A little about Italy life

Hey everyone!

I have been trying all day to upload some pictures of our house but it obviously didn't work out. I'll just tell you about life in an Italian house and post photos later. The first thing is, we do not have a single standing home; in other words, we share walls with our neighbors. What's more, we share both side walls with neighbors, lol. We live in a townhouse that's in a group of five other townhouses. So we are all connected. It's a little like apartment life, except we don't have people on top or below us and we get a yard to ourselves. Housing options were very slim when we got here so we are just grateful for what we have. :o) We have wonderful neighbors who are very tidy and all pitch in on the field and outside we all share. Our neighbors on our right are Italian/American (the husband's ret. air force) and they have been here 13 years. The others are Italian except one family that I believe comes from the middle east somewhere (very friendly and have kids Logan's age). We do not live in government housing (GURP) and live on the economy. Our rent is a few 100 euro below what it could be, but we are in love with the area, so we'll settle for a smaller house for the views and atmosphere. We live in an agricultural area; we hear cows and chickens regularly, and tractors pass our house everyday. The mountains are a good 20 minute drive away, but we get a great view of it without freezing in the winter. We have a bedait (spelling) in our bathroom, which is supposedly a "freshen-up sink" but Logan uses it for other purposes, lol. Our toilet upstairs is broken and we have to open the top and pull the drain each time (big pain). Our dishwasher is also broken, though it's brand-new. Maybe we just haven't figure it out. It's the law to separate your garbage and recyclables and FOOD! We have a bucket under our sink to collect it in. We have to take all of our recycling down the road to put in individual bins, too. I really love how earth-friendly Italians are! really. They bike everywhere and recycle; it's fantastic! If we run our washer and dryer at the same time, the power goes out. We have to be selective about what we want running, even just the tv. We get free satellite from base, which is cool, not that we use it for anything but some morning cartoons. Our bedrooms are about 12x12 each; the kids have a lot of play space. We also made a "crazy room" in our garage because our car doesn't fit in there. All their noisy or physical toys are down there and there are rugs down; they like it a lot. We don't have an outside spigot for our hose, so we have to water the old fashioned and TEDIOUS way (watering can), lol. We haven't figured out how to run the hose from the basement without getting water all over yet. The walls are concrete (though painted) and we have to drill to hang a lot of our pictures up. The windows open up inside and there are real shutters on the outside of all of them and on most of the doors as well. You don't really get privacy unless you shut the windows though, so that's a drawback. It's so quiet around here during the day that it doesn't matter much. We are within walking distance to a tiny train station, so we can travel conveniently if we ever are brave enough. ;o) We have long balconies on both sides of the house. We only have a front door and it has to be locked with a key to lock it up, no turning knobs. Our kitchen has built-in cupboards and has brand new everything, though it looks a lot like Ikea stuff, it is great. It's a decent sized room, too. Oh, and our dryer is pretty different. Every time we use it we have to empty out a long container that collects all the water from the clothes. I use drying racks mostly, and we handwash our dishes, too. Living old school, but it's not too bad. The rest of the house is like most others. Driving is obviously different, too. They speed and ride your tail, but so do Americans. If someone has a car accident or has their emergency lights on, by law you have to render assistance. Their speed limits are TURTLE SLOW, which is why they speed, lol. We go the speed limit, but it's tough to drive 30 mph almost everywhere. There are a lot of differences here, but nothing people can't adjust to. Italia 'e BELLISSIMO! (Italy is BEAUTIFUL).