Money Matters

We had a little problem with SKY a few weeks back when all of a sudden it would not work anymore. Through some friends who speak Italian, and a customer service rep who spoke English, we managed to discover that we were supposed to pay a bill, though we had never received one. We paid it over the phone and the service was restored. We hear that one has not truly lived in Italy until you have had at least one service cut off for nonpayment. Friends have told us stories of water, gas, and electricity being cut off, mostly because they did not receive a bill.

Bills are only sent out every 2-6 months and are usually due within a week of the time that you receive them, though sometimes you don't receive them until after they are due. When you don't receive your bills consistently, it is hard to know when to expect them and whether you are missing one. Checks are almost nonexistent in Italy, so you do not just write a check and send it in. Internet payment is in its infancy here, so that is not really an option either. The most common way to pay bills is to take them to the post office. The bill actually comes with a little form that is just used to pay through the post office. You must pay in cash, no checks or credit cards.

Most transactions in Italy are done in cash. The Bancomat (ATM) machine on the corner by Emily's school is always busy. Some of the larger stores, especially chains, will accept credit or Bancomat (debit) cards, but most smaller, local stores only take cash. Stores also will not issue refunds for returned merchandise. You can only get store credit.

Today I had my first experience at an Italian bank other than the one on the US Army base. Jeff got a parking ticket last week when he took Emily to her guitar lesson at school. Parking tickets must be paid within 8 days, or the fine doubles. We were actually told by a couple of the British folks here not to pay it, because the license on our car is issued through the US Army base and the number is not available in the regular Italian license database. They said that the Army would not release the information about who owns the car or where they live to the police, so they would not find us and make us pay it. However, we decided to play it safe and pay the fine. With Jeff's luck, the rules would change, and the Army would, as a gesture of goodwill, open their database to the Italian police, and they would come and charge us some huge amount for this unpaid parking ticket.

Anyway, the only way to pay the parking ticket was to take it to the Cassa di Risparmio di Ferrara (the local bank) and pay in cash. I knew where the bank was, because I pass by it every day on the way to Emily's school, but I had never been inside. I dropped Emily off this morning and waited a few minutes until the bank opened at 8:30. By the way, the bank is only open from 8:30-1:30, and 2:45-3:45. Talk about banker's hours!

I went into the vestibule of the bank and was immediately intimidated when I could not see how to enter. There was a door, but it was locked, and had a sign with an arrow pointing to the right that said Entrata (Entrance). In the direction of the arrow were very large (person sized) plastic tubes in the wall, but they both said Uscita (Exit) and gave no indication of how to go in. I read the note on the door that said no bags, cell phones, or metal items could be brought in. I turned around and found lockers (like you find in amusement parks) in the vestibule for depositing these forbidden items. I got the ticket and money out and put my purse and umbrella in a locker. Fortunately, at that point, someone else came in and pushed a button in between the two tubes. The plastic part that said Uscita opened and he stepped through. It remained open, so I went in, too.

I presented the ticket and money to the cashier and completed the transaction. I then went back to the tubes, and one opened, so I stepped inside. The part behind me closed, and I was standing inside the plastic tube, closed on both sides. At that moment I felt like I was going to be beamed up to the Starship Enterprise. Then the part in front of me opened and I stepped out into the vestibule, collected my things, and was on my way. I wish I could have taken a picture of these doors, but I think that would have been frowned upon. It was literally like a plastic tube that opened on both sides to let you in and out. Standing inside, it was very much like one of the pneumatic tubes that you put the capsule into when you send transactions to the teller at the bank drive-through, except that the doors slid to the side, instead of sliding up and down. I don't suppose that they have very many bank robberies here!

Moon and SKY

On Saturday, 10 January, the full moon was incredibly bright. We actually had clear weather, so we could see it, and it was awesome. Pictures do not really do it justice, but they give you an idea.


For the next couple of days after that, both at night and in the morning, the moon put on a good show. This is a picture of the moon in the morning.

This one is at night, a day or two after the full moon.


Now for the SKY portion. SKY is the satellite TV service that we have here. I have heard that the parent company is British, but what we have is definitely Italian. We got a deal on it when we hooked up the phone and internet, so we decided to try it for a while. We have been unable to get AFN (Armed Forces Network) to work, so we are glad that we have SKY. SKY has lots of channels, and several different package options. We just have the basic package, so we don't get the movie channels or the sports channels (including at least 20 soccer channels - really!).

In addition to the real Italian channels, we have several Fox channels (Fox, Fox Life, and Fox Crime) that show mostly American programs. The nice thing about SKY is that, if you watch a program that was originally produced in a language other than Italian, you can switch the language and watch it in the original language. That means that, when we find American programs like CSI, Desperate Housewives, or The Simpsons (yes, all of those are available here, among many others), we can watch them in English. The three Fox channels are also shown with a one hour delay as Fox +1, Fox Life +1, and Fox Crime +1. The nice thing about that is that the same programming comes on one hour later so if 2 programs you want to see are on at conflicting times, you can watch one of them later. The Fox channels show programs that are broadcast on all the nextworks in the US, not just Fox. I was very excited when I found the current season of Ugly Betty on Fox Life on Tuesday nights. The season didn't start until 6 January, so I assume that they had to delay it to get it dubbed in Italian (though of course I watch it in English). We also get the History Channel, National Geographic, Discovery, Hallmark, E!, and MTV, though I think the programming is a bit different than the same channels back home. Not all of the programs are available in English, but most of them are.

We were a bit concerned about keeping up with our favorite shows because you cannot just watch them online like I had originally planned. If your ISP is outside of the US, you are blocked from watching most programs through network websites. Ugly Betty is the only one that I have found so far in its current season on our TV, but I'm sure others will appear, or we will join Netflix next year and watch them on DVD.

Roma! part 2

On Saturday, January 3, we had booked a tour of the Vatican. Again, we were led by a Roman archaeologist, though a different one from the day before. We were very glad that we had booked the tour, because we were able to skip the ticket line, which went down the street and around the block, at least halfway around the outer wall of Vatican City. We toured the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica. Pictures are allowed everywhere except the Sistine Chapel, though there were plenty of people disregarding that rule. Just about everything in the Vatican was beautiful, fascinating, and priceless.

Jeff and me inside the Vatican museum. You can barely see the dome of St. Peter's Basilica behind us.

One of the many ornate ceilings inside the Vatican museums.

One of the many ornate floors inside the Vatican museums.

The exterior of St. Peter's Basilica.

Inside St. Peter's Basilica.

Michelangelo's Pieta inside St. Peter's Basilica. Absolutely gorgeous!

The Sistine Chapel was amazing, too, but almost overwhelming. There is so much detail and so many things to look at, that it is hard to take it all in. We bought a book in the gift shop so that we could look at it at our leisure later, and also to have some pictures since we couldn't take any.

After the Vatican tour we made our way over to the Villa Borghese. We had reserved tickets to tour the Galleria Borghese that afternoon. For the Galleria Borghese, advance reservations are required. You get a 2 hour time slot to tour the galleries, and only 360 tickets are sold for each time slot, so it is never terribly crowded. If you like art, especially sculpture and paintings, I highly recommend this tour. The collection is amazing, and the gallery itself is almost as beautiful as the art it houses. No pictures allowed, though. You cannot even take a purse inside, all bags, purses, cell phones, and cameras have to be checked before entering. I could have wandered for the full 2 hours, but Jeff's neck was getting stiff from looking up, so we left after just over an hour.

The entrance to the Villa Borghese, where the Galleria Borghese is located. It is a huge, wooded estate in the middle of Rome with several museums and a zoo inside.

Exterior of the Galleria Borghese.

From here we wandered over to the Spanish steps and enjoyed a spectacular view of the sunset. The sunset itself was not spectacular, due to the cloudy weather, but the view of Rome was awesome.

View of the domes of Rome from the top of the Spanish steps.

View back up the Spanish steps. This was the most crowded area we encountered on our trip. There didn't seem to be anything special going on, there were just masses of people here.

After walking all day, we were completely exhausted, so we went back to the hotel for a little while, got a recommendation for a restaurant, had dinner and went back to crash. Our train left for home the next morning. It was an awesome trip. We saw a lot, but there is still plenty more to see on future trips, even in the places we went this time. I think we got a good overview for our first trip, and we can go back in the future and look at some things in more detail, as well as taking in some of the sights we skipped.

Roma! part 1

Emily's mom came to visit for just over a week, so Jeff and I decided to take a little trip by ourselves while she was here with Emily. Neither of us had ever been to Rome, so we decided to go.

We left New Year's Day and took the train down. It was about a three hour, fifteen minute ride from Ferrara, with only 2 stops along the way, in Bologna and Firenze (Florence). We had a little trouble getting off, because there was a significant snowfall New Year's night. There is only one taxi company in Ferrara and we tried several times that morning to call and get a taxi, but kept getting a message that we couldn't understand. Finally, we went next door to our neighbors' house to see if they could help or possibly give us a ride to the train station, and they were able to get in touch with the taxi.

We decided to splurge on 1st class tickets, which was nice. In 1st class, you get assigned seats which are larger than the ones in 2nd class, and they also recline. There are attendants in 1st class who bring around newspapers (only in Italian, though) and drinks and snacks, pretty much like on an airplane. The train is a great way to travel, with no worry about directions, tolls, or parking. You can just sit back and ride, watching the scenery. We saw snow until just before Firenze.

The train station in Rome (the Termini) is also the central point for the subway system, which is very convenient. We got off the train, crossed the terminal and bought our 3 day tourist passes for the metro. Three days of unlimited use for the metro, buses, and trams is only 11 Euro. We took the metro one stop over to where our hotel was. The hotel was 50 meters from the metro station, and only one stop from the Colosseum, though we could also walk to the Colosseum. We arrived about 2:30 in the afternoon, checked in, and decided to go do some exploring.

We took the metro to the Colosseum and just walked around marveling at it for a little while. No matter how many pictures you see, you cannot appreciate its size until you are actually there. We wandered around trying to orient ourselves with the map provided by our hotel and finally succeeded in locating the Basilica di San Clemente, a site recommended by a friend. We took the tour of San Clemente, which was fascinating. The basilica itself is very pretty, and can be seen for free, but for a small fee you can tour the areas below the current basilica, which are absolutely fascinating. Under the current basilica, which was built around 1100, are the remains of a 4th century basilica, a 1st century Christian church (from when Christianity was still an underground religion), and a 2nd century Mithraic temple. San Clemente is also the resting place of St. Cyril, of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, the missionaries to the Slavs and inventors of the Cyrillic alphabet. No pictures are allowed in San Clemente, so I don't have any.

After the tour of San Clemente, we went and found some dinner. Restaurants in Roma apparently cater to the tourists and are open all day, unlike the ones in less touristy areas that don't open until 7 or 7:30. We walked back over by the Colosseum and took a few pictures.


This was the best picture I got of the Colosseum in the dark. Unfortunately, none of the ones I took from another angle, showing the crescent moon off to the side, turned out.


This one is quite blurry, but is of a tram, entirely covered with Christmas lights that went by while we were out walking.

The next morning, we got out and walked around ancient Rome for a little while, taking some pictures while it was sunny, because it was supposed to rain in the afternoon. We walked over and toured the Jewish museum of Rome, which was interesting, but not spectacular. No pictures allowed there, either. That afternoon, we had booked a tour of the Colosseum and ancient Rome, which was great! Our guide was a Ph.D. in Archaeology and was a native of Rome. We saw the Colosseum (and skipped the line for tickets because the tour had reservations), one of the forums, the Trevi fountain, the Pantheon, and the Piazza di Navone. I won't bore you with a lot of details, though we learned a lot of very interesting things on the tour, because you can look up information on any of these things if you so choose.


Here are Jeff and me inside the Colosseum.

Here are some of the ancient ruins. It is absolutely amazing to walk out of a big, metropolitan street and come upon a scene like this.
This is the Temple of Vesta, where the eternal flame was kept alive by the Vestal Virgins. The Virgins were chosen when they were between 6 and 10 and served for 30 years. They were the only women in Rome with independent rights (such as owning property, writing a will, and testifying in court).

A view of the ruins through the Arch of Septimius Severus, built to commemorate a military victory.

The famous Trevi fountain.

This is the dome inside the Pantheon, which was originally a pagan temple to 12 gods, but was taken over by the Christian church and thus saved from destruction. Yes, it is open to the sky in the middle, originally to let out the smoke from sacrifices.

That night, we went to a restaurant right by our hotel that had been recommended by a friend. It was excellent, though Jeff was a little disturbed when the pork special of the evening turned out to be a roasted pig leg with foot still attached! He really enjoyed the fresh fruit with limoncello cream for dessert, though!

Fireworks and Christmas lights

On New Year's Eve, we went to a party at the home of some of our British friends, who live in the downtown area. We were able to go up on their roof around midnight and watch the fireworks that were being shot off from the castle downtown. It didn't photograph terribly well, but I did get a few good shots.


At the end of the display at the castle, it looked like the castle was on fire, as seen below.


It was a nice display, and there were people shooting off fireworks all over town, so we could watch them all around us. We could hear the music and the countdown from the castle quite clearly from where we were, so I can only imagine how loud it was for the people who were actually in that square. The piazza downtown was still very crowded when we came through about 1:30, so it was probably packed at midnight. I stopped and took some pictures of the Christmas lights downtown on the way home that night.

Here is the downtown Christmas tree lit up.

The others are examples of the different kinds of lights strung across the streets throughout downtown.

La Neve e La Brina (Snow and Hoarfrost)

Ok, as soon as I posted about the tiny dusting of snow we got, that very night we had a real snowfall. We woke up on New Year's Day to a clean, white new start!


Only two pictures because we were trying to get packed and off for our trip to Rome (to be addressed in a separate post).

Then this morning, we woke up to a beautiful hoarfrost on the trees. I had to take some pictures of that, too!


The hoarfrost has not melted at all as of noon, and there have been snow flurries off and on all morning. Seems we're in for an unusual winter for Ferrara, Italy!