Day 12: Of Clothes Lines and Post Offices

I have a letter to the Pope.

Well, a letter to his household, at least.  We want to get tickets to the general audience that happens just before we leave Rome.  I tried faxing it from the US, and it just didn’t work. So I printed it out and addressed an envelope, and I have been forgetting to mail it for 12 days now.

So today, the mother, father and I headed out to Briatico to find the post office.

Here’s the thing about the Italian Post Office: It’s a post office, it’s a bank, it’s a place you can pay your utility bills, and it’s slow as all getout.

Only one of the three windows was marked with an envelope.  The other two were marked with Euro symbols.  I got in line for the envelope one, and as soon as the woman at the window had finished her transaction (and I use the word soon loosely here, because it was like 10 minutes), the agent at the window put up her closed sign and started doing things at her desk, leaving me and the woman in front of me wondering what was going on.

The OTHER two windows stayed open…

Eventually, we gave up and walked to the grocery store.  The grocery store with the ocean view.  The grocery store with THIS view…

Got some dinner fixins, and headed home.  When everyone was settled, mom and I snuck back out to hit the beach supply store (and I use the term store loosely, it was a small one room shop built onto the side of a shipping container.  We were looking for some rope to use as a clothes line, because between 4 adults and 2 babbies, we make a lot of laundry, and the rack isn’t enough to dry it all.

I made use of the magic translator app to convey “cord for laundry” to the little old Italian man who ran the shop.  He shook his head no, but then held up his hand and told us to wait a moment.

Scurrying out the front of the shop and around to the side door (which was the shipping container) he emerged with a length of plastic twine that he had been using to secure things to poles and tie up  piles of collapsed cardboard boxes.  With hand gestures and mutters he told us that he wouldn’t charge us for it, so we bought a hat for dad, and two Frozen themed floating rings for the babbies so that we didn’t leave without buying SOMETHING.  With a smile, we headed home.

P made like 5 or 12 different Pizzas with home made dough for dinner that evening, while mom and I tied up the new clothesline.  They were super tasty (the pizzas, not the clothesline).  I fried the brain editing work docs, and after like 7 hours in the same one I collapsed for the night.

Oh yeah, and there was this:

The sunsets here are just beautiful…

Categories: Calabria

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