[Doug]

Giancarlo e tutti,

I have to throw in the male view here. I wish I had a video camera for the dealings both with the Sarrubi family on kitchens, and the other store near Grisolia for the bath and flooring. Looking back, both are very funny.

At Sarrubi, the son Biagio and Di went round and round over things and we all were confused with translations. He flipped back and forth thru a catalog asking "questo, questo" and it did not compute with us as we already knew what we wanted, but it was the combination of things in the book--he expected us to stick with them. We then came back to the store to "tweak" our order and did not have Tony Hackett with us for interpretations! Eventually, it all worked out and I (innocent bystander) learned that Biag's problem with our lousy Italian was partly due to Calabrese dialect. I thought he wanted to play golf with me, but he was talking about espresso. I hope to take him for coffee when I return.

The bathroom and floor tile store was also interesting. There must have been 5 guys following Di around that store picking out toilets, shower stalls and plumbing fixtures. THEN we got into the floor tile for the whole house and we followed her for another 1/2 hour or more until she found the floor tiles that she liked. She kept asking us to take a coffee break but it didn't work. Of course, being Di, the tile was the most expensive possible flooring in all of Europe. The savings on the kitchen counter tops discussed earlier may cover the flooring cost.
My sweetie is a great landscape architect and also a great interior designer, but her choices don't come cheap--then again the place is nice and small. The local tradesmen will do a nice job, but Di will be the one to put the final touch to things as always. And I'll be there to do as needed!

Have a Nice Weekend, Doug