Catch-up Post #1: 10/30

We made another trip into Termoli; this time to the WindTre store (an Italian cell/date provider) to purchase a SIM card for my iPad, in the hopes of resolving some of the connectivity issues I’ve been having.  Purchasing data here in Italy is relatively cheap, and can be topped off if you run out.

 

We also stopped at the Carrefour Supermarket there (Carrefour is a grocery store chain based in France).  On our way, we took note of a billboard advertisement for Lidl; we'd like to find out where that is located since that is a store with which we are familiar.  There is no “supermarket” as such here in our little town - there are several mercati (markets) here, tiny grocery stores with a little bit of everything.  There are at least two or three butcher shops (macellerie); they all have pictures of cows on their signs.  We also noticed a couple of pescherie (fish shops).  And don’t forget the fruit and vegetable man who drives his truck through the neighborhoods almost every day.  The stores here in town close between 1-4 PM and are not open on Sundays.  

So we grabbed a few things at the supermarket in the big town (which is how I’ve come to think of Termoli, as opposed to the “little town,” where we are living); now we have food makings for the next day or two, since tomorrow is Sunday, and Monday is a holiday here (All Saints’ Day).  

 

As today was Market Day (it appears Saturdays between 7:00 and 3:30 PM are the street market here; no parking allowed on our street - we finally figured out what our landlord was trying to tell us the other day!), plus it is a holiday weekend here, there was quite a lot of noise on the streets late into the night - mostly just young people hanging out having a good time, nothing too crazy.  But we missed the actual market this week since we opted to go into Termoli as noted above.

 

But today’s big news is that I figured out how to use the Italian washing machine!  Of course all the buttons and the knob have Italian labels, but with the help of Google translate and a few expat websites I was able to figure out enough to run the thing. 

   

The washing machine is quite small, and that this is typical even in larger homes.  So the laundry load is much smaller than we are used to. We didn’t bring a whole lot of clothes with us (relatively speaking); hopefully it won’t be too much of a problem, except that we will have to do laundry fairly frequently.  Italians are very conscious of electricity consumption, as electricity is considered to be expensive here; when not in use, the washer is unplugged.  Clothes dryers are not at all common, as they use up too much energy; almost everyone in town hangs their wash out on their balconies.  We do not have a clothes line on either of our balconies (yet), but we do have a drying rack, so I hung our first couple of loads on the rack on the enclosed balcony, with the windows open.  We’ll see how it goes!