Settling into Italian life.

So we have a few issues. The heating system in my daughter's room isn't working. We need a plumber. I text a cousin who says her brother can help. I also need furniture and rubbish removed. Texting the cousin downstairs again, she suggests the brother. That night the brother arrives. He's a mountain man of many secrets. No one knows what he does in his spare time. He looks so sweet and he is so helpful. He will find a plumber, he will take apart the furniture, he will remove the rubbish. He has a truck, he wants no payment. He takes his masculinity out of the house and we know everything will be fixed. He leaves a trail of dried mud flakes behind him.

Then we can't work our the removal of rubbish. We don't have our own bins. I have to text a woman to ask. Armed with info, I walk up a very steep hill with two different bags of rubbish. By the side of our house there is a bin for vegetables etc. To take rubbish to a tip, you need a special card. The cousin will let us use his. We are becoming Italian. All this was done before by my sister-in-law. I realise I didn't thank her enough for what she did for us. I grow up overnight.

I have to go and see another cousin who managed everything when we were stuck in fortress Australia. He and his wife speak not a word of English and they speak in dialect. I have to work out how much I owe them. Luckily the man is organised, he gives me the account and everything is filed. They tell me stories and I nod and understand half of them (I make a note to increase my Duolingo time). We have had three people come every year for the month of August and the rent from that pays all the bills. Somehow I come out with an envelope with money left over. Today is our lucky day. I go to thank my friend in the town, the font of all knowledge. He says: Let's get a gelato. And off we go. On the way home, I see a Hotel Vecellio. This is our town.

That afternoon I have to go back to Cortina (up another winding mountain road, 45 mins away) because the winter sheets I bought are missing a bottom sheet. I get in the car at 3 (shops here open in the morning and then shut for a long siesta and wake up at 3.30) to travel almost an hour away. (In Sydney, it is rare for me to go shopping in the afternoon, especially during Covid times and never an hour away!). Halfway up the mountain, it starts to sleet and the trees are white with overnight snow but I soldier on as if this has been my life forever. (It is also the first time I have driven alone in a hire car, I usually have the daughter). I feel so grown up and brave!

When I arrive, the shop assistant tells me these sheets don't come with a bottom one, I need to buy one that will match. He picks out a couple of colours of beautiful organic cotton jersey sheets and I think, this will be expensive but I have to have one so I choose and he says that it is a gift. I look at the price and indeed it is expensive. This is a day that just keeps giving.

The drama of the Italian Visa.

We awake to deer on the side of the mountain and the church bells ringing. The continuity of time here gives you the feeling of being apart of history. We are up early to go to the post office to buy an envelope full of papers that we have to fill out for our visa. We have to do this and get it sent off to the Questura (immigration) within 8 days upon arrival. We happily go off with our envelopes thinking how easy this will be. Little did we know. We decide to fill it out that evening as the post office here closes at 1 pm so we have time up our sleeves. But first, something else important to do.

I am here on a mission, to redecorate our apartment that hasn't been renovated in 30 or more years. It is full of my late sister-in-laws objects that she possibly couldn't fit into her apartment. She was a hoarder. On the day I arrived, I started to pack up some of the strange Balinese masks and paintings, Murano glass cats that have decorated the apartment ever since I first came here. Today we decide to go to Cortina, a classy ski town up in the mountains with a beautiful department store where I'm hoping to get some items for the reno. We start with a brioche and macchiato of course and then I look, I buy, I'm given discounts on everything which alleviates my guilt of buying beautiful linens.

That afternoon, I try unsuccessfully to complete the paperwork which is all in Italian and realise I need the help of my late husband's friend. He knows everything, he likes to improve his English by speaking to me and he knows literally everyone who can help with any issue. Armed with the huge envelope I head down to his shop and as soon as he sees me he says: Let's go for a coffee (or a thick hot chocolate that's flavoured with different aromas as I have today - Amaretto with amaretto biscuit crumbs) or gelato or after the magical hour of 7 pm - a Spritz (the only time apart from around midday that you can consume Spritz according to Italians). We fill it out with difficulty, even he scratches his head.

Next morning, we head to the post office and she says it's not right, we have to go across the road to some random woman called Carmen who will help us. Also did we get the $25 stamps from the tobacco shop to put on the paperwork and our photos and copies of our visas from Australia and passport? No, we didn't. We head up the road to the tobacco shop which happens to also be the photo shop and discover that we're related to the owner, her mother and a whole host of family we were only vaguely aware of. We then go to Carmen, she and her colleague only are open in the afternoon but she takes pity on us and we make our way into their smoke filled office and she prints out notes for us, tells us we have to go to the Questura, not the post office. We don't believe her. We try one more time at the post office. We need to know the price of the lodgement she tells us. We leave, knowing that we have to take this into our own hands. We check with a friend who's just arrived and done the same thing with the same problems. We write what she writes. We decide to go the post office in a bigger town as obviously at this post office, they have no idea.

Next morning, we pray for a miracle. We drive an hour away in the pouring rain on a winding mountain road where everyone is doing 10-20 kms over the speed limit. In the end, I do the same.

Our Green passes are needed to get into the Post offices. We head towards a woman with hope in our hearts. She looks, she shakes her head. There are things we haven't filled out, we need to make an appointment with someone to check. The daughter speaks in Italian and says we've been there, done that and suddenly, the woman helps us fill it out.

We hold our breath as she says you have to photocopy all stamped pages of our passports. She says she can't do it but then suddenly off she goes to do it. She tells me there are too many pages for her to do in my passport...but then she does it. She asks for our credit cards....we barely breathe as she puts them through. Then suddenly we have an appointment for further action at the Questura. Our relief is palpable. We almost dance out of there. Steps 1 and 2 completed, we go for another brioche and macchiato as a Spritz would be frowned upon at 10.30 in the morning.

On the way home, we see the famous Tre Cime of Lavareddo, (the world famous UNESCO site that this area is famous for) in crochet form! Love it!

On the road again.

From now on wherever we put our jumper/hat is our home.

We transit through Doha and then Vienna. The food in Doha is amazing, the food in Vienna is questionable but who cares, we are close to our Italian home. The last plane is four seats across and if I'd known we'd be on such a small plane I would have said a prayer in a chapel before leaving. I look out the windows and we are flying over the Alps, still covered thickly in snow, so close to the Dolomites but I have calamitous visions about tiny planes and have to start thinking positive thoughts.

In less than an hour we can see the delta and canals of Venice and then St Marks! And then we have arrived, hoping that our bags will be there to greet us as we've been on three different planes and I forgot to pack a spare pair of undies just in case our bags are still in Vienna but I do have concealer, lipliner and lipstick so I could survive for days.

What a different arrival into Venice airport, we're swept through by a handsome Italian guy who doesn't even glance at our passports or our triple vaxxed paperwork, not even a stamp is printed on the passport. I wonder if anyone will ever know we have actually arrived in Italy.

But our bags have arrived! All is good.

We pile into a taxi for our overnight hostel stay (very cool place - Anda Venice Hostel), exhausted, triumphant and with the smell of the sea permeating the air around us. Spring is in the air, blossoms colour the bare branches, daffodils nod in street gardens.

The next day, we head out for our first brioche, pistachio for me and lemon cream for the daughter. I ooh and ahh like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally. I successfully embarrassed the daughter.

Then things get difficult. We have to go to get phone cards for a year. We go to Vodafone in Venice knowing that it is one of the most touristic cities in Europe and they will speak English. The daughter says they will be able to but they will deny it. She is correct. The girl is very helpful but we have to use our Italian. The daughter does well and after both signing our signature 9 times on an electronic pad we have our Italian number but then she tells us we must for 2 hours to activate it. We were going to be on the road soon and will need to use Google maps. The daughter isn't concerned, from being an anxiety filled being in Australia, she is all Be Calm and Carry on here. She said it'll work soon and luckily, it does.

Because then things get even more difficult. My daughter wasn't able to get the famed Green Pass that you need since Covid, to go anywhere, do anything on planes, trains and restaurants. Australia has provided us with an International pass with a QR code that matches no other code overseas - that is Australia. I got mine via a miracle, via my tenant who is studying here briefly, via a Dr that someone who knew someone knew. It came overnight into my email box. The daughter's didn't. She was told to collect it from a chemist upon arrival. Chemist found, but we could see by his puzzled look, there would be no Green pass. We didn't have a code to access it! We will need it to get our visas. The daughter turns on the phone and voila! it works. She calls the tenant, the tenant talks to someone, she talks to someone else and within an hour we have her Green pass. It is like winning the lottery. We are grateful for our tenant and all the other Italians that helped process this, whoever they are.

We are finally on the road in our hire car, heading to our Italian home, doing 130, watching all the other cars pass me by. And then, after two long years, we come up the mountain pass and into our village. We stop at the dam and gaze over the lake and go buy hazelnut yoghurt, ravioli and valeriana lettuce (tiny mini lettuces that we love and only just found in Australia) and we open up our apartment and race to the balcony to look out over our domain and Tudaio Mt, still with snow in the ravines and we know we are home. This is our Italia.