Paul and Marjorie both worked as part of the medical team for Carnival Cruise Lines, and then Royal Caribbean, and have an apartment in Sydney is their primary residence. Their 35m² home (about 375 ft²) is reflective of the ingenuity you’d find aboard a ship when it comes to maximizing the use of limited space. You walk up a short flight of stairs to enter their living space. A compact kitchen, table for 6, living room, and a loft to a single bed which is used when their son visits. A door leads to the bedroom and onto the bathroom. Everything was renovated – floors, walls, ceiling, windows – everything. The advantage of a complete renovation is that you can select every fixture, appliance, and material, right down to the custom hand-painted tiles. It’s really a beautiful place. Time flew as Marjorie showed us an album which chronicled the renovation. Before you knew it we were invited to stay for pranzo. We started with some fresh mozzarella made that morning by one of the locals with some garden tomatoes, fresh basil from one of the pots on her steps, and extra virgin olive oil. To Cinzia’s delight the main course was pasta with fresh black summer truffles which she had obtained from a local truffle hunter. Some prosecco, fruit, caffé, and cookies completed a lovely meal.
Hearing about all of the details involved in purchasing and renovating a home in Italy while living abroad had both our heads spinning – getting permits from homeowners below and above you to perform various construction projects; calculating square footage to have heaters installed, choosing flooring from among a dizzying array of tiles, colors, and treatments; installing steel beams in the ceiling and steel mesh in the walls; working with local artists to design just the right kitchen and bathroom tile pattern and colors; measuring everything in advance so that tiny ovens, washers, sinks, and bath fixtures could fit in the small space; and treating all of the wood several times to combat woodworms. The initial €42,000 purchase turned into a €100,000+ gem in Il Buchi section of Torre Orsina. Taxes on the home are negligible as Marjorie is an EU resident and this can be considered their first home, but energy is still expensive in Italy. Marjorie was telling us that she has to take that into account as running her washer and oven simultaneously draws more amps than their limit. You can pay a higher rate for a high limit, but if you plan accordingly there’s no problem.
Soon it was almost 5pm. We said our goodbyes and made our way from Il Buchi to Il Colle. I’m teaching Cinzia how to play burraco, and after a game or two I made the sausage while she made the peppers and onions. While “sausage and peppers” may be one of the top 3 Italian-American dishes along with “spaghetti and meatballs” and “pepperoni pizza”, none of these 3 dishes are ever seen in Italy and some, especially sausage and peppers, are viewed as quite disgusting. “Sausage, with peppers and onions? All together on the same sandwich?” We’ve been asked this several times. As for spaghetti and meatballs, the two would be served for different courses – first the pasta by itself as a primo, then possibly meatballs as a secondo. You may see the spaghetti without the meatballs, or the meatballs without the spaghetti, but never atop one another. The word pepperoni in Italian means peppers and is usually associated with the green, red, and yellow bell peppers. The disgusting American creation of pepperoni as some low-quality spiced salami is non-existent in Italy, let alone in an Italian pizzeria. Shockingly, while we were having lunch today I spotted an ad on TV for “Dominoes – American Pizza”. I’m not sure how they can expect to make a go of it in Italy, other than everything American is popular.
Ok, enough about food (for now). Cinzia has really impressed me with her Italian. She’s much more comfortable sitting with Elda and having a conversation at length. Last night, after a dinner of spaghetti alla carbonara, she sat on the steps of the church talking with Elda for over an hour – mostly about the condition of our rental. It’s certainly not a rental by any stretch of the imagination. The unit that is advertised as a rental was partially rented during our one month stay, so the abandon 2-bedroom unit in the same structure was hastily made ready for us. One of the bedrooms is filled with assorted junk and is unusable. The kitchen is usable, after Cinzia spent 3 hours cleaning it, but the oven is too old to even attempt to use – and there must be wasps living somewhere up in pipe that vents the stove. You can often hear buzzing above the stove as one of the vespa made its way down and is stuck in the fan mechanism. Other times a sickly one may simply fall to its death and land on the stove top or flutter to the floor where we’ll find it later in the day. One successfully made the journey down the vent alive and came to perch on the dining room light! I use the word "perch" because these Italian wasps are huge. A short squirt of spray and it was morte. The bedroom is adequate, as is the bathroom, but the dining room table for 16 means that there is no living room, which means no couch. Our seating options are a dining room chair or the bed. Wall coverings, light fixtures, shutters and windows, and the fireplace are all to be renovated. The outside grounds are lovely, but all in need of repair and overrun with feral cats. Still, we’re making the best of it and thankful just to have a place to lay our heads.
As the week of the festa grown near, more people are arriving in town. The most interesting part of the festa – the night that everyone dresses in antique costumes and takes on roles of the past as guests make their way through the serpentine streets of Il Buchi where various food stations await them – has been cut from the program. It’s been replaced with a second dinner in the Borgo. Neither of these dinners draw paying guests from outside the town as the serpentine dinner does, but perhaps too few attend that event and the money made isn’t worth all of the effort that goes into it. The competition for your “festa euro” is intense during the month of August. We’ve seen ads for a gelato festa (ice cream), cinghiale festa (wild boar), lepre festa (hare, as opposed to rabit), pesce festa (fish), and macaroni festa (no translation needed). But we also know that there is a trota e tartufo festa (trout and truffles), patate rosse festa (red potatoes), lenticchie festa (lentils), and many, many more. Tiny Torre Orsina is no match, so the townspeople put on their own 10-day festa from 17-26 August. We can’t wait!
Lastly, you might be wondering: “Where are all of the photos?” This year we decided to leave my bulkier Cannon digital camera at home and rely solely on Cinzia’s Samsung 7 smartphone camera. It takes great photos, but like any camera, you have to actually take the time to “snap” a photo or record a video. We’ll get there soon enough -- domani, domani.