House Hunting Internationally!

Finding the perfect home in Naples is like finding the perfect home in Manhattan – you have to make sacrifices.  What you want and what you can afford are often very different things.  We've had to decide what's most important and how we can get to that point.  Today marked the fourth time that we’ve gone out with a realtor to look at potential homes and at long last, we found it!

Tom and I both made a list of required items for the house and, shocker, my list was full of warm and fuzzy things and Tom’s list was very practical.  My top priorities were 1) a view 2) a balcony that fit chairs so I can drink wine and watch my view 3) a good vibe 4) less than 30 minute drive so I can get home from work and enjoy my view while drinking my glass of wine on my fabulous porch.  See?  Simple!  Tom had these noble requirements like “safety” and “parking.”  Who is this guy?  So, each place that had a view I immediately began to plan out where our stuff would go and what additional stuff we would need to fit our stuff more perfectly.  I actually asked at one place if we could buy the curtains from the current tenant before Tom said “we haven’t decided yet, remember?”  In fact, I had decided but the Royal ‘We’ had not and alas, those curtains are not in my possessions.

But I digress… At 8:30 this morning, we wandered over to the housing office for our mandatory search.  It is required that you go look with them once every 10 days for them to keep paying for us to live in this hotel.  So, begrudgingly, and with a “this is going to be a waste of time” attitude, we trudged over to the Housing Office to meet Ciro (pronounced Cheero).  Ciro is a skinny, mid-aged Italian man who had helped us previously in a sit-down meeting.  Paolo, his associate, had taken us out to look at apartments last week and I was left with my very first case of motion sickness after driving with him.  I don’t know when, but at some point between nausea and the urge to leap from the vehicle, Tom informed me that we were going 180 KPH.  For those fuzzy foreigners who don’t use the metric system, that’s roughly 112 MPH.  It was a bit fast.

But I digress again… Ciro, thankfully, was a much more reasonable driver.  He drove at a casual 130 KPH (the speed limit is 80 by the by).  But then we got turned around and Ciro stopped in the middle of an intersection, which is totally cool to do if you are Italian.  He quickly stopped a Vespa (also in the middle of the intersection) and asked for directions.  A full conversation began with the instructions being given not once, but twice. Though it probably didn’t take as long as it felt, we did hold up an entire street of traffic and then proceeded to do an Austin Power’s inspired 27 point turn.  It’s a bit rash, but I’m guessing we were up for Most Popular Driver in Naples this morning.  The results are still out, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed extra tight!

At length (and u-turns), we arrived at a gas station.  Wait, what?  Ciro informed us that this gas station is where we are to park our cars.  The spot, which fit his Ford Whatever (Insert strange European model of Ford vehicle) fit and probably a Smart Car would fit behind it, but we had a Civic and a CRV.  “Is no problem.  Will fit.”  Ok….

The tiniest elevator of all time took up us to the 5^th floor, which is yet another European misnomer.  The floor that you enter is 0.  So the American 2^nd floor is labeled 1.  Our apartment is on the 6^th and a ½ floor.  You get out at 5, but then walk up another half flight of stairs.  Then you scratch your head, turn around three times and whisper “fuzzy britches.”  I’m kidding here, but if a visitor does do that, I’ll give you a shiny Euro! 

The place is 2 bedrooms and a wide hallway that is considered the third bedroom but will probably be my office in the hallway to our bedroom…  I foresee my highest grades in grad school with the Hall of Wisdom for my study chamber.  Brian, the guy who just moved out, was telling us that the place was great and he had no issues.  This inspired confidence because sometimes that realtors will tell you that everything is perfect and then you find out that the “pizzeria” below you is actually a discotheque and your quaint little place is like the inside of a 1997 Rave.

Fingers crossed, no raves below our place!  We’ll be at the top of Vomero, a hill high above the City.  Funiculari, or cable cars that run up and down steep hills, connect us to the City so my mom won’t have to spend much time in the car with me.  I’m worried that a day in Naples traffic may bring about her early death.  To say it’s stressful is to underestimate stress.

We now enter the many stages of house paperwork in Italy.  We have a pre-contract meeting with the Housing folks, the land lord and us.  Our friends who just did that stage said everyone comes to a table and the landlord and housing folks spend 30 minutes yelling at each other in Italian, hands waving feverishly the whole time.  Then they smile, shake hands, you sign a piece of paper and you all leave promising pasta to the other.  (I also made up the last part, but in my dream scenario, it would end with someone offering me pasta.)  From there, someone does an inspection and then you do a contract.  Then you do a formal contract signing ceremony and then you slaughter a goat and someone offers you pasta.  Alright, I’m lying again about the goat AND the pasta, they just give you pasta at that point.  Ugh!  Then three days later you get keys and three days after that you move in. 

I tried to butter Ciro up by flirting with him, so maybe it won’t take so long.  Which is all pretty speculative anyway, because we found out today that all of our worldly possessions that we had packed up on May 18^th are still sitting in a warehouse in San Diego and will take a minimum of 17 days to arrive in Europe.  Where they will be inspected by German customs, moved onto a truck and come to Italy.  All of which is supposed to happen by July 27^th, but we were told “probably won’t make the required delivery date.”  Required is a loose term when you’re moving.  Kind of like theft.

We’ll keep you posted as stuff arrives, or doesn’t, and when we finally get those enormous Italian keys (no really, the keys are actually really big!  Like old fashioned keys that you see in antique shops and think “those don’t open anything!”  Wrong, friend, they open a house in Italy.  Probably the one from “Under the Tuscan Sun” which is not the house that we picked, for everyone who has asked me.  Also because she lived in Tuscany and we live in Naples….) to our humble abode and porch.