Glass Half Full or Half Empty?

I am going to start adding dates to my blog posts.  As you can tell many times I write them but don’t send the same day.  So this blog post is about Monday, May 15, 2017.

Oh my  - where to start about today?  I felt good that Oscar and I woke up earlier than in the past few days and got a jumpstart to our day.  We took a nice long walk before it was too hot for him.  Once home I went to the “wi-fi bench” to send my last blog post since I had not been on the internet in a few days.  While typing away Francesco Antonio (Tony - cousin and brother to Angela) stops by to tell me the car I am interested in will be driven from Naples to Marina di Casal Velino. I should meet him at Angela’s, in one hour.  Perfect!!  He leaves and Luigi comes out of the pharmacy as the workers are here and they want to do some more work on the house.  A few electrical things and laying the “pipe” for the phone/internet cable.  So I close up my laptop and hurry up the 105 stairs (which I now can tell you is more than 105 - I think around 130).  I meet the workers who do their work but it is taking longer than expected - but I am not surprised.  I txt Tony to let him know I would be late.  No problem as now the car will not be there when expected.  He would txt me.  Ok so now I have time to do a bit of shopping once the workers are done.    Each day I purchase a few more small items I need - food storage containers, hair dryer, waste basket for the bathroom - pretty basic stuff.  I’m gone maybe an hour.  When home no more than 10 minutes I am in the kitchen and I hear this swoosh sound and water!!!  I open the cabinet beneath the sink and the pipe had burst and water is pouring out - but also spraying straight out as well. Now I am not only soaking wet but I freeze as there is no shut off valve under the sink!  OH SH____!  I pick up my phone to call Luigi and realize I don’t have his number - another OH SH__!  At this point I take off running down the 130+ steps - only to find he is NOT AT THE FARMACIA!!!!  OH SH____ again!  I run back up the steps while trying to call Stefano who is in class in Naples.  No answer.  I try Angela - no answer.  Stefano then txts me and says he is in class and will call later. I txt “EMERGENCY!!!!  Kitchen flooded  - broken pipe!”  He must have then stepped out of class as he called me immediately.    I explain quickly while out of breath and running back to the house.  I think however before running down the steps to the Farmacia I did find a shut off for the water - at least what I thought was the shut off outside of the house.  But to be real honest at this point in time I don’t remember.   Whatever I turned off, It at least slowed the pace of the water pouring out into the kitchen.  Once Luigi was there he showed  me the full shut off and we both begin the clean up while we wait for the plumber to arrive.  Pleasantly surprised he shows up within 2 hours and replaces both water lines under the sink.  By this time I am laughing - what else can I do.  No one was hurt, killed, no damage and it happened while I was home and not away - “glass half full”.  But you have to love those ceramic floors throughout the house.   With this emergency all solved I go with Luigi to their house for lunch and then wait for Tony to txt me about the car.  

Lunch over and we wait.  Angela and Luigi tell me we are going to see another car.  Ok - so off we go to a used car dealer I have seen near the village.  We are going to see a Toyota - Tony is not involved and the other car is nowhere in site and I have no idea how this new car came about.  At this point I don’t ask questions - I need a car and I am going to see one.  Keep it simple Karla!!  To make a long story a bit shorter - I test drive this car - 2015 Toyota Yaris - 25K kilometers (roughly 15K miles), one owner, etc. etc.  All of my required items check and the price is right.  We agree and will now take the next few days to effect the transaction.  I need to finalize my residency, then go to the bank.  Thank goodness my cousins are right by my side.  I would never do this on my own unless I was totally fluent AND educated on more of the Italian ways.  Again the south does things so differently from the rest of Italy - so I am told.  And I keep reminding myself this house is old and no one has really lived in it to test all the systems. I am more than happy to oblige!!

Apologies again but no pretty photos and I wasn’t thinking about pictures when my kitchen was flooding!  But here is a picture of my (hopefully) new car!

Till next time,

Baci e abbracci