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!