It's Lucky Monday!

Well, it is Monday and we finally got a car! Yay! And had some interesting adventures along the way......we got up early this AM to walk about 1/2 mile to the bus station dragging along our suitcase full of dirty clothes (no laundry facilities here at the timeshare)...we had to catch a bus into Chiusi where there was a car rental and a laundromat. On the bus was a large and very fun group of Austrailians whose mother had flown them all to Italy for her 70th birthday.....she comes here from Austrailia every year, she loves it so much and rented a villa for 19 of her children, spouses and grandchildren....wow....they were having a blast and were a lot of fun on the bus. When we got to the car rental there was a couple in there that were having a meltdown. They rented a car in in the States quite some time ago and paid $1300 for it and it wasn't there....I would have a meltdown, too! The were REALLY mad and yelling at the poor guy at the front desk and it really wasn't his fault....well, it turns out that they were not just from the US, they were from South Carolina, Pawley's Island,about 1 1/2 hours from us! Small world, huh? They ended up leaving and trying to find another car after threatening to sue the world. Then we ended up getting a free upgrade on our car, (the cheapest they had) to a Mercedes....small model but really nice and it is automatic, which is really hard to get here. What luck! Then we tried to find someone who spoke English to tell us how to get to a laundromat and no one understood us. We finally found a young gal in her car that said "follow me" and took us there....she actually had laundry there in the dryer!!! The only thing we came home without was groceries, we have been here 2 1/2 days with no grocery stores near or open. The one we found in Chiusi was closed all afternoon for siesta...so we had an ice cream for lunch and will go out next door for dinner. We have been on a really tight budget for meals and have not even been spending that much...just one meal out a day and we bring 1/2 of that meal home for later on........we could write a book on how to get by on a very frugal food budget....the food here is great!
Patricia, God BLess you for taking such great care of Barklee, he probably won't want to come home, and Jason, please tell Gabby that he was so right about Siena, we are going back tomorrow!
Catch you later with more pictures from today.
Caio, Tom and Jackie