I got a package!!!

I actually received my coffee maker!!!!  The AeroPress is AMAZING!  Seriously, I know that not everybody typically weighs their coffee and hot water; nor measures temperatures; pre-soaks the paper filter; times the bloom time and infusion time; and definitely remembers to stir the grounds and water mixture as it's draining through the filter...  But this is so easy and so good!!

Step 1:  Grind 100% arabica coffee with this Hario grinder (Thanks, Tabish!!).  I don't have my scale yet (Poste Italia...), so I use the 1-cup measure that's helpfully inscribed on the grinder.

Step 2: Put water and ground coffee in the bottom of the plunger.  Wait a couple seconds, and then use your hairy arms and slowly press the plunger down, producing an EXCELLENT cup of coffee!  Not bitter, not acidic, actually fruity and delicious!

Step 3:  Clean up by pushing out the "puck" of coffee directly into the trash.  Rinse everything under the sink.  Done!

Backstory -- the delivery:

So, when the delivery guy finally came yesterday (after I waited all day at home on Thursday, Friday, Monday, and then Tuesday...) he was insanely nice.  Smiling, laughing, talking to me at length.  And then he finished the delivery with "Hai patienza!"  (Have patience!)  

It's a good thing that he was so wonderful, or I would've been tempted to punch him.  WTF, ITALY?

Old Wild West Restaurant and Saloon

Because every Italian train station needs some hilarious cultural appropriation!    

Here we have a teepee, totem poles, cacti (I think that totem poles were from northern tribes, while cacti were much harder to carve...  

In Italia le cose più simplici diventano sempre difficili

This evening I took a photo of the post office close to our apartment:

Isn't it lovely with the yellow lights shining, people of all ages standing together? All different models of cars were double-parked all up-and-down the street with people spilling out, going to the post office together!  Inside, one window is for mail and packages, all the others are for various forms of payment that must be done at the post office, like your garbage bill.  There is no order, but an unlabeled digital sign at the far-right reads:

4 E45
1 P20
2 D18
3 E39

As my friend Patrizia says, "In Italia le cose più simplici diventano sempre difficili"  (In Italy the most simple things always become difficult.)  You enter the post office, find the ticket machine, get a ticket corresponding to the type of business you wish to conduct, and...wait for your number to appear at the correct window!  This is not an indictment of public workers in Turin, but at any time, the folks "working" on the inside are talking, checking their cell phones, and avoiding the folks waiting in line.  They appear to have taken the all the lessons learned from the California DMV, the TSA, Customs, and every bank with tellers in the world -- and forgotten them.  

As a follow-up to earlier today:  no package delivery.  WTF, Italy!?

First Post -- Waiting For My Coffee Maker!

Italy is a charming country, filled with the nicest, warmest people.  The fruits and vegetables are uncommonly delicious. Roberto and his wife Lucia, my vegetable vendors in Turin’s Spezia open-air farmers market, are uncommonly warm and kind.  I almost don’t want to buy potatoes if his hands haven’t selected them for me.  I know that sounds ridiculous, but try, then judge.  Same with artichokes, green beans, eggplant, tomatoes, parsley, catalonia (an alien-looking salad green).  My butcher, Nicola, is similarly fantastic.  Despite his anti-immigrant stance (who’s he talking to?  I wasn’t born here), his little packs of 6 eggs for 1€ are fresh, his pork is freshly-sliced and tender.

Unfortunately, I will be seeing none of these people today, Monday.  I’m waiting for a package to maybe show up.  Same as Friday.  Same as Thursday.  Surprisingly, same as much of last week!  If you are not home when you ring your doorbell, the package goes either to package-purgatorio, an SDA (delivery) warehouse in Settesimo Torinese, a nearby town; perhaps to some older Italian gentlemen wearing blue suits, fedoras, and carrying violin cases; or maybe you get lucky and it goes back to the original shipper again.  If you’re my dad and shipped me 3 boxes of my kitchen supplies, say goodbye to several hundred dollars. Thanks, Dad!

You may think that a phone call to the shipping company might help.  Hahahahaha!  First, be sure to add money to your cell phone, because calls to customer support cost money.  They’re like 1-900 calls in Italy, except you don’t get a happy ending.  Take today’s call(s) to GLS, the shipping company currently delivering my coffee maker, which I forever regret ordering because of this shipping thing.

Ring, Ring:
“gobbledygook-in-Italian-that-might-say-that-this-call-will-cost-money-Press-1-if-you-want-to-try-to-find-your-packages-or-hang-up-and-just-try-to-use-our-absolutely-terrible-website.”

OK, having been to their non-functional website, I press 1.

“Per servizio in italiano, 1. For service in English 2”

Woo-hoo!   I get service in English!

“Operatorio numero Uno-Tre-Cinque-Sette-Due (1, 3-5, 7, 2)”, a pause, *click*

I’m disconnected.

A message pops up on my cell phone saying that the call has cost 1.36€.  

I try this repeatedly until I get a person to answer.  She only speaks Italian, so I struggle through in my 1st year Italian.  “I have package.  I home.  Where package?”  She quickly reassures me that despite what the website says (I express surprise that the website works for her), my package is sent out for delivery today.  By quickly, I mean, she speaks like she just contracted diarrhea and needs to finish the call before she can sprint to the bathroom.

It turns out that SPEAKING  LOUDLY  AND  SLOWLY is not terrible guidance for speaking to foreigners.  Try it if you find a non-native English speaker.  Maybe they won’t reply with “Yes!” the way that I seem to with this lady.  I let her know that I’d like some sort of delivery window so I can see Roberto and Lucia, maybe even have lunch with friends.

“Ha patienza.  L’autista arriverá oggi.”

Have patience, the driver will arrive today.  WTF, Italy!?