Apologies, The Saga of the Impounded Car and New House Excitement!

Ciao a tutti!

Well this week I bring you a full gamut of emotions covering the excitement of house buying, the sheer glee of finishing teaching and the blood boiling frustrating of having your car stolen by the authorities. But firstly an apology!

Heartfelt apology

Firstly, an apology for anyone that I may have upset on the blog! WordPress informs me that my 2 year anniversary of MovetoItaly was only a week or two back. It’s been a positive pleasure writing it – it’s the only “diary” that I’ve ever been able to keep up and I never want to leave it for too long without writing an update. It’s become a bit of an addiction but a good one! But just like a diary, i probably don’t censor it as much as I should! So, I vent and whinge, I moan about school children, I post up pictures of “unique” bedroom lights etc. Alas, sometimes, the people that are involved in my whinging get wind of the blog (usually because I’ve been stupid and told them). Sometimes, I remember and quickly back-edit a post, sometimes I take down the offending item but more often I completely forget to take any remedial action at all. And the most difficult thing is – how do you apologise for potentially hurting the feelings of someone that may not have seen the offending mockery in the first place?!

I think the two most likely apology scenarios are as follows:

Apology 1: Sue: “Hey – did you er, read my blog post? You know, the one where I called your students little nightmares from hell?/ where I slagged off your furniture? / where I dubbed you ‘The Cheek Stroker’ because you won’t leave mine alone? Oh, you didn’t? Well, er, that’s fine, forget it, really”.

Apology 2: Sue: “Hey – did you er, read my blog?”. Innocent Victim (IV): “No, I’m sorry, I really must do that – what’s the address again?”.

So, I’ve decided to go down the following route: If you’ve ever read something insensitive about yourself, your students, your bedroom light or your penchant for stroking my cheeks, I apologise and am genuinely sorry. Please feel free to confront me so I can apologise in a cowardly manner.

I’ve decided to be much more sensitive in the future. Anyway, enough of that, let me tell you about the annoying police and car pound… 😉

The Saga of the Impounded Car

Yesterday my car was taken. Yesterday morning, rather than my car being outside, there was a market. I like markets but on this occasion, I would have preferred my car.

So, I wandered around the market in despair asking people how I could get my car back (it’s not as though the thief could leave a note) and the only suggestion was “speak to the Vigili” (Vigili means watchers. Ha, if only they’d just WATCHED my car), who don’t actually have a phone number or an address that can be located through regular means on the internet.  I spotted two authoritative looking figures who told me I should go to a building up the road which turned out to be where the Polizia are. I arrived at the Polizia who had a sign outside saying they were on strike and to come back another day.

My laughs were heard by a nice policeman that was in the building who came out to see who was having an hysterical breakdown outside.

I had to pay a very specific 29.70 euros to them to give me a green piece of paper – taking people’s cars is a time consuming administrative business. There would be a lot more to pay at the con artist’s car pound to cover their strenuous efforts. Bless their cotton socks.

After continuous attempts by the nice policeman to phone the thieves car pound, he learnt that they were on lunch now from whatever time in the morning it was until 4pm so I needed to wait until then. The nice policeman then asked me if I knew where the crook car pound was. “No” I said. “It’s a long way” he said. “Great” I replied.  “Do you have a car?” he asked. “YOOOOOOUUUUUU HAVE MY CAR”. Hearing a trace of hysteria return, he quickly asked his boss to give me a lift to the shysters car pound this afternoon as he was not going to be there. The slightly less friendly policeman responded after some cajoling with a “s’pose, if I have to”.

At 3.45 I phoned the pilferers car pound to confirm that they were actually going to be open. “Yeah, you need to come immediately because I’m going out”. “Right. I’m actually in Falconara – I don’t know how to come immediately since you have my car and all but I’ll go immediately to the less friendly policeman and get a lift straight away”. Off I ran up the hill to the Polizia. The new shift of staff were really very friendly, lovely in fact, and spent a long time reassuring me that they would help me get my car back. So long assuring me that they would help me get my car back that the time for helping me get my car back came and went. I expressed my concern that far from being open at 4pm, they were now closed. They dismissed that notion with a wave of their hand and phoned the swindlers  car pound who confirmed that they had now gone but would be back “at some point”. The Polizia used all their contacts and confirmed that someone would be there in 40 minutes.

Some three hours later, waiting in the hot sun without water / snacks / firearms and staring at my car behind some annoyingly sturdy looking metal gates, the cheats car pound men arrived. I obviously need to remunerate them for their hard work so I gave them 96 euros. I just hope that it’s enough to cover the stress of stealing having to haul away my car when they’ve had such a busy day out of the office at the beach recovering other vehicles.

Anyway, I’ve totally learnt my lesson. I should be checking daily a sign a few hundred meters up the road to see if my car will be stolen if I park it next to the flat, on the road that I have already paid 50 euros for the privilege of parking on for 3 months.

 New House

Apart from that it’s actually been a good week! I went to see the house in San Ginesio again (this will change – it’s sort of between San Ginesio and Sarnano – it’s less that I’m fickly changing houses and more that I’m being inconsistent!)  and confirmed that I still want to buy it.

I wont lie, there are confusing bits that need sorting on the paperwork. In particular, there are rustic buildings where there aren’t rustic buildings, there are storerooms where there aren’t storerooms and the floor plans look like a child could have done them. The first official step is to get a “Compromesso” (interestingly translated as Compromise but is essentially an initial promise between the buyer and seller, after which there are financial penalties to pay if either party pulls out).  But there’s so much opportunity and it costs hardly anything. So hoping to do some decent floor plans and put together some ideas about how it could look. It’s so exciting! It feels like my first proper home! Move date should be mid August hopefully.

Teaching

I’m sure you can believe how devastated I am to have finished teaching at the schools this week 🙂 The finale was a disastrous show with the infants who forgot every single thing that we’d done in the last year in front of their parents and passers by on the beach front in Marcelli.

None-the-less it marked the end of an interesting year teaching school kids English so I was happy and I got a lovely bunch of flowers to say thank you.

Ok that’s me done for this week.

Ciao all!

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