Josh and Lou

Bungalow Tours Renaissance!

2011-08-29T02:01:00.004+02:00

Oh baby. We're back with another installment of Tours of the Bungalow: Bungalow Tours. It's our first one since being back stateside. In the following video, we introduce you the our Bungalow on Old Shell Road in HD. Oh baby.

Total Mind Blow.

2010-04-21T02:14:00.003+02:00

We're back in the States now (and have been since March 4). After a month or so of bouncing between our families' houses, we've dropped our anchor in Spanish Fort at the lovely bungalow of Douglas and Amy Anderson. We have a huge backlog of "Tours of the Bungalow: Bungalow Tours" that we hope to upload one day when we feel like it. Also, we will continue with the "Tours of the Bungalow: Bungalow Tours" tradition here in Spanish Fort. We've got our room almost totally finished and when it's done, we'll film a Tour.

In the meantime, here's a photo I took of Daniel while he was visiting us in Italy. It was shot with a disposable camera that Daniel spray painted red and gave to me.

Tours of the Bungalow, Episode 8 — Beyond the Bungalow: La Questura/Ufficio Immigrazione

2009-12-11T17:42:00.003+01:00

Welp, we finally got our permessi di soggiorno. We have been trying since the day we arrived to attain them, and now they are in our possession. We were never given a clear explanation as to what they are, so we don't know what they do; but we paid a lot of money and now we have them. HOORAY! While we were at the immigration office waiting to get them we decided to do a bungalow tour from "Beyond the Bungalow." Enjoy.

Tours of the Bungalow, Episode 7 — The Drawing Wall

2009-12-04T14:15:00.002+01:00

Today we present you with Tours of the Bungalow: Bungalow Tours, episode number seven. In this episode we provide a tour of the wall where we place our drawings. We also extend an invitation for a chance to be featured in a future episode of TotB:BT. Enjoy!

Tours of the Bungalow, Ep. 6 — Holiday Tree

2009-11-16T05:14:00.000+01:00

We got a sweet little package in the mail from Amy and Douglas containing a do-it-yourself Christmas tree. The following an incredible tour of us putting it together. Enjoy.

Literary Accomplishments and a Makeover

2009-11-10T16:00:00.000+01:00

Hello Friends and Virtual Vagabonds!
While we've been in Italy, we have read a lot of books—fictional and otherwise. We have decided to share that list with you here today.

Books (and short stories) that we have both read:
The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre
The Fall by Albert Camus
Women by Charles Bukowski
Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
The Last Question by Isaac Asimov
The Wall by Jean-Paul Sartre

Books that only Lou has read:
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Confession and Other Religious Writings by Leo Tolstoy
Numerous Florence Guide Books

Books that Lou has started:
The Grand Inquisitor by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Books that Josh has started, but soon sent him into an existential quandary and/or a state of pure intellectual inferiority:
An Answer to the Question: "What is Enlightenment?" by Immanuel Kant
Why I am So Wise by Frederick Nietzsche
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

Books that the two of us infrequently read aloud to one another:
The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, The Way by Charles Bukowski

Josh has also beaten Super Mario World Advanced on the GameBoy Micro—once with Mario and once with Luigi. They're Italian, right?

Also, we collaborated on the new header in order to give the blog a makeover.

How does that make you feel?
Let us know in the comments!

Tours of the Bungalow, Episode 5 — Espresso

2009-11-08T14:34:00.000+01:00

In this episode of Tours of the Bungalow: Bungalow Tours, we provide a tour of our attempt to make espresso.

Lucca — A Day Trip to Dream World

2009-10-30T12:20:00.000+01:00

Hay Guise!
We went to Lucca on Wednesday and it was magnificent. We packed a lunch, rode the train, walked around, then rode the train back. While we were in Lucca our camera battery died, so we started making short videos instead photographs. Also, our train had some electrical problems, so we were stopped in Pistoia for about an hour. Tthere couldn't exist a better representation of our day than the following video (don't forget that you have the option to watch the video in full size HD on the YouTubez. To get there, simply click play below, then click the video again to navigate to it's Tube page [for all the parents out there]).

Tours of the Bungalow, Ep. 4 — Dinner

2009-10-26T06:35:00.000+01:00

In this episode, we tour dinner. This is our longest running episode yet, as we are hoping for an endorsement from Kikkoman.

TotB, Ep. 3 — The Way the Heat Works

2009-10-24T10:34:00.000+02:00

In episode three of Tours of the Bungalow: Bungalow Tours, we will be giving you a tour of the way the heat works in the bungalow.

Also, for your information, we will always embed the videos below, but they are available in full size HD on YouTube.

Thank you and enjoy.

Tours of the Bungalow, Episode 2

2009-10-22T01:13:00.000+02:00

In this episode, we provide a tour of the cupboard.

JOIN US!:

New Bungalow Tour (sort of)

2009-10-19T20:47:00.000+02:00

HEY!
This is all you get this time—
A tour of our night:

Join us tomorrow for a tour of the "cupboard."

Tours of the Bungalow: "Bungalow Tours"

2009-10-18T14:49:00.000+02:00

We've decided to begin a new series entitled Tours of the Bungalow, or, if you prefer, Bungalow Tours.
Included below is the first installment, "The Spice Cabinet & Pantry."
Let us know what you think in the comments.

Vitto Messicano

2009-10-10T00:24:00.000+02:00

In our attempt to save money, we have been cooking most of our meals. Of course, we had been cooking our own meals while in the States, but this is a different beast altogether. Our main dishes were based on black beans, cumin, cilantro, monterey jack cheese, Crystal® Louisiana hot sauce and Morningstar Crumbles™ (a vegetarian ground beef substitute). Here in Florence, we were at a bit of a loss without access to any of these ingredients. So, everything we cooked tasted like olive oil and salt. Except for the first two night were we didn't carefully inspect the spices in the cabinet and were using sugar instead of salt. But after a a week or so here, we found a "Health Food Store" (the sign is in English) that sells fagioli neri—that's black beans in I-tal-yan. Some days after that find, we found Mercato Centrale where we purchased tomatoes, cilantro, (what we thought were) serano peppers (but turned out to be some sort of hellspawn with a spice that gets you in the throat), Mexican avocados, and CHEDDAR CHEESE. Can you believe that? Cheddar cheese in Florence. All the travel books and blogs said it was impossible. (This cheddar cheese has buried it's formidable stank into the fibers of our refrigerator and we nearly pass out when retrieving anything from said fridge.) Later that day we found (overpriced) flour tortillas and (again, overpriced) Tabasco at Il Centro, our grocery store of choice, of the brand name "Casa Fiesta." This has been the best meal that we have had since we've been here. We were both terribly full at one point but continued eating solely for the flavor. We had enough supplies left over to complete the act again the next night.

Lou had the foresight to capture the meal in pixels:

After this, we starved for a week or two. Then, a few days ago, we bought soy sauce and eggs and we've been living on vegetable fried rice.

Theater Outing

2009-10-09T00:51:00.000+02:00

A few days ago, Lou and I stumbled upon CineHall. It's an old theater that shows a lot of American movies with their original sound intact (OOS) and some dubbed in Italian. We found out that they were going to be showing a few movies from the U.S. in OOS, so we made some lose plans to go see one of them. Naturally, we forgot about those plans. Today, at about 16:00 (that's how Europeans tell time) we went wandering around with our books looking for a place to sit and read. We passed the area of the theater and decided to see what was playing. It was District 9, OOS. I checked my wallet and we only had 5€ on us, but the next showing was at 18:10 so we had some time to spare. We went back home and snagged some cash flow. Then we went and watched a movie instead of reading Fitzgerald and Salinger. What good Americans we are.

Click for a video of the theater from our seats.

Pizza by the Duomo

2009-09-29T15:18:00.000+02:00

We've decided to use a chunk of our available, transferable data and upload a tiny video.
This one doesn't tell you much, but it let's you in on something we really love to do.

Enjoy, my friends (also, note Lou's sass at the 0:20 mark):

First Post Euro-Side!

2009-09-28T15:58:00.002+02:00

Hello everyone.
Our post have much less frequent than we initially anticipated. This is to be blamed on our less than good internet. Connection is sporadic and once connected the signal is weak at best. N*E*Wayz.

We're beginning to blend into to Italian culture now. We're learning how to look and act and slowly learning how to speak. WE'RE LIKE AMERICAN BABIES!

We've got some photos for yous guys to peep and we will commence now:

We get caffelatte's every morning in the Tabbachi below our apartment.

This is our favorite pizza from a place by the Duomo.

This is Josh by a bunch of scooters.

This is a sandwich by the river.

66cl of beer for €1,35! (that's about 24 oz. and it's the expensive kind)

Here's Josh about to enjoy the cheap beer:

Here's a common sight, a family on a bicycle:

This is a 996 year old church we stumbled upon:

This is what our meals look like:

Our largest trip to the grocery store only cost us 27 euro!

This is our plug rig:

The flollowing are images from our trip to the Mercato Centrale today:

Progress: 98%

2009-09-13T00:49:00.000+02:00

We have everything we need to get in to the country of Italy and enough money to sustain us while we are there (hopefully). We are almost finished packing, and tomorrow at noon we will print out our plane tickets.

Once our "U.S. Business to Take Care of" progress bar reaches 100% we will be crossing the Atlantic ocean on a U.S. Airways jet.

Then we will land in Milan and our Italian Serious Business™ progress bar will be at 0%.
In order to fill it up we will need to:
Purchase train tickets to Florence
Ride the train to Florence
Find the realty agency
Sign the lease and get our keys
Find our apartment
Freak out
Apply for a Permesso di Soggiorno
Be approved for a Permesso di Soggiorno
Try to apply for a Residenza Anagrafica

Other important things that we will do that don't count as serious business will be:
Freak out
Purchase prepaid sim cards for our cell phones
Eat tons and tons of food
Go see Every Time I Die and Bring Me the Horizon in Rome in October
Go see Horse the Band in England in November
Go see every country that we can afford to travel to
Meet Daniel Ray and Ryan Clay in December
AND MUCH MORE!

GREAT NEWS (FOR REAL)!

2009-09-05T17:43:00.000+02:00

We got our visas in the mail today.
We bought our plane tickets online today.
We are going to Italy on September 14, 2009.
We are returning to the States on March 3, 2010.
Let's hope our realty company understands us canceling the last 4 months on our lease.

HELL YEAH!

A Whole Nother Update

2009-09-03T18:05:00.000+02:00

After much deliberation, we worked out a deal with the consulate since our last update. The deal is if we have X amount of dollars in our joint checking account and various notarized documents from the bank stating various things, then we would be considered for a six month visa. It was explained to us that the protocol would be, we get the papers, mail them to David M. Gratta in San Antonio, he mails them to the Consulate General in Miami, they mail them to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome, then they mail us our answer. So, now that you're up to speed, here's how our last week and half went:

We were in Birmingham for a few nights to coincide with the release of Cumulus, Issue No. 1, which went very well. Then we moved on to Jacksonville for a few more nights to take care of some business. We had been having some trouble acquiring the aforementioned dollar amount, but with some help we got that amount while in Jacksonville. We've been waiting to get the information and print-outs from our bank until our accounts were up to date, so we decided to try to handle that during our time in Jacksonville. We did. Since we had the right amount and the right documents, I called our friend David M. Gratta to get his current address. Well, he recommended that we e-mail him the papers first so he could review them before we spent 35 USD on postage. So we did. He called us about 3 hours later with some information that sounds pretty promising. That part will remain private until further notice.

Needless to say, we feel about 300% better than we did in our last update.

Stay tuned.

GREAT NEWS!

2009-08-14T18:01:00.000+02:00

Our visa applications were denied!
In other words, we didn't get our visas due to insufficient evidence of necessary elements to be granted visas. HOORAY!
Also, I got a speeding ticket in Louisiana! And we had to drive from San Antonio to Houston at 11:00 pm after our 15 minute meeting with the Consular official turned into a six hour meeting! On top of that, we didn't get to see Varnon or Ian while we were in Texas. So, all-in-all, it was a great trip!

We're trying a few last ditch efforts to get some sort of visa so that we didn't just waste thousands of dollars and three months of our lives.

On the bright side, I probably won't have to renew this domain next year.

TALK TO YOU LATER!

Sort of Pointless, But isn't that the Point of a Weblog?

2009-08-09T00:10:00.001+02:00

We spoke with David M. Gratta today and he is excited to see us and see our visas materialize. He also seems very confident that our applications will be accepted. That's cool. However, we still have a few last minute things to take care of (e.g. making copies of everything, getting my mom's affidavit notarized, putting everything in envelopes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera). We have an in-person meeting with David M. Gratta Tuesday night at the Hilton in downtown San Antone. So, we'll be headed to Mobile tomorrow for a night of party-time-friend-time-hangout with the Andersons. This will also help break up the extremely long haul to TexasLand. Hooray!

Our Plan So Far

2009-08-07T16:07:00.000+02:00

Hello again.

We are in Lawrenceville, GA at Lou's parents house, but will be leaving today.

This is our plan so far (and it seems to change every few days):

We leave Lawrenceville tonight and head for Jacksonville, AL. There we will have a brief visit with my family and snag some stuff from our storage unit in Anniston. Sunday, we'll head to Spanish Fort, AL and chill with Doug and Amy. Monday, we'll drive to Houston, TX and sleep at my great uncle's house. Tuesday, we'll drive to San Antonio, hand off our papers to Dr. David M. Gratta, turn around, and drive back to Houston. I've embedded a map for fun's sake:

View Larger Map

Our return to Houston is where the planning has stopped. We face a dilemma while in Texas and it is this: We have friends in Denton and College Station, and we would like to see Austin. That takes gas, gas costs money, money costs money, and we're running on empty right now. Follow? But, I'm thinking, we're already all-the-way-the-hell-out in Texas. What's a few more hours/dollars in the car? Amirite? What are your thoughts?

Well, it's always awkward for me to end posts on this blog.

Bye.

Progress: 87%

2009-07-07T17:22:00.000+02:00

Oh, hey.
We moved out of our house in Auburn. Sweet lord, we are so glad that is over with. We are nomadic right now, and currently in Jacksonville, AL. We'll be bouncing around between J'ville, Atlanta, B'ham, Boston, Somewhere in Texas, Possibly Hattiesburg, Hopefully Spanish Fort, and Auburn for the next several weeks.
We finally acquired our international insurance through IMG global. It was super cheap, and now we're one step closer to getting our visas. Woohoo!
All we have left to complete is forms and affidavits, then we send off our visa applications.
In other, semi-related news, we will have a functional digital point-and-shoot soon. The story goes: A few months ago I dropped our Canon SD750 from waist level and then it wouldn't turn on. We thought, "Well, hell. We'll just buy another one" (how American). But a used one was around $350. So, then I did some research and found that this was a common problem with the SD's. Then there existed links to repair shops, and one in Cali quoted us $75. They won. So did we.
Alright, I'm bored.
Bye.

More Apartment Info

2009-05-24T23:15:00.000+02:00

I was going to include this info last time, but I forgot or something.

Pictures of the apartment (and an Italian map) can be found in the listing on the realty agency's website.
I'll also direct you to a map in English.

So, whaddya think?
I know! It's totally worth it!

Apartment Update

2009-05-22T02:01:00.000+02:00

Hello again.

We wired our first month's rent to the rental agency in Florence. So, basically, we have an apartment now. We have yet to sign a lease, but hope to do so soon, as we need a signed lease in order to get our visas. Our lease is for ten months. Let's hope we don't run out of money before then. HA!

We have found out that after one turns in the appropriate documents to the Italian Consulate, it generally takes two weeks or less to have the visas in hand. That's encouraging. The documents that we have left to acquire are as follows:

Financial statements/Bank statements,
A personal affidavit from my mom (sort of like a vouch),
Proof of Italian insurance coverage,
&
Letters explaining why we chose Italy and what we plan to do there.

That list doesn't seem so overwhelming, and that excites us.

Another interesting development is that I recently found out from Lou and her parents, that Lou's great, great grandfather came to America from Italy in the early 1900s. This means that it potentially much easier for us to acquire Italian citizenship because Lou will be, technically, "reclaiming" citizenship as opposed to acquiring for no reason. So, once we get there, we're definitely going to try for that. An Italian citizen is a European Union citizen. This means, if we acquire citizenship we will be allowed to live, travel, and work in 28 countries including the U.S. That sounds pretty sweet to us.

Oh, hey. It's us.

2009-05-13T00:03:00.000+02:00

Hello friends and passers-by, and welcome to our blog.

If you do not already know, Lou and I are moving to Florence, Italy in August and staying for around six months to a year. This blog will chronicle our process while moving to Florence, Italy. This process will include, but will not be limited to, acquiring Italian visas, acquiring an apartment in Florence, packing up our house, packing our bags, buying new underwear, our pre-departure travels around the U.S., and our concerns about a life in Europe. After all of that is over with, we will keep you updated on our status in Italy, and give you insight into our daily (probably more like, "weekly") operations.

If you feel that this blog will divulge too much information or be too personal, then move along. There is nothing for you here. If you feel that this blog will not be personal enough, or will leave you wanting more, then use a phone and call us. If that is still not enough, then visit my "professional" blog at joshlafayette.com, and see if that helps.

Here's a taste of what's to come:

About a month ago, we sent Lou's passport off to be updated with her married name, "Laura Anne Williams LaFayette." That's a mouthful, we know. We recently received her updated passport in the mail. Now, we are in an ongoing dialog (via phone and email) with one Mr. David M. Gratta, a representative to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Relations, and he is helping us acquire our "elective residence visas." This type of visa allows one to stay in Italy for more than three months and less than a year, and that's perfect for us. We are also in an ongoing email dialogue with a rental agency that is helping us find an apartment.

Thanks for reading, and if you've decided to become a subscriber, or a frequent visitor, let us know in the comments!