AquAniene Day

Today, I spent much of the day at AquAniene "The Sport Club." As I wrote earlier, C.C. Aniene is a beautiful social club on the Tevere. It is one of, if not the most, prestigious clubs in Rome - since 1892. A month ago, when we turned up there looking for the swim team pool, we walked around the club with its manicured grounds, lounges, restaurant, pool, tennis court, and rowing facilities. (Recall though that there are only male members!) Subsequently, we found out from a good source that the initiation fee is about 35,000 euros but there is a three or four year waiting list. Just down the road is AquAniene, the newly constructed facility built for the 2009 World Swimming Championships in Rome (but only used for the water polo competition - but that's another story), largely on the backs of the members of the social club. These same members now have to pay the same initiation and fees that I paid to join the "sport club."

So that is where I spent my morning. The Italian National Swim Team was training outdoors in the 50 meter pool (senza Pellegrini), but I worked out indoors. How much fun is it to do an "aerobics" class with 80's disco music (Let's Groove Tonight, I Will Survive, Let's Boogie) in Italian? I was smiling ear-to-ear. What a riot! And the instructor kept yelling "VELOCITA!" (faster)

After working out, I needed to avail myself of the new sauna and bano turko (steam) in the "area relax" section of the women's locker room. It was really wonderful. The best sauna I've ever had; I think because there's a wet component and every once in a while you hear water gurgling. The steam room was great too, with extra wide benches. But the coolest part is that it has a low light that changes colors while you relax, going from blue to green to purple to red to pink...very soothing.

Anyway, after a late lunch (it's always a late lunch in Roma), and a school pick up. I was back at AquAniene with the whole family. Olivia had her swim lesson, Charlotte had practice, and Avery ran laps around the bleachers. There is a very nice cafe on the upper level with a wall of glass over-looking the indoor 25 meter training pool. So that's where we camped out and ordered some pasta and snacks while watching Olivia's lesson and the first part of Charlotte's practice.

It's great that it's such a nice place to hang out, since we will be spending a lot of time there this year.

On a separate note, we've been having a few issues with our landlord. Chiefly, there were two things that should have been at our disposal in the villa since our arrival, but which we were still waiting for. The first is a baby grand piano that was sent for some repairs. The owner told us that the shop was still closed for the summer holiday during the first week of September, but that it would be delivered to the villa by the middle of the month. Okay, it's October now and still no piano (not that we haven't asked for it every week but there's always a different story).

The second issue is that the TV has no English language stations. Having access to English language stations was specifically stipulated in our contract since you have to pay some additional fee to the cable operator to have them. The reality is that we really haven't missed watching TV. In some ways, our lives have been better without it. The kids still watch movies on the DVD player, the laptop or the projection TV. But still, we did miss all of the US Open (tennis), and it would be nice to get the news on TV every once in a while (we've been reading the NY Times and Wall Street Journal on-line). So, we have been reminding the real estate agent each week that we are waiting for the English language channels to be available. There is always a different excuse - the owner is out of town and needs to sign the paperwork, the owner forwarded the paperwork but there is a document missing, the satellite is not situated properly on the roof, etc., etc.

Besides these two items, we had provided the landlord with a list of things that needed to be done, and to which she agreed, in order to extend our lease beyond the first month. Well, rent was due today (it's October 1st), but pretty much nothing on our list has been completed or purchased yet. As you might expect, Josh called the real estate agent and informed him that we would not be paying rent until the issues on the list were resolved. Furthermore, Josh told him that we would be deducting 10 euros per day for each of the piano and the TV, until those items were installed.

So here is the punch line to this grand diversion. Josh made the call to the agent on Wednesday (stating that the rent would not be paid and monies would be deducted). The next day (today) the agent called and said he is sending "a guy" over to install the proper box for the TV. When Josh inquired about who this magical guy is, the agent said he is a guy that will set up the additional channels without the owners authorization. Really funny how things start happening when you begin to withhold money - even 10 euros a day. I wonder why the agent couldn't have sent his "guy" over when we first arrived and complained about the problem with the programming? Viva Italia.