House Hunting the Third

October 4th

Today we are going house hunting with one of the approved realtors instead of a housing counselor.   I'm mostly concerned with hitting our TLA requirements, but I also want to see more places.  Today we saw 5 houses.

Note:  I forgot to grab my camera and when I went back to get it, my key didn't work (we have card keys like a hotel).  Today's photos were taken with my phone and are not the best quality, but they are better than no photos at all.

The first place is in Lago Patria and not far from some of the places we saw yesterday. It was in a parco and was fine, nothing exciting. It had a nice upstairs bonus room and terrace though. Also the parco gardener has a pet goat that hangs out there. So there's that.
	The outside of the building.  This one is a duplex with another unit behind it (left). The main room has a fireplace.  It currently has a photo of some major city skyline in it.  I'm not sure if they were using it as a frame or if they really hate that city (right).

		This is the kitchen.  I thought the layout was a little weird.  The stove is behind everything else in it's own little area.
		The garage/basement.  Oh look!  Tile!
		This is the upstairs bonus room that leads to the terrace.
		This is the view from one side of the terrace.  The goat hangs out in those grassy areas. I'm not sure if Ta would play with a goat or not.
		This is the view from the other side of the terrace.  It's not so bad.

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The second property for today is also in Lago Patria and sits right next to the NATO base.  There's a barbwire fence and patrol cars on one side of the property.  It had a yard for Ta, which was good, and fruit trees, which I like.  It doesn't really have a view of anything though, which is a bit of a bummer. We are not sure if we can access the NATO base or not.  If we can't, I'm not sure how interested in this house I will be.  Things to investigate!
		Look grassy areas!
		Fruit trees!   Pomegranate and various citrus.
		This is the main room.
		Here is the kitchen off to the right of the main room.

One of the upstairs rooms with a balcony.  It looks out onto the NATO base (left). This property had a garage separate from the house and it wasn't tiled (above).

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The third property is on the other side of the NATO base from the second property.  It is quite spacious and located in another parco, but it had a possibly abandoned generic church behind it.  Also all of the showers were tiny square showers.   Have you ever tried to shave your legs in something like that?  It's not a fun time.

Another yellow house.  They really like yellow houses here (left). This is the yard.  It's bigger than some but not the best we've seen (above).

		This is the main room.  There's lots more space off to the left.  The kitchen is to the right.  The door to the left goes into a weird little storage room, and the doors on the right go to a bathroom and the basement/garage respectively.
		Woo kitchen.  They like to hide their dishwashers here.  The houses that have had them mostly have them hidden behind cabinetry of some sort.

One of the rooms that has a balcony (left). Random, possibly abandoned, generic church in the back yard.  Not too happy about that (above).

Tiled garage/basement!

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The fourth property is in the Pozzouli area.  It is HUGE.  There is way more space here than we would know what to do with.  It's also next to a peach orchard.  It's also also next to a bunch of abandoned construction.   I am not a fan of the abandoned construction next door.

It's a yellow house!   It has a large paved area with some yard along the side and the back of the property.

		This is the backyard with fruit trees.  I think these were all citrus.
		Look how nice this garage is.  I mean really. There was another large room and a laundry/bathroom in the basement as well.
		The kitchen.  Dan keeps lamenting the lack of counter space, but most kitchens have room to add counter space/storage.
		The main room.  I'm still not convinced it gets cold enough to warrant a fireplace.  I guess we will see.

One of the large bedrooms with a balcony (left). The view off of the balcony.  Notice the red roofs on the left?  Those are incomplete and abandoned houses.

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The fifth and final property for today is much different than any other property we've seen so far.  It is up a mountain side and has fantastic views.   It only has a little bit of grass and it's kind of small.  It also has a weird dead space that they might put a pool or something in it.  These things aside, it's definitely tempting.

		It's a little pink house on a mountain side.
		I think there is as much deck square footage as there is house square footage.
		This is the main room/dining room area divided by the built-in bookcase.

Here is the kitchen.  They hid the dishwasher and the refrigerator this time (left). One of the two bedrooms (right).   Every other house we've looked at has at least three bedrooms.

The yard.  That's an olive tree, I think. You can also see some of the view from here.

The view.  Sorry for poor quality, my phone was acting up.  It also looks better in person.

That's it for house hunting for today.  Between the three days we've gone out so far, we definitely have some options.  I'd like to go out once more just to verify that we've seen more or less what's out there.

If you plan on visiting, which of the 11 houses we've seen so far, would you most like to stay in?

House Hunting the Second

October 3rd

Today we looked at houses again.

The first property is in Lago Patria and is part of a gated community or parco.  It has the biggest yard we've seen so far, which would be great for Ta. The kitchen was on the small side, but most of the rooms had bright colors on the walls which was fun.  It also has nice views of the lake and a community pool.
	The outside of the house (left). A yard in which Ta could play (above).
	Can you tell Americans used to live here?  I can! (left) The rest of the main room and a peek into the dining room (above).

The dining room is half orange.  Here are doorways to the stairs, a bathroom, and the kitchen (above). The kitchen was pretty small.  The area to the right is a door that goes outside.  So there isn't much room to add more counter space or a table or anything (right).

The upstairs landing (left). One of the less colorful bedrooms.  Each of the rooms had a different color.  One was pink with a safari wall paper border around it (right).

		Another tiled basement/garage.  This one only had access from the outside.
		This parco had a community pool that we would be able to use.

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This property was also in Lago Patria.  It had several different fruit trees in the yard and very pink exterior walls. This property is in the process of being renovated, so if we choose this one, we'd be the first ones to use the new kitchen, bathrooms, etc. It had fun little pizza oven shaped windows and closets in two of the rooms.  Closets are unheard of here.  The Navy will lend us wardrobes because of this.
	This is a very pink house, on the outside anyway.  It has a yard all the way around it, so maybe Ta can run in circles.
	It also has a variety of fruit trees (left). The main room has a fire place.  The stairs are to the right (above).

		This is the dining room.
		This is the kitchen. It is currently being renovated.
		The stairs had two windows like this.  They are pizza oven doors.  I think they're fun.
		This is one of the bedrooms.  It actually had a closet.  Closets do not exist in Italian homes as far as I can tell, so this is a bit of an anomaly.
	This is the view of Lago Patria from the balcony of one of the rooms.

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The third property was in Licola, which we visited on Tuesday (House Hunting the First).  It was quite spacious, but it was mostly patio with very little actual grassy yard. This house's main feature was its rooftop terrace, which had lovely views down to the ocean.
The last house for today.  It has a lot of patio space, but as you will see, not much grassy space.

	This is the main living area.  It's a lovely shade of lavender.
	This is the kitchen.  It at least has a lot of space to add more counters and storage as needed.
	If you go out of the kitchen to the left, you will come outside to another patio and a view of the "yard."   I'm not sure if this will be enough for Ta.

Back inside and upstairs is the landing for the bedrooms (left). One of the bedrooms that goes out to a balcony (right).

	Another tiled garage/basement.  They really like to tile things here.
	The view from the rooftop terrace.  It was a little hazy today, but you can kind of make out the ocean.  It's the blue bit before the sky starts.

We are going to look at more places tomorrow, partially to see what else is out there and partially to fulfill our TLA requirements.   The Navy helps us pay for the time we are in temporary lodging with a Temporary Lodging Allowance (TLA).   To qualify for TLA here, we have to prove that we are given house hunting a strenuous effort.  This is defined as looking at a minimum of 10 properties for every 10 day period of TLA.

Since we have only seen six properties, we need at least four more to make the TLA requirements.  And since I'm not 100% sure about any of the houses we've seen (I think I like #2 from today the best), I want to make sure we can still receive TLA.  So more houses tomorrow! 

UAB Returns

October 1st

Happy New Fiscal Year!  For those of you who have new fiscal years starting in October.   The military does.  I think it's weird.

Today our UAB (unaccompanied baggage) is supposed to be delivered.  You may remember it from this post. (I just figured out how to reference past posts. Woo!)

A few days ago we decided to try to get our UAB back.  I received an email before we left the US that it was already in storage in Italy and waiting for us, so now that we're here we might as well get it.  The Navy Lodge has most amenities that we need but this way we could have some more clothes, decent cooking supplies, video games, and I could get my sewing machine.

The UAB was supposed to show up around 8:30, but we were informed it could be anytime during the day.

So we wait.

Dan went off to test drive a car.

And we wait.

I went off to investigate something called NOSC (Naples Overseas Club).  It was supposed to be a welcome social or something, but it was kind of disorganized and I felt really uncomfortable.  I did not stay long. 

We wait some more.

Dan decides to go into work for the afternoon.

I wait.

UAB finally arrives around 14:00.  It took all of 15 minutes for the movers to drop off our boxes.  We received the same number of boxes we sent, which is promising.  Now we have to go through them and see if anything has been damaged.  A few boxes are a little worse for wear but hopefully it's just the box. W insisted on investigating the boxes.  They weren't even open yet.

I test drove a car this evening.  Most of the vehicles here are manuals and I have not driven a manual since I had to drive my friend Mary Rose home (in her car) because she dislocated her shoulder.  Luckily for her, she had taken me out to practice driving stick the weekend before.   This was about three years ago.

At 16 my gather tried to teach me to drive stick in his F150 pickup truck.  I could not get that truck into 1st for love nor money.  Our big teaching adventure ended up with me stalled out in traffic with everyone honking at me, my dad yelling, and me crying.  So needless to say, my manual driving skills are rusty to nonexistent.  I see a lot of practice driving around base in my near future.