Monday. Starting our day without water. Not fun. But the handyman and the electrician both came to the house very early and worked on the pump. Thank goodness someone is looking at it. No water is a really big deal. We’ve had a lot of maintenance issues with this house. Water issues, power issues, pump issues, Internet issues. This house, while gorgeous, is not doing any favours to Italy for selling us on this being the place to which we would want to move eventually. Spain, Greece and Romanian living experiences were far better. But I still love the Alba region so much. Some day I hope we get to go back there and try it out again. It’s been half a decade already since we were last there!
We had a very busy morning. Went to the shops, Dominica made breakfast, we took the kids to the park, and hung out for a while. I went to Cafe Nero and got coffee for Dominica and I while we hung out with the kids. I also got a snack of cashews from the local fruit stand and Luciana tried them and has fallen in love with them. She stole pretty much my entire bag. Back at the house, our fruit truck guy came by as well.
I’ve been more and more sick for a couple of weeks now and finally today we decided to talk to some people and figure out what needs to be done to see a doctor. So we talked to the people that manage the house here and they got a friend of theirs to come and drive me up to the hospital (which also functions as a walk in clinic) to see the doctor there. The hospital is well within walking distance, I have walked up there before. My driver told me that Sicilians never walk, no one in the city would walk here, even people much closer. They would always drive anywhere that they need to go.
It is a good thing that someone took me up there because it was impossible to locate the clinic inside the hospital. You had to really know what you were doing. Once there, the doctor did not speak English (doctors in Europe especially seem to not speak much English) so having a translator was useful, although I was able to follow most everything. It only took five or ten minutes, tops. I got a prescription for my usual antibiotic and we were off. It was all free. Italy is famous for its great healthcare. Second only to France, worldwide.
From the hospital we just ran over to a local pharmacy and grabbed my prescription which was fast and simple. No big deal at all. And then back home.
Tonight I went back to the park with the kids again. We get a bit of exercise doing this. It’s a good walk and then I tend to walk around at the park while they are playing, so we all get exercise. While we were out we got food to take home for dinner and got gelato while we were down there, too. The girls are loving our playground and gelato outings. Dominica basically never comes down, she does not enjoy the walk down or having nothing to do at the playground. I have my phone and continue working from it while there as I pace around the playground area which works out great for getting exercise while keeping busy.
I stayed up working until quite late. I had a “midnight snack” of a cheese sandwich at three in the morning.