just one of the boxes should be fine. Of course, they do need to fax this document to us, and then we need to write on it and send it back... Now we are on Thursday, the 15th, receiving as well as sending faxes with the help of the ever-less-charmed-with-us hotel clerk (since that's the number UPS has for us). A call on Friday confirms that the goods will be sent out! Hurray! The boxes arrive on Tuesday, Oct.21, a mere thirteen days after we sent them. But the story doesn't end there: the boxes don't arrive in the familiar brown truck; instead a white van pulls up and the driver (of some private firm obviously subcontracted by UPS) presents us with an invoice for an additional 61 euros and 97 cents, payable immediately. On the invoice this is listed as "nolo" (as in 'renting') and so must be his fee... Defeated, at this point we are glad that he is willing to take a check. Attached to one of the boxes is an envelope addressed to the Italian customs; supposedly this is what we will need to 'sdoganare la merce.' Giovanni's sister makes an anonymous call to the customs office in Rome, where a furious agent insists that it is IMPOSSIBLE for such a thing to have happened, that it is inconceivable that something would have left Treviso without having gone through customs!!! The entire shipment must be brought immediately to customs! Better yet, the agent confirms in fact that there is no customs office in Siena (contrary to what the UPS customs handler told us)!
Strangely, a form of amnesia has settled over us, and we've quite forgotten what we're supposed to do with the mysterious white envelope which, upon opening, turned out to contain, not official forms, stamps or seals, but nothing more than what Giovanni had already faxed... You think the story must be over? Several days later, we receive an invoice from UPS, payable upon receipt, for 61.97 Euros. [And who knows, any day now could come a knock on the door from a friendly carabiniere or guardia delle Finanze.. maybe in a year or so...?]
But lest you think we are disillusioned, I will report that, no!, we are made of sterner stuff! Also it doesn't hurt that we are living in a place that's so beautiful. Though the weather has been rainy and cloudy for the most part, with some terrific winds, here and there have been a few glorious periods of sun. The last few weekends we have tried to take in various 'feste' or 'sagre', local celebrations of one type of typical produce or another; a lot of them take place in the fall harvest period:
Bagnore--"Sagra del Fungo"--impossible-to-find spot behind the local school, with a giant tent and twenty or so folding tables, the gas heater warming the three in the first row only. Specialties: pasta with mushroom sauce, mushrooms and polenta, fried mushrooms, pork with mushrooms, etc. At one o'clock there were only about fifteen attendees, but we imagined it might pick up later in the day due not in the least part to the advertised entertainment, a latin group with a semi-nude Copacabana/LasVegas-style showgirl who, we think, will be less than enthusiastic about the constant rain and 40-degree temperature inside the tent.
Abbadia San Salvatore--"Festa di Autunno"-- all-purpose 'autumn festival' with promising-sounding 'antiques market' which in reality is three stands of miscellaneous old junk, a stand where some industrious lady has painted flower designs in chartreuse, pink and bright blue on a variety of metal objects, and the ubiquitous Peruvian sweaters and incense stands. We spend the longest time at the official "castagne" tent, where a woman, obviously glad of an audience, tries hard but ultimately fails to explain the difference between the three types of chestnut found in the zone, the castagna, the marrone, and the bionda. She has some actual samples but can't decide if hers is a castagna, with a rounder stem end, or a more-highly-prized marrone, with a more rectangular stem. We smile encouragingly anyway, and take brochures that tell us about official commissions that have been established to "valorize" the chestnut. Specialities: wide noodles (pappardelle) or thick spaghetti ('pici') with ragu, polenta with ragu, pork, more mushroom dishes, and many chestnut-based desserts including a kind of chestnut bread with raisins and pine nuts, chestnut fritters, chestnut 'polenta', and a chestnut-and-ricotta pie.
Montalcino--"Sagra del Tordo"--The 'tordo' is some kind of small game bird, but here, strangely, not only were there no tordos to be found, we didn't even see a picture of one. Thus we have no idea what it looks like. This 'festa' was a much bigger affair than we expected; cars were parked for kilometers along the side of every narrow entrance road, and we even saw 3-4 tour buses waiting in a tiny parking lot nearby. We managed to park at a not-unreasonable distance and once we got up into the town we saw that the streets were full of merrymakers sampling the real star of the feast, the famous Brunello and the less-famous (and cheaper) Rosso di Montalcino. Every alley was packed with inebriated folks (mostly younger.. college age..) carrying their glass, or better, crystal wine glasses from tasting room to tasting room. All the 'enotecas' were full--it was practically impossible to get inside one; the streets were littered with broken glasses, and empty bottles were stacked on every stoop and stairway. Conveniently, if you hadn't brought your own glass, every enoteca had many varieties for sale, and some must have supplied the other unique accessory we noticed.. a good number of people had small open cloth sacks hanging from their necks by a cord. This ingenious device allowed them to carry their personal glass hands-free between tastings! Others, to a similar end, had adopted what looked like extra-long, wide shoelaces around their necks, tied to the glasses' stems. Since the Rosso runs about 10 euros a bottle, and the cheapest Brunello about 19-20, we had a hard time figuring out how people were getting so toasted..! There were no real stands for merchandise but we did see the chestnut woman's tent/kiosk. Specialities: wine. After trooping slowly through the crowd entering the 'Fortezza', we found a large courtyard with three big stands selling polenta, pasta, beans, sausages.. but nothing exceptional-looking. The courtyard was even more crowded, and the folks were even drunker; in addition to stepping over the bottles and glasses on the ground, you had to watch carefully to avoid half-eaten plates of food. Otherwise, restaurants were also open, but we escaped with a single bottle of Brunello to consume at some later date!
Piancastagniaio--"Crastatone"--Since the name of the town means "Chestnut Plain", it makes sense that this festival featured bonfires every few blocks where people roasted huge amounts of chestnuts in large iron pans. There were also a few small bandstand areas with folks playing cover tunes of modern popular Italian songs (think Italian/Beatles ballads). Though it was Sunday night, many stores were open, and twenty or so stands (see Abbadia, above, with the addition of a beat-up-used-book stall, embroidered linens, aprons and bibs, necklaces and beads, etc.). The chestnut woman, of course, had not missed this appointment! While there wasn't a central area for sitting and eating, various stall provided paper cones of chestnuts, hot pork or sausage sandwiches, and again a wide variety of chestnut desserts. Specialties: We sampled the "focaccette" (which implies 'little focaccia" but is really an ultra-thin, non-greasy version of fried dough) and shared a 'vin brule' (sugary hot mulled wine) for a snack.
Our first week or two involved a lot of running around in search of some basic items: a TV, a bath rug, a washing machine, checking out shops in various nearby towns. In San Casciano itself we have found so far:
1 Bar Centrale--where you can get a coffe and the newspaper, but is not so great as an 'edicola' (newsstand); magazines are crammed into a dark and inaccessible corner.
1 "bazar"--a kind of shop of 'everything'--postcards, souvenirs, coffeepots, cups and plates, weatherstripping, shelf paper, clothespins.. and yes, a washing machine!
1 pizzeria--pizza, sandwiches, beer & cocktails; nighttime only
4 alimentari (little food shops)
1 pizzeria/bakery
1 pastry shop
1 butcher shop
1 jewelry store with lots of antique clocks
2 banks
1 post office
1 tobacconist--also, postcards, stamps, souvenirs, a handful of stationery items
1 swanky small hotel (9 rooms)
1 medium-nice small hotel with restaurant (as-yet untried)
1 swanky restaurant (as-yet untried)
1 library-- to look inside it seems like it's more the town archive: one small narrow room with lots of big old dusty volumes. However, it bears further investigation.
1 'pro loco' (tourist office)--have not as yet seen it open, but helpfully someone has left outside a box of brochures about the town.
1 doctor's office --speaks English
1 municipio (town hall)
1 'caserma' (office of the carabinieri police force)
1 church
1 thermal center, with rooms and a restaurant inside, it seems.. Not yet investigated. http://www.fonteverdeterme.com
A search of the basement yielded a set of plates and glasses, along with several pots that seemed worthy of rehabilitation and several that didn't, a leaky coffeemaker, and a very dull knife. Each shower leaks in its own inimitable way. Despite the day we spent weatherstripping the drafty old windows it's still chilly with all the stone and tile. Somehow hoards of strange beetles and flies are still finding a way to come in from the cold.
I'd be tempted to try out our own 'terme' but it's full of baseball-sized clumps of algae, and we'd need a pool net to get the surface clear. The sides and bottom are thick with algae, too; the landlady said the pool really needs to be emptied to clean it properly, and offered 'her men' to clean it (for a fee, of course). We'll probably wait for spring to do that.
