Stumped

It could have been more embarrassing than it was.

Over our various travels we have stayed in many different types of accommodation from hotels to apartments to single rooms in a bed and breakfast and used many different types of showers without any issue but the one in the apartment had us stumped this morning.

Sherry called out to me to come and get the shower going as she couldn’t, so thinking that this would be a piece of the proverbial I sauntered into the bathroom and saw that there were only two knobs on the modern looking shower so surmised that one of them was the answer.

Having turned and pushed both of them many times no water flowed and with Sherry standing there in her birthday suit all I could think of was to text the host and ask for instructions, so did just that.

As we awaited a response I thought back to the front door episode at Pescara and how that was just user error, so went back into the shower box and played around with the knobs this time just pushing the lower one in from the top, not trying to push it like a call button, and thankfully water flowed.

It was straight back to the phone to advise by text that no help was required - not sure where the host resides but if he was nearby and came straight over it could have been embarrassing (for Sherry)!

Communication with the young waiter at a cafe this morning was fun as we tried to order Sherry’s cup of hot water. He had trouble comprehending that anyone would only want a glass of hot water, he typed into Google Translate the Italian equivalent of hot water (l’acqua calda) and showed me and I confirmed that it was correct so off he went to the kitchen but came back and asked whether it was hot water for tea and we told him yes, but without the tea, so off he went and duly came back with what was required. He too enjoyed the exchange, appeared to want to learn what these silly English folk were saying, was never dismissive in any way and went out of his way to get the order correct. He was well worth the couple of Euros I gave him as we left and he stood at the door of the cafe with a big smile and a thumbs up.

What must have also been embarrassing to a driver at a set of lights today was the fact that as the lights turned green the elderly driver in the elderly car two or three back in the queue immediately sat on the horn (and when I say sat on the horn I mean sat on the horn) to tell those in front to move on and as they did he stalled his vehicle which caused those behind him to sit on their horns and give him the hurry up.

As for our day we spent the morning wandering around the inner city looking in shop windows, there being no tourist sites of any worth to go to and then walked to a shopping mall on the outskirts of the city for lunch and supermarket shopping.

Before dinner we had a stroll through a nearby park which is dedicated to Karol Wojtyla (Pope Paul II) who visited Foggia on 24 March 1987

Inside the park

Entry to the park 

The Police Centre

Looking down the main pedestrian precinct at morning tea (the city still to wake up)

Inside the chiesa

With rain over night and the weather for tomorrow looking slightly better than today we have put off making the 45km drive to the beach area until then.

With the debate in NZ re GST being dropped on fresh food and vegetables if Italy can have different rates of their GST (called IVA) then there is no reason why we can’t- as examples IVA on our various shops have been:

Fresh food and vegetables and milk 4%

Tinned fish, eggs and yoghurt 10%

Plastic shopping bag 22%

At the supermarkets they supply compostable bags for fresh fruit and vegetables and charge €0.01 per bag

Kms driven to date 3621

Kms walked to date 516.2

Spent on Diesel €226.02

Highest price paid to date for diesel €1.699/L Verona

Lowest price paid to date for diesel €1.479/L Freiburg

Spent on tolls €72.70 (should be more but not our fault 🤨)