La casa mia, and laundry day

This is my new building, and behind the two top windows you will find my adorable new apartment. It is a little bit of a climb, but the exercise is great, and the rewards are tons of light and a great rooftop view. Moving in was... interesting. Thankfully, I had a dear friend (thank you, Jordan), to drag my belongings up 7 flights of stairs. Let me take this opportunity to remind you that I sent a duffle, snowboard, and an entire suitcase devoted to just my shoes. And by shoes I mean 2 pairs of motorcycle boots, 3 pairs of brown boots at all different levels of distressing, and 3 or 4 of the chosen pairs of sneakers and then some...

You can see the top of the Duomo from my window.

This perfect "monolocale" came to me by way of a friend of a friend, of a friend. Isn't this always the case in Italy? "Monolocale" is what the Italians call a studio. Mine is a duplex with the bed situated upstairs. There are two small downsides to this. Since I am on the top floor my ceilings are slanted because it's the roof. While this is charming, I cannot stand up straight when I get out of bed without risking a concussion. I have perfected the art of walking with my torso at a 45 degree angle, and sometimes when I am downstairs I find myself doing it there too. Downside number two is the staircase you see in the photo above. 

Of course learning how to maneuver myself to get around my apartment was only one lesson in Italian living. It took me at least 5 days to figure out the light switches, and don't think for a second a day goes by without me accidentally opening the front door to the building while I am trying to turn off my reading lamp. For any of you that have traveled to Italy you know what a treasure hunt it can be to find the light switch, lever or pedal for the sink, and the flusher for the toilet. As you are just about to press the button you are praying to yourself that you are not alerting some emergency fire system... in Austria. Because well, you just would not put it past the Italians to have some kind of foreign alert system set up in the bathroom of the small cafe on your corner. But the light switch probably doesn't work anyway, because the guy who changes the light bulbs is on a semi-permanent lunch break, and the 'bathroom light bulb store' decided to close early today, or doesn't sell light bulbs for the bathroom at all. 

I decided to post photos of laundry day because I think it's funny and it also gives you a tour of my apartment. So much laundry had piled up that upon arrival I was anxious to do it. I was so excited to see my little lavatrice in the bathroom that I did all of my laundry without realizing that I did not have the proper drying racks. 

This is the upstairs, the bed is to the left. Those are my jeans, which took 4 days to dry. Tank tops are averaging 2.5 days, and my sweatshirts should be dry by April.

The drying rack you see is the one and only. Obviously not enough for the amount of laundry I will be doing. The kitchen with the essentials: a bottle of Montelpulciano, and the stove-top coffee maker. And my socks.