Florence Apartment

We are taking a short break from all of the food posts to tell you about our first few hours/days in Florence.  The apartment we rented in Florence is just the cutest thing.  It is newly remodeled - hardwood floors, modern kitchen, nice bathrooms - looks nice, doesn't it?  

We are the first tenants it has seen, and everyone keeps saying that as if it is a good thing - to say the least, its a mixed bag.

We got in and were told that the internet was “not here yet”, as if it were a train that might arrive soon.  Then we tried to take a shower and there was no hot water.  We called the offsite manager and he said, “It is not possible, it is a new apartment”.  Well buddy, it sure is possible.  Anyway, they came out and had a look and said that the owner’s son would come the next morning to take a look.  Alrighty, only 24 hours of cold showers and ineffective dishwashing.  Not a huge deal in the scheme of things.  Oh, also the toilets make a diabolical noise when flushed - they groan obscenely for about a minute.  

Anyway, after discovering the hot water problem we turned on the air conditioning and basked in its glory for a full hour before the power went off.  We stomped around for a while (after checking all inside circuit breakers), made some expensive calls from our cell phone, and the manager said, “What do you want me to do about it?  I am in Lucca - I cannot help you.”  What we want you to do, pal, is give a crap about us - it's only your job!   Our dinner was cooking on the electric stove when all power ceased, so obviously eating was out of the question.  Needless to say, we had a drink.  Then we played some cards because we figured we should soak up the daylight before the apartment dark for the night.

So eventually we heard voices speaking English outside our door (hallelujah) and we practically pounced on them to see if they had power (of course they did, just our special apartment was off).  One of the guys actually owned his apartment and walked Red down to show him the main circuit breaker for the whole building which was hidden in some wooden cabinets on the first floor.  

So once again all most was right with the world, and we went back to making dinner (although the power went off 2 more times while we were cooking).  

The next day we had to fix our bank accounts (also having problems in Italy) and when we came back they were fixing the water heater.  YAY!

But don’t hold your breath because then two hours later when we fired up the AC, the stove and the hot water all at the same time, the circuits had a meltdown.  But why would we expect to be able to cook, use the AC and maybe run the dishwasher all at the same time?  Are we too American?  Is this too much to expect?  Oh, and you can’t use multiple water sources at the same time either...as in when you are in the shower, if someone turns on the kitchen sink the pressure drops to zero and there are drips coming out of the shower head.  Red and I are constantly screaming from the shower, “What are you doing????  Whatever you are doing STOP, JUST STOP”.  Good thing this amuses us...hahahaha...hmm.

But really, sometimes we just don't care about all of that because the apartment is a 5 minute walk from this:

The Duomo.  

Comments

[Sara Mesing]

This sounds like every annoying experience I've had in France with moving, installing and removing. Interesting how customer service has a whole new meaning in Europa, eh?

[Sara Mesing]

Ps. The Duomo - amazing. I wanted to move in.