Getting my feet wet

A lot of people have been asking what I'm doing in Italy and how it's been going. It's a hard question because moving to another country is nothing like moving to another state and the way to do something in one country, with of all its comforts and ease of living, is quite different in another.

For example, for the month of August, Italians go away on holiday (i.e. vacation), usually to the beach. So here in Collegno (the part of Torino where I am living), there is hardly anyone around. This weekend should begin the mass migration, but life as it is normally will not be until Sept 7th or so. What this means for me is that if a nearby shop is open at all, it will close sometime after lunch. I can see the mail mounting high in most of my neighbors' mailboxes. I haven't seen a soul in the building. I pass very few people on the street... and yet I live on one of the main streets outside of downtown...

Well, the exception to the store closings in August are the bigger malls and stores which take about an hour or more to get to. Sometimes, like when we went to IKEA, we had to take THREE different buses. And the wait for the bus was MUCH longer than the actual ride.

And factor in the fact that other than IKEA, I can't really research prices online. I have to actually go to Carrefour and look at prices there. Then OBI across the way to compare. Then make it out to Bricofer and wherever else. All because I don't want to spend an arm and a leg for something I can get much cheaper somewhere else or settle for something ugly when there's something comparable and pretty somewhere else. And I don't know the reputation of the brands and the stores to really know things like we know our own stores and brands.

And then theres the paperwork that needs to get done, like getting my tax code so that I can set up the electricity and sign up for discount cards. Getting my permission to stay so I don't have to leave when my visa runs out next August. And getting internet and phone at my apartment so I can continue communicating with the outside world once I move out of my team leader's place.

Oh, and jet lag which wipes me out my mid-day so that I couldn't get so many things done as on my check-list...

So here's my list of things that count as "getting my feet wet" or establishing myself in Italy. It is not exhaustive and it's in no particular order but the firing sequence that went off in my head as I typed.

(x) Get over jet-lag - not sure: Aug 27/28??
(x) Apply for tax code - Aug 21
(x) Apply for permission to stay - Aug 24/Sept 16
(x) Call to set up electricity in apartment - Aug 24
(x) Get electricity in apartment - Oct 1
(x) Set up phone services - Sept 17, waiting for them to start
(x) Unpack - mid-Oct
(x) People return to their normal lives in Italy
(x) Clean apartment - Aug 22
(x) Spackle & sand apartment Aug 25 & 28
(x) Tape up baseboards and doors for painting - Aug 28 & 30?
(x) Prime walls - step 1: adhesive paint step 2: prime white
() Paint
() Make friends - in progress
() Meet neighbors -in progress
() Learn bus routes
() Get a map in my head of the city
(x) Check out cultural center in Collegno
() Visit college campus in the city
() Team's arrival (!!!!)
() Be fully supported
() Recover the language that I've forgotten
() Learn more Italian
() Move out of my team leaders' place (prereq: a bed, closet & kitchen) - have everything but kitchen & electricity !

The Silver Lining

Tom, who lives in Bologna and will be moving with our team to Torino, lined up a reasonably priced bed & breakfast for himself and Team Torino leader Paul in our target area of Torino, when Paul went to visit to line up apartments for our arrival. 

It was a two bedroom, two bath apartment where the owner lived and opened up his home for guests to share the space with him.  When they arrived, the young owner, Mario, introduced himself saying he found out they were protestant ministers by checking online (he must have researched online from Tom's e-mail address) and proceeded to tell them that he was an athiest, but not in the strict sense, but rather in the Italian sense of having rejected the religious God of the Catholic Church.  He said he was into New Age and some Buddhist ideology, and enjoyed being at peace with the Creator through the peace and tranquility of His creation. 

By day's end, it was evident that God was at work in his life as an unexpected event left him rather disturbed and not sleeping for most of the night, as they would find out the next morning.  At breakfast, conversation turned to God and religion, and Tom briefly explained the difference between religion (i.e...man's futile attempt to answer the question, "What must I DO to be reconciled with God?") and the Gospel which declares that God did everything to make it possible for us to be forgiven and reconciled with Him through the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ.  At this point he was moved to tears and began to open up and share some more.

Mario said that he wants us to keep in touch and tell him as soon as we get into the area and start having meetings, because he wants to come and be a part of what we are doing when we get there! Mario accepted a Bible and was encouraged to begin reading in the Gospel of John.

Praise God!