I've Got a Master's in Recycling

All of this blogging about life in Italy and I've failed to introduce a member of our family.  Meet Maddy.  Or Madilicious.  Or Buddha.  Whichever you prefer.

Her favorite spots are in the sun, on the windowsill (where she is in this picture), or in any small teeny little hiding spot she can find.  She LOVES to be outside and always waits by the front door, hoping to make an escape.  Unfortunately, because of the type of fence we have and the busy road out front, we can't let her out.

And here she is, sitting in the foyer by the front door, just begging to be let out.  You can also get a glimpse of our Italian style tiles and the marble staircase in the background.  Exciting stuff, right?


While we're on interiors, I took a few pictures of the inside of the house today, just so you can see what it looks like.  First up, the bottom floor.

One thing about this house, and most houses in Europe, is the lack of closet space.  This entire 3 story house has one closet, on the bottom floor, and houses our mops and brooms and such.  The cabinets you see are it for the entire kitchen.  Just enough to house our dishes and cookware, and that's about it.  We have our food on bookshelves against the wall, and table linens and appliances (coffee maker, microwave, and ice maker) on another bookshelf on the opposite side.  All the bedrooms either have Ikea closets or clothing racks for hanging items because there just isn't anywhere else to put clothes.

(I'm sure Christine just LOVES that I'm posting all these pictures of their house) BUUUT, this is our family room on the 3rd floor where can often be found if we're not outside running around.  Jameson's play area is set up in the bottom left corner with all of his toys and books.

We just hung around the house today after being so exhausted from Venice yesterday and preparing to go to Tuscany on Wednesday, so I went out for a walk to take some pictures of Caneva while Jameson was sleeping.  Christine told me when I first got here that it nearly takes a master's degree to figure out the recycling program, and boy was she right.  We have 5 garbage cans at the house.  5!!  One big can (I say big but it's about 1/3 of the size of the Oviedo and Winter Springs issued green cans at home, exact replica though, just smaller) stays outside for our "trash trash," like dirty diapers and such.  Inside, we have a large can with a special blue trash bag for plastics, and a set of 3 smaller connected bins, for glass, bio, and paper.  The bio bin gets a special green bio safe bag, and collects all of our food waste, paper towels, and anything else that's biodegradable.  Once one or all of these indoor cans are full (normally the bio and plastic fill up first), we walk or drive them across the street to the dumpsters.

The teeny little green one on the left is for bio, the yellow is for paper/cardboard, the green is for glass, and the white is for plastics.  I believe someone comes around and picks up the "trash trash" but I'm not exactly sure and I'm not sure how often.  I've been here a week now and it's not full yet because we recycle so much.

I still can't get over how beautiful Italy is.  I'm not sure I'll ever be able to accustom to the beauty of this country.  I was literally standing in front of recycling dumpsters today and had to take pictures of my surroundings because they were just so breathtaking.

This picture is of the Caneva castle, which was in one of my earlier pictures as well.  I had a much clearer shot of the castle from where I was today.  We'll get there eventually so I can get some closer shots.

Tonight the weather was just too perfect so I went for a run.  The sun had just started setting at the beginning of my trip, but I made it all the way to the top of that wretched hill before the sun was completely gone and was able to snap a picture of the view.  I think the view alone is worth it to suffer the hill.  

The hilly green plot in the middle is a family vineyard, and all the rest are houses.  I couldn't see our house from where I was, but I did see a church that I want to try to make it to tomorrow.

I snapped a picture of the mountains earlier in the day, and then took another one when the sun was setting on the way back from my run.

Sorry for the smaller and less interesting than normal post again today.  We were having some issues with the internet today so I didn't have much time to write.  We don't have any plans for tomorrow either, so if there's anything you'd like to know or hear about, let me know!