J
Jennifer Stevens
Guest
When buying a home in Italy, it seems you either find a skeleton of a house without so much as a kitchen sink, or you inherit the previous owner’s old life. For Luke and me, it was the latter. And yesterday was spent doing a final clean out.
Dozens of yellowed Italian road maps, shoeboxes full of electrical cords. Wine that had turned to vinegar and empty glass honey jars. On the balcony, a rusted grill sat beneath a belted tarp; and below, rusted tongs, basting brushes, and enough arrosticini skewers to feed the entire apartment complex for a month.
Of course there were nice things as well: leather sofas, a glass-top kitchen table, a wooden desk with a printer, and even stainless steel pots and pans. This means our living room and kitchen are livable, while our guest room has become a dumping ground for large boxes of electrical equipment and rolled up carpets. And unfortunately it will remain this way until we can figure out how to correctly dispose of the trash.
One of the first things you’ll learn when moving to Italy is that you must sort your garbage—and I mean all of your garbage. Plastic and metal go in a yellow bin, glass in green, paper in blue, “dry mixed” in gray, and organic/compost in brown.
After you have this down, next is learning which days are reserved for which recycling collection. For us, we put our yellow container downstairs on Sunday night, followed by plastic on Monday. Tuesday is organico and Wednesday rotates every-other-week between paper and glass.
We’ve also learned the importance of finding large, heavy rocks to put on top of the bins, as it can get exceptionally windy here. Storms roll in from the sea and the air blows through the valley, whistling and howling between the buildings of our hilltop town. It took one squall for us to realize just how far those plastic containers can travel.
Everyone pays a waste disposal tax each year (“Tassa sui Rifiuti” or TARI), which ensures your recycling is picked up and also gives you a card which opens the town/commune’s dumpsters. You get this card by visiting the commune, which is only open certain days of the week and only for an hour or two at a time. We haven’t been able to work out when our commune office is open, but have plans to camp out at the cafe across the street until a person appears. Until then, we’ve secured a friend’s QR code which will allow us to open the communal trash containers (except for the electronics compartment!), and now we just need to figure out how to communicate with the commune to arrange pickup for larger items and non-recyclable metal (like BBQ skewers).
Since I moved out of my parents’ house at 17, I’ve lived in 16 different apartments. I remember decorating my first dorm with leftover beer bottles and pressing the caps into the ceiling; ordering my first gently used couch off Craigslist, and watching as my ex-boyfriend and his friends hoisted it up the winding staircase. There was the time I went on a payment plan to afford a showroom from Rooms To Go, then the subsequent years when I didn’t so much as hang a picture on the bare white walls.
This 1,000-sq-ft apartment is the first place I can truly call my own. And though it might take awhile, Luke and I want to make sure it feels like home. The first order of business, of course, is clearing out the guest room. Then we can figure out where we actually buy things like rugs and couches.
We’ve started doing reconnaissance: taking the bus down to the shopping center in the city to see which stores sell what items and for how much. We’ve learned that Brico is basically a Home Depot (and therefore my own personal hell on earth) and that, at a place called Mondo Convenienza, you can purchase an entire display kitchen for just over $1,000.
Each time we visit somewhere new, we learn and practice a new phrase. Our most recent: “Vorremmo che fosse consegnato per favore,” or, “We would like it delivered please.” On the same trip, we also realized we’ve been putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable in our address—causing all sorts of confusion (almost every word in Italian is stressed on the penultimate, or second-to-last syllable, not the first or last).
The next visit will entail deciding whether or not a rolled-up mattress can (or should) fit on the public bus. Stay tuned.
A few weeks ago when we returned from visiting family in Australia, Luke and I started looking at the calendar to figure out how long we could stay in Italy before having to leave for another 90 days (for information on Schengen rules, visit this previous post). And about 30 minutes into a stressful discussion involving dog transport, plane ticket prices, and how time zone changes would affect Luke’s tutoring business, we decided we can’t live like this anymore.
The next day, Luke re-registered with Search Associates (an international school recruitment agency), and I started looking for full-time jobs in Florida and even Australia. The day after that, a school in Costa Rica reached out to Luke for an interview; and a day later he was offered a job on the spot.
In the span of five days our plans and immediate future changed completely; and in July, we’ll be moving to Central America.
There’s a lot to wrap our minds around: mostly what my professional life will look like in Costa Rica, and obviously, what we’ll do with this apartment. The last week has been spent talking to expats who rent their places and those who keep them as holiday homes. We’ve talked with property management companies to understand renting legalities and realities, and even had an expert named Sergio drop by for an inspection (that turned into a multi-hour visit where we traded life stories).
Besides captivating us with tales of growing up in Caracas, Venezuela, fleeing to Miami, then moving to the east coast of Italy, Sergio also convinced us that renting would cause us more headaches than happiness. His suggestion was to put some extra TLC into this place, allow his company to “hug” it while we’re away, and to spend our summers here. To let our parents stay whenever they want—doing nothing but eating great food and drinking wine on the balcony—staring out into the Adriatic sea and the expanse of pastoral land and grape vines. To bring our nieces and nephews here on school holidays, and introduce them to Roman history and morning pastries in the old town square.
For now, it sounds like a pretty good plan.
The post An update from our apartment in Italy: with lessons on garbage recycling, pronunciation, and property management appeared first on Adventurous Appetite.
<p>When buying a home in Italy, it seems you either find a skeleton of a house without so much as a kitchen sink, or you inherit the previous owner’s old life. For Luke and me, it was the latter. And yesterday was spent doing a...</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://adventurousappetite.com/an-...ycling-pronunciation-and-property-management/">An update from our apartment in Italy: with lessons on garbage recycling, pronunciation, and property management</a> appeared first on <a href="https://adventurousappetite.com">Adventurous Appetite</a>.</p>
Continue reading...
Dozens of yellowed Italian road maps, shoeboxes full of electrical cords. Wine that had turned to vinegar and empty glass honey jars. On the balcony, a rusted grill sat beneath a belted tarp; and below, rusted tongs, basting brushes, and enough arrosticini skewers to feed the entire apartment complex for a month.
Of course there were nice things as well: leather sofas, a glass-top kitchen table, a wooden desk with a printer, and even stainless steel pots and pans. This means our living room and kitchen are livable, while our guest room has become a dumping ground for large boxes of electrical equipment and rolled up carpets. And unfortunately it will remain this way until we can figure out how to correctly dispose of the trash.
Let’s Talk About Garbage in Italy
One of the first things you’ll learn when moving to Italy is that you must sort your garbage—and I mean all of your garbage. Plastic and metal go in a yellow bin, glass in green, paper in blue, “dry mixed” in gray, and organic/compost in brown.
After you have this down, next is learning which days are reserved for which recycling collection. For us, we put our yellow container downstairs on Sunday night, followed by plastic on Monday. Tuesday is organico and Wednesday rotates every-other-week between paper and glass.
We’ve also learned the importance of finding large, heavy rocks to put on top of the bins, as it can get exceptionally windy here. Storms roll in from the sea and the air blows through the valley, whistling and howling between the buildings of our hilltop town. It took one squall for us to realize just how far those plastic containers can travel.
Everyone pays a waste disposal tax each year (“Tassa sui Rifiuti” or TARI), which ensures your recycling is picked up and also gives you a card which opens the town/commune’s dumpsters. You get this card by visiting the commune, which is only open certain days of the week and only for an hour or two at a time. We haven’t been able to work out when our commune office is open, but have plans to camp out at the cafe across the street until a person appears. Until then, we’ve secured a friend’s QR code which will allow us to open the communal trash containers (except for the electronics compartment!), and now we just need to figure out how to communicate with the commune to arrange pickup for larger items and non-recyclable metal (like BBQ skewers).
Out with the old, in with the new
Since I moved out of my parents’ house at 17, I’ve lived in 16 different apartments. I remember decorating my first dorm with leftover beer bottles and pressing the caps into the ceiling; ordering my first gently used couch off Craigslist, and watching as my ex-boyfriend and his friends hoisted it up the winding staircase. There was the time I went on a payment plan to afford a showroom from Rooms To Go, then the subsequent years when I didn’t so much as hang a picture on the bare white walls.
This 1,000-sq-ft apartment is the first place I can truly call my own. And though it might take awhile, Luke and I want to make sure it feels like home. The first order of business, of course, is clearing out the guest room. Then we can figure out where we actually buy things like rugs and couches.
We’ve started doing reconnaissance: taking the bus down to the shopping center in the city to see which stores sell what items and for how much. We’ve learned that Brico is basically a Home Depot (and therefore my own personal hell on earth) and that, at a place called Mondo Convenienza, you can purchase an entire display kitchen for just over $1,000.
Each time we visit somewhere new, we learn and practice a new phrase. Our most recent: “Vorremmo che fosse consegnato per favore,” or, “We would like it delivered please.” On the same trip, we also realized we’ve been putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable in our address—causing all sorts of confusion (almost every word in Italian is stressed on the penultimate, or second-to-last syllable, not the first or last).
The next visit will entail deciding whether or not a rolled-up mattress can (or should) fit on the public bus. Stay tuned.
To Rent or Not to Rent: That’s our Latest Question
A few weeks ago when we returned from visiting family in Australia, Luke and I started looking at the calendar to figure out how long we could stay in Italy before having to leave for another 90 days (for information on Schengen rules, visit this previous post). And about 30 minutes into a stressful discussion involving dog transport, plane ticket prices, and how time zone changes would affect Luke’s tutoring business, we decided we can’t live like this anymore.
The next day, Luke re-registered with Search Associates (an international school recruitment agency), and I started looking for full-time jobs in Florida and even Australia. The day after that, a school in Costa Rica reached out to Luke for an interview; and a day later he was offered a job on the spot.
In the span of five days our plans and immediate future changed completely; and in July, we’ll be moving to Central America.
There’s a lot to wrap our minds around: mostly what my professional life will look like in Costa Rica, and obviously, what we’ll do with this apartment. The last week has been spent talking to expats who rent their places and those who keep them as holiday homes. We’ve talked with property management companies to understand renting legalities and realities, and even had an expert named Sergio drop by for an inspection (that turned into a multi-hour visit where we traded life stories).
Besides captivating us with tales of growing up in Caracas, Venezuela, fleeing to Miami, then moving to the east coast of Italy, Sergio also convinced us that renting would cause us more headaches than happiness. His suggestion was to put some extra TLC into this place, allow his company to “hug” it while we’re away, and to spend our summers here. To let our parents stay whenever they want—doing nothing but eating great food and drinking wine on the balcony—staring out into the Adriatic sea and the expanse of pastoral land and grape vines. To bring our nieces and nephews here on school holidays, and introduce them to Roman history and morning pastries in the old town square.
For now, it sounds like a pretty good plan.
The post An update from our apartment in Italy: with lessons on garbage recycling, pronunciation, and property management appeared first on Adventurous Appetite.
<p>When buying a home in Italy, it seems you either find a skeleton of a house without so much as a kitchen sink, or you inherit the previous owner’s old life. For Luke and me, it was the latter. And yesterday was spent doing a...</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://adventurousappetite.com/an-...ycling-pronunciation-and-property-management/">An update from our apartment in Italy: with lessons on garbage recycling, pronunciation, and property management</a> appeared first on <a href="https://adventurousappetite.com">Adventurous Appetite</a>.</p>
Continue reading...