Pigeons
We arrived on a Sunday evening and Monday morning I got up and immediately began cleaning our terrace. Anna, our friend who looks after the apartment when we are gone, had told us the pigeons had taken over and made a BIG mess.
One of the first things I did when we arrived was look to see how bad it was and it was BAD! The clean-up project haunted me all night. I donned old clothes and found my rubber boots, gathered equipment and started in.
The first thing I did was put a garbage bag inside a large bucket and start shoving up the pigeon shit. I did not literally "shovel" but I did use a large trowel to much out the spots where it was really thick. There were two buckets full! The smell was horrendous--like a badly maintained outhouse. We had moved the patio furniture into the house but there were still plenty of surfaces to clean. The worst spot was the counter on top of the washing machine. Luckily, the latter was well covered and did not seem to be affected.
I was extremely grateful for the hose Dom hooked up last spring. There is a drain on the patio so once I mucked the place out, I mixed up a bucket of soapy water and started scrubbing and rinsing. The only difficult parts were the planters on the terrace. There were feathers and pigeon shit stuck all over them. There were also four eggs in various places, all of which went into the trash.
Finally, after about three and a half hours, I finished, cleaned myself up, and went to the store. Unfortunately, that evening I kept getting whiffs of the pigeon shit smell from the patio. The funny thing was it did not seem to smell when I was out on the patio. It really bugged me and it was only when I opened the door to the washing machine that I realized the smell was coming from that area.
At one end of the patio, right by the door, is the laundry area--a counter top with a sink on one side and the washing machine under the other. Under the sink is storage and the hose hook-up. There is also a fresh air vent by the washer to the interior of the apartment, required because of the gas stove. I knew I had not cleaned that area very well but did not realize it would be a problem.
The next morning, I pulled the washing machine out and found a large nest in the gap behind it. I also found all the vegetation that had disappeared from the planters. Once that was all cleaned the smell disappeared. Interestingly, the pigeons have not been much of a problem either. They clomp around the glass over the terrace but have not tried to recolonize the terrace itself.
Dom was a really big help to me on this project. I kept hollering at him to bring me different things and he hopped right to it. I suspect he was happy to have me handle the clean-up mostly on my own.
I thought afterwards I should have taken pictures of the pigeon "debris" but it really would have been too disgusting.
The Rest of the First Week
The rest of our first week was full of the usual paraphernalia involved in settling in here--unpacking, cleaning, grocery shopping, jet lag, and catching up with friends. That doesn't sound like a lot but falling asleep every afternoon for a few hours takes up a lot of time.
One afternoon we stopped by to see our friends Mary and Orlando. In the course of "catching up" we told them we planned to paint about half the interior of our condominium and asked about the availability of TSP to wash the walls and ceiling. They said they had never seen any in Italy but had some floating around from when they moved from the U.S. I gratefully accepted it and spent a long day washing the ceiling of our kitchen, living and dining areas. The walls had all been painted recently but the ceiling was just filthy and that is the primary reason we are painting. The other reason is the walls were stark white except where the previous owner had painted areas of bright orange and royal blue. We quite liked the modernity of it when we bought the place but once we moved in we realized it did not suit our more traditional furniture.
After I washed the ceiling and Dom removed some unused doorbell and alarm items from the walls, we spent several days patching and sanding and patching and sanding. At a certain point, we gave up and decided the walls were never going to be perfect. Every time we looked closely we found more flaws, things we never saw until we started patching. Since we are using a darker color the flaws should be less apparent (hopefully!).
The Bus to Lucca
On Friday, Dom and I took the bus from in front of our condominium into the center of Lucca. I planned to take the bus to my Italian language classes the following week (so Dom could have the car) and wanted to do a trial run. We purchased our tickets at the news stand in our building and then went out to the bus stop. Luckily, we were early and decided to walk through the weekly market in the piazza to the stop on the far side. The stop we originally planned to wait at is not used on Fridays because of the market!
We arrived in Lucca as scheduled and walked over to the Questura to pick up our Permessi di Soggiorno (Long Stay Permits). In the spring we had applied for the renewal of these and knew they were ready to pick up. That took us about twenty minutes. After that we walked back to find the school and check out the area around it. Then we meandered around town for a while, bought a few things, had some lunch and caught the bus back to Capannori. It all worked out splendidly.
Cremona
On our first Saturday here we decided to drive to Cremona, about 1 1/2 hours away. It was a gorgeous day and Cremona is a beautiful and interesting city. I will tell all about our visit there (with lots of pictures) in my next post.
Sunday Marcia
Last Sunday morning we woke early and went off to do a marcia podistica. These organized walks (like a volksmarch) are one of our favorite things to do here. We still belong to the Partigliano group and it was fun to see our friends from our old village. As usual the walk began in a picturesque village, this one overlooking the area around Viareggio, and meandered through the nearby lanes and fields. We finished the walk, ate our colazione, collected our premi, and we were home by 9:30. We pretty much vegged the rest of the day.
Italian Language School
On Monday I began two weeks of Italian language school. My goal is to become more comfortable speaking the language and improve my ability to understand it. Even after the first couple of days I felt better able to converse and comprehend.
Dom and I both did a couple weeks of language school in Lucca twelve years ago. Like the last time, the class is composed of people from all over the world. Most come just for fun to learn or improve their Italian. Some come for several weeks or months. Interestingly, almost everyone speaks English so when not in class we usually revert to that language.
The first morning, the new people get tested and they divide everyone into classes of like ability. My test involved a conversation with one of the instructors. I ended up in a class with two Americans on vacation, a Frenchman married to an Italian woman who lives near Lucca, a young Austrian woman working as a nanny, and an Australian woman on vacation. Only three of us will be in class this coming week. Everyone is really nice and we had a great time. Our instructor, Susanna, is good and lots of fun.
The instruction is almost all inductive. We are given exercises and have to figure out the meaning of things or grammatical rules from the context and examples. I enjoy this type of learning because it is like solving puzzles.
Our classes begin at 9:15 but the bus gets me there at about 8:35. There is a nice bar at the end of the street and I usually meet Anne from Australia there. We are in class until 1 pm with a break at 11. At the break almost everyone goes to the bar for coffee and maybe a pastry. They have tasty treats there! My bus is at 1:15 so I have to head off quickly. One day this week I did stay for lunch with Anne and we plan to do it again this coming week.
While I have been at school Dom has made a few excursions. One day he went to Viareggio to look at the boats and chandleries. Another day he drove over the Altopascio and stopped at the tractor store to kick tires.
New Caldaia (Water Heater)
Last spring we had some problems with our caldaia. Frequently it was necessary to hit the reset button before it would work. When we arrived this fall it quickly became apparent that it would probably need to be replaced. A technician came and looked at it about a week ago and as I type he and an associate are finishing up the replacement. After we agreed to replace it, it really began to act cranky sometimes requiring ten or fifteen presses of the reset button before it would light. One of the problems we had was it was old, none of the technicians we talked to was familiar with the unit, and we had no manual for it. So, really replacing it became the only option, albeit an expensive one.
Painting
After spending quite a few days patching, sanding and then painting over the orange and blue with white paint, last night we painted the final color on the walls and ceiling of the living room portion of the condominium. The color is a dark beige and I really like it. Here are some before and after pictures:
It is a bit difficult to see but there in the far corner the lower part of the wall was painted royal blue, where the wall stair-stepped.
You can see in this "after" picture that the stair-stepped portion has been painted out and that the walls in general are darker. It is a much warmer color and tones down the black baseboards. It also seems to bring out the terracotta color in the floor.
Dinner with Friends
Last Tuesday we went to Mary and Orlando's house for dinner. They also invited another couple, Richard and Denise, who have a house just outside Partigliano. The food was fabulous and we had a good time catching up with everyone. Mary and Orlando are renovating a house that they plan to live in when it is finished. They made great progress over the summer and hope to be in it in another six months or so. The olive harvest starts soon and they will have to take a break from renovations for six to eight weeks.
That's all for this time. I hope to get the post on Cremona done sometime this week. Next weekend we head to Rome to meet my dad and attend a canonization (making of saints) mass at the Vatican. More interesting posts to come!
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