Looking for a Good Home

Through the website that the university provided to me, I got a few leads on places to live. I set up a meeting this afternoon with a landlord (who owns quite a few properties), his name happens to be Mario.

He tells me to meet him at this pizzeria in town (he speaks enough English for this conversation to work). I got a bit lost on the way, but made it. He's wearing a green suit, the jacket is corduroy. I wonder if he's one of those landlords. A tour of the first apartment is a bit disappointing. A girl and her boyfriend were sitting in the kitchen, smoking. (Smoking indoors?!) And she was not that friendly. The bedroom was dark. 

To get to the second property, he tells me we'll need to take his motor scooter. Fine, I guess, so long as he has a helmet for me (don't worry, Mom, this isn't something I'm going to make a habit). This is me ready to go.

The motor scooter has the power and heft of a motorcycle. The roads are rough and he's aggressive (he has to be). I can't see much from the passenger seat and I'm very disoriented when we get to the second apartment. Pretty cool, again, to have a GPS map of the trip (and I can see how fast he was flying through the streets!)

The location of the 2nd place leaves a bit to be desired, but I like the girl who opens the door for us. It's four Italian students (girls) at this place. An ash tray with ashes in it is present, but the place doesn't wreak of smoke. The tours of these apartments reminds me why I don't live in one back home--apartments are just soul-less. Mario puts some pressure on me to give him money today, but I need to shop around more. All I know is I just couldn't wait to get back to the farm! So I again missed out on a bike shop in my rush to get back to what I'm now calling home. It will be my first stop tomorrow, maybe I can see if they know of someone who needs a roommate...I really would prefer to live with cyclists, but the chances are very, very slim.

Got back at sunset and it was gorgeous.

Before catching the bus, I found a big market in town and picked up (finally) a 1 liter bottle of extra virgin olive oil (2.75 euro, yea!), arugula, bread, prosciutto, mozzarella and gorgonzola cheese and chocolate. What a pleasing dinner (I'd been craving prosciutto, especially).

And now "Lost" is on TV--English speaking, subtitled in Italian. This is a great way to learn the language!