Lately, I have been having trouble getting any ATM in my city to work with me. A week ago, I called my parents to ask “What the…?!” I tried pulling cash from the same ATM that I got my rent from, and another a little farther into the outskirts of town. Neither worked. So, for quite a few days, my parents have been playing the phone tag game with my bank, and getting things resolved, but then when I try to withdraw, the machine gives me the same error message. It has been a bit of a worry in the back of my head. I would like to be able to pay for my own food. If Kevin weren’t here, I would be using my credit card every time I need food. For the record, yes, people here do go to the stores every day or every other day for food.
As I said in my last post, we went to Roma last weekend. It was lovely, but this weekend, we’re just not sure what we’re going to do. Next weekend, USAC has another trip planned for the group, so we will do that.
The “Saldis” around here have started to disappear. A saldi is a sale. Every clothing store in the area has one or more percentages off posted. I have been cranky because my ATM card doesn’t work and this is the best time to get into the saldis. They are like “After Christmas Sales” here. Epiphany was on January 6, the day before we arrived in Viterbo. People still bought presents and things up until then, and by February, all of the Saldis will go away. Now, I am not affluent. When the kids on my trip come back from shopping on a semi-daily basis, and start indicating how many Euros they have spent, I quickly do the math in my head and want to “Technicolor yawn” at the ridiculous amount of money that has been spent. When I look at my own budget worksheet, I am actually kind of impressed at how much money I have been spending. It seems like a lot, but then when I remember that USAC gave us a number much higher per month for expenses, and when I remember that I have paid the rent and have been buying mostly groceries and toiletries, I don’t feel so bad. Maybe it is possible to survive in this harsh world with only about a grand allotted per month… and then I remember that I am not paying for gasoline or insurance, so maybe it’s possible to survive on 2 grand a month, ha ha. I know it is. This experience is giving me hope for my return to the states and my impending “independence” upon graduation. However, I doubt I can get a liter of purified water for 27 cents, or a box of pasta for 52 cents in America. Anyway, where am I going with this? I don’t even remember!
The weekend. That is right. I was talking about the weekend. First of all, tonight, we are thinking we will do our one meal out a week (which we think is reasonable for our small budget) at this Mexican restaurant (Messicana Ristorante di Tex-Mex”, haha!). We want to make our apartment feel more like our home, and we want to get some warmer clothing. See? I did it again: I gave my readers two subjects to follow. We are going to the market tomorrow. At the market we want a perkilator, a good knife (right now, Kevin and I are cutting all of the vegetables with a butter knife, and I keep slicing into my fingers), and strangely enough, some pieces of fabric to dress up the walls and to use as curtains to keep the drafts out. Old windows are really killer around here. Tonight and maybe tomorrow, we will go looking for sweaters and boots. If the saldis go away, I will never be able to afford warm clothing, or just plain Italian clothing for that matter. Everything is so expensive because this country is like the Fashion Mecca. Remember all those kind creepy looking models on the runways with bad hair cuts? Yeah, they all work in Milan. We are far enough south that we live next to a “Payless” type shoe store (don’t tell Milan that those exist!). We can buy boots for 12 euros (15ish dollars) there.
Why do I need warm clothes, you ask? Well, let me tell you, this is a freak winter for Italy. Frankly, I think Ohio stole all of Italy’s good weather. We have only had two days above freezing since we’ve been here, and the winds are killer. I have about a week’s worth of clothing because I have to layer shirts to keep my heat inside. We read up on the climate before we came, and the guidebooks and internet sites all indicated that in January, it rarely gets below 40 F, and then in February it was supposed to start being in the low 50s. We thought “let’s get away from the cold! What a great idea!” Nope. My scarf is almost falling apart, I wear it so much. I wear it inside a lot too. Needless to say, I brought 2 sweaters, and 3 jackets with me. All my tees have been layered, and we’ve already done laundry here, and I am running out of shirts again. Now, don’t think that I am whining about the cold. I really am not. I am really quite ok with this kind of cold. It is like being in Ohio. What I am whining about, if anything, is the lack of sweaters that I have here. Luckily, there is a shop down the street with 10 Euro sweaters right now… if only I could get my ATM card to work. Oh, did I mention that it is supposed to snow tomorrow? Yeah, it is… well, that would not be too bad, honestly, except that this is a very, very rare occasion in Viterbo. Our Italian professor even used the word “never” in describing the frequency of snow flurries in our town. Now, in Lazio, it will snow everywhere but Viterbo… except for tomorrow. I look forward to having an excuse to buy a new scarf, ha ha!
I mentioned that people go to different shops for their food and they do this on basically a daily basis. The Despar (supermarket) is like going to Kroger, but you just can not get the quality there that you get in these tiny specialized stores. Negozino’s are simply the way to go. We go to the Despar more often than we should because it closer to our school and we remember to pick things up on the way home. It also does not close on Thursdays as often as the Negozino’s. Nothing seems to be open Sundays or Thursdays. We have a Fruteria that we go to for our veggies and they have very fresh food for practically nothing. One of the best parts about coming to these little stores and buying your food for a meal or two at a time is that you understand how much you are paying for individual meals when you make them. It is quite helpful to look at how many euros go into feeding you at each meal. It puts going out to eat into perspective. There are panarias (bread shops), sweets shops/bakeries (with cakes and donuts and pasterires), and there are delis that have cheese and fresh olives too. It is like asking an expert for each individual thing. Our Fruterria man probably thinks we are crazy because we pick out the veggis on our own, but we don’t know the metric units of conversion very well, and we generally make our decisions about what to buy when we see what there is there. Produce is only sold when it is in season, generally, and that is one of the reasons why it is cheaper here. We have salads at every lunch and every dinner, and we have fruit for dessert a lot. That being said, I still have no idea where to get fresh herbs. If possible, I might buy herb plants at the market tomorrow. That would solve that problem.
Well, I should probably wrap up before I get too wordy. Pray for my cold little nose and toes. Mom, don’t forget to water my plants! Ciao!
~DJ~