For all those that have gone before me and for all those wannabes yearning to get to Italy, I did it! Finalmente! After 15 years of dreaming, planning, researching and interacting with so many of you in this forum, it's real -- I'm here in Martina Franca, Puglia. The unprecedented heat wave greeted me on my arrival, but I learned that the city of my birth, Boston, is also going through it's own alarmingly hot stretch of weather. I arrived exhausted only six days ago. My original flight to Italy was cancelled due to a strike in Rome. I had a cat with papers that were time sensitive and had to decline the flight offered through NYC the next day. I had just sold my home and was obligated to vacate the premises. I was homeless and needed a place that night -- again with a cat. I had to extend my stateside car rental for a couple of days and also had to change the reservation for the car rental in Italy. Oh, and I need to let my landlady in Italy know that it would take a little longer to get there. I finally got on a flight two days later than the intended one. The cat did as well as could be expected. I was happy he could travel with me in the cabin. When we went through customs in Rome before catching a connecting flight to Bari, the authorities didn't even acknowledge the cat. We picked up the car in Bari and took a one hour drive to Martina Franca. All I did was sleep until I realized all of this wasn't a dream after all. I really was in Italy -- my new home. Dealt with the heat by choosing a delightful beach cove in Egnazia. The water was sooooo warm, not like the beaches in New England where your thighs go numb with the cold (not to mention other more sensitive anatomical parts. The iPhone in the states was cranky and I had no internet. The phone eventually got acclimated to its new home too and I was able to purchase a TIM modem that is good in the apartment and travels with me anywhere I go. You can put it in your pocket and it cost only 59 euro for three months of service. Problem solved. Nearly one week in, we are enjoying Martina Franca's fantastic one-month long music festival. The night breezes are very cooling after very hot days. It hasn't been easy; but things are looking up. My ancestors came over in 1906. I keep thinking how much more difficult it had to be for them. Salute a tutti in questo forum!
