Summer planning...

For many reasons, today was a much better day. For one, it stopped raining and the sun came out. Also, my football size glands had shrunk down to golf ball size. I went to the gym...to take a hot sauna. Then Josh and I had chicken soup for lunch and started to plan our summer. Never too soon to think about how we want to spend time when our lease is up in Rome. In fact, maybe we can get a jump start on all the last minute Italians. We've rented our villa through June, so where should we go in July? We're open for suggestions.

We'd like to spend at least part of the month on the coast somewhere. And, there's a lot of coastline in Italy, not to mention Croatia, Greece, France and Spain. The question is where to begin? Of course, for Josh we end where we began, which is Italy. We do have a car lease that expires on July 25th, so it's true we have to be in Rome to return the car on that day. And, it may also mean that we'd want to utilize the car while we have it. So that rules out Spain and Greece. Ferries would allow us to take a car to Croatia and clearly Italy and France are drivable. Still, that doesn't narrow it down too much. Sardegna (another ferry option) looks amazing... and seems to be priced accordingly. Another major factor in our decision would be the availability of day camps or children's activities. While we have found that the major cities (like Rome) have day camps, so far we've only discovered sleep-away camps in the country. Not an option for Olivia and Avery.

And so, another major research project ensues...

Today, we also had a lot of interest in our future rent payments. Our landlady, is clearly having some cash flow issues. Last October, she asked us to pay the rent into her NYC bank account (as soon as possible) as she has an apartment there with a mortgage that needs paying. OK -- paying her in dollars makes life much easier for us. She indicated that she had automated all her bill paying in New York so that if our money didn’t get to her account on time “everything blows up.” OK. In December, on the 11th, she called to ask if we could pay the January rent early. She would pay us interest, but could we please pay the January rent by the 17th?. OK. Now the rental agent contacts us yesterday and informs us that the landlady would like us to begin paying the rent in euros and for the next month it should be paid to their (the agency’s) account. What is going on now? So, Josh calls the landlady. To cut to the point, she now asks if we can pay the next three months in advance and by doing so, she will give us a 250euro/month discount per month on the rent, and we can continue to pay her in dollars in to her NYC account. Two minutes after the call, Josh receives an email from the rental agent reminding him that the next month’s rent should be paid to their account in euros. Well, we’ve got a few days to figure out what to do with this one, but the whole situation reeks of desperation on all sides.