una settimana in Italia

We began our trip to Italy true David and Caroline style. I spent the day over-thinking what needed to be packed, in addition to getting my hair cut, hanging out with Christine, and having lunch with Christine, Sam and his girlfriend Katie in Andover. David arrived home from work a little after 6:00, and after a quick review of what I had packed we were out the door by 6:30 with shuttle driver Christine to catch our 8:00 flight. We get to the airport to learn that our plane will depart in over 2.5 hours time. We were not delayed, we had both incorrectly remembered the time of our flight - which was apparently actually leaving sometime around 10:00. During our break we hung out in the lounge and ate tasty food. While David marveled at how fast the 4g internet on his phone was when used as a mobile hotspot, I worked away on my prelim document, which I was hoping to email to my adviser within a couple of days. 

On the plane we enjoyed good food, watched a movie, and tried to sleep. David managed to spend half the flight out cold, while I tossed and turned. When breakfast was served David woke up to find me in bare feat and grumpy because the plane was too hot and dry for sleep, so I had given up. We landed in Frankfurt a bit late so had a very tight connection. We seemed as though we were going to make it, but just as we got to the x-ray machine in security the German equivalent of TSA shut down security for a reason we were unable to understand, and we were left stranded for 15 minutes. Needless to say, we missed our flight and spent another several hours in the lounge waiting for the next one.

Once we got to Bologna, we first purchased two 1 Euro tickets in a red box machine that seemed like it was going to let us board the Aerobus. Upon boarding the bus, we realized that tickets were in fact 6 Euro each, and we had no idea what we were holding in our hands. Luckily they could be bought from the driver, so we took our seats and started watching for "Ugo Bassi", the stop closest to Katie's apartment. We had been told to get off after all the columns started, which made us laugh pretty hard on the bus because, in our eyes, there were columns EVERYWHERE. So, we just listened hard for some Italian that sounded sorta like Ugo Bassi and scanned the crowd eagerly at every stop (which actually wasn't many) until we saw Katie. She waved frantically to make sure we got off where we were supposed to, and then guided us back to her apartment while my suitcase (which still has a bum wheel) went clickity clack all the way down the sidewalk.

Our tour guide!

After a quick walk around downtown Bologna, we went back to the house for a delicious dinner of tortellini. I then worked some more on my prelim, finally going to sleep after about 36 hours of no sleep. Surprisingly, I was still able to write comprehensibly.

We spent our first full day in Italy touring Bologna. It was great to just walk around the city, marvel at the architecture, and see people going about their everyday lives. We had a ham and cheese calzone of sorts, bread with sauce, and fried cheese for lunch, sitting outside the leaning towers. One tower was REALLY leaning, and one not quite so badly. We were able to walk up the many stairs inside the not so leaning one, and get a great view of the city.

The more leaning tower


David and Katie at the top of the less leaning tower


Looking through a hole in the floor on the way down

After a smoothie at a gelato shop we went back to Katie's for the afternoon to "rest", which in fact ended up meaning a very long nap. 

For dinner we went to a tasty pizza place with Katie's "Italian Family" and even though we spent most of the evening speaking in English Katie translated the menu for David and I so that we could choose our favorite toppings. After dinner we all enjoyed some gelato on the square, and then wandered around enjoying the evening some before heading back to the apartment.

On our second full day (Monday) we got up early and took a train to Venice. We began our tour on the water taxi, where I tried to locate all the buildings in our guide book as we breezed past them on the Grand Canal, as well as share any interesting history about them with Katie and David. We got off at one of the last stops, near Piazza San Marco, and then located a sandwich shop recommended by the book for lunch. After that we somehow managed to skip the line to get into San Marco (at the suggestion of the book) by checking our bag at the bag check around the corner and then showing our bag check tag to the man at the front of the line. We spent the afternoon getting lost along the streets of Venice, with the general plan of heading to Murano to see the glass shops. We got to Murano a bit late, and sadly missed the glass blowing demonstrations. Still, the island was very quite with cute colorful buildings, and it was fun to wander in and out of all the shops. Katie was on a quest for beads, and I for a graduation present for Christine.

Piazza San Marco


San Marco

We went back to the main island on the water taxi and headed off in the direction of the Rialto Bridge, which is lined with shops. We finished the day at a restaurant with outside seating along the canal (which, according to the book would have more expensive and lower quality food), which we chose for the view. After dinner we headed back to the train station to catch a shuttle bus to our hotel for the night, which was a small room with bunk beds and a bathroom at a campsite. It was clean, comfortable, HAD AIR CONDITIONING, and cheap! Katie and Susan had stayed there when they visited Venice earlier in the year.

Rialto Bridge

On Tuesday Katie left early to go to Rovereto for a research presentation, and David and I headed back to Venice in search of the chocolate pastries we had seen the day before but never indulged in. Rather than head to the main tourist attractions, we wandered down what appeared to be a less touristy street because we saw many single people walking around doing things like carrying groceries, rather than staring with a puzzled expression at a guide book with a camera around their neck. We enjoyed watching the people, snacked on some fresh fruit from a market stand, and then ate two delicious chocolate pastries bought from a small bakery where the woman spoke no English and we had to order with a lot of hand waving. We then did a little bit of shopping, stopped in a grocery store to pick up a lunch of bread, cheese, milk and cherries (where we mistakenly bought parmesan cheese rinds, thinking it was sliced parmesan, woops).

We took the afternoon train to Rovereto to meet Katie. We arrived before she did, so headed up the quiet street of the small town towards the castle. We waited at the castle for Katie, where the three of us did a speed tour of the museum inside, and then headed back to the train station to return to Bologna - managing to enjoy a gelato on the way. We got back to Bologna pretty late, but not too late for another dinner at the apartment of tortellini, this time with wine and garlic bread as well.

View from where we waited for Katie at the castle

On Wednesday we decided to go souvenir shopping in Bologna and see the sights one more time. David and I bought lots of pasta, cheese, another graduation present for Christine, some wine, balsamic vinegar and chocolate. Lunch was at a tasty restaurant that brought TONS of food for one set price that Katie and Harvie had eaten at when Harvie visited. In the afternoon we packed everything up into our bags in preparation for our departure the next day, and then headed out for a dinner with outside seating, bruschetta, pasta and table wine. Dinner was great, and Katie and I had particular fun giggling all the way home from our 2-3 glasses of wine.

Souvenir shopping

More souvenir shopping

Dinner on the last night! Mmmm table wine... 

The next morning we packed up, hopped on the bus to the airport, and headed home! Luckily we were both able to rest up on this flight, and we made it back without delay to begin celebrating Christine's graduation!

More pictures can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/c.b.milne/Italy?authkey=Gv1sRgCLPi5JLw6uP8Kw&feat=directlink 

A makeover for the hallway, a haircut for the lawn, and a date with Home Depot!

Last weekend David and I spent a "relaxing weekend" working on the house after booking a last minute ticket for me to fly to Boston. We started Saturday morning by tearing up the dirty blue carpet in the hallway and on the hallway stairs, and then took a break to have lunch with Grammy Pat, Grandpa John and Harvie. Harvie was down in MA for a math meeting and met us in Andover to drop off some items for the house and have lunch. After a delicious cheeseburger we said goodbye and stopped by Dan and Purvi's house to say hi to the girls. Anika and Purvi were out, but we got to play with Olivia and Ella for a bit and catch up with Uncle Dan. While we were there we decided we should tile the entry to the apartment. When we removed the carpet from the stairs we realized that the entry way was painted wood plank - which we felt wouldn't hold up as well with wet shoes in the winter time. So we left Dan's house equipped with a tile saw and some tiling tools, and drove to Home Depot.

During our renovations, we have made one observation that seems to always hold true: home depot swallows people. By this we mean, people go off for a quick home depot run, and return hours later. Saturday was no exception. After two hours in the store, David and I left with tiles, cement board, tile adhesive, grout, door stops, blue floor paint for the stairs, sandpaper, and some wiring items needed to install a hallway light. We had plans to go out to dinner and a movie, but our date turned into perusing home depot aisles, painting the stairs, and tiling the entry. We finished painting and tiling at 2am, and went to bed.

When we pulled up the hallway carpet we were excited to find a hardwood floor that was in great condition - it looked like it had just been refinished! All we had to do was pull up a few staples, vacuum and then mop for dust.

Since the wallpaper is blue and we didn't have time to remove the paper and repaint this weekend, we decided to stick with a blue paint for the stairs. Instead of the bold dark blue that was on the stairs before, we went for a duller grayish blue. We repainted the vertical white part as well, and some of the banister posts.

David completed his first ever tiling job - and it turned out fantastic! We are really glad we chose to go with tile, it looks really nice.

On Sunday we tackled the lawn, and cleaned up the driveway and backyard a bit. We used a reel mower, which at first made me feel as if I had traveled back in time. With all the people out walking in the beautiful weather, I couldn't help but make jokes about what they must be thinking. This has less to do with the actual mower, and more to do with a memory I have from about 20 years ago. I remember driving by a house in Barre, VT where a man was mowing his lawn with a reel mower and I was fascinated by the contraption - I'd never seen anything like it! The mower did an excellent job though and the yard looks much better. I decided I liked our reel mower - we're helping the environment and getting exercise!

A view of the lawn from the front of the house!

From the sidewalk alongside the house. David went all around the outside of the fence digging up dirt and grass that had begun to spill onto the sidewalk. The yard could use some more grass, and probably some leveling, but it looks a lot better than it did!

We also cleaned up all of the weeds and brush (and trash) that had accumulated along the back fence and in the driveway and paved portion of the backyard. We now have a big pile of yard waste, and a driveway that is looking mildly better. Since this is where the future garage would go, we weren't quite as worried with the finished product!

We stopped working on the house Sunday in time to go to dinner and use one of our Groupons. We had a delicious leisurely dinner at the Elephant Walk, and made it to bed by midnight.

newly purchased old house + 9 days + lots of help = great looking apartment + sore muscles + exhaustion + smiles

On March 25, 2011 David purchased his first house, located at 1-3 Morrison Ave in Somerville. On March 26 David, his parents, Christine and I packed up his stuff from his old apartment and piled everything into the living and dining room of 3 Morrison. Filled with delicious pastries from Lyndell's Bakery, we spent the weekend stripping wallpaper, and literally chipping paint from what became known as the "Barney Room" - as you can see in the pictures, it was painted a blinding mixture of purple and green colors seen most commonly in a children's candy box (like Nerds maybe?). David's new roommate John moved in the night of the 26th, armed with an air mattress as tall as I am and a bag of clothes. John, and David's co-worker Kim, were there for a day to attack the resilient walls layered with paint and paper.

After a week "off" at work, David, his parents and I returned on April 1 to attack the house again. Christine, there to help again for the weekend, came with the much welcomed addition of Grandpa John (my mom's dad) who proceeded to work the entire week with Susan, David and me. Harvie had to return to VT to teach for Mon-Fri, and we had my dad there to transport much needed items from the St. Jay house for Christine and me, and help with the house, for most of Thursday and all of Friday. We worked on the house non-stop from about 9am to 2am (I "quit" early (meaning maybe 11:30) a few nights to do some work on my computer) for 9 days, but got a TON of stuff done, and the house is looking great! At the end of the week Christine moved in to the bedroom on the 2nd floor, and this coming week the last roommate, Jerome, will be moving in. Here are a few stories and pictures from the renovation week:

The "Barney Room"

This room, like most of the third floor, had a wonderful two layers of carpet. Layer 1, a nice dark purple to match the blinding wall paint. Layer 2, a beautiful brown shag to remind of us of changing decorating trends. The base layer was luckily a nice, non-leaded (we checked) maroon paint on wide floor boards.

Successful removal of both carpet layers made the room look remotely better...

This room was one of the two worst rooms to fix. In hindsight, we would have saved a lot of time by knocking all the walls down and putting up drywall. When we started though we didn't anticipate how long it would take to chisel off the layers of paint and wallpaper. Lesson: if it seems hard, put up drywall.

I barely recognize myself wearing Davids pants. My work pants were plastered with paint chips and sticky wallpaper... thankfully a belt seems to fix some of Davids smaller fitting pants. This picture shows the plaster walls, which were oddly covered in green stuff we assumed to be some kind of sizing, b/c it was water soluble and definitely not paint.

After many hours of work, we present to you the new and improved Barney Room! A soft blue for the walls, fresh brown paint on the floors, and some of Grandpa John's light yellow paint for the closet!

Another view of the new and improved Barney Room. The cardboard hole in the wall is an access panel that we created. It was later replaced with a wooden panel by Harvie.

The Bathroom

Lucky for us, the bathroom didn't need any renovations. However, 4 hours and two people were required to clean the bathroom. David is skeptical as to whether a cleaning of this nature was really required, but I promise you that the more dirt and grime we removed, the more dirt and grime we found. It was a filthy mess. I scrubbed most of the tile grout with my index finger and a scotch brite, not realizing we had a scrub brush that would have made my life easier. Needless to say, my forearm was in agony when I went to bed that night.

The "Room with No Heat"

At the beginning, this room seemed like it would be a lot easier than the Barney Room. However, we couldn't have been more wrong. Below a layer of wallpaper and paint was this annoying green paint that would half chip off. This means that when the wallpaper was removed, half of the paint went with the wallpaper and the other half stayed. The question became, do we remove the rest or leave it? Unfortunately, leaving it would have resulted in uneven walls, or walls that required a lot of spackle. So, we chipped away, for hours, and hours. My hands are still recovering.

The rectangular hole in the wall is where we redirected heat from the next bedroom over to this room, so that it would no longer be "the room with no heat". Grandpa John executed most of this project, after much discussion with David about the design of the redirect. You will also notice that there is drywall on one of the walls. This was put up by Harvie and David after we took down a shelf to reveal a large 1ft x 6ft hole in the plaster.

David finishing the drywall.

Dad and I painting the "room that had no heat". Dad unleashed his expert edging skills, and dug around for some late night energy and we finished off this room around 1am with David and Susan.

The "Blue Room"

This room is now David's room, and required the least amount of work to repaint. Lucky for us, the room did not contain any wallpaper. It did have quite a few cracks in the plaster though which required much repair. I performed my first real spackling job on a corner in this room! Thanks to Susan for the expert instruction.

The "Living Room"

This room was literally a piece of cake, and was a much needed easy job at the end of the week. There was only one layer of wallpaper, and no paint. The paper came off easily, and with the teamwork of David, Susan, Dad and me we had the room all stripped by mid-morning on Friday.

We painted this room "melted butter" - yum! We were a little worried by how bold and yellowy it looked when we started to paint, but when it was all done we thought it looked pretty good. We didn't do anything to the floors in this room other than clean them up. One wall in the living room received the drywall treatment.

The Kitchen (it's in there somewhere, I think...)

Grandpa John installed the dishwasher, which arrived courtesy of craigslist fully NON-functioning. False advertising by the seller, but luckily an easy part to replace. Grandpa also boxed off the piping under the sink, which had previously been exposed to all the lower cabinets. With a fresh coat of white paint, they are all looking pretty good now!

We stripped the walls in the kitchen that would be more difficult to work on once people had moved their stuff in. We thought the kitchen would be SUPER easy, as it seemed to have only two layers of wallpaper that were easy to peel off. We were wrong, though it didn't turn out to be too hard. There were MANY layers of wallpaper, on top of MANY layers of paint. We left the paint, removed the wallpaper.

I'm working real hard in this picture, aren't I...

We painted the kitchen a color called "Sagey" which seemed to match well with the existing counter tops.

The Pantry

The pantry requires a before (left, obviously) picture, even if it is a little blurry. The entire pantry was PINK, and had peeling linoleum flooring and less than usable cabinets. Grandpa John, with the help of my dad on the floor, tore everything out and leveled the existing shelves. Harvie then spent an entire day installing new shelvings below a counter top generously donated by Grandpa John. After a day's work fitting all the pieces together, Harvie sat down to dinner and looked at my grandfather's chop saw and said "we had a chop saw??? do you know how much time that would have saved???" David responded with a "oh, yeah, oops...". Even if it took a bit more time, the pantry turned out beautifully!

In case you need more "before" pictures, visit: https://picasaweb.google.com/dhp.porter/3Morrison#

For more renovation pictures, follow this link: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=slhp315&target=ALBUM&id=5596709666689905665&authkey=Gv1sRgCOW0ye3o05Km_wE&feat=email