Calabria: The Richest and the Poorest - The Pope slams mafia

Bangkok Post article about Pope and mafia in Calabria 10/10/11

While sitting this morning in Bangkok over my daily Bangkok Post briefly checking the WORLD section, my eyes got caught by a report from "Lamezia Terme" ...  

I learn about the Pope visiting Lamezia where he denounced during a Mass the "inhuman" mafia of Calabria, the so called 'Ndrangheta, which is already more powerful than the Sicilian mafia (see article above).
Indeed, there are those very rich mafia families in Calabria on one side and on the other side Calabria is said to be the poorest region of Italy with 27% unemployment. 

These statistics of course do not consider those who happily work "in nero" without ever paying tax. But still there is this gap. Although it is not that visible since this "honorable society" does not show off. 

I wonder what they think about the Pope's speech. Do they bother? They probably all go to church on Sundays. Maybe the mafia is one of the largest employer in the region after all. 

Difficult subject. Comments are most welcome.

no title

For this post I have no title.
Or should I call it "my strangest summer holidays ever" or "lost in renovation"?

Since ten days - this is how long I am now in the South of Italy - I am telling myself, this is only a short phase, we are going to move in soon, tomorrow, maybe, and tomorrow I am telling myself the same thing, we are moving in tomorrow, domani, magnana...

But what do we do in the evening without light in the living room? Or at night in the bathroom? Okay, lets buy lamps. Of course, CC does not want to spend his holidays buying lamps, so we buy all in once... not sure how many dozens we bought in one afternoon – mainly wall lamps (applique).  Is it only our team of electricians or do Italians in general have a passion for wall lamps?

wall lamps for the whole house

Luckily we found a shop similar to IKEA that has quiet a good choice (Semeraro at Lamezia's Due Mare shopping center). Of course we did not only buy lamps. Also adapters, plugs and jacks to harmonize Asian and European lamps and appliances with the two Italian systems of electric plugs we both have spread irregularly all over the house. - And hooks, we also bought lots of hooks and mirrors for six bathrooms...

red bathroom: mirror installed (inherited from mother-in-law),

matching lamp hopefully found

(in this room the camera failures always!)

When are we moving in?

When are we moving in? When will be our first night in the house - after all those years of renovation?!

We do not know!
That's what we ask ourselves everyday.....
We could already, almost.

The matresses are there. Even the matress protections. Enough pillows too. Also some sets of lenzoli, bedsheets, for sopra, but not for sotto, the sheets to stretch over the matresses were sold out at Vibo Center yesterday. But we could borrow one... We also have enough glasses and plates, some towels and clothes. Toothpaste, soap, toilet paper... yes, we could already move in. So what are we waiting for?

Maybe for Rosi, to give us a helping hand... the house has still a bit of construction site and lots of fine dust everywhere.

Angelo has been working non-stop in the last days for the flooring of the seminterrato, the basement. The sawing of the wooden panels still causes lots of dust. And the battiscopa, baseboard for the parquet was just ordered yesterday and will arrive next week. It is a ceramic baseboard and it's cutting will cause more fine dust... So, after another deep cleansing of the house - not sure, how many times Rosi cleaned it up yet - we might give it a try ...

After all these years of renovation, one day sooner or later does not count anymore.
We are not in a hurry.
But maybe a bit nervous?

Do we get cold feet???

Moving out of Hotel Mama???

Ha ha! It must be this!

The laundry will not be washed and folded and ready anymore. The table will not be set up and lunch served just in time after coming home from the beach. Food and drinks will not come out of the fridge automatically and the house will not be cleaned by itself. Oh, my...

Okay, just a few more days... let's enjoy Hotel Mama.

Now, I understand more than ever all these young and not so young Italians, and even the so called "mammone", why they stay as long as possible with la mama!

Hotel Mama in Vibo Marina

Furniture Delivery Italian Style

furniture delivery in a small village requires small vehicles

I thought this worth a photo. I almost missed the moment. The antique dealer and restorer came with a friend in his old Fiat. They had fixed the piece of furniture with some robes on top of the cute vehicle. With a bigger car they would have not made it through the small alleys to our door!

Blogging Dilemma: When Virtual Visitors Become Real

Is it a dilemma or is it not, when virtual visitors to your blog become real visitors to your life?

It depends. It depends on the intention of your blog and it depends on the visitor. It is not a dilemma when you want to sell something or rent something. And it is also not a dilemma when someone who became a "blogging friend" after a while of emailing back and forward agrees with you to meet in real life.

Yesterday, Angelo sent me an email saying an American couple stopped by and asked if they can see the house. They "knew" it via my blog. He showed them around and they said they will leave a comment on my blog about that visit.

So what would you say? How would you feel, while sitting thousands of miles away?

I can't blame Angelo, he is just proud of showing his work to someone who is interested. Not many visitors in Pizzo anyway at that time of the year. He is open minded and not chicken-hearted like me. And we have not yet had the situation that someone totally stranger would ask permission to have a sneak peak inside.

Then of course, this question suggests itself : "what is the point of blogging about all this ?"

The best thing of blogging about our renovation is, that we are getting some fantastic feedback and valuable input from readers who are interior designer, architects or interested, creative people with great taste and ideas like some family members and friends. Also family and friends are kept updated that way, as the renovation takes ages. Another very important aspect of keeping this blog alive is, that this blog helps us to document the whole work process and to get the best photos, manufacturers, inspirations etc. filed with tags.

My Italian family is very open about my blog. However, my German family does shake their heads about it: What if some crazy guy gets jealous and burns the house down? - While this is a bit exaggerated, a crazy guy might not look up the Internet for potential houses to burn down and travel far ... it might be a neighbour, however, looking for an opportunity to sue us for something.

That's why I am very wary and careful myself. And shy. I have only one blurred picture of myself, no pictures of my son, one picture of my husband from behind and very few from my Italian in-laws. Most personal pictures are from Angelo as he seems okay with seeing his picture and name in cyber space. Actually, I think, he even enjoys it. However, I am very discreet. Very selective with pictures. Very thoughtful with words, information, names and other details. (Did you realize, I did not mention from which US city these visitors came from?)

Of course, Angelo and CC cannot understand that I make all this thinking about this little incident (virtual visitors to my blog becoming real visitors).

So I asked Angelo to handle the next tourists who show up and request a tour of the house, to show them our semiinterrato, the beautiful basement and garden that will be available for rent one day. The upper parts, although not decorated yet, are private. I hope everyone understands and respects my protective reaction. Maybe just in time, before our house becomes a tourist attraction ...

Do you know how big of a role does football play in Italian men's life ?

That big:

- our 6 m high TV antenna -

I am filing this post under the label "Now I have to live with this". BUT I am NOT going to live with this. Either out neighbour is going to sue us, or I am going to buy a metall sew ! - was my first reaction.

I wrote a post and saved it as draft, because I cannot publish something I am too emotional about.

So I slept over it - one night - two nights ... now it has been almost four weeks. It kept me from writing about other nicer things a lot. But now, this thing needs to be introduced. 

My husband explained to me, that the antenna needs to be six meters high because of the mountains behind Pizzo, and in order to capture some channels that he would not get otherwise - some football channels.

Got it?

Italian men's first priority in life: FOOTBALL.

Italian men's sense for aestetic, that is very high, comes after football.

It seems that I am the only one in the family who disapproves this ugly monster antenna.

Italian women probably are used to this technical support for their husband's hobby.

Even my little half-Italian son seems to not understand me.

He said about the photo : "Wow! How cool! Looks like a space station's antenna !"

(He is 6 years old)

Well, I hope it must be possible somehow to move that thing to the left (close to the wall of the house). If one sets a foot on the terracce it should not be the first thing to see. It needs to move. I will keep you posted.

----
update: it was possible to move all to the left! :-)

"La Donna Napoletana"

our house with street festival deco

My neighbour brought me flowers to welcome us as new neighbours in the street.
How nice and thoughtful !
See the flower pots on the balcony above the entrance.

The funny side of the story is that when she brought the flowers and knocked on the door, we were not there. A worker let her in.

And I can imagine her face when she entered the house...

... and saw this welcoming entrance !

I am telling everybody and here on the blog that we started the renovation OUTSIDE.
And that we have NOT finished inside.

The house is not liveable yet.

Really !

I know, it looks so beautiful from the outside, that one cannot imagine that it is still a construction site inside ! Yes it is !!

So I have told my neighbour. But she must have been dazzeled by the beauty, and the fact, that in Calabria usually the houses are finished inside first - if at all. Some have no colour on their outside since 30, 40 years.

But she is not the only neighbour these days thinking we have moved in.
Signore R. wanted to take the balloons off our front door at the night of the street festival. He thought we need to go in and out.

When I answered, no need, we are done for today...
He asked: But are you not sleeping here ?

I laughed and opened the door wide for him to take a look.

"So, your house is like a donna Napoletana - bella di fuori e brutta di dentro ... - beautiful outside and ugly inside !


(Remark: I don't know this saying above about the donna Napoletana, the woman from Napels, maybe it means the city of Napels which is just pretty on the surface. If it means the women, from what I know, the housewifes of the South are cleaning their homes like crazy and leave their garbage on the beaches. So it would be the other way round: clean and pretty inside and dirty outside. - Any suggestions ?)

What you need to know when buying property in Italy

"Missing building licenses and faulty cadastral registers („registro immobiliare”) can change the dream of a holiday residence into a nightmare. German home loan banks (Bausparkassen) are warning of pitfalls especially in Southern Italy."

In this post I partly translated an article that I found online via Financial Time Deutschland, 2004. I deem it necessary for interested property buyers to know some Italian specialties:

"Real estate in the Southern Italian provinces of Apulia, Campania and Calabria is still offered at good prices. The problem in these provinces is that often houses have been built without building license.

Nowadays, the authorities are controlling more strictly the building licences. Is a license missing or falsified, the owner needs to pay penalty or - worst case - demolition is requested. In consequence some owners try to sell quick and at attractive prices.
Therefore German home loan banks are warning of buying Italian property that is located South of Rome, and they do not accept these properties as security for a loan.

Deficient Cadastral registers in South Italy

Even if a house was legally built, there could be problems for the buyer, because the cadastral registers in many South Italian communities are insufficiently managed. Often encumbrances or partition of a property are not recorded. A perfect flawless cadastral register is no guarantee, that the buyer is buying the whole property or that it is encumbrance free.

Licensing Requirements prohibit modification or extension

Other problems might occur when buying a rustico in Italy. In some communities exists licensing requirements that prohibit that old farm houses can be modified or extended. It is recommended to get a lawyer or architect who should check before acquiring a property, if a) the building is in line with any building license and b) if the planned modifications or extensions are allowed. The German consumer protection recommends: You should not alone rely on the statements made by the owner who wants to sell or the real estate agent."

Details about Italian land register systems

In Italy are existing two different systems of land registration or cadastral registration. This has an historical background. While in some Northern provinces the principle of the 'constituent publicity' is in place, in all other Italian provinces the French tradition of land registration is in place.

1. The first system, the principle of 'constituent publicity' from 1929 means that the registration of a property at the land registry is legally binding. If you are registered as owner you are the owner by law. This is comparable with the principles of land registration in Austria and Germany.

2. However in the rest of Italy the actual system is based on the duty of cadastral registration without 'constituent publicity'. The registration has no healing effect when the transfer of property has deficiencies. Only by 'adverse possession' the deficiency can be cured. The period for adverse possession is 20 years (Art. 1158 Codice Civile), in case of good faith 10 years (Art. 1159 Codice Civile).

Therefore the buyer's notary and lawyer should do an intensive research about ownership and possible encumbrances or partition of the property by going back 20 years !

sources:
Financial Time Deutschland, 2004
and

1. Italian land register law by Maître Giampettro Danieli & Rechtsanwalt Dr. Götz-Sebastian Hök

Precipitevolissimevolmente !

When you want to say 'as soon as possible' in Italian language it might be too late... because you will not be able to finish this word of 26 letters in time: "Precipitevolissimevolmente finish the facade and install the windows!"

Is this maybe the secret behind la dolce vita, that this word is just unpronounceable ?

Does 'as soon as possible' just does not exist in the Italian every day life?

Ah, it is not that romantic, of course different expressions are possible, egg prima possibile.

The history of precipitevolissimevolmente (hey, slowly I can remember it) and the longest Italian word can be found here (in Italian).

Italian Feelings

In the previous post I have introduced Angelo. He is my father-in-law and he is a big fan of my blog. Maybe the biggest. He tells everybody about this blog and to google 'Palazzo Pizzo'. He follows my blog regularly and he tells me when I wrote important Italian words wrong, like 'tartufo', the famous ice cream invented in Pizzo. Recently he even made me alter some post content for some serious reason. Read this:

When arriving here in Calabria about two weeks ago, I wrote about the new convenience of a direct flight from Germany to Calabria. In the original post I said that flying directly is so much better than flying with Alitalia and having to change planes with delays and loss of luggage. The next day, Angelo said to me: You cannot write that about Alitalia, this is not nice to say, also it is most of the time the fault of the airport staff when loosing luggage ...

Okay, I thought, I do not want to hurtt Italian feelings and mess with Italian national institutions, no problem to delete the name of the airline. Also I don't want to get sued by it (like the guy who created www.f#ckalitalia.com, the website I found last year when I was doing research for my lost suitcase for which I had to wait one week).

So I corrected my post. Deleted the name of the Italian Airline and also the one of the German Airline. To be fair. No product placement in my blog.

And you know what?
The same day at dinner, by the way, Angelo mentioned, that he had bought a remarkable amount of shares of - guess what Italian company?
---------------
(Alitalia).