Today was our last day of deep cleaning in the house. I’m looking forward to shifting our focus to truly vacationing, decorating and enjoying more of our time here.

This morning I spent two hours on the IKEA website researching what’s available so we can spend as little time as possible in the actual store this weekend. Fingers crossed that we find everything we need.

Paul spent the morning doing odds and ends around the house including arranging for a bulk trash pick up (they said they’ll call the day before they arrive, but we don’t know when that will be).

He also spent a bunch of time figuring out which key in the pile we were handed goes to which lock in the house. Carlo has a front door key, we’ll leave a complete set in the house, and a complete second set will return to Belmont with us. There are seven keys in total: 1 for the front door, 3 keys for doors off the terrace (one of which is missing), there’s a key to the garden gate, a key to the water main box on the street; and a key to the back up water supply cabinet in the yard. 

The door to the terrace from our bedroom is the missing key so we asked our neighbor Biaggio if we could borrow a drill to get the thing open. Biaggio came to look at the door this morning and said he’d come by with a drill “later today” (does that mean after siesta?). I wish we could communicate with him better. He’s a widower, super friendly, has a great smile, and you can tell he wants to talk with us. A lot. Today he was trying to tell us a story but we aren’t sure we caught the whole gist of his tale. By the way he was laughing he certainly got a good chuckle from it, but we just didn’t get it. Paul had him repeat his story twice, but with Biaggio’s Picano dialect combined with his speed talking, we’re not quite sure what he was saying. Something about coffee and a table. (Shrug)

He ended up coming by around 3pm and for 90 minutes tried unsuccessfully to break open the lock with Paul. They did stop at one point for an espresso break. While we’ve purchased an espresso machine, I had no sugar for the espresso, so Biaggio quickly went back to his home and returned with our first housewarming gift: a bag of sugar packets! He laughed at the rather large teaspoon that I offered him to stir the sugar. (Note to self: bring the demitasse spoons that we never use in Belmont on our next trip.) 

In addition to the door lock project, today Paul deep cleaned the hallway while I tackled the cooktop and oven which I had avoided on kitchen cleaning day. They weren’t too bad but I’ve really had enough of the cleaning fumes:

• Maestro Lindo (aka Mr Clean) has a strong odor and we’ve gone through two bottles already pouring it directly onto the floor tiles as we scrub.
• The oven cleaner, Fornet, smells like American EZ-off,
• SMAC is the liquid chrome polish which smells like the polish we use to clean sterling silver.
• Vetril is similar to Windex so using that to clean the glass doors to the terrace is fine
• Emulsio spray is similar to Pledge
• I do like the Nelsen dishwashing detergent since it comes with a curved spout which makes dispensing the cleaner onto a sponge easier than the upright spouts we’re used to on a bottle of Dawn for example. 

Paul and D carried two more pieces of furniture to the cantina/garage so I could finish deep cleaning the living room. The boys then went to find a dry cleaner in Pontecorvo so Ds suit could get cleaned in preparation for the next leg of our trip.

The moment they got home there was a knock on the door: Angela next door bringing us four eggs from her chickens (no idea where the chickens are.) She gave me a big hug and kissed both cheeks telling us we’ve been working very hard. The moment the door closed, D asked “are these things even safe to eat?!” Only time will tell. We put them with the rest of the unregridgerated eggs on our kitchen counter. 

Back to Senza Nome for pizza dinner. Paul had a pizza with sausage, porcini mushrooms, black truffle and cheese.  I had braciola with tomatoes and arugula pizza, and Damian had eggplant parmesan pizza. We fnished the meal with a glass of Amaro for Paul and limoncellos for D and I.

As we walked back to the house, we ran into Carlo and his cousin Stefano that we had seen earlier in the evening at the restaurant. They were chatting with Rafaela, who Paul met during the car rally here in 2018, and her sister Daniella. Stefano invited us to his home (diagonally across the street and above from us) to see how he renovated the place a few years ago. It incredible how beautifull and spacious it was restored.  

After a beer at his place, we all walked up to the castle to see it lit up at night, look at the view and enjoy the cool breeze. The mosquitos didn’t start biting until we got back to the house and I was on the terrace hanging more laundry again at 11:30pm.  

Tommorow, we finally go “alla spiaggia” (to the beach!)