Hail and the Mall

Tuesday morning about 6am we woke up to the heavy sound of hail pounding on our windows. It actually accumulated a bit, looking like snow (photos courtesy of our apartment manager, Paolo):

 

You can see the pavement covered with it, as well as some in the grass. It had mostly melted by the time we went downstairs, so it's good Paolo thought to take a picture.

I installed a new hand towel ring (from amazon.it, of course) in my bathroom. The old holder used suction and would fall off every so often, plus the hook wasn't very good so my towel would fall off if not placed just right. This new one is very nice, a delightful upgrade as far as I'm concerned.

 

At noon we walked downstairs to inspect the apartment of the Sorelle right below us. It took less than half an hour, and we noted a few things to follow up on -- nothing major. Wednesday is our travel day to inspect four more apartments much more distant, so this was a good warmup.

After lunch we went to the mall for a while. My wife made an Ikea trip for a few small things for the apartment, including new handles for our kitchen cabinets. The old ones required you to pinch them with the thumb and forefinger, which was especially difficult for heavy drawers. The new ones allow you to just wrap any two fingers around and pull, and they are much easier to use! Our apartment definitely got some upgrades yesterday -- a few euros goes a long way.

Old , old, new

 

 

We also bought a few things at Auchan. While we were there, we looked at new fridges -- the store has everything! We are hoping that the mission will pay for a replacement, but if not we'll do it ourselves. 

I went to the Vodafone and Wind stores (cellular/internet providers) in the mall to ask about getting faster internet (fiber). Wind, our current very slow DSL provider, was not being very helpful. They wanted me to get ID documents from the Thackers back in the USA in order to change the account name, and then they said it would be expensive to get fiber. For new customers it is priced comparably to DSL, but no such deal for long-time customers. Finally in frustration I asked "so you basically are telling me to go to your competitors and get fiber?", to which the response was yes. So I went to Vodafone, with which we already have two cellular SIM cards, and for 34 euro/month they will install fiber for us. Done! They also gave us a new SIM card that I can use in the MiFi device. It should take a couple of weeks to get an appointment for installation, but soon we will be really connected. 

On the way home, we stopped at Lidl for a few minutes to get some food, including amaretti cookies (my favorite) and buckwheat/walnut bread. Mmm. It took two big loads from the car to get everything inside the apartment, but it was worth it.

In the evening, I had some questions about my Vodafone SIM card, so I chatted with their support people online. Turns out that my phone was never properly configured to use their network; thus it was using a competitor's network with their SIM card, and I was being charged 6 euros per day for the privilege (all this on a 10 euro/month plan)! The guy at the store seemed to be quite sharp, but he must have just forgotten. Anyway, they promised to have somebody call me on Wednesday to discuss the issue. Meanwhile, I turned off that SIM card and reverted to my mission SIM card for the time being.

In the evening, Ugo contacted us to say that a couple of people had requested to take an Institute class on family history (the class is Religion 261). At first glance, the manual is quite dated and rather lame, but we spoke on the phone with our former Area Family History manager in Salt Lake from our prior calling. He concurred that the official manual is not greaat, but found some wonderful online materials that are actually being used these days. Given that, Dee is all excited about teaching a new Institute class here on the topic, probably online via video (Zoom), starting next week. She will be great at it, and I can help. Surpisingly, she enjoys all the cooking she does, but this will be a nice change of pace and opportunity for her.

Overall we felt like we got a lot done, and it sure has been nice to have a bit of down time this week. Nevertheless, I haven't even had time to turn on my new laptop yet, which tells you how busy it has been for us. Serving here is running us ragged, but in a good way, and we love it.