Here is what I did today . I woke up in the morning and got dress
. After two hours the baby-sitter got here . When dad left
we played chess and checkers . Then we went to the soccer field to
play but Kristie threw the frisbee on the roof of the soccer field .
So we went home. Next we ate lunch then we bought some peaches.
After the peaches we played on the balcony. After a while we were
about to play chess but dad came in before all the pieces were set.
Then the baby-sitter left and we went shopping for food and drinks.
Then we walk home and ate dinner. And now I am typing the diary and
I will be in bed soon. Here is a picture I took today.
I woke up in semi-darkness with the roll down metal shutters still closed. I could see sunlight through the slots in the shutter but wasn't quite sure what time it was. I looked at the clock in the distance anxiously hoping I hadn't slept through the alarm on my first day for work! Stephen must've sensed something because he woke up, looked at me and asked what was wrong. I told him I couldn't see the clock. It has a black LCD unfortunately. I leaned out across the bed to see the clock better and to my relief it was only 06h45. I may put the clock closer to the bed so I can hit the illumination button. It does have a nice blue illumination when you hit it. One of those Timex blue lights.
The next thing I had to do I wasn't looking forward to with any enthusiasm. That was the cold shower that I was about to take. I certainly hoped the owner was genuinely going to get the hot water heater hooked up today. Needless to say this is an experience I don't want to experience too often. At one point I dropped the damn shower head (it's one of those on a hose that you hold) and the thing blasted me with cold water! Christ, was that ever an eye opener!
Stephen and I spent the rest of the morning looking up words in our dictionary for their shopping list. I needed the girl to do some shopping because there really wasn't much in the way of food in the apartment for any of them. Some of the owner's chickens had flown the coop this morning and were running around the parking lot. I thought about waking Kristie up and letting her chase them but then figured that was probably going to cause more problems than anything else. She has been wanting to chase these chickens ever since she saw them. Kristie slept almost right up until Gabriella came. Gabriella showed up right on time and I gave her the shopping list and more than enough money to cover everything for the day.
And off to work I go! The walk is about 1 km to the office and really easy to walk. No hills or mountains to climb.
I met up with Angelo and he gave me an overview of what we are doing. Then he gave me the pointers to the docs on the server and let me loose. I met a guy by the name of Filippo and he came in around 10h00 saying I had a meeting to go to. So I'm in this meeting and wouldn't you know it the secretary interrupts to tell me that I have some papers to sign, urgently. Hm, wonder what this could be. I excused myself and found out that apparently the gas man was back at the apartment and he wasn't going to install the gas meter without my signature. If I didn't sign now, I wouldn't have gas for 15 more days. Somehow I have a feeling this was complete fiction because I had only signed the papers for the apartment, and the gas, a few days ago. Well, back home I walked. I met the gas man, signed his silly forms and went back to work. I reattended the meeting I had left.
At this meeting we scheduled another one for 8am the next day! Oh well, hope Gabriella takes the news well. I spent the better part of the day reading through the docs and requirements. I also met my counterpart from Bell Atlantic.
I managed to figure out a way to get my ibm.net mail using netscape locally on my machine. But the connection is so slow that it was still getting my messages when I left at the end of the day. Granted, I didn't start this process until 16h30 but it was taking an awfully long time to download the email. I should imagine they'll be on my machine in the morning.
I also had some problems getting cash out of the ATM machine today. I think it was because it was still Sunday night back in the states and they were probably doing maintenance. I hit it around 9am Eastern time (15h00 here) and sure enough it worked. This was a good thing because I owed Vincenzo's wife the agency fee for finding the baby-sitter. She works at an agency that places baby-sitters.
So I got home and broke the news to Gabriella about having to come in early tomorrow. She took it well and she'll be here. Then she showed me that the stove had gas and the hot water heater had been hooked up and we have running hot water! Fantastic! So bright and early tomorrow morning I've got to shower the kids. They also didn't do any of the shopping because the super mercati wasn't open in the morning and they were stuck in the apartment the afternoon while the man hooked up the hot water heater. Gabriella also told me that the owner was going to bring us pots and pans tomorrow. That is good too!
Although I don't look forward to Paul and Maddy's experiences at the post office to pay the bills! Heh, where is that bolla man! It was worth the 300,000 Lira to pay the agency to hook up all the utilities. That would've just been another hassle that the kids wouldn't have enjoyed being dragged along to.
In order to eat any dinner, we had to buy some supplies. Off to the super mercati and we stocked up on a bunch of stuff. It took a while to figure out how to use the scales for the fruit. And the first couple of people I watched didn't know how to use the scales either so it was a long wait until someone used one competently. I still couldn't find stuff like plums (prunes rosso) on the scale so we had to pass that up. Kiwi's were easy to find so I bought some of those. We ended up with so much food and bottled water that we ended up taking the shopping cart home. The shopping carts are the same deal as in Paris, you insert a coin to release the cart. Unlike Paris it takes a 500 Lira piece which is less than half a dollar US. In Paris you used a 10F piece which is about $2US. So even if we don't return the cart and some kid grabs it first, no big deal.
We ate dinner, and Stephen started writing his diary into the computer as you can read up above. Then he started writing a story called 'Super Feather.' Kristie, not wanting to miss out in the action wanted to write a story too. She started one called 'I have a dog named lady.' Once they finish them I'll post those to my web site too. They both started their stories with lyrics they had come up with themselves to their own songs. Netscape Composer really has turned out a good product that the kids are able to use. Stephen was able to help Kristie compose her story without my help at all.
Now they are both in bed and not sleeping.
Gabriella took the time to rearrange everything in the apartment. It was a little difficult finding things where I had put them and finding them to be in a completely different place. But I guess a woman's touch is always better, she put the china in the cabinets where you could see them and hid all the ugly things (shoes, food on the kitchen counter, etc.) I had just lying about.
One thing I've noticed about the apartment building here, there are probably about 8 units that have people living in them but I don't see them out much. Even though we all have nice spacious balconies these people are inside and come out only briefly. I see that one of them is watching tv. One of the families has a young boy, probably around 3 or 4. I've seen the dad out in the parking lot only briefly with his kid. The people in this building seem to come out briefly on their balconies to hang up some clothes on the fold out clothes hangers. That reminds me, I have to remember to ask Gabriella to find out where the local laundromat is. I still haven't found one. I hope I can just drop off the clothes to be cleaned and pick them up later. Otherwise it'll bite into our time on the weekends, or one evening a week.
I've been rethinking about getting a tv set. The kids and I are spending more time together doing things whereas otherwise they'd be plastered to the tube watching comics. It is interesting how when we were in the hotels they would rather watch comics even though they didn't understand a word of what was going on. I kinda like not having to compete for their attention with a tv set. So I think I'm going to nix that idea until they leave.
Tomorrow we are going to hit the magazinne and buy some more warmer clothing for the kids. Kristie wants to paint a dog house for her new stuffed puppy, Anne-Marie. It is interesting how she went through a myriad of names over the past few days before she settled on that one. Sometimes she was changing the stuffed dogs name every hour almost. I need to buy some hangers for my clothes and some other miscellaneous cooking apparatus.
There are not a lot of bugs around here. I did see some bats the other night flying about. There are also snails that came out during the rain storm on Saturday. Kristie had fun picking them up and putting them 'somewhere safe.' And she is always on the look out for more lizards to catch.
I do have to get something to sleep on myself. This sleeping on the same bed, while not uncomfortable, just doesn't give me my sense of space. Well, it sounds like the kids are in bed and asleep and I guess I will do the same.
Portions Copyright @ 1997, Stephen POLOZOFF. All Right Reserved.
Portions Copyright @ 1997, Alexandre POLOZOFF. All Rights
Reserved.
