House Hunting

May 14

Today was a designated day to go house hunting for us. But before that fun started we had to finalize our purchase of a car. (When you get here definitely join Varagesale.com and join the group Avianos from Junk to Treasures group, you can find some good stuff on it. Its where we found our car.) Since getting a registration appointment at pass & registration can take forever we decided to do walk-in, hoping it wouldn't take too long. We got there right when it opened so we could be one of the firsts in line. Well...the first part didn't take too long, transferring the car over from one military person to another but then you have to sit and wait to finalize the registration to the car and get a new insurance card to put on the windshield of your car. We waited an extra 2 hours for this next step. (This was actually short compared to what people kept warning us about, so be prepared to wait) Finally, after waiting we were the proud new owners of a 1998 E320 Mercedes-Benz! Our very first "beater" car!

Now off to go look at some house/apartments! We had two to go look at around lunch time. The first one was a pretty big house in Cordenons. It was really nice and spacious but might be a little too big for just Preston and I but would be perfect for a small family with kids. Loved how it had a garage and an extra storage room to the back of the garage and also the big kitchen and living/family room.

Next apartment was a real winner for us. It was in San Quirino and was a cute 2 story house with an apartment on top and one on bottom in a very cute family friendly neighborhood. We would get the top floor apartment. It is a little bigger than the bottom one. It had a very nice and spacious kitchen with a small balcony off of it. Then 3 bedrooms and a small room that goes out onto the bigger balcony with a pretty view of the mountains. Also, has a small storage room in the basement of the place. But the only negative thing is that the one garage is only for the people who live on the bottom apartment, we would have to go park out in back of the place on the grass.

Now this makes it a little harder to choose for us. As of then we have two places we really like and both have a few slightly different things in them.

You can't beat this view too driving back to base...

Later that afternoon we had another place to go look right near the center of Aviano. It was a bigger apartment complex. Had very little parking for us. This place wasn't the most updated place we had seen but it was pretty spacious. We weren't big fans of this place but you never know unless you go see for yourself. (Forgot to take picture)

We had a few more houses to look at the next day. Its nice to see a lot of different places but it also sometimes makes it a little more difficult deciding if you end up finding all the really nice ones around Aviano, which we seem to keep doing. After every few nice ones we do hit some not so nice ones. But good to know whats out there for us since we will be here for 3 years and who knows maybe longer.



May 15

Last day of official house hunting days for Right Start week. We had 3 places to go look at today. One was a house we had been really looking forward to seeing. But first to another place in San Quirino.

San Quirino is a really nice and pretty town. The place we looked at today had 3 floors and a loft. It also had everything we wanted even the garage attached to the place, but it was a one car garage. Inside had three bedrooms and two bathrooms total and a nice size family/living room. Even though it had everything we wanted it didn't give us the "wow" factor to sway our minds away from the other two places we want.

After, we met another lady to look at an apartment she had near the center to Aviano. The area also looked really nice, family friendly with cute little houses around the apartment building we were looking at. We looked at the top floor apartment. This apartment had a huge family/living room with a balcony attached with a partial view of the mountains, still really pretty though with all the Italian homes around. It had a nice size kitchen with another balcony off of it, but unfortunately no dishwasher. (Yes, were spoiled, neither Preston nor I want to do dishes by hand hehe) Then down the hall was 3 more bedrooms, pretty good size too and two good sized bathrooms. So as this place also did have almost everything we wanted, even garage in basement of apartment, we both just didn't have that "wow" factor to make us want it. Plus getting up to the third floor you have to walk up huge spacious stairs, no elevator. (Yes, makes me sound lazy but that would be hard to go up and down with groceries all by myself)

We were supposed to go check out another place but something came up that Preston had to get done for one of his classes. It kinda sucked because this was one of the houses we really wanted to see. But at least we get to go see it tomorrow. Who knows, maybe it will be "the" house.

Both of us are beyond excited for tomorrows activities! The Benvenuti Tour! We finally get to explore the towns near Aviano and also get to go to an actual Italian ristorante and winery. Be tuned to hear all about our adventures tomorrow!! :)