Seven Days Sans Transit: Are We There, Yet?

[Note to reader: this blog is a 3-parter. To begin the adventure at day 1, go two blogs back to "Seven Days Sans Transit.]


Day 6
Guests were kind enough not to arrive while I was doing my Navy Seal operation yesterday. Phone was kind enough not to run out of minutes until I returned home from said operation. Otherwise the entire mission would have been severely compromised. I guess the angels are hovering despite all the seemingly non-angel -like hassle.

Day 7
Up early. Out eating breakfast at 7:15 according to church bells. Not lying in sun. I want to stay fresh for the car pick-up. Feels like a wedding day. I am agog with anticipation. Seems to be new growth on the jasmine, too. Tomatoes going great guns. Need some propping up. I think I'll run down to Febo Garden today, then, SINCE I'LL HAVE A CAR!! It's hot. 15 minutes and my pits are soaked. So much for a fresh appearance to Bruno the elettrauto. Although something tells me it would take more than freshness to erase the idiot stamp he sees on my forehead as a result of all this. My guests have kingly offered to drive me to m savior Bruno. Laura has described how to get there. Easy. Along the road to Bisenti. All I have to do is wait until after 9 when Bruno is (supposedly) open for business so I can call and check on what I owe him and then milk the bank a bit more. But please, dear god, let the time go quickly!!

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So much for directions. Guests and I spent a good 45 minutes looking for the elusive Bruno. Up and down the road to Bisenti. Ran into my friend Camillo on one pass, who clarified the way. "No, no. Not on the way to Bisenti. Towards Bisenti but then up the hill to Appignano. You can't miss it along this road. It's on the right."
Off we went, but "up the hill to Appignano" we saw nothing resembling an automechanic shop. So stopped at a bar to ask if we were on the right track. This time it was my friend Carlo who did guide duty. He just happened to be among the perennial bar guys at this particular one. He took me across the street to the "shop": a house with a long, steep driveway leading to the back. Carlo rang Bruno's bell. No answer. "Odd", he mused. "His key is in the door. He must be here." Sure enough, a house key was dangling from the doorknob. For anyone to turn and enter. Carlo didn't give it a second thought, as thought leaving keys in your door was commonplace. Indeed, I have often seen keys ahnging from knobs all over Castiglione. I just assumed it was a forgetful population. But perhaps it's a custom that lets neighbors know you are home.
Carlo led me down the steep drive. There, hidden under the house, was a garage bay. In it way my lovely blue dolphin. Bruno greeted us. He was a pale, timid-looking, bespectacled man with a stutter. He asked for 300 euro. No receipt allowed. Fine. As long as I have a key, I don't need the tax deduction and Bruno doesn't need to do....whatever giving a receipt would require him to do. I jumped in the driver's seat, put the key in the ignition, turned it, and....my little darlin' came alive!
Bruno shook his finger. "But that is the only key",  he said. "you will have to get another. Sandro will explain ."  Fortunate, because a stutter and my ear fo Italian do not make for 100% comprehension.

When I called Sandro later, he said I would have to go to a Lancia dealer for a second key. A key made at any old key duplication place would open only the doors. It would not start the ignition.
"Well, maybe I'll just get a few door keys and keep the ignition key hidden in the car." I said. I wanted this car journey to end. "At least then I'd always have a way in and always know where the ignition key was."
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone. "Teresa," Sando said slowly, "Get another key."
"Okay", I said.
But it was Saturday afternoon. Nothing would be open, right? I made a beeline for the beach, single key in hand.

Car KEYS (Note the plural!!)

Seven Days Sans Transit: Days 2 - 5

Day 2
As soon as office hours arrive, I call Sandro, the mechanic who sold me the car, to ask what to do about   the keys. His first question is: "Where is the spare?"
I pause. "In the stolen purse."
I can hear his head shake as he exhales "Ahhhhhh...."
He says he will call the Lancia dealer tomorrow and let me know what they say. In the meantime, my kind Scotts friend Shiela, one of the many who received a frantic text last night, offers to drive me to the ladies luncheon tomorrow. At least I can socialize.

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Day 3
No word from Sandro. My car remains abandoned in the parking lot of the Pescara airport. Racking up the meter at 11 euro per day. Note: Call Sandro first thing tomorrow!

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Day 4
Sandro has explained what the Lancia dealer told him. But I don't understand and after asking him to repeat himself 80 times, so I can follow both the Italian and the mechanics, he becomes frustrated. We agree to call in language re-enforcement later in the form of my intrepid property manager, Laura. She has just returned from a vacation in Venice and has no idea of the imbroglio triggered by my being on my own in absence.

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Day 5
Standing in the blazing heat of the Pescara Airport parking lot. Waiting for my American friend Richard to circle back and find me to take me home. The complex chain of timing a communication required to arrange the towing of my car felt like a top-secret military operation. Laura calling Sandro who had to call Paolo the Tow Guy and the "elettrauto" to which the car would be towed who had to then call each other back an forth and then my having to call Richard several times because the rondevous time for the tow kept changing. Then once I was deposited at the airport, having to maintain contact with Richard to update time on the continually revise arrival times of the tow truck so he could pick me up and then alternating those calls with calls to Sandro to let him know that all phases of Operation Macchina da Teresa were being implemented. Are you following all this? Me, neither.
Now watching my car become a blue spec as it bobs away atop the flaming yellow tow truck. Just paid some guy I've never met 150 euro cash to take it away. To another guy I've never met and whose whereabouts are still uncertain to me but who Sandro has said it eh "elettraluto" who will reprogram the ignition system so a new key can be made in 1/4 of the time and at half the price quoted by the Lancia dealer. Without understanding either electronics nor auto mechanics, I am taking it on faith that Sandro has set me on the right path. Apparently, as Laura translated while I tried to catch it over the speaker function of my cell phone, this method is an alternative to taking 20 days for the Lancia dealer to create a duplicate key from the existing ignition for 500 - 800 euro while the car remains in the airport parking lot at the stated 11 euro per day. Either Sandro is doing me a huge favor with some creative problem-solving, or all three guys are part of an Abruzzese wing of the mafia and I've just paid someone the equivalent of $200 to steal my car and take it to a guy named Bruno the Alleged Elettrauto.

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Evening of Day 5
Spent about an hour online trying to find Mr. Bruno the Alleged Elettrauto via the "pagine bianche". Panic and doubt level reached epic proportions. Not only not feeling like a "real" Italian, but feeling like a "real" idiot. Finally contacted Mr. Paolo the Tow Guy. He gave me Mr. Bruno's cell number. A live voice allegedly belonging to the Alleged Bruno responded to my call. Car will be ready on Saturday morning. Come pick it up. No definite time. Vague indication of the location of the shop. And the hours. And the cost.  Too hard to understand over the muffled static of cell phones. Wait until Saturday and sort it out in person. And hope.

to be continued.....


Through it all, being mindful of returning to the house in time to check in new guests.

Seven Days Sans Transit

Day 1

Wait. This cannot happen to me. This is relegated to the realm of the naive tourist. I'm a real Italian! I look Italian. I speak (some) Italian. I am an Italian citizen with a tax number and an identity card, and a passport and I've even bought a car! I have an Italian car, damn it, with an Italian license plate. A real car of my own and not on on (expensive) loan from a rental company. My badge of authenticity. Maybe that's why I brought BOTH keys on this trip. I was just so darn tickled with having my very own set that I wanted them with me. To feel, to jingle and hear a musical accompaniment to my real Italian self: the "La macchina di Teresa Mastrobuono" aria. But my real Italian car is sitting about 18 km away waiting for me to drive it home. Except I can't do that now. The car keys - the original and the spare are in the purse. And, I've just discovered, the purse is gone. Stolen, apparently, from my tote bag on the train somewhere between Bologna and Pescara. Stolen purse. It was true. Although I couldn't believe it, I knew it was true. Now what? After a 7-hour train trip, 5 of them next to a fat man with hairy arms that kept brushing against mine in the sweltering train car, so that I could feel his sweat and the scratchiness of the synthetic fabric of his shirt, all I wanted to do was get home. But home was 40 km away from my present location at the Pescara train station. And, right, I have no car. Luckily, I have a phone. And as an Italian who owns her own Italian house, I have friends here. I called every single one in the contact list - Italian, American, British, Scottish. No one was roused. It was a Sunday afternoon. When all "real" Italians of any national origin or sense were either with their families or at the beach. Not me. My authentic ass was in a sling. And since the validity of my national identity was doing me no good, I switched to tourist mode. Where would someone with no ties at all to this country begin? Right. The police. And off I went, carting what was left of my luggage with me.

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Day 1 into 2

The police at Pescara Centrale station were nice enough to teach me the word for "robbery" ("furto"). And to let me know they could do little else but take a report. Even though I played the poor stranded femme fatale role to the hilt to try and jockey a ride home, I ended up returning home via a 65 euro taxi ride. My cleaning lady lady let me in to my house with her spare key. My house keys were keeping the car keys company. The cab driver was not inclines to stop at the big IPER grocery store, the only one open on Sunday, to pick up food for dinner, as I had planned to do if I'd had my real Italian car. I resigned myself to making do with the lump of warm cheese and 4 bottles of wine the considerate thief had left behind.  By some grace or pity of some higher force, my previous guests had left behind some great homemade ravioli and a jar of sauce canned by one of the local ladies. I feasted. I did break open the wine. Only one bottle. And fell right to sleep after dinner.

to be continued....