Sunny Day

We woke up to a sunny beautiful day after a night of heavy rain and thunder.


Brandon finally has his PE uniform for school. He is so cute and seems to be proud of how he looks.

I walked Brandon to school again this morning. Poor Katrina. She is tired. Our days have been busy, especially hers. In theory our day were supposed to go like this: Katrina wakes up and has some quiet time. She wakes Brandon and I up at 7:45 then takes a shower while I make sure he is ready for school. Katrina and Brandon walk to school at 8:30. The rest of the morning would be free for time together or for whatever we need or want to do. At 11 Katrina would leave for work and would head home at 6pm. In reality, this has rarely happened since we arrived. Getting our lives in order is more complicated in Italy. Its can be mentally exhausting when you aren't quite sure how to do things and you don't really speak the language yet. This week alone Katrina has has to head into Milan twice already. As I mentioned in yesterdays blog, she had to complete more immigration paperwork yesterday. Today she had to go into Milan again to meet with the people who will be handling the Italian part of our taxes. Because we are here for her work contract, most of these things have to be completed by her. I can't do much because I am the 'trailing spouse' as they call it. She's tired and needs a break.

Anyway, after I walked Brandon to school I headed over to the bank in Vedano to get more cash from the ATM. Cash is still used quite a bit more here in Italy. Since I was over near the town center, I decided to scout it out a bit more. I found a flower shop, another bar (bars are where you buy caffe - they also serve alchohol), the local post office, two butcher shops, another supermarket and a couple of pizzarias.

Katrina called to let me know it took her almost an hour to go about 4km (2.4 miles)!! Crazy traffic.

Sometimes differences are easier to live with if you know what the rules are in the first place. As I've mentioned in an earlier blog entry, in the US we seem to be all about convenience. You can almost get anything you want anytime you want it. Not so here in Italy. I walked over to Supermarcato Punto to buy a few things we need and found it to be closed. I guess in over a week of going there almost daily, I have always been in the morning or late afternoon - not mid afternoon. I knew that many small businesses close for an hour or more at lunchtime, but did not think that the supermarcato would be closed. Apparently they close from 1pm - 3:30pm each afternoon. Another cultural lesson learned.

Right around 2:45 the skies became very dark and our sunny day disappeared. The clouds opened up and the rain came down...along with thunder and lightning. Brandon is very happy that we have thunderstorms here. Stevie the cat appears to not like the thunder. His back is arched and he looks nervous. We really didn't have them in Oregon.

Katrina sent me a link to register with the US Dept of State. You can do this for vacations or for long assignments like ours. They will add you to the local email list for such things as travel advisories, emergencies, etc. We are now registered.

We had Mike and Jen over for dinner this evening. I made Farfalle con pesto di Arrugula - bowtie pasta with Arrugula pesto. We had a nice time and lots of laughs, as we usually do with Mike. He did two loads of laundry as well. Thats about 4 hours of laundry!!

We have decided to postpone our weekend trip to Venice. I called or emailed close to 40 hotels and B&B's. Everything is booked. I guess heading into Venice on a holiday weekend is not a good choice, or takes more planning than 2-3 days. We are going to do a day trip to the Lake Como area instead.