My impression was that I was renting a traditional apartment... you know... on the second or third floor of a building. I was very surprised to discover that my apartment was truly on the "piano terra" (the floor on the ground). The second and third floors of the building are occupied by a set of business offices so I'm the only person around after about 6:00 PM till about 9:00AM the next business day. The building itself sits at the end of a very quiet lane which connects to a very busy street leading into the city center.
As is obvious, the building is set behind a wall with an electronic gate that I can open with key fob. The view from the back yard looks like this.
Oh great! I even have my own lawn! I hope I don't have to mow it. Thus begins my adventure of finally getting to be the old man in the basement. My experience so far in this place has really made me feel my age. By that I mean, I grew up with appliances that had knobs and buttons. If you needed to turn on the oven, you just turned a dial to the desired temperature and pushed the start button. If you could read a temperature dial and locate the oven start button, cooking was relatively foolproof (especially for me). If you needed to do a load of laundry, the same process could be followed. Find the laundry detergent, throw in the clothes, decide the size of the load and the water temperature, and push the start button. Everything was idiot proof. Even I could function without too much trauma.
But my cozy little world of familiar appliance controls vanished here in my new apartment. That's because all the appliances were new. The apartment was totally repurposed from scratch just about a year ago and the listing was new on Airbnb when I found it in June. I think the place may have been rented out once before me but everything in the space seems to be just out of the shipping container. That wouldn't normally be a problem. But the owner of the apartment who works in Lucca as a leasing agent had very little knowledge of all the details that would give me panic attacks for days. The appliances were as much of a mystery to her as they were to me.
But wait... there's more. The oven/stove wasn't a traditional oven. No, no, no. It was a combination, microwave/convection/normal oven with an endless number of possible settings. Oh boy. Just the right tool for me. The washing machine wasn't just a washer. It also doubles as a dryer but I have no idea how the drying feature works. I was delighted to just get the right combination to wash my clothes. I can easily just put the laundry on a drying rack under the Tuscan sun and wait about an hour for the clothes to dry. Tech I can master.
Oh yes, and then there's the digital flat screen TV with the ever present remote. I never met a remote that I understood. But technology has left me so far in the dust that I am terrified of straying away from my "safe" haven of my Google YouTube channel. I've tried several times to access my Amazon Prime service but I keep getting kicked out because they want my 2 step verification which uses my US cellphone number. I'm in Italy. My US cellphone service is useless here. I have to use my Italian phone when I'm here because I'm here. Duh! Google it is for the next 7 weeks.
Fortunately, for me there was one piece of technology that came with the apartment that I was familiar with...the bicycle! It's been nearly 50 years since I've been on a bicycle for more than 10 minutes or used one as a means of transport. Indonesia in the early 70's was the last time I used a bicycle to get around. But here in Lucca, bicycles are extremely useful. The land is flat and car and truck drivers are very careful around cyclists. Better yet, urban areas ASSUME lots of people will be using bikes. There are dedicated walking/biking lanes on all the major streets and outside the city there are actual bike paths that allow people to move about on bikes without other traffic. Bicycles in most of Italy aren't toys. They are a genuine, useful way to move around.
The most delightful feature of these wonderful local bicycles is how easy they are to operate. They are effortless to pedal, especially on flat roads/paths and many of the ones like mine have only one gear. You can see on my vehicle that there is a shopping basket in front and another rack on the back for carrying stuff as well. The hand brakes are precise and strong and this one has front and rear LED lights to let others know where you are. So for all my struggles with the modern technology giving me fits, I really have to admit that racing around the city on a bicycle makes me feel like a kid again as I take on the larger world that the bicycle opens up. Rolling around Lucca on wheels makes me forget about going back to being the old man in the basement.
Yup. That's my story. And I'm stickin to it.
Dan
No comments:
Post a Comment