getting settled

sounds simple enough - getting settled. but it is a challenge in Sicily! everyone is very nice and helpful. it is just extremely difficult to get appointments completed. today, for the billionth time Brad is supposed to go and look at getting the rest of the kitchen. (yes, it is an exaggeration to make the point..)

anyway, we are also having to have the guys back to finish the a/c installation in our bedroom - he did not have the compound with him to close up the hole in the outside wall around the pipe. also they have to move the outside unit from the roof of the neighbor's house. we found out it was the roof of the neighbors house last weekend when we were in our living room listening to a sermon by Adrian Rogers. we heard from the balcony next door 'hello, my american friend' - so of course we knew it was us. then he told Brad that the a/c was on his property.

it was kind of embarassing, but we really did not know. i personally am glad that we have to move it because it will look better where it is going - to me it looked terrible with all the pipes going through some sideways conduit. it looked like something the three stooges put together.

we need to officially meet our neighbors. apparently they speak some english. they have had american neighbors in the past in this house. i'm praying that we give americans a good name and not a bad name. at first our dogs were always freaking out and barking. in the dogs' defense, they went from a very quiet country life in Brighton to a somewhat hectic street and neighbors right on top of us. they used to bark when other dogs came in our yard or people came up the driveway. so now they are having to learn new behavior. they are getting better. still room for improvement in the jumping up to greet you department. does anyone want to mail me a squirt gun? or maybe i can get one at the exchange. please, no power soakers!! haha!

hopefully this weekend we will get something to put our tv on in the living room besides an end table - or at least get it ordered for delivery. this time i think we will just stick with the exchange even though the options are not as nice as some of the things i was finding out in the Italian stores, just because we know when it will be delivered and can call for ourselves if there are any problems. we are still waiting on the bathroom cabinet to be delivered and supposedly it will be here from some place like the Netherlands in about 8 days. (this has been going on for at least a month!!)

the only other major thing left is to get the phone line extended to the top floor. right now we only have a connection in the living room and so all of our computer stuff is in there in addition to the clutter from the tv paraphenalia.

as you can see, the left side of the kitchen is complete, but the right side is stacked on some boxes! i'm working on getting a set of photos posted to the flickr site - i'll send a link for that soon....