Success at Everyday errands

When you live somewhere a long time you learn to operate efficiently and effectively with little conscious thought to day-to-day activities. When you move you are forced to start over and find a new grocer, a new dentist, a barber that gets it just right and the best place to get your favorite dinner. When you move every two or three days, without the thought that you will be home in two weeks so haircuts and dental appointments can wait, you have to learn some tricks to figure out how to learn these things quickly. Not learning them means you have shaggy hair for awhile, you buy your bottles of water at the tourist shops paying four times the price you would pay at the grocery store if you could just find it, and you can't get fresh fruit for breakfast so you will just have to settle for the fruit cocktail they serve. When you combine the need to learn these things quickly with the language difficulties and the cultural difficulties it is more complex. Does the place that looks like a hairdresser cut men's hair? Will you look like a complete moron if you go in and ask?

As much as we love our suitcases, we did have one mishap. While yanking them on and off trains every other day has not hurt them too bad, one hauling effort caused the foot rest on my bag to fall off. It didn't grossly effect its functionality, but it did fall over rather than stand up. We saved the leg, but the screws holding it on were broken. This happened two weeks ago, and we have been quite unsuccessful at finding a hardware store in which to buy screws, nuts and the hardware to use them to repair my suitcase. So, we have devised a two person team effort to make our way. One of us watches the suitcases, holding mine up, while the other goes in the information office, the restroom, or the shop. Then, while out for a walk today Mike spotted a hardware shop on a side street in Zermatt. We have not found a hardware store in bigger cities than this with lots of asking, so imagine how surprised and excited we were to find this old fashioned neighborhood hardware store. We found the equipment we thought we needed and with a promise that they would trade anything that didn't work for replacements, we left the hardware store to empty my suitcase and try to put the foot back on. We installed the foot successfully and considered that a win!

As to haircuts. Barbers are hard to find in some countries and easier in others. Spain seems to hide them but they are very clearly barber shops in Italy. Mike got a great haircut in Orvietto, by using sign language to make his requests. How do you explain how long to make the sides, or to trim the beard if you and the barber don't speak the same language? All I can say is I think the sign language worked really well and we may try it when we get home.

I have explained grocery stores in an earlier blog. The groceries are not surrounded by giant parking lots. They are in tiny side streets, with only a small doorway going in, usually to a set of stairs down to a basement, but sometimes winding to the interior of a building. There is nowhere to park- everyone walks to the market and buys only what they can carry or put in their rolling basket to get home. If you don't know the name of the grocery stores in that country you would have a very hard time finding the stores. So, you look for people carrying plastic grocery bags and you walk in the direction they are coming from. In most of the countries we have visited the groceries are quite small, think the size of a convenience store with shelves closer together, a meat and fish counter and a small produce area. In some groceries you weigh your own produce and put a scan tag on it from the scale. In other groceries you are not allowed to touch the produce, instead you point out what you want and they bag and weigh it for you. Swiss grocery stores are the largest and most beautiful stores we have seen so far. Think Whole Foods. Big, well stocked and much greater variety than any other country we have seen. For example, yesterday I was able to buy almonds and cashews in the grocery instead of buying them in the health food store as we had to do in Italy.

Laundry facilities continue to be elusive, although we have decided that when we have found them they are so expensive and time consuming that doing our own laundry in the hotel is preferable. We have a routine now. The day we check in to the hotel is laundry day. Mike strings the line and we each wash and hang our laundry. Whatever isn't dry by morning shower is put on hangers in the closet until time to leave. We left some of our clothes in Florence in the hotel we stayed during the kick-off of school for Caitie because we are going back there on our way home. So, with a limited wardrobe on hand, we have to wash clothes every two or three days and layer to keep warm. Yes, I am sick of Mike's orange shirts and he is sick of my white and black shirts.

It is raining and cold today. We have been out for a walk this morning, then again for lunch and a walk, but now we are in for a cozy afternoon. It is snowing in the mountains nearby, but here it is not quite cold enough for snow. But cold enough to keep us inside this afternoon.

We spoke to Caitie, Jonny and my mother over the past two days. It is wonderful to hear everyone's voices. Everybody is doing well. For those of you curious about how school is going for Caitie I can just say that she is ecstatic about her choice of NYU Florence. She loves the curriculum focused on the Renaissance, had made wonderful friends with her roommates, has been on a weekend trip to Rome to see the museums ans stay in a hostel, and is learning to speak Italian. Jonny has started school and he loves it too. Things are going well for everybody.

Love, Deanne