One blog – seven days – oh where to begin my tale!
Lew and I flew on a formerly preferred airline, Lufthansa, a week ago today, arriving, finally, at the Ligurian coast, in the hills south of Genoa, North of the better-known Cinque Terre. Our little air B&B worked out just fine, roses and Iris greeted us when we arrived from our flight to Milan, and we collapsed for the night into a heap on a good bed. Our goal was to look at, and possibly purchase, a 125-year-old two-unit building that has been neglected for the last 50 years. Weekend project, and a fun thing to do, sez one of us. She is a nut, grumbles another of us. Did I tell you my GrGrandmother was a Raggio?
The house is known as the Raggio house and lies in front of the church, San Michele, whose September celebration we have attended many times in honor of the family’s ancestors who came from here and mostly went to California or to Illinois. We hoped to walk around and make an assessment, make an offer if things went well, and meet our attorney here to negotiate the proper Italian paperwork. Now, a remote relative, a partial owner of the house, was going to be here for a while as well, and he is bi-lingual, which neither of us is.
So far- house score – 0, Travel score – 8, maybe 9, food, 8 ( we’ve eaten haphazardly) pleasure and enjoyment score – 10. We got along, the attorney was helpful, Tom the almost relative was helpful, we got to meet a precious friend, a man who had a stroke, but while only using one side of his body, he could still remember much of his English words, enough to advise us to THINK CAREFULLY think, think, think. We heard him. He is one of the shiny elves of successful trips over the past 12 years, bless you Piero Felice. We would never be here today without his astute and thorough guidance
Once, several years past, eleven of us had a few wild and incautious evenings while we were here, and one such was at a place called Robertone’s pizza. We had hoped to go again on subsequent trips, (no fools like old fools) and they were closed/shut/no forwarding address. Well — drum roll here — they moved to the seafront in Chiavari, and first, we found them, then found ourselves enjoying not pizza this time, but 9 courses of ‘starters’, followed by several offerings of secondi piatti (second plates) and a finish of tiramisu and something the genial Roberto called “magic water.” The moon was full over my shoulder, and the sunset behind Lew’s, water lapping quietly below. Such a sublime finish to a trip.
The house – some of you have seen a video. Needs outside concreting, painting, replacement of some floors, all new electrical, water, and kitchens, roof, windows, and an access road. It also has the most spectacular view of the valley! The attorney advises us to think a bit more as well since we don’t yet have estimates on the work, but perhaps $250,000., five years of labor, and we’d have a suitable house for folks and family to visit. But, probably not gonna.
Finally, today we spent preparing to go home, a bit disappointed, but then, we said we’d either have a house, or a week in Italy, so it would all be okay, and it is. We did have to test for Covid to get back in the US- not to get to Italy, or even Germany where we laid over between planes. But to go home. There is a type of test that is proctored, and you pay for the proctoring testing, and then you buy an acceptable-to-them covid test. So we had two of them. One each. The test was new to us, and so Lew, of course, went first. He is good with instructions, usually. This time, he got up in the middle of the timing period and walked around, and that invalidated the test. On the second try, he used my test, but by now understood how to do it. He passed. We needed new tests and went to a local Pharmacia and with much hand waving, found that they did have one of the approved types of tests. I asked for a post office too. What???
It finally took most of the staff, and two customers to find that we could communicate in Spanglish / Italian sufficiently- customer to customer- to locate a post office and receive directions. By now we have two more tests, ten stamps, no house, and yet another test to take – mine. The tests we bought were in French, German, Spanish, and Italian, only. With diagrams, and Lew as the leader, I tried to follow along with multiple instructions, all to be performed under the view of the eye of my camera (proctoring by phone). Open this, nasal that, twist this 5 times, take this out – oops wrong end – I wonder if they will invalidate? – try again – wait one minute, shake ten times, prick the top of the seal and put in the biohazardous nasal q-tip— then, all this under the watchful eye of a disembodied someone – lets call her Bogdana-who watched as I put the little plastic contamination into the end of the tester-plastic y thing. Are you watching Bogdana? Wait for 15 minutes. Do not leave the seat, do not move, do not touch the camera. Bogdana are you there?. When done, take a photo of the test plastic y thing, and wait another 15 minutes, but now you can move around. Oh tell me Bogdana – can I fly? Please? If not- do I get to stay here??? hehehehe
When the final report came in – I was cleared, but scolded. Bogdana knew that I MOVED MY HAND, AND TWITCHED IN MY 15 MINUTES!!!“ Next time- do NOT move, and do NOT do whatever you did this time.” But otherwise, you are clearly without Covid.
We just finished our final dinner of MUSTGOS. A little pastrami, a little Ricotta, a little thick and chewy bread, some sauteed salad, – all is well, and we now only have to fit our luggage back into airline regulations, again. United, here we come, leaving behind sunny seaside and mountain breezes, beautiful Italia and a piece of our hearts.
Arrivederci, ce vediamo
Judy and lew.