 
living in italy:  
the real deal

How to Survive the Good Life

Stef Smulders

Emese Mayhew  
(translation)

Babelcube Publishers  
2016

It once occurred to me that one way to talk about Italy would be simply to make a list of all those Italian words that are untranslatable, or whose translation tells you next to nothing, and then give dozens of anecdotes showing how they are used.

An Italian Education - Tim Parks

Please note that there is a glossary of Italian words included at the end of this ebook!

November 2008

When we bought our home nine months ago it was ready to move into. And now?

We are shipwrecked in the kitchen of the downstairs apartment. A single sheet of plastic between the hall and the sitting room is the only thing that protects us from the heavy dust of the building site. All day, we are assaulted by the sound of workmen shouting, drilling and hammering. A couple of hours ago the electricity cut out and it's starting to get chilly in here. Every evening we escape upstairs via the dusty, grimy staircase, where we try to find solace by watching TV in our future living room. The living room is also separated by a sheet of plastic from the kitchen, the bedroom and the office. There are gaping holes in the walls in all of these three rooms, made weeks ago in preparation for the doors and a new window. Now they are serving as tunnels bringing in the draught and the cold. Exhausted and numbed from the endless turmoil surrounding us, we are staring out into space in silence. We are hardly aware of what's on the screen.

WHAT HAVE WE LET OURSELVES IN FOR?

I

Pavia

September 2007 – February 2008

Non ci sono problemi

With my right foot still on the pavement, the estate agent's car was already pulling away. My reaction was fast: I pulled both legs inside and slammed the car door, averting an accident. The estate agent obviously had no time to waste! We were going to look at two properties in the Oltrepò Pavese, the area lying south of the river Po, which traverses Northern Italy. I sat in the front and the estate agent prattled on in hundred-mile-an-hour Italian. I only understood bits of what he was saying, partly because I was too disconcerted by the traffic which we were navigating with Italian flair.

For the last few weeks, we had lived in the quiet, historical, university town of Pavia. In the next 6 months, I was going to continue with my MA in Medieval Culture, and my husband, Nico would enjoy his well-earned sabbatical. He was going to hoover, do the shopping and cook, whilst I could immerse myself in times gone by. But there was this secret, unspoken wish that didn't leave us alone: could we...., what if we..., imagine if...?

And already, just a couple of weeks into our stay in Pavia, we started looking at properties, with the intention of permanently settling down and setting up a B&B! Soon after our arrival in Pavia, we discovered the wine region of Oltrepò Pavese, an area about half an hour's drive to the south of Pavia. It was love at first sight. What beautiful countryside! And this is how our secret wish began to take shape: to find our own idyllic home on the top of a hill with panoramic views! In one of the free leaflets from the numerous estate agencies (agenzie immobiliari), our excited eyes spotted the perfect house that ticked all our boxes. We were now on our way to this house, with an estate agent whose main talents seemed to be smooth talking and rally driving.

Once we got out of Pavia, the roads became quieter and I was able to follow Olita's \- as he was called - Italian a bit better. He was busy showing off his property know-how and reassuring us about the top quality of the houses we were about to see. If there was anything not to our liking, it could be easily sorted, without any additional costs, he said. He had already made an agreement with the owners. "Non ci sono problemi!" he exclaimed with much enthusiasm. If we didn't like the colour of the house, it could be painted over, before completion, in any colour at all, even violet, maintained Olita. "Non ci sono problemi!" And the garden that had become a jungle from months (probably years?) of neglect would be completely cleared out, just for us.

We took in the landscape in front of us: it was mainly flat, covered in rice fields (growing the famous Italian risotto), farmland and poplar plantations, as far as the eye could see. Along the country road, we were driving past settlements: an endless mish-mash of houses and farm buildings of all shapes and sizes. We raced through small villages with stores, restaurants and cafés. Olita was consistently indifferent to the numerous white traffic signs warning of upcoming speed cameras. Did his employer pay the fines? Or was it going to become a hidden charge on our bill? We were fully aware that we were going to have to pay Olita commission if we were to buy our house through him. We had done our homework in the Netherlands and were well-prepared for all the traps that a would-be house buyer could fall into when trying to buy a house in Italy. We were on high alert! Olita, unaware of my misgivings, drove on at full speed. Here and there along the side of the road, there were small shrines erected by friends and relatives of beloved maniacs, who had died in tragic road accidents. Olita didn't seem to worry about suffering the same fate; he overtook slow drivers without mercy, regardless of whether the white line was broken or solid. Later on, having lived in the Oltrepò for several months, we discovered a santuario nearby; a memorial chapel for all the victims killed in road accidents in the area. The legendary recklessness of Italian drivers might have some foundation after all. Olita, for his part, did his utmost to conform to the stereotype. Occasionally, we met two cars side-by-side coming from the other direction, but luckily three cars in a row could easily be accommodated on this two-lane road. Non ci sono problemi.

We reached Ponte della Becca, the one kilometre long iron bridge built in 1912 that spans the merging of the Po and the Ticino. The Oltrepò stretched on the other side, flat at first, but soon undulating with hills. There in the distance our dream house was waiting for us somewhere. We saw the first vineyards appearing here and there. On one of the hillsides we spotted a remarkable-looking castle and we inquired about it from our local regional expert, a.k.a. Olita. "Which castle is that?" we asked full of curiosity. He didn't know. But "Non ci sono problemi," he would investigate and let us know. Maybe our house was not going to be violet after all.

It soon became apparent why Olita was in such a hurry: he was lost and was zooming up and down the hills in search of familiar landmarks. Against all expectations, we managed to find our chosen house, which didn't look as perfect as we at first had thought, not even if Olita would have it painted violet. On one side it leant against a slope, and the other side was blocked from view by an unsightly shed. The garden was no bigger than a postage stamp. What a shame. Luckily, on the advice of Olita's Agenzia, we had also made an appointment to view another property that was on offer at a bargain price. This second house didn't look appealing in the brochure: a faded grey concrete block without any character. But now that we were here...we might as well take a look.

It took Olita a lot of cursing and muttering under his breath during the second stretch of our mystery tour, to finally bring us to the cheaper property. The frontage made no false promises. There were not enough colours in the rainbow to change that. But the inside! The house was made up of two apartments, each a hundred square metres. The downstairs apartment was completely modernised, had brand new flooring, central heating, a fitted kitchen, and there was a sitting room with sofas and a ready-to-go modern bathroom. The apartment was ready to move into as soon as gas and electricity were connected. We felt enthusiastic.

After having seen the downstairs flat, Olita led us upstairs and opened the shutters of the bedroom overlooking the valley. An enchanting view of rolling hills and vineyards in the style of impressionist paintings unravelled before our eyes. In the distance, we recognised the characteristic but still enigmatic castle from earlier. And a bit further on, there was another castle. And over there another one. We were sold. Non ci sono problemi! For once we all agreed!
Via Moruzzi

Our base in Pavia, which we were renting until we found a house to buy, was a flat owned by Giorgio and Franco. It was a lucky find. In the summer of 2007, we visited Pavia for a week to find an apartment for my six months study abroad and Nico's sabbatical. At first, that week seemed as if it would end in total failure because all the suitable apartments we found on the Internet in the Netherlands fell by the wayside one by one. In one case, for example, we were allowed to view our chosen flat but later it transpired that it wasn't quite clear whether the present tenants were really going to leave. Why didn't the owner tell us this earlier, we wondered feeling annoyed. What was the point in looking at a flat that wasn't (yet) available? Did the owner worry that he would disappoint us and let us carry on with the viewing? But now we were even more disappointed. Maybe this is the Italian way of doing things, we thought, quite put out by the way things were handled.

We had nothing left but to hope that the last of the apartments we had selected was still available and that we would like it. Although our appointment for the viewing was later on, in the evening, we decided to have a quick look around the neighbourhood in daylight. We saw at the entrance, where the doorbells and tenants' names were listed next to the apartment numbers, that the name plate next to our chosen apartment was empty. The flat was seemingly still free: that was at least a positive sign! We returned that evening, full of expectations, and rang the bell. But what on earth was that? We stood looking in disbelief at a name next to the number of our apartment! That could only mean one thing, we concluded crestfallen: the flat had been rented out today. But surely the owners wouldn't let us make a wasted journey? Did we check properly this morning? Was it just the name of the previous tenant? We hoped for the best and pressed the button again.

The gate buzzed open and we entered with apprehension. The apartment door was opened by a young couple, with deadpan faces. They showed us around the whole apartment, explained its pros and cons and provided other useful information. It turned out to be a quite sparsely furnished, minimalistic and not too spacious dwelling, but because we had no other alternatives, we offered to rent the place at the end of the viewing. "Yeah," said the girl a bit sheepishly, "there is a little problem." The flat was indeed already rented out. This crucial bit of news had a devastating effect on us. What were we supposed to do now? We would never have enough time in the remainder of the week to find another place. The girl saw our desperation and took it to heart. Suddenly she remembered a friend who had a furnished apartment that he might be prepared to rent out. "Yes please, we are very interested," we both shouted, clutching at straws. So she rang her friend, Giorgio, who agreed to meet us at Pavia train station and take us to his flat on Via Moruzzi.

Arriving at the station we couldn't see any Italian who looked like they were there to meet someone. We decided to wait at the entrance. Before long my mobile was ringing. "Sono qui, I am here," I heard a voice say, and at the same time saw a man approaching us: that must be Giorgio. He had been observing us from a distance to decide whether we were persone serie, serious people. Luckily he must have thought so and soon we were driving up behind him to the flat that was going be our salvation. To our great relief, his parents' flat (because that's what it was), was by far the best of all the accommodation we had viewed. Our trip was a success after all, not thanks to our careful preparations, but because of the quick thinking of an Italian, who knew someone, who... Was this a taster of our forthcoming experiences in Italy?
Vista sui tetti di Pavia

La Nagel: with her oversized sunglasses (dark round lenses surrounded by thick plastic frames), which she had just unearthed from the depths of her handbag to protect her eyes from the strong Italian sun, she bore a strong resemblance to Sophia Loren in her heyday. She was a researcher in Medieval Astrology and my future collaborator at the University of Pavia. Her straight hair, dyed raven black, gave the impression of an eventful past, a girl who must have turned many heads in her day. But today, the staircases of the old university buildings demanded her every last breath and she did her utmost to avoid the characteristic cobblestones of Pavia's historical streets: her fashionable shoes and tired feet couldn't even contemplate walking over them.

She lived in Milan, as did nearly all my other colleagues in the faculty, and commuted every day by train to Pavia. The journey was too dangerous by car because in the autumn the plain of the River Po is shrouded in a persistent, thick fog that can last for days. The sub-faculty, Medieval Philosophy was led by la professoressa Crisciani and was made up of five researchers, all of them women. Last year, I had succeeded in convincing la professoressa that her research group would be the perfect setting for my placement. But when I turned up last summer to visit the group for the first time, they could barely hide their astonishment. They expected the intern to be a woman. The fact that on my profile picture which I e-mailed to them I was obviously bald and was sporting a beard, was apparently not enough evidence to prove my masculinity. General common sense does not seem to apply to Medieval Philosophy!

I received a warm welcome, nevertheless, and my arrival was celebrated with lunch at a restaurant in Pavia's city centre, called the Osteria alle Carceri, the dungeon inn so to speak. Hmmm, could I detect a hint of foreboding in this name? Following la dottoressa Nagel's advice, I ordered a risotto bianco, which promised to be delicious. But to me, the risotto seemed only to consist of rice, butter and cheese without any further ingredients, it tasted rather plain and bland. To the unexpected question of whether I liked it, I of course answered "buono" in order to avoid antagonising my medieval friends at such an early stage. Luckily, some time later, completely out of the blue, Giorgio forbade me ever to visit this very restaurant, as it was well-known for its over-pretentious food!

After lunch, la professoressa made a quick exit. She was not heading to the university; instead she was going home to look after a sick elderly relative who had suffered a stroke recently. My professoressa was very sorry to say goodbye to me so soon, but she was certain that we would come across each other regularly in the next couple of months. La Nagel was in charge now to give me a tour of the centuries-old university. She showed me the university buildings, the anatomy room and the library. At one point the conversation turned to where I should stay in Pavia during my 6 month-long visit. My dottoressa hadn't the faintest idea how much trouble it had caused us in the last couple of days just to secure a roof over our heads. Her advice was well-meant albeit naive: "Dovreste prendere un appartamento con la vista sui tetti di Pavia! You ought to hire a nice apartment with a view across Pavia's rooftops!"
Persone serie

This was the last straw! Giorgio was burning with rage because of his brother's Franco's last comment, made in jest: "Siete quasi clandestini! You are some sort of illegal immigrants!" How could he say something like that, how could he act so maleducato, blunt, towards such respectable people as we were in Giorgio's eyes. Persone serie, persone brave. Because of the way Giorgio emphasised that last bit, we got the impression that he didn't come across many people like that in Italy. Is Italy full of untrustworthy characters who cannot be taken seriously? Who say one thing and do another? We would soon find out. Luckily, according to Giorgio, we didn't belong in that category.

Although they were brothers, Giorgio and Franco had strikingly different personalities. Giorgio was short and squat like a rugby player with dark wiry curls; he had a beard and wore glasses and everything he said seemed to have been well thought out. He often had an introspective air about him. Franco, on the other hand, was tall and slim, with thinning hair, and had no beard or glasses (the latter for reasons that would become apparent later). Franco moreover, had a nervous energy that didn't let him sit still, paired with impulsive tendencies: he blurted everything out directly whilst looking straight at you as if waiting to see your reaction. Each brother seemed to impersonate a different aspect of 'the Italian': Franco, the jovial, carefree, cheerful, not-to-be-trusted Italian of the proverbs, as most outsiders imagine them; Giorgio, the caring, pessimistic and slightly depressed version of the Italian, the kind you come across in Italy quite often. It's not for no reason that many Italians will answer 'how are you?' with "non c'è male" 'not too bad' instead of with "bene, very well". Franco always greeted everyone with a deafening "Tutto bene?" He meant this as a rhetorical question because he repeated it every time you fell into a momentary silence: "Tutto bene?" He never really listened. Giorgio, on the other hand, often engaged you in deep and serious conversations about the shortcomings of Italy and its people and about the bleakness of his own prospects. Like every coin, Italy seems to have two sides: manic and depressed.

The exchange intensified between these brothers representing the extreme polar opposites and (we felt) it was growing into a full-blown argument. We understood very little of what was said, we picked out the words "Schengen" (pronounced: shyenghen) and "Sei pazzo! You are crazy!" Disagreement? Oh well, this was just the typical way feelings were expressed, in keeping with the Italian temperament. A good example of 'much ado about nothing'. When the dispute was finally over, Giorgio carried on irritably with the complicated and extensive paperwork that the anti-terrorism legislation required him to fill in. We were renting his apartment as foreigners with temporary residence permits and the Italian government needed to know all the ins and outs.

Giorgio's and Franco's flat forms part of a so-called condominio, an apartment complex. These can be found all over the small town suburbs in Northern Italy: 3-4 storey buildings, surrounded by a garden, with their own car park and protected by a metal railing. The gate securing the area surrounding a condominio (safety first!), is not just an ordinary one, but a cancello a telecomando, a remote controlled gate! And it's also fitted with a flashing light because a house or a condominio without such a gate and orange light is like a monarch without a crown. You have only really made it in life if you successfully moved into a house equipped with both an automatic, remote controlled gate and an orange flashing light. There were also supposed to be little warning signs to prevent accidentally trapping children completely automatically between the wall and the gates and squashing them into French fries when opening the gate. Safety first.

The flats in Giorgio's and Franco's condominio were accessible through a shared lobby. There were no external corridors. The basement consisted of small box rooms and garages. The management of the condominio was carried out by an unavoidable group of owners, the 'neighbourhood watch' who (safety first) ensured cleanliness, peace and routine. The condominio was situated in Via Moruzzi, west of the city centre and Pavia's railway station. It was surrounded by a beautiful garden and there were plenty of covered parking spaces reserved for each flat. The wall in the brand new lobby was clad in polished natural stone. And of course we received our own genuine telecomando for the gate, which was naturally equipped with a lovely flashing orange beacon. But first, we had to be cleared of any suspicion of subversive intentions that could possibly link us to terrorists. Giorgio did his best to arrange this for us, but the pile of paperwork full of official jargon made it a nearly unbearable chore.

Whilst Giorgio was focused on deciphering the instructions, Franco, completely unaffected by the previous argument, started up a friendly chat. About reading glasses and the dangers of wearing multifocal lenses, for example. Franco had heard stories from people wearing varifocals who fell down staircases because they couldn't see the steps properly. "Deadly!" he asserted. He was adamant not to wear glasses of that sort or, to think about it, of any sort, even though he was short-sighted. As a result, he read the year on our 1875 Bols Genever Gin bottle as 1575. Franco was preoccupied, just like nearly all Italians, with danger and health. We noticed this when he showed us around the neighbourhood, shortly after we had moved into the flat. He pointed out the hospital, the farmacia, the pharmacy and the headquarters of the Red Cross and the Green Cross, all these facilities available to us within our district. We as persone serie were completely safe, he seemed to say.

By now we had already spent a couple of weeks living in Giorgio and Franco's flat, who on this fine evening cleared us of any suspicion of terrorist activities. We had to drink a proper Dutch toast to that. Bols Genever from 15... no, wait, 1875.

La perizia

"The ceiling is two and a half metres high, you see," said Olita, the estate agent, in a self-assured tone. "No, it's two metres seventy," came the impassive correction from Luigi Buttini, our hired geometra. A geometra is a typical Italian professional, whose expertise encompasses everything from architectural engineer to planning specialist. He is virtually indispensable when buying and vetting a house. We hired Buttini to inspect the house in the Oltrepò which we set our heart on. We were already pretty taken by the house but we wanted to avoid ending up with a fool's bargain. The fact that we couldn't trust our estate agent Olita in this respect had already become clear at our first viewing.

"Two metres fifty," countered Olita, annoyed and abrupt because of Buttini's correction. "Let's measure it," concluded Buttini, sure of himself and equipped with all the necessary tools to make this possible. The result of this little duel of masculine egos was that the height was established as two metres seventy-five, meaning our geometra won. We suppressed a smile. Both men had been trying to get on top for some time now, Olita always on the alert for any mistakes Buttini could be caught making.

Buttini checked everything: did all the measurements tally with those in the land registry? Had anything been modified or extended illegally? Was the size of the plot of land correct? "È tutto in ordine, non ci sono problemi," Olita shouted out time and again, offended that we brought in a real expert to check on him. But we were well prepared, and we bore firmly in mind all the disasters that could befall someone trying to buy a house in Italy. There was already something that didn't seem to be right: the piece of land that Olita's advert promised us was at least two thousand five hundred square metres. On our first visit, he showed us the borders of the land, which according to him extended to the end of the little brick building, called the rustico.

Back home after the viewing, in the middle of the night, awake with excitement over the fact that we had probably found our dream house, I suddenly realised that this couldn't be right. I thought that the amount of land around the house seemed to be too small (where was the swimming pool supposed to go?) and this could be a reason not to buy. But wait a minute, I thought: the house itself measures 11 by 11 metres, which is 121 square metres. The house should fit into the land over 20 times. But that was impossible on the piece of land that Olita had shown us.

Now that we had brought our own surveyor, this question should soon be resolved. The stocky figure of Buttini was wading through the tall weeds (an outstanding job for Olita?), stumbling across leftover roof tiles that had been thrown away haphazardly by roofing workmen. Olita was bounding along behind him like an overexcited puppy. Panting for breath, he called out one more time, warning us that the grounds beyond the rustico did not belong to the house and that we shouldn't be trespassing: it was proprietà privata! With slight panic in his tone, Olita shouted across to the owner to ask for his support. But the owner stood at the front of the house and didn't hear him. Buttini pushed on, entering illegal territory. Or maybe not? No, because he concluded that our piece of land stretched completely to the walls of the neighbouring house. The land registry documents confirmed this fact. Two nil to our geometra!

Olita was becoming ever more miffed and he had already started the day off in a bad mood. "You are late," he called out in annoyance. "I don't think so, we agreed half past nine," I said. "Nine o'clock!" he insisted. The owners had also had to wait half an hour, but they didn't hold it against us. "È tutta colpa sua," said the lady of the house smiling at me. "It's all his fault." It was clear that they weren't on the best terms with Olita either. We could turn this to our advantage. I asked the woman if there was any other interest in the house at present. "There is some interest," she said, but she didn't sound convincing.

Olita rang us a couple of days later to ask us in an aggressive tone why we hadn't let him know yet whether we were going to make an offer on the house. Namely, everything was in order, we only needed to pay a deposit and sign a temporary sales agreement. But we - being well-prepared - had other ideas and we made this clear to him: "First we do a perizia, a survey, then we examine all the paperwork: the land registry, the ownership documents, outstanding debts, etc.. Then we will see how it goes." "Shouldn't we actually check if the neighbours would want to buy the land?" we asked our expert. According to the law, neighbour farmers have the first priority to buy when someone is selling farmland adjacent to their properties. "No, no, non ci sono problemi," called out Olita immediately, but he was going to check just to be on the safe side: we were right.

In an hour or two, Buttini came to the conclusion that it all looked pretty good, and even better: a house as big as this for this asking price was a real affare, bargain. Now we only needed to go to the town hall in Montecalvo to make sure we would not stumble on any difficulties regarding the land-use plan, and then we could finally make our first offer on the house. We felt the tension rising. Could anything still go wrong?

Software potente

The telephone started ringing in our flat in Pavia. It was Giorgio, sounding rather sheepish. At first, he confessed, he had been in doubt whether to call us, but there was no alternative, because there was a problem. He found it really embarrassing having to do this, and he even considered not ringing us at all. In the end, he had decided that it was better to talk to us about this issue, but now he had doubts. "Come on, just spill the beans!" we insisted like Dutch foreigners, not appreciating the delicacy of this Italian embarrassment. Well, he had counted the first rent that we had paid, and it was a hundred euros less than expected. We were amused by all this hesitation from this timid Italian who had got himself in a fix because he didn't want to offend us and as a result he had nearly lost out on a hundred euros. We invited him to come over; we could pay the outstanding amount immediately. "No, no, it can wait, it's not a problem," he was evading our invitation. But we insisted on paying him now, so that we would avoid months of awkwardness and avoiding each other.

Giorgio arrived together with his brother Franco and decided to take this opportunity to connect us to the Internet. We had a telephone, an ADSL-router, and our laptop was ready. The only thing missing was the Alice software that the Italian internet provider Telecom Italia used. This publicly owned company is not famous for its user-friendly software, and rumours regularly surface of Telecom's bureaucracy, whispered about with barely veiled contempt in bars and cafés by unlucky victims. The first problem in our case was not with the software but with the electric cables: we needed an extension lead. We could construct a temporary set-up just for installation purposes, but in the long-term, we needed a permanent solution. "Ce l'ho a casa," said Franco. "I have one at home." But his wise words fell on deaf ears. Giorgio and I were already completely lost in the Alice software, and we stopped responding to outside conversation. We quickly started to feel like we were trapped in Alice in Wonderland. It was such a mess! Franco repeated that he had an extension lead and he could go and get it. But, again, he got no reply.

"Per continuare si deve installare il nostro software potente," announced Alice happily. "Now you need to install our powerful software." I glanced at Giorgio with some disbelief. He understood immediately and said in an ironic tone: "Well? Do you want that powerful software from Telecom Italia on your PC?" "È proprio la parola potente che mi fa paura," I grinned. "It's the powerful bit that I am worried about." But we had no other choice and with my eyes firmly shut I pressed 'Installazione'. Beyond all expectations, everything went smoothly and the software got installed. In the meantime, Franco repeated two more times that he had an extension lead and he could go and get it. By this point he was pacing nervously up and down the room. "What's the matter?" asked Giorgio. "I can get the extension lead, give me the car keys, I will be back in a minute," answered Franco grumpily. Giorgio did as he was told.

Franco was away for over an hour with Giorgio's car, who was therefore stranded in our flat. Have a drink then, a bit of Bols, the genuine Dutch grappa. "No, no, maybe just a sip," said Giorgio. They became several sips whilst we were waiting for the extension lead. In the end, we heard Franco outside, parking the car. Downstairs the hall door slammed. He burst in in a fit of anger and frustration. He couldn't find the lead anywhere. He had turned the whole shed upside down because it had to be there somewhere. A couple of days ago he had it in his hands. "And now it was nowhere to be seen, porca miseria!" We comforted him with a shot of special Dutch grappa. Nothing bad could befall us now: our software was potente!
Frazione Crocetta

We were sitting in the doctor's waiting room. A waiting room like any other, with rickety chairs, dried out pot plants and piles of fashion and gossip magazines, of the sort that you would never touch with a bargepole, but on occasions such as these, you leaf through them absent-mindedly in order to kill time. In this case, we didn't even know most of the 'celebrities'. It was still interesting to see how, in Italy too, they were photographed in all kinds of compromising and provocative situations and were subjected to speculative and juicy gossip. Having seen all the saucy stories in the tabloids, we had to come to the conclusion that the life of a celebrity is the same all over the world. The walls of the waiting room were covered in notices about the yearly flu jab and other information leaflets, like the one about the mafia: a fund that supported victims of the mafia asked for contributions from those present.

It was Friday afternoon and we were the only ones present in the waiting room because the GP only held surgeries on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the village of Montecalvo Versiggia (population 600). The waiting room of the GP was located in the town hall in Montecalvo and we were not waiting for him but for the county architetta, Roberta. She would advise us about planning permission, land-use restrictions and so forth, in relation to our planned acquisition of the house in frazione, hamlet, Spagna. On her decision our dream plan would stand or fall, so it was a very tense visit, just as tense as if we were visiting the doctor.

The town hall is in the 'centre' of Montecalvo Versiggia, in the frazione Crocetta, which is itself a small hamlet with a handful of residents. You won't find any high-rise, modern architecture here, only some more or less renovated houses with more or less neglected gardens. And in between the houses, nice views over the hills, covered in vineyards. The name Crocetta means little cross, or crossroads because the frazione occupies the junction of three roads. Once this was an important travel route and in the old days, they had an inn here, which has now become the restaurant La Verde Sosta. Chef Grazia and her husband Giuseppe (Pino to friends) are in charge of the restaurant. Giuseppe loves to read the menu out loud in his booming baritone voice, invariably rewarding your choice with a resonating buonissimo.

The local church and graveyard are situated not far from the crossroads, as is Montecalvo Versiggia Castle. More recent additions are the viewpoint (with benches and a mosaic of the county's coat of arms: a glass of spumante, sparkling wine), the small chapel for the Madonna of the Grape Harvest and the Corkscrew museum, world famous in Montecalvo and its neighbourhood. Crocetta is one of the 60 or so frazioni (hamlets) that form this agricultural county. All these frazioni names have historical origins (sometimes named after one specific house) and when listed in a row they make for colourful reading. Bagarello, Borgogna, Bosco, Ca' Bella, Ca' Galeazzi, Ca' Grande, Ca' Michele, Ca' Nuova, Ca' Rossini, Canerone, Capoluogo, Carichetta, Carolo, Casa Bassani, Casa Chiesa, Casa Galotti, Casa Ponte, Casa Sartori, Casa Tessitori, Casa Torregiani, Casa Zambello, Casaleggio, Casella, Casone, Castello, Castelrotto, Cerchiara, Colcio, Colombara, Colombato, Costa, Costiolone, Croce, Croce Bianca, Crocetta, Crocioni, Fontanino Ninetta, Francia, Frenzo, Lanzone, Lardera, Marchisola, Michelazza, Moglialunga, Molino Nuovo, Mussolengo, Piane, Pianoni, Poggio, Poggiolo, Poggione, Pornenzo, Pratello, Remolato, Sasseo, Savoia, Schiavica, Spagna, Spinola, Stallarola, Tromba, Valazza, Valdonica, Versa, Versiggia. Our frazione is called Spagna, and its name derives from the nationality of a section of Napoleon's army that was stationed here for some time.

We had to wait about three-quarters of an hour for Roberta, who only spends part of her time in this small county; she was now travelling from a different county where she was working in the same post. She was delayed. It was worth the wait though because our architetta turned out to be very helpful and thorough. Files were dug out, maps unfolded and if something was unclear, she just shouted over her shoulder to one of her colleagues. Question: "It's OK for these guys just to start a B&B in their home, isn't it?" Answer: "Yes, of course, they don't need a permit for that." Or: "Have you got the maps for the land-use plan over there? Make a quick copy for these gentlemen here, will you?"

Luckily there didn't seem to be any insurmountable obstacles or ominous construction work planned for nuclear plants, motorways, waste incinerators or high-speed train tracks. We didn't even need to concern ourselves with earth quakes: according to the provincial regulations, these halted at the border of the county of Pavia. There was no official provision for them here.

Non si dà in prestito

The tall room of Pavia's university library was mainly occupied by people who sauntered along, seemingly aimlessly from one information desk to the next, in order to have a chat with a librarian at each one and then move on to the next. I saw one of these 'saunterers' near the exit with his coat on and a bag in his hand. Was he going to leave? Where would he go? But no, a bit later I saw him circling in the room again, right at the far end, without a coat or a bag. Where did he leave them? How did he move so quickly and invisibly to the other side? What did these 'saunterers' discuss, what were they actually doing here? But most of all: what was I doing here? Was I daydreaming?

Oh, yes, now I remember, I came to borrow a book. I climbed up the wide marble steps inside the university's dark corridor to arrive at the Central Library. The first-floor gallery of the university's atrium was deserted and the only thing in sight was an enormous and seemingly impregnable wooden door. I decided to have a go at pushing the massive door open and to my surprise, I could open it without any difficulty and go through. The door opened into a kind of waiting room, with rows of card catalogues and a desk with various personnel behind it. On the left, behind another door, I saw a large room.

A staff member behind the desk gave me a friendly nod and I walked towards them. I had to hand in all my stuff, my coat and my bag, and in return, I received a receipt. This was followed by a friendly, yet insistent stare. A lady asked me in a friendly manner what she could do for me. "Well, I would like to borrow a book," I answered hesitantly, ready to make a U-turn if it turned out that I was an intruder. But of course I was allowed to borrow, if I could show my university card and fill in a form. I was happy to oblige and my card was placed in a little wooden box. I saw that my card was the only one in that box. On the form, I specified, as well as I could the book for which I had made this long trek to the library. Title, author, year of publication, collocation,... I had no idea what they meant by 'collocation' so I decided to leave that box empty for now.

I was allowed through the door to the second room, the spacious, long room with the tall ceilings of the 'saunterers'. The side walls of the room were lined with cabinets filled with impressive-looking leather-bound books up to the ceiling, safely behind glass, out of the reach of unauthorized outsiders. An abandoned library ladder was propped up against the cabinets on both sides. Right down the centre there was a long corridor. At the far end of the room, I saw the door leading into the next room, but I couldn't see beyond it. On my left-hand side there was a wooden desk with three staff members behind it, who were all looking at me full of expectation. A customer! An outsider! Armed with my form I walked straight across to the desk. One of the members of staff examined my piece of paper with a serious expression. Something was missing. The collocation! They informed me that collocation referred to the book's call number: without that number it's impossible to locate the item. For the call number, I had to go back to the waiting room, to the card catalogues. But luckily I remembered just in time that I had scribbled down the call number on a piece of scrap paper. That was now in my coat pocket, which was hanging in the cloakroom, I realised with rising panic. No, luckily, it was in my trouser pocket, and at least I still had my trousers on!

Now I had to fill in three forms which were more or less identical. Each one perforated, so that you could tear strips off. The three-headed librarian was observing my aching fingers as I kept on filling in the title, author, year, collocation and also my name and address and the name of the faculty. When I next looked up, I saw that something had changed: without me noticing, there had been a changing of the guard. These were not the same librarians any more. Where had the others gone? Had they joined the ranks of the 'saunterers'? One of the new ones took my forms and looked at them with some attention. He stamped them here and there and started to tear off the strips. Then he handed one of the strips to a younger member of staff, who disappeared with it behind an opaque glass wall. There must be a lift behind there because there was no other exit in the room. After some time, the same member of staff reappeared. With the book. After having checked the call number, I was allowed to take it, together with some of the forms.

I was directed to a desk on the other side of the path. There sat, slumped in his chair, another member of staff, wearing large glasses. He had a 'saunterer' near him, who hastily departed when he saw me approaching. From behind the thick lenses of his glasses, two watery, tired eyes looked up at me. I handed over my paperwork. He took a long time examining it and reached an uncompromising conclusion: "Non si dà in prestito. This book cannot be borrowed." Books which had my collocation seemed to be too delicate to be lent out to unauthorised outsiders. Such was my luck and now I went and returned the book to the first desk and left the library. The staff behind the desk didn't even blink. In the waiting room, downcast, I received my university card, coat and bag. Yet I skipped down the marble staircase, tore open the door and stood in the sunshine. I was free! I had to find a bar to celebrate!
Sono finiti i soldi!

Our lanky North-European bodies, stuck out far above the crowd of grey Italian heads. We were standing in the queue in the BancoPosta, the Italian Post office. Well, if you could call it a queue. There were several queues weaving in and out, tangled like strands of spaghetti. We didn't mind, we were not in a hurry because we had already spent days trying to open a conto corrente, a current account. We wanted an account with cards and especially a chequebook, because cheques are indispensable if you want to buy a house in Italy. When buying a house, one is required to make a number of advance payments which go direct from the buyer to the seller without any involvement from a solicitor. And these advances can be as high as 20% of the buying price. In other words, an amount of money that you would rather not carry in cash on your person. At least we don't, but the vulnerable elderly people standing in front of us seemed to have less of an issue with this because the cashiers handed them piles of fifty-euro notes counted into neat little bundles. They didn't seem to worry that they could be knocked over the head outside the post office by some rogue thief wanting to rob them of their pensions, despite the fact that the local newspaper was full of reports about mugging and burglaries.

Today was the first day of the month, the day when pensions were paid. This was the reason for the long queues in the Post office. Pavia is in fact a town of students and pensioners. Pensioners find relative peace and quiet here, together with good facilities. The students are attracted by the university and colleges. There are also a large number of secondary schools tucked away among Pavia's numerous hidden little squares, and on Fridays one is regularly taken aback by hordes of school children pushing their way forward towards the train station - not unlike the rats of Hamelin - leaving the city for a weekend at home.

We had forgotten it was pension day, but now it was too late. We really had to open this account after several futile attempts at trying to get our hands on one. Our odyssey had begun a couple of days earlier, in a local branch of BancoPosta. There it soon became clear, however, that one can only open an account at the head office. The head office occupies an enormous building in the city centre, but all counter service had been moved temporarily into a portakabin next door because of large-scale refurbishment. In order to apply for an account, you had to go to the little back room of the chief administrator. There sat Maria, who very kindly helped us to fill in all our forms. Within a couple of days we could come back to get our cards as well as our assegni, cheque book. We should be able to withdraw cash immediately, as soon as we had transferred the funds into our brand new account. And we had already done that.

Now finally, today was D-Day! Our attempt to get to our Madonna of the Post office ended in failure: a frightful looking officer was now guarding the entry to her Holiness. Apparently others had also discovered this little short cut and it had become over-exploited. There was no escape from the spaghetti queues today. We were patient: our salvation was near. As the queue in front of us slowly diminished and we came enticingly near the customer services window, suddenly panic broke out behind the desk. Someone shouted: "Sono finiti i soldi! We've run out of money!" This caused some murmur amongst the pensioner folk. The post office staff made it quite clear that there was really no more cash left. A couple of those entitled turned to leave gloomily, whilst others still tried to argue. But when the cash registers are empty, even an emperor couldn't withdraw his pension. After this incident the queue moved unexpectedly fast, and soon it was our turn. We received our cards and the cheque book, but we would need to return for our cash in a couple of days, when they had replenished their supply.

Gnocco fritto

"Ahi," exclaimed Giorgio. He had burnt his fingers in the hot oil in the saucepan, whilst trying to fish out the small fried dough balls with bare hands. He had already admitted that he was not great at cooking and the menu he had chosen to cook for us tonight was selected on the basis of one important criterion: it was a guaranteed success. He was eager to impress us as this was the first time that we were visiting him at home.

The evening got off to a rather confused start. We thought that we had agreed to meet at his house, which stood in a new housing estate in a small village to the north of Pavia. We knew the address and the satnav brought us to the village, although its map hadn't been updated to contain the newly built area yet. So we were driving randomly in circles, looking at the street signs. We were in luck because it didn't take long before we spotted the street we needed. Now we only needed to locate number 10 and saremmo a posto, that's done. But that was not as easy as it sounds. The whole street had only number 10s: 10A, 10B, 10C, etc... And our host didn't provide us with a letter. We decided to ring him up, strange as it might seem, standing so near his front door.

"Pronto," said Giorgio his voice sounding troubled. This sounded like the start of a chaotic conversation. Giorgio said that he was nearly on his way. "Solo cinque minuti e poi..." On his way? We had agreed to meet at his place? Or hadn't we? Was he about to leave to go to our house? Or was he already nearly there? I felt the blood rising to my head. I tried to explain to Giorgio that I was really convinced that we had agreed to meet at his house. Diplomacy was strongly advisable, because the well-known Dutch directness wasn't always appreciated, especially by such a sensitive Italian gentleman as Giorgio was. But, well, to find a tactful way of saying things, in a foreign language, under pressure, in a confused situation, that was a tall order. He didn't get me at all. After a couple of confused messages back and forth, I called out in panic that I hadn't the faintest idea, but we would clear everything up once we are at his house.

"Ah, ma siete già qui? Are you already here then?" asked Giorgio with astonishment. Ah, he finally got the message. "Ma come è possibile? But how is that possible?" "You know, we are just sitting in la macchina, the car, of course," I said, taken aback by his bewilderment. "But how were you able to find it, this street hasn't been recorded on any available maps yet!" he said dumbfounded. "You are amazing. Dutch people are so resourceful and rely on luck to find non-existent addresses with great success!" He had meant to pick us up in Pavia to prevent us from hopelessly getting lost, but the two crazy Dutch guys had already turned up at his doorstep. Unbelievable.

A bit later we stood in his apartment having a good laugh about all the confusion. Giorgio was still slightly stunned and amazed by how enterprising 'northerners' seemed to be. "You have already found out everything about the neighbourhood, been everywhere and know the place better than the locals!" he said. We nodded modestly, but were pleased to agree. We went to the kitchen, where we could carry on chatting whilst he would do his magic with his pots and pans. But doing more than one thing at a time is not easy, even if you have already prepared everything for the gnocco fritto.

Gnocco fritto is a dish from the neighbouring county of Piacenza, but it's also popular in the county of Pavia. They are deep-fried dough balls which are topped with the most delicious cold meats from the region, like for example, pancetta (streaky bacon), coppa ham (a cured meat, made from the nape and shoulder muscle of the pig) and prosciutto crudo (dry-cured raw ham). It is a simple but unimaginably delicious dish, the warm and airy dough (the pillows are hollow inside), al dente, topped with the cold meats. The miracle of Italian cuisine is - besides the glorious aromas - the creation of a tremendous sensory experience through the right combination of lukewarm, cool, sour, oily, hard and soft textures. Mmm, the gnocchi were a culinary festivity inside the mouth. Just be careful with the hot oil, Giorgio, ahi!

We were having a good chat and in the meantime Giorgio managed to prepare a stunningly delicious risotto, which he served with a surprising twist: he lined a large ladle with a slice of prosciutto and deposited a little pile of risotto on the top. He turned the contents carefully upside down onto a plate, which resulted in a little pile of risotto, beautifully wrapped in a slice of prosciutto. Success was indeed guaranteed!

After dinner, Giorgio's brother Franco dropped by to add to the entertainment. "Tutto bene?" he greeted us in his booming voice. "Yes, yes, tutto is bene!" we mumbled. The deep and meaningful conversations that we had been conducting with Giorgio, suddenly became lightened up by the often random offerings from Franco. "What are you supposed to do if you are at home and you hear a burglar?" he asked. "You must of course switch the TV on and turn it up to full volume; they won't be expecting that and will be so frightened that they will immediately beat a hasty retreat." Franco was beaming from ear to ear, satisfied with himself for contributing this pearl of wisdom, and nestled further into his armchair. "What should you do if there are people loitering near your apartment?" Franco didn't even wait for our answer; he was so smug about his newly acquired knowledge: "Light some fireworks, and catapult them at them!" Giorgio listened to his older brother's announcements with concern. After Franco had left, he confided his opinion to us: "Oh, Franco with his 60 years. He may be close to retirement, but è sempre un bambino, he is still a child at heart."
Proposta d'acquisto

All the details had been checked, the town hall's land-use plan had been examined, our geometra Buttini couldn't find anything wrong with the house, we had an Italian bank account with money in it and we were in possession of a cheque-book. In short, we were ready. Were we really going to go ahead with this? Buying a house in Italy?

These are the things that may befall you when you toy with the idea of emigration and starting a B&B abroad. You start to look around 'with no strings attached', you imagine all the criteria that your dream house should fulfil, come up with a long list of requirements and then, with some luck, it might just turn out that a house like that really exists. What do you do then? You have been cornered. It's now or never. If you don't dare to make the leap, if you now decide not to buy that house, you may just as well give up the search, because you are obviously not really up for it. You have been unexpectedly confronted with your dreams, and now you must face what they mean in reality. Yes or no, that is the pressing and suddenly unavoidable question. To buy or not to buy? To emigrate or not to emigrate?

There is only one last chance to put off making the final decision: you make an offer on the house and you wait and see how the owner reacts. You can be assured of a counter bid, and if you refuse that, then you still have time to change your mind. This sort of Russian roulette is a dangerous game, because if the owner unexpectedly accepts your first offer then suddenly you find yourself committed. In principle. Funnily enough, this pretend postponement of a definitive commitment made it easier for us to arrive at a decision. We decided to make an offer and see how it would all pan out. In the end, this was a leap of faith no matter how well prepared we were.

We e-mailed our bid together with a list of reasons why it was lower than the asking price (i.e. all the house's shortcomings which we would need to fix, and their associated costs) to our master estate agent Olita. There was, however, no response, not even a confirmation of receipt. Biting our nails, we sent the e-mail again, this time to the manager of the estate agency. We received an automatic response, saying that our e-mail had been opened, but still no proper answer. The next day, Olita rang us and rattled at us in fluent Italian. What was he actually saying? Had they accepted our offer? Were the owners even aware that we had made an offer and how much it was? We didn't quite get the message, but there definitely didn't seem to be any problemi.

After a while we realised that Olita was inviting us to the estate agency so that we might complete a formal offer: a proposta d'acquisto. In Italy, house buying involves a lot of paperwork. We were happy to sign the proposal, but we were wondering if we could first receive a draft by e-mail so that we could read what we were committing ourselves to. Olita couldn't imagine why we would need that, because non ci sono problemi! Luckily, one of his colleagues was more understanding and he sent us a bozza, a draft, that we showed to our own expert: Buttini. According to the bozza, if we signed the proposta, we had to pay an advance on the caparra (the 10 percent of the offer to be paid in advance when signing the purchase agreement). So it was an advance on the advance. How much of the 10 percent did we have to pay up front now? We had no idea. We were reluctant to call Olita again: he probably didn't know himself and would just pluck an amount out of the air. In that case we could just as well come up with a sum ourselves. We chose two thousand Euros, because that was about 10 percent of the 10 percent caparra. We thought that sounded a pretty reasonable first payment. But when we arrived at the estate agency and showed Olita the cheque, he didn't seem happy: "Impari," he kept on repeating. "Impari!" What did he mean? We looked at each other, puzzled: do you get it? No. Later we came to understand that he didn't like our sum because it couldn't be derived easily from the rest of the outstanding payments (the rest of the advance and the rest of the purchase price). To us it seemed like such a nice round number. But Olita was a qualified accountant, registered with the Italian Chamber of Commerce! He had shown us his accreditation earlier with great pride: "See how clever I was when I did that?" It definitely looks impressive on paper, I will give him that, but proficient in calculations? Really?

The proposta also mentioned the commission received by the estate agent for their role as intermediaries. A thorny issue, because we are talking about a couple of percent points of the purchase price, in other words: thousands of euros. Our experiences with Olita didn't make us feel like rewarding him with large amounts of money. If we had had our way, we would have paid him nothing, but in Italy that's impossible. The estate agent, representing the seller, is by definition also the broker of the buyer: an impossible situation, but this is how Italian legislation works. The broker gains financially from both the seller and the buyer! At least 3 percent (per client!) seems to be the norm. Luckily, our good old Buttini produced an article written by an agent and broker interest group, which stated that the legislation doesn't prescribe a set minimum percentage. The commission is negotiable!

Armed with the article, we marched to the estate agency. It was immediately clear that the issue of 'commission' was top of Olita's priority list. Naturally, 3 percent was the desirable percentage, because that was what the legislation required, maintained our agent. I got Buttini's article out and pointed at the paragraph which we had highlighted in bright yellow. It contained the written confirmation by the broker and agent trade union that there is no legally established minimum commission in existence. We offered 2 percent and not a penny more. Olita's face clouded over and even his colleague, who shared the office with him, left the room looking annoyed. What were we thinking, didn't we realise how much money was spent on advertising? Every day, from early morning to late at night, Olita would drive up and down to help people find houses. Family life? Oh no, an estate agent had no time for that! His poor neglected children! Italian melodrama... And by the way: 3 percent was what it stated in the legislation, Olita repeated. I pointed again at the paragraph in the article. Highlighted in bright yellow.

In the end we won the plea, mainly because the article was hard to ignore: we paid 2 percent instead of 3. With the provision that at Christmas we would take Olita a present in his office to show how pleased we were with his services. We thought this was a strange request, but he seemed to mean it entirely seriously. Maybe his abilities were called into question in the office too and he needed to prop up his professional status through positive feedback from his clients? Whatever the reason, we had no difficulty accepting the deal: two bottles of wine for 1 percent commission, it's a no-brainer. Yet we didn't feel like celebrating because it still felt like giving a whole lot of money to someone who hadn't really earned it. Later we heard that the sellers had paid the 3 percent, no matter how they felt about Olita's 'services'.

After all the haggling, we signed the proposta and with that, sealed our offer. How would the seller react? The ink was not dry on the proposta yet and the telephone on Olita's desk was already ringing. Completely by coincidence, the seller was getting in touch. Olita gave them a full account in incomprehensible Italian. Unfortunately the owner didn't immediately make a counter bid. But he would come into Olita's office to talk about it that evening. We sat at home on the edge of our seats waiting for the news, but a bottle of spumante was already in the fridge just in case...
I pattini d'argento

Bart, Klaas, Piet, Hans, Jan,... a series of typically Dutch names were lined up for scrutiny. "How short they are, monosillabi!" exclaimed the company around the table. I barely met half of our party (all of them ladies) during my four month stay at Pavia University. And the rest I met maybe three times or so. I was attending our research group's New Year's Eve dinner, again at the Osteria alle Carceri, in spite of my friend Giorgio's strict instructions never to eat there. As a buongustaio, gourmet, he knew all the best places to eat out in Pavia and its neighbourhood and this osteria was definitely not on his list. My earlier experiences in the company of la professoressa Chiara and la Nagel confirmed Giorgio's judgement, but whatever, the research group must have thought that this was the only restaurant in Pavia or maybe they had done a deal with them, I don't know.

I sat at the head of the table and most of the conversation went over my head because my listening skills still had plenty of room for improvement. The most important subject of conversation, as far as I could make out, was the pregnancy of Gabriela, a PhD student in the faculty, and what she would call the baby. It was going to be a girl, she knew that already, and she was going to call her Lucia. From there, the discussion turned to good children's names and to Dutch names, which to the surprise of those present are very short. Most Italian Christian names have at least two syllables.

Suddenly, one of my colleagues accosted me directly in an entirely non-Italian manner and asked me what I thought of the faculty. She asked this with a friendly expression on her face. "Erm,..." I was gasping for air and trying to come up with an appropriately vague answer. "Buono, buono," was all I could squeeze out in my embarrassment. The truth was that I considered the faculty as a sleepy, uninspiring, dull group of people who had given up trying to conduct original research years ago. Only the most necessary activities were still carried out, albeit reluctantly: delivering one teaching module per year, supervising a couple of PhD students, attending a conference now and then. But I didn't want to share my honest opinion so bluntly over the dinner table. "Potresti essere sincero, però," responded my colleague in an even less Italian manner to my feeble reply. Her utterance was accompanied with an affronted expression on her face. "You could at least be honest." She obviously shared my opinion, the opinion I didn't dare to express. At this point, I broke out in a sweat, but luckily the waitress rescued me, when she came to take our orders, after which the conversation took a different turn. Phew!

Soon I was presented with a greyish-white piece of fish on my snow-white designer plate. This time I hadn't asked advice from the Carceri experts instead, I had made my own choice based on a lot of deliberation. Orata, bream, is available in all supermarkets for a pittance, and it's always tasty even if you don't do much to it. It's enough to season it with a bit of salt and pepper. A safe choice, one would hope! But I hadn't taken the dungeon cook's incompetence into account because believe it or not, the orata tasted of nothing and was barely distinguishable from the white risotto I had last time. I ate with 'denti lunghi' and was hoping and praying that this time they wouldn't ask me if I enjoyed my meal ("buono, buono").

And then suddenly, I don't know how this came up, but people were talking about a Dutch children's story, 'The Silver Skates'. A story about a brother and sister who join a race on wooden skates (poverty trumps everything) and - what a miracle - they win the first prize: the silver skates. This story sums up the Netherlands, according to the group. I was not familiar with this story and told them tentatively that it was not well-known in the Netherlands, so maybe it's just made up. What? On receiving this piece of information, everyone became disgruntled; surprised and disappointed in equal measure, like a child who had been told that Santa doesn't really exist. They were deprived of an illusion. Everyone in Italy knew the story, they grew up with it and were convinced of its genuineness. The Netherlands was the location of 'I pattini d'argento'!

It was only later that I realised that the story of the silver skates was the same as the story of Hans Brinker! To get the facts straight: in the original story, written in the 19th century by the American Mary Mapes Dodge, Hans Brinker is not the little boy who plugs the dam with his finger, but he is the brother of Gretel (yes, as in the Hans and Gretel, how did they come up with this) with whom he wins the silver skates. In the book, there is an anecdote about the finger in the dam but it's an heroic deed performed by another boy who is not named. This small section in the book later underwent a 'spin-off' process and the anonymous boy received the name of the main character, Hans. It seems my university placement had taught me something after all!

Il compromesso

Olita was sitting in his Sunday best behind his desk in the estate agency, dressed up neatly in a suit and tie, with his hair cut and combed. He was more nervous than us, even though we were the ones who were going to spend a couple of hundred grand to buy a house. Maybe he was worried that we would carry on haggling to give him an even lower commission? If that was the case, he'd probably better not go home to face his wife that night! The sellers, Mr and Mrs Colombo, and their daughter, together with an authorised representative of their former son-in-law (the daughter was divorced, but her ex still owned half of the property) sat to the left of the desk. The two of us, the future owners, sat on the other side. Colombo's dog and our Saar had already had a scuffle and we had to keep them well out of each other's sight. This didn't bode well.

On the other hand, what could go wrong? The Colombo family had accepted our formal offer in the proposta d'acquisto, they had immediately cashed our cheque with the advance on the caparra (impari or not) and now we were ready to sign the compromesso, preliminary sales contract, one of the many stages of house buying as the Italian method requires it. The contract must be accompanied by a cheque for the caparra (why did these terms always remind us of the Sicilian mafia?), which is the deposit adding up to 10 percent of the purchase price less the advance on the deposit. With painful effort, our qualified accountant had calculated the outstanding amount of caparra we still owed after we had signed the proposta, and we had a cheque ready with the correct sum.

After Olita had conducted some further necessary formalities, we were all ready to sign, easy peasy. In spite of the animosity between our dogs, the sellers and we seemed to hit it off, which was possibly due to the presence of our common adversary and 'representative' Olita. He insisted on reading through the whole document word for word, even though neither parties found that at all necessary. Yet we could hardly accuse our agent of being a perfectionist, since he still managed to make mistakes when filling in a couple of basic information boxes on the forms. The sellers were suddenly called Colombio, which prompted Mr Colombo to mutter extensively under his breath. "Colombio, Colombio, who is that?" Even the Italian national insurance number, the codice fiscale, was incorrect, even though this number can be derived directly from someone's personal data. Luckily there was a secretary on standby (pronto soccorso) who was in charge of creating a new, corrected compromesso.

Whilst we were waiting for Olita's 'homework' to be corrected, my glance fell on his bag. It looked like a doctor's bag, maybe containing a stethoscope, a reflex hammer, and other similar instruments. Out of boredom (or maybe nerves?) and to break the silence I made a comment on the bag. Olita explained that it was his portable office. He liked to have everything at his fingertips. "In that case, we might find Mrs Olita hiding in there too", I observed merrily. Olita threw me an annihilating glance. Mrs Colombo, on the other hand, giggled and suggested having a drink together somewhere after we had finished, adding that it should be the 'organiser's' treat. Olita wouldn't have any of it.

Finally, we were allowed to sign the finished documents. After at least twelve signatures had been collected from those present, the temporary contract became a legal document. Anyone breaking this agreement would have to pay a fine of 10 percent of the total purchase price (a sum equal to the caparra) to the other party. Naturally, none of us would want to do that. After the 'ceremony' was over, Olita led both parties out separately, so that he could discreetly create an opportunity for the sellers to pay his commission (3 percent), followed by our turn to pay him our 2 percent, in the form of a thick pile of 50 euros. That mafia feeling had crept up on us again.

Non sta bene

Cinzia, the secretary of Pavia University's Faculty of Medieval Culture looked at me with a serious expression. "Non sta bene," she answered in a grave tone to my question where la professoressa Chiara was. "She is not doing well." I lost count of the times I had come into the university only to find the research group area closed. The shared research space, on the first floor of the historic university building, was on a mezzanine with a view of the atrium and its fountain garden. It felt like being in a salon. The space was closed off by a wooden frame with glass panels through which it was possible to catch a glimpse of several desks and tables belonging to PhD students who were largely invisible (maybe non-existent?). The door that gave access to this salotto was always locked. I just pressed my nose against the window and came to the conclusion that the salotto was once again deserted. All the highbrow books on the shelves along the wall looked at me with longing. "Take me! Read me!" they seemed to call. But unfortunately that wasn't going to happen today either.

This time I decided to go and ask for help from faculty support, i.e. the secretaries. Numerous support staff were always present, ready to support somebody if they were suddenly in need of support. But now as I took in Cinzia's ominous expression, I thought I finally understood why my supervisor never seemed to be there: she was probably seriously ill (cancer?). Oh dear. "Che cosa c'è?" I asked trying to seem neutral. "What's the matter?" "Ha preso un raffreddore," said Cinzia, remaining deadly serious; the professor has a cold. Oh no, I just hope she will recover! Italians and their obsession with health...

Dejectedly, I traipsed along to the stanza dei dottorandi, the study room, which was at the other side of the building: another small box room for PhD students, consisting of two desks, one of which belonged to a professor of Classical Philosophy who must have received his PhD ages ago. Presumably, that's the reason I never had the good fortune to make his acquaintance during my stay, even though I was earnestly requested to vacate the room on Wednesday mornings because that was when the professor came in to engage in his classical studies. Without thinking, I inserted the key into the lock of the PhD study room when I suddenly realised that this was the professor's special morning. Carefully, I pushed the door slightly open and peeped through the gap. Was there really a stuffy old classicist sitting behind that accursed desk, feeling violated by my presence? But I need not have worried, there was no professor sitting there (perhaps he had a cold too?).

Gaining right of entry to this study room had cost me a lot of trouble, and it required putting pressure on la Nagel who was my supervisor and who I once succeeded in cornering in the salotto. When I had visited the department, the summer before our arrival in Italy, I had been welcomed with open arms, once the confusion surrounding my gender was cleared up. I was always welcome, I was told, there were plenty of desks and PCs and I would receive my own key to the salotto. My spouse (m/f) was likewise welcome and I could also bring our dog if I so pleased. Great! When I approached la Nagel regarding my own key the following September, however, suddenly there seemed to be a problem. "But I need somewhere to study?" I exclaimed in a panic. I couldn't see myself studying in Giorgio's flat with my other half Nico bustling about and our dog Saar constantly begging for attention. "Yes, of course", sighed la Nagel. You should talk to la professoressa, maybe the stanza dei dottorandi is available, though the faculty would also need to ask the Dean's permission in writing. And that could take some time.

Beyond all expectations, permission was soon granted, and a couple of days later I unlocked the door of the stanza for the first time with some excitement. What a stuffy box! With only one tiny skylight inserted high up in the ceiling, it wasn't unlike a prison cell. Well, on the plus side, it was at least dry and reasonably warm. I would accept anything to avoid shivering on a bench in a park. Although the study room, just like the salotto, was nearly always empty, the room next door was always occupied. I could follow the telephone conversations that were conducted on the other side of the wall nearly word for word. I also listened to many a researcher's conversations with students about exams, assignments, marks and appointments. Conversations which always ended in a litany of ciao ciao ciaos interrupted by one last piece of information, then resuming the sing-song of ciao ciao ciaos. Italians and saying goodbye...

About every two hours I took a break to stretch my legs. A little wander along Pavia's cobblestoned streets to have a coffee in one of the cafés. Cafés which were always full and lively with people (PhD students? Professoresse?) who apparently had nothing better to do. Some of them were, already at this hour, sipping sparkling white wine. La dolce vita!

I was honoured to meet la professoressa Chiara a total of three times in the end: at the welcome lunch in the Osteria alle Carceri, at a departmental lunch in the Osteria alle Carceri and finally at a meeting lunch, where else but in the Osteria alle Carceri. We made one appointment via e-mail to discuss my research project, but this was cancelled shortly later by Cinzia, the departmental secretary (sick aunt, raffreddore, cancer?). From then on, I never clapped eyes on my professoressa again.

Le vertigini

One day we took a trip along the hills of the Oltrepò after we had first reassured ourselves that 'our' house was still standing and wasn't washed away by the abundant rainfall of the last couple of days. Luckily, the house was still standing firm in its place among the knee-high vegetation: an unsightly grey cube that had still not received that lick of violet paint. Olita, you have work to do! Otherwise, there will be problemi.

We decided to take a little look around our prospective neighbourhood and we drove to the south, into higher terrain. The roads became twistier and narrower and we were climbing gradually higher and higher with each bend in the road. My insides started to protest. Had I eaten something bad this morning? The gingerbread cake we brought with us from the Netherlands? Of course, it must have been past its sell by date! I thought gingerbread cake couldn't go off? How could this happen to me? I am always so careful to check everything that passes my lips for signs of mould or wriggling life forms. Or was it the strong espresso from the moca, our little Italian percolator? It produces powerful coffee that requires a hardy stomach. I started to feel sick. This was followed by a vision.

I was standing on the steps of the diving platform in the swimming pool. I was trying desperately to cling on to the smooth, cold metal rails. I was scared that my feet would slip off the slippery steps, which would first break my leg and would then send me falling backwards head over heels smashing my head on the tiles. I couldn't get a proper grip on the handrail, the steps were a lot steeper than I had expected, and I started to shake. But there was no way back, I had to carry on climbing. Once at the top, I heaved a sigh of relief. Finally, I was standing safely on a wide flat diving board fenced off by metal mesh on both sides. I decided never to do this again. But now I would need to move forward, beyond the fencing, all the way to the end of the wobbly edge, and jump into the depths. I looked down and realised that from the top it was a lot higher than it seemed from the bottom. It made me feel light-headed. How did I get myself into this mess? Behind me, a small group of macho boys were forming, staring at me impatiently. I had to jump, so I closed my eyes, held my breath and... took the plunge.

We had to stop at the side of the road for a break, so I could get some fresh air and let my stomach settle down. What exactly had we got ourselves into? Moving to an entirely different environment, with foreign people, foreign customs and a foreign language, which we hardly spoke or understood. Removed from our social network in the Netherlands, removed from our snug nest where we had lived for the best part of 20 years and where we felt at home and protected. Away from our friends and family, who could support us through difficult times and who could share the joys of the good times. Were we really leaving this all behind? And for what? Panic seized my body. Imagined all the things that could go wrong. Was there still a way back?

After the first wave of panic had died down, I returned to my senses. No, making a U-turn now was not an option. We had already taken the first steps and there was only one way forward: to proceed without wavering. But did we really dare to? Once back in our flat, my stomach and my mind regained their composure. We were going to create an amazing holiday destination, I realised, in beautiful countryside, in fantastic climate. We would have lots of interesting guests and we would make sure they would feel just as at home as we do. Stop hesitating, close your eyes and jump!
Il fannullone

Saar barked and I woke up with a jolt. I thought I had only been asleep briefly because I had just heard the clock in our living room chime 4 a.m. I thought it was strange, though, that I had already heard a bus going past. But last night I had set the alarm to 7:45 a.m. so what could go wrong? Half an hour later, and still awake, I was thinking: oh, I'd better check the time. I pressed the light switch on the alarm clock under the duvet so as not to disturb Nico, and what did I see? QUARTER PAST EIGHT! We had to be at the solicitor's within the hour! Why did the alarm not go off?

I nudged Nico awake, jumped out of bed, had a quick wash and gulped down a bowl of cornflakes. Nico quickly let Saar out; our faithful Saar who was trying to warn us with her gentle bark that it was time to get up! In the meantime, I wrote out the cheque to Colombo for the outstanding purchase price. An enormous amount of non trasferibile. According to Olita, it was OK to use the same kind of cheque as the one we used for the compromesso. Just to be sure, I had rung him to confirm this in December. I found it a bit strange that a sum of money this large, the price of a house, could just be transferred over using an ordinary cheque. But naturally, there were no problemi. Said our expert, who cost us twelve thousand euros.

Whilst getting dressed, I had a quick double check of the alarm clock. The alarm was set to 7:45, but... was that 7:45 p.m.? It should be a.m. of course... That stupid Anglo-Saxon system! Luckily there was no harm done as long as we got out of the door quickly. How were we going to get there? It would take too long to walk. Cycling was too risky, because of black ice: the melted snow had frozen to the surfaces overnight. We decided to go by car. Saar, our little hero, stayed at home, to wait for the return of his masters, by then hopefully the owners of a house in Italy.

We arrived at the solicitor's office at the same time as the Colombos and we waved at each other from a distance. The office was located in the courtyard of one of the old condominis, in Pavia's city centre, in a small side-street off Strada Nuova. Once inside, we waited till 9:15 a.m. when a little, fragile-looking old lady appeared, her back crooked from having bent over too many documents. Without looking directly at us, she gestured for us to come in. Olita was not present, despite earlier promises that he would accompany the sellers as 'a friend'. He could not appear in his role as an estate agent because then it would be obvious that we had paid him a commission which is taxable. We deliberately didn't pay that tax to reduce the already astronomical transfer fees. And of all people, it was the solicitor whose job it was to retrieve this tax. Later on, we were told that Olita had promised Colombo that he wouldn't be far away and would be available in case we needed him; that he would even be sitting in a bar across the road from the solicitor's office. Where, of course, he was not sitting, as we would discover later that morning.

Without further ado, our notaio began to read aloud the prepared documents, nomi, cognomi, codici fiscali (always that codice fiscale!). Interestingly, in the document, it said that we were fluent in Italian. After she had read this piece of information, she looked at us over the top of her reading glasses with questioning (sceptical?) eyes. We could be silent in all languages, but we nodded solemnly to confirm that our Italian flowed like a river. I waved a hand at Mrs Colombo, gesturing that it was 'così così, so so' which made her giggle again. In the meantime, I spotted Mr Colombo staring at my cheque book that was visible through the plastic folder holding all our documents. Was he already licking his lips?

The solicitor took her time. We didn't understand everything despite being 'fluent' in Italian. Some corrections were made. Frazione Spegna? No, Spagna. That was a mistake. Then the Colombo's mortgage was examined: was it already paid off? Yes, of course, declared Colombo. But the original bank statement wasn't here to prove it. No, Olita had it. Who wasn't here. Or in the neighbourhood. Nowhere to be seen or to be reached. And he hadn't attached the statement to the solicitor's dossier either. Would everything come to a standstill? Luckily we had everything, even a copy of the bank statement, and that seemed to be enough. The solicitor launched herself into a long speech but I gradually lost the thread due to the formal language. Slowly it dawned on me that she was talking about payments. Colombo was again taking a sideways glance at my chequebook. Yes, yes, it's coming, you will be paid, don't worry, I was thinking. But that's when they dropped the bombshell. Colombo wanted a guaranteed cheque, not an ordinary, everyday one like what you use for small sums. I could sympathise with this wish, that was the reason I had rung Olita previously, who reassured me at the time. Why did I have to listen to him instead of asking someone more qualified?

And at that moment, when Colombo started on about the guaranteed cheque, in my mind's eye I started seeing assorted ways of inflicting pain and death by torture (in a slow and excruciating way). The passive object of these executions was of course not Colombo, because he was entirely right, but Olita. He wasn't there, the fannullone, the good-for-nothing layabout, and now we knew why: his incompetence took centre stage today and he preferred not to bear witness to that.

Luckily our solicitor was accommodating and let me walk across to the post office, or rather the portakabin, to have my cheque guaranteed. The others went to have a cup of coffee on the corner, where Olita, our family friend, never turned up. This gave Nico and the Colombo family an opportunity to exchange experiences about Olita. "Non ha fatto niente!" they kept on telling Nico. "He has done nothing!" He never delivered on his promises to refund their costs incurred on his behalf. And the Colombos had paid the full 3 percent agent's commission, and given him a Christmas present: a bottle of champagne! When they learnt that we had managed to haggle the commission down to 2 percent, the Colombos were furious.

At the post office it was pension day once again, but luckily the queues moved quickly and the money didn't run out. I saw the same administrator as last time, the one who couldn't be of any service at the time. I just hope this goes well, I thought with quiet apprehension. I only want to have a cheque for a mere 200 grand guaranteed... But it was easier than expected: she asked her colleague a couple of questions and sure enough, after some paperwork, checking our bank account and some print-outs, I was holding a guaranteed cheque in my hands! Efficiency itself: long live the BancoPosta! I hurried back to the solicitor's office, where we were finally able to sign the contract.

At home, just as we were raising our glasses for a toast, Olita rang. I had already mentally prepared myself and gave him a piece of my mind in fluent Italian. It wasn't for no reason that I had declared under oath - in the presence of a solicitor - that I was a fluent Italian speaker. Not that Olita understood why we were so angry with him: there were no problemi after all? I let him pretend, but I decided that I would never see him again.

And this is how, partly with the help of our watchful and mollycoddled dog, we became the owners of a big box of a house in Italy.
I Pedra

"Our village has had a bad year," said the Lions Club chairman at the Theatre Martinetti, in the little village of Garlasco. It was the start of the traditional 'Festival of Good Wishes', the Festa degli Auguri. Following the murder of the beautiful Chiara Poggi in 2007, which had prompted an invasion from the national press, the village had woken up one morning to the shocking double murder (suicide?) of an older man and a young woman. Next year will hopefully be a happier one. The evening took off with this positive spirit in mind, with a combination of the Ticinum Gospel Choir and a performance by the folk music group I Pedra. Nico had recently joined the gospel choir and he was fast becoming a respected member because of his clear tenor singing voice. The members of the Lion Club must have been looking forward to this little diversion, since all the two hundred and fifty seats in the theatre were occupied.

The Teatro Martinetti was a nice little theatre. Like many other provincial Italian theatres, it was designed in the style of Milan's La Scala, only scaled down to model village size. The bagpipers and the choir were performing for a good cause tonight, because this year the festival was dedicated to those suffering from a mental illness: it was a serata benefica a favore dei disabili mentali. The charitable donations were collected at the door, where it was left to your own discretion how much money you wanted to contribute; it was ingresso ad offerta.

In Italy it's not uncommon for a theatre performance to start late. Sometimes by a quarter of an hour or half an hour or even forty five minutes... no one seems to take any notice. This gives you the opportunity to take a good look at the slow stream of people arriving. In the Theatre Martinetti I observed a lot of greying heads and an overwhelming number of old ladies in fur coats. Real fur. In Italy fur is still displayed with pride and without embarrassment and there are no animal rights activists standing on street corners with their spray paint ready to humiliate the owner. Everyone had made an effort and was dressed up to the nines. Fare bella figura, the well-known Italian adage that you should always present yourself at your best to the outside world, was gloriously at work. No worn-out jeans, baggy jumpers or scruffy shoes, only clothes cut in the latest Italian fashion. The audience stood around in small groups, chatting without showing any signs of impatience about the late start of the show. People were wandering around, some even leaving the room. Would the performance still take place or had there been a disaster that was going to put an end to the proceedings? These were the questions going through the minds of the punctual Northerners, which we still were. No, it was nothing like that, there was nothing wrong at all, this is just Italy. These Italians and their ways!

In the end the performance finally began. I Pedra's bagpipers, dressed in folk costumes, came out onto the stage, but before the tootling could begin, the band was introduced by a speaker. The speaker could have come straight out of a comedy sketch, and he certainly took his time in the spotlight. His mumble was hard to make out, but that wasn't the point. I Pedra commanded the audience's full attention, not just because of the clothes they were wearing but also because of the faces that went with them. Suffice it to say, they looked a bit special in more ways than one. I couldn't recollect having heard a rendition of 'Silent Night' in a louder or more ear-splitting tone. I Pedra's version of Brahms' Lullaby for the Christ Child would give any child ADHD. And the special key in which 'Adeste fideles' was performed made me grind my teeth. In the box next to mine, someone fell off their plushly upholstered chair from laughing.

Luckily the repertoire that I Pedra performed that night was restricted to five songs. This took the best part of an hour because the speaker had to make some comments after each song. Yet, the stage was the focus of everyone's attention. Centre stage was occupied by the man playing the triangle, whose expression went from imperturbable to very imperturbable to completely imperturbable. On one side stood a father and son duo playing the recorder, both of them short and squat, their cheeks bulging with air as they blew. Both of them wore a Paddington-style hat pulled over their eyes. Some of these images are now ingrained in our minds forever. When I think of Garlasco, I don't think of the murdered teenager or the couple who committed suicide, but I think of I Pedra.

The gospel choir's subsequent performance was a welcome relief to those with sensitive ears and delicate constitutions. They started off carefully, with a quiet piece, led by a soloist. As they carried on, and brought in a bit of a swing, the traumatised audience slowly came back to life. The conductor's enthusiasm was infectious, so much so that he succeeded in getting everyone to join in with the 'Kum ba ya my Lord'' bit. Time and time again, a soloist would step to the front and lead the choir in some English classics. Nico performed 'O Tannenbaum' as part of a multi-lingual medley. The performance was such a success that the choir was called back for several encores. In the end, we didn't leave the building until around midnight, feeling cheered up and exhilarated and ready to have our aperitivos, in the truly silent and holy night.

Servizi pubblici

Now that we were the proud owners of the house on the hill (we still had to come up with a name for our forthcoming B&B), we regularly visited the site to assess the amount of work needed, with regard to clearing up, cleaning and repair work. This was always an enjoyable outing, because the flat in Via Moruzzi wasn't suitable for staying indoors for long periods of time. The flat turned out to be quite dark, even in sunny weather, because all the windows were facing north and were in the shade most of the time. Although our balcony was quite large, it also faced north, and we could only catch the sun in one of its corners in the very early spring. It would be a shame to waste beautiful sunny days by staying indoors, so these were the days that we made our journeys.

Receiving the keys to our new house wasn't as easy as we had first expected. Because our estate agent Olita hadn't attended the transfer meeting at the solicitor's (absent without prior notification, shall we say), we still hadn't received the keys to the house. The Colombo family gave the keys to Olita, so that he could carry out his estate agent duties to his own amazing standards. So we could get our hands on the keys we had to pay yet another visit to that fannullone (slacker). I had no intention of ever having anything to do with the man again, so poor Nico had to pay the price. Olita, of course, immediately started up about our grudge against him because he couldn't understand what he had done wrong. The seller, Mr Colombo, was extremely satisfied with him, he insisted. We knew better, having spoken to the Colombo family ourselves. Olita needed to go through various drawers and cabinets before he finally located the keys. Hopefully these were the right keys, we were thinking, but luckily it wasn't necessary to pay another visit to the fannullone because this time he had actually got something right. He was worth his weight in gold!

Once we had driven past the Ponte della Becca, the landscape seemed to open up and become lighter. The first hills appeared over the horizon and vineyards were dotted along both sides of the road. On these mornings, the radio often played 'Back to Black' by Amy Winehouse (an apt surname...) and we soon began to associate her music with our days out in the Oltrepò. To us, everything was still new, and we were wide-eyed with wonder. Sometimes, we spotted sumptuous ville at the end of long avenues, probably the family homes of vineyard owners who had grown grapes there for centuries. Cigognola castle's dovetail-jointed towers were looking at us invitingly from the top of the hill. We drove through the valley of Scuropasso, a torrente, a creek, that swells up considerably after the heavy spring showers, but for the rest of the year remains mostly dry.

By now we had discovered two routes to get to the house, two little roads winding their way up the hill, and alternated between them. Today we were going to see if we could get all the utilities to work: the gas, the water, the electricity and the telephone. Just before the official handover at the solicitor's, we had made a last check with signor Colombo. Was everything still in the same working order as when we signed the compromesso? Did Colombo behave as a buon padre di famiglia, a responsible family man, as it's so beautifully put in the sales agreement? Yes, he did. Until now we hadn't heard him speak much, but he seemed to be a friendly old fellow, who was willing to take his time to explain everything to us. Without signs of hurry or impatience.

Even the rustico, the little two-storey brick building behind the house, had gas and water in it and in order to get electricity installed, it was enough to make a quick phone call to ENEL, the energy provider, Colombo assured us. The spacious cellar under the house, the cantina, was brimming with water connections because originally they had planned to make a laundry service in there. There were two thermostats so that you could control the central heating in both flats separately. The importance of this riscaldamento autonomo was by this time quite clear to us. Our stay in Via Moruzzi had left us with 'sauna-syndrome': in the depths of winter we sat with the windows wide open because the inside temperature was near enough 30 degrees Celsius. The heating was centrally regulated for the whole condominio and it was permanently on 'high setting'. This is why properties-for-rent adverts put so much emphasis on the availability of riscaldamento autonomo!

The cellar and the rustico both seemed to serve as dumping grounds for unwanted furniture, building materials and other junk: a loose toilet bowl, a bidet, a marble sink, a whole bed, cabinets, cabinets, cabinets, a big pile of roof tiles, enough for a whole new roof: in other words, a total mess. Whether or not we were supposed to be grateful for all this, we couldn't yet tell. In a hole under the drive there was a pump, said Colombo, which pumped the waste water from the kitchen on the first floor to the waste pipe which was in an elevated position on the other side of the house. And the waste pipe was connected to the main sewage pipe which ran along under our street in front of the house. All the bathrooms were connected to a septic tank, which was again connected to the sewer system. Nessun problema! The electricity had recently been rewired, and complied with current regulations: tutto a norma. This is what Colombo had said at that time, right before the hand over.

After a pleasant half an hour's drive, we reached our big grey colossus and parked our Fiat Punto on the concrete drive. Every time we opened our big, burglar-proof door, we noticed how cool it was indoors. We secretly toyed with the idea of spending a night in our new property, but the air was filled with the unpleasant sewage smell of toilets and sinks which had stood dry for too long. Somehow we had to manage to get the water connected. A helpful gentleman in Montecalvo town hall had given us the numbers of the water, gas and electricity providers. We had to take a deep breath before we tackled the job of ringing a number of different call centres. We were worried that besides the language barrier, the infamous unfriendliness of Italian energy providers would also complicate things. It was going to be a high-intensity Italian course, which would put our blood pressure up. We had prepared a couple of standard sentences in advance, so we could explain to the ladies in the call centre exactly what it was that we wanted. At least, that was the idea. The callgirls did seem to listen at first, but not for long, soon they would launch into fast-paced monologues and start connecting us to random colleagues who did the same: holding their breath for 20 seconds, followed by a fast machine-gun salvo of words. Sometimes, in the midst of this verbal torrent, we made out a recognisable question or two, like for example the one about the post code of Montecalvo. We didn't have it ready, and by the time we looked it up, the call centre lady in question had already hung up.

In another attempt to navigate through the cryptic bureaucracy of the energy providers, I tried speaking in English. On the other end of the line you could hear the panic gripping them. Do you speak English, I politely asked first in Italian. "Uh lietl...," was the not very encouraging answer. So it had to be done in Italian. In the end, it started to go a bit better and the call centre ladies took our attempts more seriously. After every phone call we found out what information we had to get ready for the next one, slowly making progress. After we had provided all the necessary information, including the codice fiscale (which by now I could spell in Italian: Bari-Torino-Salerno-Napoli-...), I was told that in five days we would have luce, electricity. Now for the gas and water.

When talking to the gas provider (there was a new number for the ENEL too) an additional problem arose: the contatore, gas metre seemed to have been removed from the house. Was that now completely a norma, buon padre Colombo? The tubi, pipes were installed, but a new metre still needed to be connected. After some more discussion and a long wait on the line whilst cheerful Italian canzoni were blaring in my ear, we agreed that they would come out on Thursday afternoon. Requesting the connection of the acquedotto, water main, was surprisingly easy. The operators understood us immediately, they knew where Montecalvo was and were even familiar with frazione Spagna. Unfortunately they informed us that the house had no water contatore, either. Our understanding of what belongs under the scope of a norma was clearly very different from that of padre Colombo. But first things first: we were required to pay before we would get any water. "Come over tomorrow morning to Stradella. Before 10 o'clock. Then we can sort the contract and the payment out," shouted the voice at the other end of the line resolutely. Then the water metre can also be connected on Thursday morning. That sounded like another nice trip out to the Oltrepò! I could already hear wine-girl Amy singing: "We only said goodbye with words..."

Di fiducia

"L'ingegnere Cassani," said Franco, without a moment's hesitation. We had asked him if he, as a geometra of the county of Pavia, could recommend us a di fiducia architect or architectural engineer whose advice we could trust. His answer was firm and satisfactorily convincing too. It would have to be him. We wanted an expert to design the structural adjustments that needed to be made to our newly bought house, because in this respect we were complete dilettanti, we knew next to nothing about house extensions. The same architect or architectural engineer could also supervise the execution and quality of the building project and manage the contractors. We were not very keen on project management ourselves.

But how do you find someone like that? By picking a random name from the Pagine Gialle, Yellow Pages? That didn't seem a safe option to us. So we decided to do it the Italian way: use your network and make sure you find someone di fiducia. This typical Italian system works as follows: you ask someone you trust whether they know someone they trust. If they do, you are sorted, because an Italian would rather die a thousand times over than betray your confidence. If they don't know anyone suitable, then they will ask around their trusted network and if a name comes up from there, you will be fine. Everything in Italy works the same way: you have a GP di fiducia, a plumber di fiducia, a mechanic di fiducia, etc... In fact, the reality is that an Italian will trust no one, unless they are di fiducia. The world is one big jungle full of swindlers and crooks. Or at least Italy is.

Luckily we had Franco, who would certainly not want to betray our trust and who would be able to recommend us a good architect or engineer from his professional circle. Cassani it was. We made an introductory appointment and went to find his office in the centre of Pavia. Our engineer was a modestly attired gentleman with gold-rimmed spectacles, wavy hair and a well-groomed beard. His powerful voice suggested that he was someone possessed of a great deal of competence. His assistant was a quiet and rather surly-looking balding man with a grey beard. He sat to one side, behind Cassani (who occupied the central position behind his enormous desk) and muttered unintelligibly once in a while. We explained as best we could in our broken Italian what we had come for: a couple of small modifications to the house (some extra windows), a terrace, an indoor staircase to the cellar, which would need a new entrance door. And we wanted the roof fixed because we saw that some rooftiles were missing. In some places the sky was showing through the roof. The building was in good condition, our geometra Buttini had established that during the perizia, and we wanted to keep it that way.

We decided that the roof was priority, because the winters are often rainy and very windy. Cassani immediately recommended a di fiducia roofer, who owed him a favour too and would be prepared to start the job soon. Cassani phoned him and picked a date for the sopralluogo, a visit to assess the situation on site. He would then take a look around and see what was expected of him. Was the assistant going to accompany him? Yes, he was coming, although he didn't seem keen on the prospect.
Il water

In Italy, just like anywhere else, you need to visit the public facilities (at bars, restaurants, theatres, universities, etc) now and then. This can become quite an adventure for the toilet trainees just starting out, although even advanced toilet-goers experience regular set backs.

To start off with, you need to locate the toilet. If the segnalazione, signs, are not satisfactory (and that is often the case), you are faced with the task of asking a member of staff or others present to direct you to the shortest way to the facilities. "Could you tell me where the toilets are?" How do you say this in Italian without making a blunder? The notion 'WC' won't cut the mustard here, even if you knew how to pronounce this in Italian ("doppio vee tshee"). With a cry of distress "Toilette?" you will have more luck, even though uttering this single word doesn't make a very good impression. Italians call the toilet il bagno, an expression that's often misused by Dutch people who are trying to find the bathroom. Because Italy is essentially the country of gesture, theatrical hand wringing will suffice too.

Once you arrive at the toilet, you have an existential choice to make: man or woman. Even if you you are in no doubt about this (you can always check your passport), you may still encounter another obstacle: commonly, there is no clear picture of a little man or a little woman on the respective doors. With some luck there might be some writing: 'Signore' and 'Signori' on the doors. But even this can often give rise to panic. Which is the one for 'Ladies' and which one is for 'Gentlemen'? They both seem masculine, don't they? For heaven's sake, why can't they write 'Donne' on the door of the women's one? That would at least be recognisable to the uninformed foreigner. You could hang around nonchalantly until you see someone disappearing into or reappearing from one of the doors, and use that information as an indicator for which one is which, but what to do if your need is urgent and the toilet traffic 'sparse'? This is why you need to know (and don't forget this!) that the feminine plural of most common Italian nouns ends in 'e' and the masculine plural usually ends in 'i'. There are exceptions, but with regard to toilet facilities. There the rules are strictly observed. Even in Italy.

Finally you can drop your pants. Whoa, hang on, not so fast! Experience teaches us that you never quite know what you're going to find behind the toilet door. First of all the question is how complete is your privacy? Can you actually lock the door? No, often the original lock is out of order but if you are lucky the door can be locked by a DIY mechanism (hook, string), improvised by someone in need. In most cases, there is no such luck and there is no key, the whole hanging- or hooking- system is gone or maybe there was never a lock in the first place. Anything is possible. Even in brand new toilets in shiny new buildings you can find yourself up the proverbial creek without a paddle: a toilet door fitted with a traditional lock... but without the key. If the door can't be locked but the cubicle is so small that the toilet is close to the door, it's still 'not the end of the world'. As you are sitting you can hold the door shut with a hand or a foot. In case, against all hope, someone happens to walk in, you keep hold of the door and shout out anxiously: "Occupato! Occupied!" (something to remember!)

Sitting? That's the next question: can you actually sit down? Although most Italian toilets are of the 'bowl' variety, you can still come across the occasional bagno alla turca. This may sound like an exotic oriental piece of music, but in reality it is the infamous 'hole in the ground': the squat toilet. If the door can't be locked and you discover one of these Turkish squats behind it, you have no hope left. At this point there are a number of possible scenarios, one more humiliating (for the victim) and funnier (for the spectator) than the other. I will leave it to the aspirant toilet-goer to use his/her imagination to fill in the details. If the door can be locked, there are still plenty of potential stumbling blocks.

Using the Turkish beast can lead to a lot of fuss involving trousers, underpants, vests and shirts, as well as a balancing act to stop you disappearing through the hole (although we are not that skinny any more). Successful completion of 'business' depends on a laborious co-operation between the producer hole and the recipient hole. Cramp in your thighs, calves and tendons is a certain consequence; wet socks, trousers and shoes are a very real possibility resulting from these efforts. Or as one Internet user guide has put it:

Squat toilet

Entertaining - but slowly disappearing - phenomenon in Mediterranean countries.

The use of the 'gabinetto alla turca' is very hygienic

as long as one knows how to aim. For people without experience,

the adventure often ends in wet socks.

Tips: try, instead of only bending your knees slightly, to lower yourself completely into a squatting position,

and keep your head facing the door.

The last piece of advice contributes the necessary hint of humour and relaxation in this difficult predicament: if the door unexpectedly swings open, you can laugh the laugh of the innocents, because your head is pointing towards the door. But it can get worse (there is a type of squat toilet which stands on a small platform which makes it impossible to squat above it without completely removing your trousers. Imagine the door flying open whilst you are occupying that one...).

Thank goodness, there's a toilet bowl, you think to yourself, if the dreaded squat toilet doesn't materialise. But what kind of a bowl? Is there a toilet seat? Il water, as the toilet bowl is called in Italian (derived from water closet) is rarely equipped with a seat (an asse). If there is a toilet seat, it will be standing sadly in a corner (as a punishment), or under lock and key on the wall (no touching), or it's broken (with chunks missing), or it's loose, or it's too wet and disgusting to sit on. The last option is often a result of the fact that most toilet seats can't be put up: they promptly fall back down into place because the cistern is in the way. We must conclude that the Italian doesn't get the purpose of the toilet seat: he regards the toilet bowl as a noteworthy variation on the squat toilet, one which is raised but which is not meant to be sat on. Who came up with something so stupid, you can hear him think.

With some luck, we might be able to improvise something near to a sitting position and perform the big deed in peace. It will have to happen in the dark, because the energy saving system is usually activated after 30 seconds, the on/off switch is out of reach, or the motion detection sensor is broken. If you have spent your penny by then, then the worst is over. There is often no toilet paper, but of course you've already taken care of that, because you've learnt from past experiences (always check first if there's any paper!). The Italian doesn't use paper, that's what the bidet is for. That crazy little bath that Dutch people use to wash their feet in. It's a shame that in precisely those places where they are the most needed, i.e. in public toilets, you will hardly ever see a bidet. The rest I would rather leave to your imagination.

Flushing takes some imagination too: push buttons on the cistern are either broken or have been replaced with buttons on the walls or some sort of foot pedal. And sometimes the automatic cleaning system gets activated and the toilet seat starts turning underneath you whilst you are still busy, but only a spoilsport would let that bother them. Washing your hands, as you always promised your mum you would do, is not always possible. Soap is rare, although water is usually available. Sometimes you can operate the tap very hygienically with foot pedals, but don't count on there being any paper towels to dry your hands with. Or maybe there are, because it's possible that you have washed your hands at the wrong sink. Interestingly enough, Italian public toilets often have two different rooms with sinks and only when you are leaving do you realise that the second room did have soap and paper or an electric hand-dryer. Then you also suddenly find out that the door of this toilet can be locked. Going to the toilet in Italy remains a lonely and stressful exploit!

I copritetti

Autista, antennista, farmacista, barista, giornalista,... It's hard to think of a profession that doesn't end in -sta in Italian. Autista, for example, does not usually refer to a person with autism, but instead to a professional driver, someone we might call a 'chauffeur' at home. The sign, Non parlare con l'autista, often displayed on public transport, has a very different meaning from what it looks like at first glance... An antennista is a person who earns his living by putting up aerials on people's roofs. They really exist! Furthermore, an Inter Milan supporter is an Interista, an accountant is a commercialista, a dentist is a dentista and a tyre salesman is a gommista. These are all masculine words even though they end in the feminine marker -a. As Italian 'novices' we made a game out of coming up with new variations. You pick a profession, add -sta at the end and you are done: a legislator is a leggista, a pizza baker is a pizzista, etc... All wrong, because when you think that you've finally got it, it turns out to be different. Like so many things in Italy.

We had an appointment with the roofer who was rustled up by our architect, Cassani and we expected him to be a tettista, derived from tetto (roof) \+ sta. Wrong! A roofer is called a copritetto, literally a coverer of roofs. Whatever he is called, he seemed to be earning a good living because after we had been driving behind him for a while, we realised that he was driving a Jaguar (he must have been a Jaguar fan, a 'giaguarista'). That wasn't good news for our wallets! After we passed the Ponte della Becca, the Jaguar let us overtake him because we knew the way.

The roofer and Cassani weren't just there to inspect the roof; they were also interested in the location and overall condition of the house. Foreigners buying a house in Italy to start a bed and breakfast were a new species to them. The gentlemen were surprised at the conditions inside the house (everything new, fully furnished and all!) and at the beautiful location. We discussed the positions of the new windows, where the new staircase to the cellar would go and what we wanted a terrace for. Cassani, just as at our first meeting, knew how to cut to the chase and wanted to know what other building work we were planning, apart from roof repairs, before we went back home for three months. The windows? That was not possible, because that needed permission from the council, and obtaining one of those could take a couple of months. The terrace? Not possible, for that we needed the permission of the neighbour, whose land was adjacent to the foundations that would need to be laid.

For now, we could only tackle the roofing. Cassani gave us a quick total estimate: twenty five euros per square metre for a roof of approximately hundred and sixty square metres. That works out at four thousand euros. Oops, that's more than we had bargained for. We immediately asked if this was a reasonable price. "You won't be able to do it cheaper," the ingegnere assured us. Yeah, how can you possibly check up on that in a foreign country, especially when you really have no choice. The roof was leaking like a sieve and we wanted to make sure it was repaired before our break back home. I thought I had better ask how long it would take and how many labourers would be involved on a project like this. In the Italian building industry, quotes are calculated on the basis of square or cubic metres, not according to man-hours. That's not useful if you want to create your own realistic estimate. The roofer claimed that this job would take a bit less than two weeks with about three men working on it. The roof had to be stripped of all the tiles first if you wanted to make a clean job of it. The wrong way of doing it was demonstrated by the current state of the roof.

Alright, go ahead, we sighed and said goodbye to four thousand euros. Cassani, in his turn, put pressure on the roofer to really get the job finished in early February. "I said presto and now I expect presto, the beginning of February and I will be coming out to see it for myself!" A real toughie, our ingegnere! We gave him our keys so that he could come and measure up everything the following week, and draw up a progetto containing all the options together with cost estimates. Making some progress early would mean that the time we were going to spend back home from March to June wouldn't completely go to waste. The phrase progetto suddenly made our building project very real. Were we really starting a progetto? Were we stretching ourselves too far? Oh well, we'll soon find out, we thought with some spirit, a Dutchman is no paurista, pushover.
Tutto a norma

Italy is a country full of rules and regulations, but these rules and regulations were not created to shed light on what is right and what is wrong, in fact quite on the contrary. It seems that they were actually designed to deprive one of clear-cut solutions. Imagine if there were only one simple rule, without complicated conditions or ambiguous definitions. That might have the result of making it impossible for you to do whatever you please. No, the rules must accommodate several possible interpretations. And old laws are not abolished when new ones are created. The ideal situation is when there are several separate rules which contradict each other. Then you can go ahead and have a ball. The best type of legislation is the incomprehensible variety that can keep whole schools of lawyers working in vain forever. It's not for nothing that Italy proudly holds the title of the country with the most lawyers. In Rome alone, the last survey counted sixty thousand lawyers: a complete town!

According to the sales agreement, drawn up by a sworn-in solicitor, the previous owners had provided us with a guarantee that all services (gas, water and electricity) were installed in the house, and complied with current regulations, tutto a norma. But you were supposed to understand this loosely, as was explained to us by the electrician we hired. He showed us the bundle of electrical cables tumbling out of one of the fuse boxes. Electrical cables stuck together by duct tape, loose wires, cables of the wrong colour. Plenty of choice. "But it was all according to a norma!", we said in surprise. In response, he made a typical Italian gesture which involved pinching the fingers of his right hand together and making a clockwise turn from his wrist. 'Of course it is.' Meaning: 'Do you really think so?'

The first problem that our electrical expert tackled was that of the boiler. We just couldn't turn it on. It was a question of inserting the plug into the socket upside down. "It's alternating current, shouldn't that make a difference?" we asked, taken aback. "Oh," said the electrician, "you are not even supposed to use an external lead to connect the boiler to the electrics in first place. That's not a norma." For a couple of hundred euros he could buy the necessary equipment to fix the most serious breaches of the regulations, he told us.

There was a lot more wrong with the boiler. We thought we were being clever, and contacted the plumber who fitted the boiler. We found his name enclosed in the user's manual that we had received from the previous owner. Even though it was Sunday, a day of rest, the day of the Lord, he came out. We, being sceptical Northern Europeans, were surprised that he wanted to come out on a Sunday, and took some extra cash out in case, he was going to charge us his Sunday fees. That was not the case as it happened. This kindest man ever made sure, first of all, that there was gas. The riduttore di pressione, the pressure regulator in the metre cabinet, kept on faltering and we couldn't get it to work.

Looking at the gas boiler he regarded the pipes with concern: it looked like the work of a dilettante, a DIYer. That's not done: that is totally 'ab-normal' and not a norma at all! He could still remember how it was originally connected before it had been clumsily botched up. It was him who did the first installation. He recommended a ricorsa, a small re-routing the pipes before making a start on the boiler. "How much is that going to cost us?" we asked nervously. "Oh, that's a couple of hours' work, times my hourly wage," he answered. If we gave him the keys, he could work on it during the week in between his other jobs because he lived very near, at the bottom of the hill in Scorzoletta. "Yes," he admitted, "I was born in this house! I lived here more or less from the very day it was built in the early 60s." That's why he was so quick to come and check out who had bought his birthplace!

Later it turned out that this good man was not the plumber at all, but the plumber's brother-in-law, who liked to earn a little extra by doing some odd jobs here and there. Not a norma, because not everyone is allowed to tinker with gas pipes. On top of it all, it seemed that he made a habit of charging us double the price for all the materials that he had bought for us. Our kind electrician had disappeared after his second visit with a couple of hundred euros that he was going to spend on electric sockets, and we never saw him, nor the set of keys we gave him, ever again. That doesn't sound like a norma either. But we were getting proficient at the Italian hand gesture. Clockwise turn.
Sembrava un prete

"Non è una buona persona," said the woman sizing me up with a depreciating look. Whilst she spoke, her index finger was gesturing 'no', as if to give further emphasis to her utterance. I had just come across her on the long road towards Ca' Bosco, the large white house built in a beautifully secluded location on top of the hill above the vineyards. It was a private road that led only to Ca' Bosco and functioned as one long and winding driveway. I had pondered many times who could live there. This lady seemed to be the lucky owner. With her seven dogs.

When Saar and I emerged from the vineyards and stepped onto the road, I was alarmed by the dogs, which started barking loudly. I saw that a couple of them were ready to run at us. Saar became stiff and alert and I hesitated. Should I attempt to walk past the woman and her pack of dogs? That was our planned route home after all. Or was it better to avoid risking a dogfight and if necessary make a detour? I saw the woman was shouting something to me, but it was unintelligible above the pandemonium the dogs were making. She made an inviting gesture which I interpreted as: it's OK, it's safe to approach us. I decided to walk in her direction.

She asked me where I came from. My response, that I lived in Spagna and that Francesco was our neighbour, were met with a stony response from her. I didn't dare ask what the basis of her feelings was, and she didn't go into detail. She told me that she lived in the big white house and part of it had been sold to a family from Milan who only used it as a weekend holiday retreat where they came to relax once in a while. In the midst of seven barking dogs, I thought to myself. The woman revealed that she was on her way to the main street where the mobile grocery van was stopping this morning. She was going to do the shopping. Didn't she have a car? That was unfortunate for someone living at the top of a hill.

At the main road, we said goodbye. As I strolled along, her words were playing on my mind. We had already met Francesco a couple of times and he seemed like a nice enough fellow. With his short frame and bulging stomach, his trousers pulled up to the armpits, he looked like the average Italian old man, the sort you see passing the time at village cafés all day. Chatting, playing cards and watching the world go by. An elderly loiterer. Francesco stood out mainly because of his large, ruddy nose and his strident voice. In the evenings you could often hear his raucous laughter when he was sitting outside with his son and seasonal workers. A bit of relaxation after a hard day's work in the vineyards. "Rharhaarharharha!" the shrill sound of crows cawing would reverberate in the air. The only thing that could be held against him was maybe that he was involved in some sort of vendetta with his neighbour, Piero Moro, the details of which we were not privy to. Being direct neighbours, they could hardly avoid each other, and this sometimes led to public confrontations; during which it was mainly Piero's voice you could hear screaming and bellowing ("Bastardo! Vergognati!") because Francesco always (wisely?) kept his silence.

The vineyards that lay along the full hundred and fifty metres of our boundary line belonged to Francesco. And that meant that we came across him regularly. Our much-longed for panoramic terrace with views over the valley would be supported by pillars standing on the border between Francesco's land and ours. For this to happen, we needed his consent. Officially, in black and white. How were we going to arrange that with a stubborn old farmer like that, who would probably come up with thousand and one objections, one more absurd than the other? You know what old people are like, old Italian people especially, we were thinking to ourselves. Could he even read and write? We were afraid of how he would respond. We would bribe him if we had to, a thousand euros should cover it, because we had our heart set on that terrace. But events took a different turn.

We decided that we would go to Francesco accompanied by an authority figure, someone whose word bore weight, in case that should be called for. Someone who could put things diplomatically, in the Italian way, because our language proficiency was certainly not up to standards. The perfect candidate: our architect Cassani, of course! We weren't paying him for nothing. With some difficulty, we made an appointment with Francesco (that was already challenging enough; we wondered if he understood us? And we him?). Cassani took the opportunity to bring the official documents with him, in the spirit of 'don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today.' Francesco took in Cassani's imposing presence with reverence. That was a good start. The conversation began with some small talk. Or so we believed. But later it slowly emerged that Francesco had an underlying, deliberate strategy to avoid whatever he wished to avoid. At that moment we were as yet unaware of this.

"This area has suffered a lot through asbestos pollution," Francesco started. "Do you know about the number of people who died after working at the asbestos factory in Broni?" Cassani nodded, it was a well-known tragedy that had been playing out in the Oltrepò for the past twenty years. Asbestos cement. Even now, long after the factory had closed, people were becoming ill with cancer. Sometimes, through the years, several members of the same family died of the same cause. Francesco continued with a wistful expression. "You can still find the stuff everywhere in houses and sheds. In the house down there at the bottom of the hill, where my son lives, the ceiling is still probably made of asbestos. The house has undergone some renovation work by a geometra from Santa Maria. A villain and a scoundrel." "Sembrava un prete. He looked like a vicar," said Francesco and he put his hands piously together. "But in the meantime... After I had paid him the first instalment he never showed his face again. He received a million liras from me without ever having finished the work! And now I am stuck with that ceiling." Could Cassani come and have a quick look to see whether the ceiling had to go or if it was safe to stay. Francesco's strategy suddenly dawned on us.

Our Cassani was, of course, going to inspect the ceiling. And later tonight Francesco was going to read the official statement that he would need to sign for us (or having it read out to him by his son?). Then he would sign it if everything went to plan. Weeks later, we received a bill for the expert advice that Cassani had provided regarding Francesco's asbestos ceiling. A bill that we paid like pious priests, gladly in fact, because the terrace was becoming reality!

This is the end of the Preview of  Living in Italy: the Real Deal!

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Stef

Glossary

