Lollipopped

"My boy lollipop / You make my heart go giddy-up..."

- Spice Girls, My Boy Lollipop 

Yesterday, we learned that in Italy, not only do the carabinieri carry guns (and sometimes, submachine guns), they also carry lollipops:

 

photo credit for this image here

We drove into Termoli to do a little shopping; as we were approaching our next-to-last roundabout to take the exit for the store, I saw a red dot from the corner of my eye and looked up from my phone just in time to see that we were passing a police car parked on the side of the road, besides which was a member of the carabinieri waving a short, skinny stick with a small red circle at the top.  "What was that?" I asked Paolo, who was driving.

"I think he wanted me to slow down."  Not an unreasonable assumption, as Paolo has really adapted quite well to the aggressive, high-speed/low use of turn signals Italian style of driving [insert sarcasm here].

A minute later, as we're about to turn into the store parking lot:  "Ohhh.  I think he's coming after me."

Great.

Sure enough, the police car pulls in next to us in the parking lot; two officers get out of the car.  Fortunately (and surprisingly), the younger of the two spoke a bit of English (observation:  the longer we spoke, the better his English became).

Paolo got out of the car, too.  The younger officer started off speaking in rapid Italian, but we of course couldn't understand him, and Paolo quickly interrupted to say he didn't speak Italian and that we are Americans who speak English.  Then the young guy got into the passenger side of his car, and placed his hands on the dash, and started saying something about in America we would have to stay in the car when talking to police but in Italy it was OK to get out of the car and talk to the police...?  That's what I took from it, anyway.  Maybe he thought we were afraid of the police, because of all the bad press American cops get.  I'm really not sure, but he seemed nice enough, so I'll lean towards the "he was trying to reassure us in some way" theory.  He then informed us that when you see the lollipop, you have to STOP.  Paolo apologized and explained he thought they were just indicating that he should slow down.

He then asked for Paolo's ID; he handed them his PA driver's license, while I rooted around in my purse to dig out his AAA International Driver's license (which is just a translation of the driver's license info) and his passport.  "Are you staying in Termoli?" the carabiniere asked.  Paolo said no, we live in [our comune].  "You work in Termoli?"  "No, I'm retired."  "You retired in Italy?!"  Paolo informed him:  "My wife is Italian!"

So I hand over my Italian ID and say, "I'm a citizen."  This really seemed to throw him; especially because I wasn't speaking Italian (I was actually trying to say as little as possible - American conditioning, I guess).  I could almost see him mentally scratching his head.  "You're a citizen...you live here?"  

Because Paolo is now outside of the 90-day stay limit as a US citizen, I felt it prudent to mention that he has an upcoming appointment for permesso, the receipt for which is stashed inside his passport.  However, the officer didn't seem even remotely interested in this information.

Then he looks at Paolo's ID again, and asks, "Are you a veteran?"  "Sì, Army."  "What conflict?"  We were a little stumped by this; I think Paolo decided what he meant to ask was, "Where were you stationed?" so he replied "Germany.  Near Heidelberg."  "How long?"  "Three years."

Officer Young Guy looked a bit askance at this; probably because we didn't mention that those "three years" were quite some time ago (it's actually not all that unusual for retired US military folk who've been stationed in Italy to remain/retire here when their service is complete; they make up a fairly sizable portion of the expat community in some regions, it seems).  But in any event, he seemed satisfied with the information provided, and explained in Italian the gist of our conversation to his fellow officer.  Then they smiled and waved and took off.

Overall, it was a pretty friendly, relaxed encounter, as these things go.  But we never did find out exactly why they wanted to stop us in the first place.

Lynk & Co and other things

Picking up the new car at the airport this past Tuesday was fairly uneventful; we checked out of our hotel at noon, and even though we weren't scheduled to pick up the car until 13:00, we decided to just walk across to the airport anyway.  As it turned out, the car was ready and waiting for us, yay.  And this is what we got:

This is a Lynk & Co 01.  We'd never heard of this maker before; it's a Swedish-Chinese brand.  According to what I've read online, it seems to share a lot in common with the Volvo XC40.  There is a heavy emphasis on internet connectivity and general Jetsons-ness; the infotainment screen is huge (almost as big as my iPad screen).  Weirdly, though, for such an Internet of Things kind of vehicle, the wireless charging pad in the car doesn't seem to work with my iPhone.  

I haven't driven it yet, but Paolo says it handles well.  It's classified as a compact SUV, so it's a little bigger than our previous car...which makes me a bit nervous, what with Paolo's penchant for trying to squeeze down tiny streets he has no business driving on.

Our drive home started out fine, although we did end up back on the A-1, albeit this time with the proper entrance ticket, so no additional fines were assessed.  I forget the amount of the actual toll, but it was certainly a lot less than €82,30.

We passed through some nice countryside; I attempted to get a few pictures from the passenger's point of view:

Not a great picture, but ahead is the Sanctuary Basilica of Our Lady of Sorrows, in Castelpetroso, Isernia Province, Molise.  Apparently, in 1888, Our Lady appeared to some young shepherdesses somewhere nearby.  Either that, or perhaps they gathered the wrong kind of mushrooms while out herding their sheep...

The GPS in this car has a very calm and soothing voice; she sounds very trustworthy.  However, as it turns out, she gets easily confused by the mountains, the little farm roads, and so on...we got lost for an hour (while only about 30 minutes from home), thanks to her constant (devious?) recalculations.  We were afraid she was going to take us down some little tractor road and we'd suddenly find ourselves stuck in the middle of an olive grove just as night was falling.  As it was, we certainly got a very interesting tour of some of the more remote comuni of Campobasso province.  

Otherwise it's been a quiet week.  This morning, we woke up to another rainbow - so I was pretty sure I was going to have some news about my passport today:

Sure enough, I did get a message confirming that my passport is ready and will be forwarded to me ASAP.  I should hopefully have it by early next week!

In other news - I now have a Certificazione Verde - an Italian Green Pass (it's a Super Green Pass, actually, since I have had three jabs).  The Green Pass is a QR code with your Covid vaccination info, to be scanned when you go to any kind of venue that requires proof of vaccination (pretty much anywhere these days).  I didn't really need it, because the US's paper CDC card suffices in place of the Super Green Pass.  But I wanted to see if I could navigate the system and figure out how to get one on my own.  It turned to be a relatively simple process, once I reached out via email to the regional health department to ask (thanks to Google translate).  All I had to do was send an email to request it, along with copies of my Italian ID, my codice fiscale card (tax number), and a copy of my CDC vaccination card.  A few days later - that is, today - I got an email back directing me to download the IO app, which is a government app where you can do lots of stuff - I don't even know what all yet.  Once I had that set up:  boom, there was my Green Pass.  And I'm not even on the national health system.

This weekend I am thinking about attempting to make some homemade pasta.  I got the Pasta Grannies cookbook for Christmas, and I want to try making trofie, because it's literally two ingredients (flour and boiling water) and I don't need to roll it out or cut it.  We'll see!

Fiumicino

Last week, we made the decision to extend our stay here in Italy for another few months.  Our original return flight was booked months ago for January 18; since that time, Covid and its side effects - including the airline rescheduling and rerouting our flight such that we would have had a long and very undesirable layover in Hell at Heathrow, among other things - caused us to rethink our plans.  I spent about an hour and a half on the phone one day last week rescheduling our flight (it took an hour just to get through to a human being).  This sounds exasperating, but honestly, I couldn't be annoyed by the wait; those poor airline folks are super understaffed at the moment thanks to everyone being out sick, plus with so many flights being canceled and needing to be rebooked, I'm sure they're overwhelmed). Our apartment is paid through April (the rental had to be for a minimum of six months to meet residency requirements), so no problem there.  The car, however, was a bit of an issue.

Our car was a short-term leased Renault Captur; when we picked it up in October, I was assured the lease could be extended if necessary.  What they didn't tell me (and shame on me for not asking for more details) was that they would only extend for another 80 days - at €55 per day (almost $63) - making the per-day cost of the extension much higher than under the original lease.  No thanks.  So I did a little online comparison shopping (which wasn't easy, because we're limited to automatic cars as Paolo can't drive a manual) and eventually found a better deal with a Hertz rental.  I reached out to the folks at Renault and asked them if they cared to match Hertz's price; they declined.  Whatever.

The Renault needed to be returned in Fiumicino (this is the town where Rome's international airport is located); the Hertz car needs to be picked up at the counter in the airport.  Since with traffic, etc. it was about a 4.5 hour drive from our comune to the leasing office, we decided to book a hotel room overnight and pick up the new car the next day, rather than do all the driving in one day.  Fortunately, there is a Hilton that is literally right across the road from the airport terminal where the car rental offices are located - there is even a covered walkway from the hotel property that takes you right into the airport.

View from our room; the walkway to the airport is below our window, outside the frame of this shot

Although we did run through a bit of fog at one point (high up in the mountains), it was overall a fairly nice day for a drive, weather-wise.  I tried to take some pictures of different areas we drove though, but that's not always easy to do from a moving vehicle.  But here are a few snaps of the countryside I managed to capture:

In one town we drove through (somewhere in Isernia, the other province in Molise), Paolo had to navigate us through a pretty tricky intersection.  The tricky thing about it was that there was only one set of traffic lights, for the (to us) cross traffic.  I don't mean that the other traffic lights one would expect to see at a four point intersection were out - I mean they did not exist!  WTF?  Getting across that intersection was kind of like playing chicken.  Fortunately, we won, I guess.  

I will never understand driving in Italy.

We also sat in traffic for a bit at one point; it turned out that two tractor trailers somehow tangled at a roundabout, completely blocking the normal flow of vehicles - meaning that the carabinieri had to direct everyone around the accident scene.  Traffic traveling in the direction we were headed was forced to go the wrong way through the roundabout to get by.

Our GPS eventually brought us to the A1 Autostrada (she's a bitch like that sometimes).  The autostrade are toll roads for the most part.  This was our first time driving on the A1.  Unfortunately, Paolo entered via a "Telepass" lane, so didn't get a printed entrance ticket (Telepass is the Italian version of EZ Pass).  Without the ticket, we had an issue exiting the A1 - by "issue" I mean we were issued an €83,90 fine which needs to be paid online within 15 days.  Sigh.

Despite some very heavy traffic in certain areas, congestion around Rome in particular (think rush hour I-95 around Philly, my personal nightmare), and some confusion on the part of our GPS going around the roundabouts near the airport (damn her), we eventually made it to the Renault leasing office in Fiumicino (the town, not the airport) about 1/2 hour before our scheduled drop-off time.  There was no one at the desk when we walked in to the office, so we sat down to wait until someone showed up.  The guy arrived within about 10 minutes or so; he'd had another drop-off scheduled right before ours.  He took care of that client, then dealt with us.

Admittedly, I was a little worried about what they might say (or charge us) relating to the scratches on the car from our little misadventure in Larino; in the end, I don't think the guy even looked at the car.  He had me sign a form to return the car to them, and there was a section on the paperwork where they are supposed to indicate any damage...and that was left blank.  Whew!  On the other hand, the way Italians drive and park, I'm guessing vehicles are rarely returned wholly intact.  Once the paperwork was complete, we hopped in a van (along with his other client) and he dropped us at our respective hotels. 

So here we are ensconced in our comfy room at the Hilton; tomorrow we will cross over to the airport via the walkway, pick up our new car, and head home.  Hopefully the new GPS will know to avoid the A1, and also be better at navigating roundabouts.  I'll end this with a couple of pictures from dinner, and one of Leonardo da Vinci, for whom the airport is named (the actual full name of the airport is Aeroporto Internazionale di Roma–Fiumicino "Leonardo da Vinci"):

Paolo is looking grumpy because I wouldn't let him have the rolls with seeds that he is not supposed to eat

Paolo looking happier because he got pasta with octopus, which is one of his favorites

Leo.  I can't figure out whether his hands are actually bigger than his head, or if it's an optical illusion.

Random Things

Oops!  There were two random, unrelated things I was going to mention in my earlier post:

First:  a shout out to the family for sending us a Christmas card (and scratch offs!).  The envelope was postmarked 12/14/2021, and only took 3.5 weeks to get to us!  Might be a new record.

Sadly, despite using my lucky euro, we didn't win anything on the scratch offs this year.

The second random thing was that I happened to witness the Poste italiane driver needing a little assistance today from one of my neighbors, to whom she'd just delivered mail.  She was having trouble getting down the street due to a randomly parked car:

It was a tight squeeze, but she made it

The surprising thing is that she didn't just barrel down the street, taking out the passenger-side mirror or otherwise dinging the parked car, which is what usually seems to happen, because Italy. 

Which reminds me of yet another random thing:  the other day, some poor guy in a Land Rover tried to make the turn onto our street, but the vehicle was simply too big to make said turn, and the driver had to slowly back himself down the way he came.  I wish I'd gotten a picture of that.  Must have been someone new in town.  On the other hand, we've been there, done that, so I do have a little bit of sympathy for him.

Questura

We woke up Monday morning to see a little snow on the surrounding mountains:

View out my bathroom window

Fortunately, it didn't snow here in town (yet) although the temps have dropped considerably.  Currently it is about 39F and a bit windy (though less windy than it was yesterday).  The Weather Channel app had predicted we'd have a little snow overnight, changing to rain today; happily, this did not come to pass, and all was dry as of when we woke up this morning.  Later in the week, the sun will allegedly return along with some warmer weather predicted to be in the high 40'sF - low 50'sF - I'll take it!

Yesterday (Tuesday) I had my passport appointment at the questura in Campobasso.  Ironically, this would have been the day that I would have had an appointment at the Italian Consulate office in Philadelphia, had it not been canceled for Covid.  I'm not complaining, as going to the consulate would have entailed a wait of at least another two years for the processing of my request for recognition of my citizenship - so it all worked out in the end, as life often does.

The questura is the provincial headquarters for the polizia di stato (not to be confused with the carabinieri - which are actually a military police force, like the French gendarmerie - or the guardia di finanza, which deals specifically with financial crimes, smuggling, and drugs).  The questura is also the administrative office where one goes to deal with immigration issues (non-EU immigration in particular), request passports, obtain firearms licenses (quite rare in Italy compared to the US), permits for various things, etc., etc.

Main entrance, for my purposes.  It appeared that folks with immigration issues enter via a side door.  It's quite a large building, extending much farther on either side of this door than you might guess from the photo.

My appointment was for 10 AM; we managed to get there on time despite having taken a couple of wrong exits off the roundabouts in Campobasso.  For some reason, the GPS system in our car sometimes gets a little fuzzy on exactly which exits to take when going around a traffic circle.  As it turned out, the questura is located just down the street from the agenzia delle entrate, where I obtained my codice fiscale.  To our (happy) surprise, we were able to find a parking spot in a lot across the street - a minor miracle.  Also a minor miracle that we didn't get flattened while crossing said street - Italian drivers rarely stop for pedestrians (or other drivers, for that matter).

Nicoletta was not available to translate for this appointment, so we met with her colleague Saya, who was very sweet. We walked up to a sort of gatehouse next to the questura building, which was manned by a somewhat grumpy looking officer behind a glass window.  Saya explained (more than once, actually) that we were there for my passport appointment.  I noticed he was checking a clipboard, presumably reading through a list of scheduled appointments, looking for my name.  Eventually he found it and we were waved through to the grounds of the building.  Interestingly, while there was a device for checking body temperature on a stand in front of the officer's window, we were not required to scan ourselves before being admitted.

Surprisingly, when we entered the building, it seemed pretty empty; I'd expected to see more people bustling about their bureaucratic business.  I'd mentally prepared for a long wait, red tape, requests for documents I didn't have, additional fees, whatever.  Italian bureaucracy really does have a poor reputation.  However, my appointment was actually very quick; we'd brought the filled-in application forms with us, along with two passport-sized photos (note that they are not the same 2x2-inch size as you'd use for a US passport; Italian photos are a bit smaller).  Once we greeted the woman at the passport counter and Saya explained that the appointment was for me, it went fairly smoothly.  The forms were reviewed and deemed correct; I just had to sign them.  I was also fingerprinted - one finger on each hand.  The fingerprint machine at the questura worked much better than the one in my comune; I didn't have to jam my fingers down on it, or have someone apply pressure to them for me in order to make the scan work correctly.  I was then told my passport should be available in about a week.  

And...that was it.  It was a bit anticlimactic.  The total fees, for the passport, plus the tax stamp that must be paid for and added to the application (this stamp costs more than the actual passport), plus mailing, I think was just about €126 (just over $143). My expedited US passport renewal in 2021 cost more, plus it took longer than a week to receive.

I suggested that we might perhaps check out the shopping mall in Campobasso, since we were already pretty close to it, but Paolo opted to head home instead, saving the shopping trip for another day.  So rather than celebrate this milestone by buying myself a present, I decided to mark the occasion by cooking dinner - I made capellini with clam sauce, which I'd never done before.  I melted some butter, added olive oil, a jar of clams with juice, some garlic, some very finely diced zucchini, and some seasonings; I let it come to a boil, then let it simmer a bit before stirring the sauce into the bowl of pasta.  It was delicious, if I say so myself:

Notice that Paolo got a haircut?  Unfortunately for him, I had to give him one of my Covid-specials with the clippers, since we can't figure out when, exactly, the hair salon here in town is opened.  Every time we go by, it is closed, and they don't seem to have a website.  I always forget to ask when chatting with neighbors.  I really should try to remember, though, as I myself desperately need a cut and color.  Paolo kindly offered to return the favor, but I declined as 1) we don't have proper haircutting scissors; and 2) I'm not that desperate yet.

Odds and Ends

It's Monday, and as I am writing this, the streets are still relatively holiday-quiet; I think the official "holiday" season here doesn't really end until Epiphany, January 6th, which is a public holiday here.  I do hear the vegetable seller driving around in his truck calling out his wares over his loudspeaker, though.  And, when I was hanging out laundry earlier today, I looked down from the balcony to see someone standing in the street waiting for the doctor's office to open.

Speaking of the doctor's office - she (one of our landlords) still hasn't entirely moved to her new offices.  When we first moved in, we were told she'd be moving out in a week or so.  I mentioned it in passing last time I spoke with Nicoletta, and she said that they're still working on getting the new place ready!  Because Italy.  I don't really mind, except that I'm not thrilled about a bunch of germy sick people hanging out around our front door several days a week; I'm kind of a germaphobe.  But they all do wear their masks, so that's something, anyway.  The doctor's office placed a sign on the door - that is, on the door to OUR apartment - stating that patients must wear masks in the building.

Speaking of masks, and Covid, and so on - in my last post I talked a little bit about the currently mandated Covid mitigation strategies, and how people generally comply with the rules, and we don't see a lot of evidence of any anti-(Covid, mask, vaccine) people around - I just wanted to clarify that I was talking about our personal experience, here where we are, in our region (and also in Lecce where we were for Christmas, for that matter, which is to our south).  Of course there are anti- (Covid, mask, vaccine) people in Italy - I don't want to give anyone the wrong impression that we're living in some kind of Covid-free paradise.  There are areas of Italy - quite a few - where Covid is currently surging.  While certain regions are back in the yellow zone, Molise is not one of them, thankfully; it is still in the lowest-risk white zone.  I think this is in part because it is so rural; Puglia, where we spent Christmas, is also a white zone.  Interestingly, we read that while Omicron is here, Delta is still the dominant strain in Italy - for now.  

One more personal Covid bummer is that the Marche region currently has a high number of cases.  That is the region where my great grandfather's hometown, Corinaldo, is located.  I was hoping we would be able to take a drive up there sometime soon-ish; but I think it would be best to wait on that for now.

And then there are these people living in Bolzano who think they're protected from illness by all the fresh Alpine air, and who sincerely believe that if they do happen to get sick, they can simply treat it with "onion compresses, body cream[s] of thyme and myrtle, and drink[ing] a lot of tea."  Bolzano, which - surprise! - has one of the highest Covid infection rates in Italy, is pretty far to the north of us.  Aside from Covid and the weird healthcare beliefs of a majority of its population, Bolzano otherwise sounds like an interesting place to visit, but we won't be going there anytime soon.

We don't really have anything interesting planned to do for this week; my next citizenship-related appointment, for the purpose of applying for my Italian passport, is scheduled for Tuesday of next week, 1/11 (or, as we write here, 11/01 - something I always have to stop and think about when filling in or reading forms).  This morning I took care of some basic household chores - vacuuming and then mopping the tile floors, as well as laundry - I'm on load #2 as I'm writing this.  

When I got up at 5:30 or 6 AM this morning to use the facilities, I turned on load #1 before going back to bed; that way the load was done by the time I woke up for real around 9 AM.  It really does take about two hours to do one load of wash; that just seems to be the norm here.  I'm really not sure why European washing machines have such long cycles.  The machines tend to be smaller capacity, too, according to my observations.  I've tried running the machine on both the regular and the "eco" cycle, but that didn't make any difference in the amount of time it took to complete a load.  Frankly, I'm not even sure what the "eco" button does on my machine.  The weather has been very nice lately, in that it hasn't been raining and/or super windy; it looks like it will be sunny and mid- to upper-50s F for at least half of this week - in other words, good clothes drying weather.

I forgot to mention that when I went in to sign the registers at the town hall last week, I was also - finally! - given a copy of the trash and recycling schedule! Up until now, we've put out trash and recycling based on our guesses as to what our surrounding neighbors were placing outside for pickup.  At last we have confirmation as to what specific items to put out for pickup on a given day, and on which holidays trash/recycling is not collected.  I was also informed that the schedule will be changing in the beginning of the year, and I should be getting a copy of the new schedule in the mail (who knows when? because Italy).  The funny thing is that last week, someone - presumably one of our landlords - taped a note on our door about what containers to put out on each day.  The note was written in English, so someone must have helped them, or else they used a translation app.  

Monday:  "organico" (food trash/compostables)

Tuesday:  "secco residuo" (non-recyclables, trash that doesn't fit into the other categories)

Wednesday:  "plastica e metalli" (plastics and metal)

Thursday:  "organico" (again)

Friday:  alternates between "vetro" (glass) and "carta e cartone" (paper and cardboard)

Saturday:  "pannolini e pannoloni" (baby diapers and adult incontinence products)

There is a restaurant in Termoli we'd like to try, maybe this week, for lunch - a time of day we suspect there wouldn't be many other people in the restaurant - called Yoshi Fusion Sushi.  It's very near the Carrefour (supermarket) and the Happy Casa (home goods).  Whenever we drive by it, it looks pretty empty.  It's only open 12-3 during the afternoons, then opens again at supper time form 7 PM - 11PM (very common hours here).  We're curious to see how the Asian food is here.  We have to go out to Happy Casa at some point soon anyway, as Paolo has been on a kind of glass-breaking rampage...OK, perhaps "rampage" is a little strong; but he did manage to somehow break both a wine glass and a water glass in separate incidents today.

We have been watching TV shows in Italian with English subtitles - or rather, shows available via our Amazon Firestick.  I mentioned previously that we watched the Italian version of Nero Wolfe on MHz Choice, which was really quite good. The downside of watching things on MHz Choice is that you can't change the streaming settings, so shows we watch through that subscription (which are almost all HD) use up more data per episode than I would like.  Netflix is much better as far as that goes; if you adjust down to SD, you use much, much less data.  We watched all three seasons of Suburra:  Blood on Rome, which was excellent, I thought.  Apparently it's based on a movie (that we have not seen).  It has organized crime, gypsies, and corrupt Vatican officials - what could be better?  It's also pretty violent, so definitely not a show for the kiddies.  I personally enjoyed this show much more than I did The Sopranos, actually.  We also just wrapped up a two-season documentary series called Rotten, which is about food production, and really made us think about some of the foods we consume and the effect our consumption has on other people around the world, as well as the environment.  I don't know that watching TV shows in Italian is really helping us learn the language all that much, but it can't hurt, anyway.

One food-related item:  peanut butter!  Another item found on the "international" shelves at the big supermarket (we have not seen any peanut butter at any of the little mercati here in town).  They had two kinds - a "crunchy" and a "creamy," each made by a different producer.  I couldn't resist and chose the creamy one, as that's what I would eat at home.  It was, by the way, close to €4 for a jar (in other words, a little pricey).  I finally got around to tasting it yesterday...and do you know, it was pretty close to American, non-organic peanut butter (frankly I don't care for the organic kind because I don't like the way the oil separates out of it).  I would say it was a bit less salty, and less sweet than the brand I normally buy in the US, but had just about the same creamy texture and peanuty flavor.  Interestingly, the company listed on the label - Nick the Easy Rider - seems to be German.  Nick appears to be an importer of some sort...the website, in both German and Italian, seems to lose something in translation...

And now, time for a little pranzo; I think there's a tuna melt calling my name...