This morning Paul and I broke down two pieces of living room furniture that were left in the house when we bought it. The wood remnants are now in the cantina along with a wardrobe, dresser, a futon frame and mattress, and a bunch of other things that were left behind when we moved in. Paul has done his best to break apart the large pieces, preparing the items for a bulk waste pick up. 

Last year he called a company that services the town for bulk waste, but we didn’t hear back from them. 

This year he called and WhatsApp’d them before we went to Portugal. And then again over the past two weeks that we’ve been in Pico, but still no confirmation on what date they would arrive to pick up the piles in the cantina. Guess the items will just stay in there another year!

I spent most of the morning measuring and putting up curtains in the second bedroom and kitchen. Paul tried to get the air conditioning app to synch with his phone and continued to try and navigate Amazon.it before running errands. 

In between work calls Paul and I went to the “Sagra Della Gnocchi” or gnocchi festival. The Associazone Pro-loco Pico was offering gnocchi topped with red sauce or mushrooms  – 8 Euro each and the first 200 patrons enjoyed their gnocchi in a terracotta bowl.

The thought of hot gnocchi on these 100 degree days was unappealing but it torrentially rained this afternoon which made the temperature drop dramatically. Perfect gnocchi temperature. 

They started serving at 8:30pm and after serving a dozen or so patrons from that one tray of gnocchi, they ran out. Then a car came screaming around the corner to deliver two more trays of gnocchi. No idea where it’s being prepared but obviously not in the town square. They also had to grind service to a halt after only serving a dozen people since they didn’t have their 200 special bowls set out ahead of time. The festival organizers could learn a thing or two from the St James bazaar planning team. 

When Paul and I left at 9:15 so I could hop on another work call, the music hadn’t started yet and I counted about 150 people in attendance, including people speaking German and English. Definitely a tourist attraction. 

Paul returned to the festival to listen to the music (an accordion, synthesizer, vocals and a drummer) and chatted with some locals. By 11:45p I was done with work and the benefit of living 0.2 miles from the town center is we could hear the music and laughter of the crowd from the terrace.