A HOUSE!

So here's the post you've all been waiting for - we've moved into a house! We moved out of the Hotel Europa on Saturday, October 25 to our new residence. It came furnished, so we were able to move in and stay before our household goods arrived.

Hmm, what to say first? First of all, I'm not posting any pictures yet, because the place is a wreck, full of boxes and junk everywhere at the moment. I am chipping away at the unpacking, but it's a pretty big job.

So, a description of the place... It is a 3 story townhouse, attached on both sides, with 210 square meters (roughly 2100 square feet) of space. The ground floor and stairs are marble, the 2nd floor (here, 1st floor) is parquet, and the top floor loft is tile. We have a kitchen, living/dining room and full bathroom on the ground floor, the master bedroom with its own ensuite bathroom (pretty rare in Italy), a second bathroom, Emily's bedroom, and an office on the 1st floor, and a loft on the 2nd floor with storage space and bedroom, den, and play areas. We have an Italian style 2 car garage (it will fit 2 cars, one behind the other), a front and back garden, and a small neighborhood park out back with some playground equipment. It is a 10 minute walk to Emily's school.

Our household goods arrived on Wednesday and Thursday, October 29 &30. We had 9 crates of stuff! We have so far managed to squeeze it all into this house that already had furniture, though there is a lot of stuff in the garage! Jeff and I moved the furniture from the master bedroom into the loft for our guest room, we are using the furniture that was in Emily's room, and the landlord's couch, our dining table and 2 of our beds are in the garage. We have heard rumors that our landlord might let us use a storage garage that he owns, but nothing definite on that.

The main issue is closet space. Italians do not have closets! There are large wardrobes in both bedrooms, and we brought the armoire from our bedroom at home, but a wardrobe is not the same as a walk-in closet! Also, there is no storage space in the bathrooms. We have a VERY small medicine cabinet in our bathroom, but there is none in either of the other bathrooms. I hope to get some narrow cabinets to put in Emily's bathroom, because there is enough space to fit them in there. I have squeezed a plastic 3 drawer cart into our bathroom, but it is tight! Currently, I have extra towels and toiletries in the cabinets in the office.

On Thursday, October 30, we received our appliances from the Army base in Vicenza. We were issued a large freezer, an American style refrigerator (Italian ones are significantly smaller), a European dryer, and 2 kitchen cabinets (there is limited cabinetry in Italian kitchens). We already had a European washer, oven, stove, and sink (we could have been issued those as well if we had needed them). I am still figuring out how to do the washer and dryer. Unfortunately, the washer's instruction book is only in Italian! A European dryer does not vent, it collects the water extracted from your clothes into a reservoir which must be emptied every cycle. We could have gotten an American one, but didn't have a place to put it where it could vent to the outside.

I will try to post at least a few pictures soon, as I get things settled. There is so much to describe, it's hard to do it in one post! Things are very different here, but also very interesting!