Journal 8

Ok, A lot has happened since my last journal!! We have been really busy and I have also not had easy access to the internet. First of all, we have moved!!!!! It is, "The Room With The View!" It is not the Tuscan countryside, but it's ITALY!!!!! I am posting pictures of the room and the workout gym, that I might say we ARE using!!!! We are eating, but we are also working out!! This upscale room we have moved to has scales in the bathroom!!! I weigh 59 on these scales!! I just love it!! They are not broke, it is just in kilos. AND I am not telling you how to convert it over! HA! I have also learned how to tell the temperature. What we told to do is simple double the temperature and then add 30. It's almost accurate...that's what they say. Today for instance, it got up to 34. We doubled the 34 which made it 68, then added 30. Yes! It was 98 today! We has also discovered a mall right down the road from us, called Leonardo. It has a store which is pretty much like a Walmart store, and then a regular mall is connected. The mall has several clothing stores, a couple of shoe stores, a dry cleaners, a couple of jewerly stores, electronic store, a phone store, a few other stores, a couple of different eating places, and YES gelato places. I guess you could say it is pretty much like our malls, but then it is so different. The clothes all look the same more or less. The shoes all have to have the Italian pointed thing going on, along with platforms, and the food is all spread out, not in one main food court. The first thing we purchased in the "Walmart Twin" was $100.00 worth of hangers!! I still need more!! We also bought a cheap basket to keep fresh fruit in, which right now has only chocolate in it! That's only because we just got back from our five day work/play trip. Usually it has fresh cherries, bananas, and oranges. We also keep a small amount of baggette bread and croussants on had, AND water!! Lots of WATER!! It took us about three hard days to FINALLY find a Laundromat. They just do not have them!! People thought we were nuts! I won't bore you with the ugly details, but used the internet, asked hotel workers, after getting directions, we went in circles, asked directions over and over again, were sent to dry cleaners, went on dead end runs, and on and on and on. BUT, in the end the Americans got their way, and we did find one that will work. We went in and this lady told us to load it ourselves into the washing machines. Then she put her detergent in and told us to come back in one hour. When we came back in, it was just finishing tumbling in the dryer. We took it out and folded it. It cost us about $16.00 for three loads. We added it up the different pieces and what we had would have cost us over $250.00 at the hotel!! We didn't blink an eye at the $16.00. AND we have learned to be very conservative on what we wear more than once. I am now on a quest for a hairdresser. The day we were at the laundrymat I walked into this place down the street. No one spoke a word of English. Everyone was scrambling around looking for someone to talk to me. I felt like a celebrity because I was "the Americano," "the Americano," "the Americano," and three Italian girls were smiling licking their chops wanting to get at me, but none spoke a word of English. I didn't think it work at all, so I just smiled and backed all the way out as they were still trying to get me to stay. I have a promise to myself to get it done tomorrow!! But, as I just remembered, Italy plays in the semi-finals in the World Cup tomorrow and this country will shut down and come to a halt! I am not kidding either! They take it more serious than anything I have ever seen!!