Roman Holiday and a Day in Paris

i'm back to the grind this week after a really dope two weeks spent throughout Italy and Paris with my Tony, my Vanny, my mom and my dad. tony and I spent a week and a half in Florence, Rome and Calabria in 2010 and it was pretty special to get to relive that with my parents and van for this trip.

the trip was a nice pace and we saw a lot in our time there, considering we were towing my almost two year old along the whole time. I have to say, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better internationally traveling twenty two month old than my son. I will give this kid props for the rest of my life for being such a rockstar on our trip. hours and hours and HOURS in a planes and trains and taxis with jet lag and luggage to lug and language barriers is never fun. it's hard enough for grown adults to keep their shit together under those circumstances and I knew that expecting my toddler to was insane. I also knew, however, that if any kid could do it, it would be my kid. were he not such an adaptable child, I would never have thought to bring him halfway across the world on vacation. somehow I just had a feeling that he could pull this off and he totally did. he is such a champ. he is the best.

our first five days were spent in FLORENCE. beautiful, beautiful Firenze. on our last trip I wanted to sob as our train departed Florence because I already missed it. I wonder if as I see more of the world if I'll still regard Florence as my favorite place. I really, really, really love it there.

highlights of our Florence stay:

• our old world, adorable rental apartment, with it's view of the duomo from the windows
• the food! including a new trattoria across from where we were staying. the owner was so sweet to van and gave him complimentary biscotti both times we ate there.
• taking a night walk with tony only to find the coolest cover band in the world was playing a small club right on our same street. I was lured in by their cover of "stay with me" by rod stewart and stayed long enough to hear them cover wilco! so crazy. they were adorable.
• watching van chase birds around the boboli gardens.
• our dinner at café academia on a recommendation from an old friend. van pinched his fingers between the table and his high chair and the whole restaurant about stopped functioning. the wait staff rushed to bring him ice and kiss his hand! they brought him a bowl of strawberries and a cookie, and later gave him a cup of juice with a little straw. as customers filed out after their dinners (and long after van had stopped crying) they came by to pet his head and make sure his hand was okay. it was the sweetest display I've ever seen. Italians LOVE babies.
• a day trip to pisa and lucca, where I had the best bruschetta of my life.
• david!

next up was ROME. my italian family lives 5-6 hours south (by train) from rome. if we didn't have to essentially pass it to get to my family i would not have chosen to visit there again. i liked rome last time, but once was enough for me. i feel like i saw everything there was to see there in 2010. it's a great city, but it's really big and really busy. it's the opposite of quaint.

highlights from rome:

• our beautiful apartment! it was located in a neighborhood pretty far from any tourist attractions, which is probably why it was so affordable. we didn't mind though, since it was literally only steps away from the metro station which takes you anywhere you need to get to. the apartment was decorated beautifully and the owner was so sweet and accommodating. we adored her and her little son silvestro, who is only a month older than van.
• the collosseum and the roman forum. it's such a trip to be somewhere so old!
• the capuchin crypt. just, wow. 
• the trevi fountain - van probably threw 5 euro in there.
• dinner at da mario. my cousin nicola's cousin works there with his brother. we had the best meal there on our last trip and knew we had to go back. marcello hooked it up once again with course after course of delicious food. my favorite part was the tempura battered zucchini flowers. 

after three busy days in rome we headed south to the region of calabria. my family hails from a rustic little village outside of cosenza called TORANO CASTELLO.

highlights from torano castello:

• the spectacular enormous moon that shined over the village the first nights we were there. it was gigantic! i've never seen anything like it. 
• getting to meet little angelo, my cousin's baby. van loved him too. he was a friendly little thing, and has the best head of thick black hair.
• speeding around the village streets in nic's tiny car, going from house to house to greet family members. every place we stopped a relative attempted to give us something...wine, beer, coca cola, cookies, cake...
• dinner at my granddad's cousin elena's house. we had salami, bread, olives and peppers first. next was the rigatoni in tomato sauce with short ribs. then out came the breaded cod, broccoli rabe, roasted potatoes and risotto balls. last was salad, followed by fruit and coffee. ridiculous! so much food, and everything was fresh and delicious.
• dinner at my granddad's cousin sante's house. getting to meet sante's grandson and namesake who is just a little older than van. his wife prepared a huge meal similar to Elena's, only with home made pasta and meatballs instead of ribs and cannolis for dessert. nic translated sante's wife's recipe for these really delicious pickled peppers everyone there makes. I can't wait to try do it myself! we ate and drank and passed around old letters, cards and photos that my great grandfather had sent to his Italian nieces and nephews that they saved all these years!
• on our last night in the village our family threw us a little pizza party at my granddad's cousin's bar/restaurant. a friend of the family came with his son and brought two accordions and a guitar! they all took turns passing the instruments around and playing songs.
• a vacuum packed sopressata my cousin sidaro handed me as we were leaving, for me to enjoy back home in California. :)

we left torano castello via a 5 hour train to rome. we boarded our plane that evening and arrived in PARIS!

while our apartment's location was fantastic, the actual dwelling left a lot to be desired. it was up four flights of stairs that smelled like the water from a carnival ride. the apartment was itty bitty - smaller than it appeared in the photos on air bnb, and with lots more clutter. oh well. we were only going to be there for two nights and one day. we'd survive.

here our my highlights from my day in Paris:

• literally turning the corner past our apartment and seeing the top of the Eiffel tower.
• the Eiffel tower! duh! we went and saw it first thing and it is amazing.
• the store fronts. Parisians take such care in making things look beautiful. the baked goods look so pretty lined up in the windows of the patisseries. the dry cleaner displayed a vintage dress form with a chic coat. the florists fill the windows and street outside the shop with flowers organized by color. the cafes and restaurants are each decorated in their unique way, with big signs out front in cool fonts. you can tell just by taking a quick jaunt around the neighborhood that beauty and style play a big part in Parisian culture. I appreciated that very much.
• our funny waiters at the café where we had our first French meal. I had bœuf bourguignon. the bread it came with was SO good. probably the best bread ever, and i'm a lover and eater of bread so I feel pretty qualified to make that judgment.
• taking a walk in the 9th and stumbling upon block after block after block of music stores! a store of guitars next to a store of recording equipment next to a store full of pedals next to a store of drums...it went on and on forever. tony was in heaven.
• dinner at chartier, on a recommendation from my boss. he goes there every time he is in paris, and i'm so glad he told me to make the trip out there. I guess it's a bit touristy and doesn't offer anything mind blowing, but the atmosphere is fun and the building that it's in is totally charming.
• taking van on the carousel at the Eiffel tower after dinner and watching it twinkle with lights for 5 minutes at the top of the hour. it was literally marvelous. I could stare at it forever.

we were there, and now we're here. things seem to different when you've been somewhere so far away. i'm glad to be home. as fun and wonderful as it all was, living out of a suitcase and relying on public transit and taxis it quite tiring and hectic, especially with a young toddler. I was sad to leave, but looking forward to a diversity of  meals, water pressure and a working hair straightener.

we arrived at SFO last Wednesday afternoon. my brother in law took us to get Mexican food on our way home. you can take the Stizzos out of California, but you can't take the California out of the Stizzos.

La La How The Life Goes On: Outside Lands (with a toddler!)

tony, van and I went to the outside lands music festival in SF a couple weekends ago. tony and I had been twice before, but this was our first major festival style outing since having van and we knew it was going to be kind nuts of us. but we did it anyways. all three days!

I thought to myself as I bought the tickets that while I didn't remember seeing many (if any) kids during previous years that there must have been a bunch there. what do music loving people do when they have kids? they bring them, right? well, I guess not because van was one of about six littles I saw all weekend long.

we had such a good time, our little family of three. van was a really, really good boy. he ate his snacks and listened to the tunes. he let us hold him through all the sets, and we took him to run around in between bands. he made tons of friends. TONS. people thought it was awesome that there was a baby at a music festival. he high-fived and low-fived people all over the place. festival goers asked if they could take pictures of him. vendors have him little treats and buttons and stickers every time he passed a booth (see his anchor tattoo in the watermelon pic below). we heard "oh my god, look at that baby!" about 500 times over the three days that we were there.

the first day we saw band of horses, the national (with bob weir!) and paul mccartney! this was my third time seeing paul, tony's second and vanny's first. he was badass as ever. the three hour set just flew by. we made friends with this really funny, older gay couple and danced and sang all night. van took a little snooze toward the end, but woke back up in time to see the fireworks go off during live and let die. while I will go to any paul show within a 500 mile radius and love every second of it, I must say that I was pretty annoyed with his commentary. his stories and banter in between songs have literally been word for word the same since 2003. I think that's pretty absurd. tells us some new stuff, man! he's gotta have some other stories!

van and paul!

the second day was mostly spent meandering around and checking out the vendors and art and food. there weren't a ton of bands we absolutely needed to see that day, which was nice because we weren't rushing to walk miles from stage to stage all day long. we ended up checking out the mother hips (we are such hips loyalists!) and grizzly bear. I would have loved to also see the yeah yeah yeahs, but they played at the same time as grizzly bear and I didn't want to pull myself away from their set. they are incredible.
                      

          

we arrived early on day three - right after a sweet breakfast at a little café in Berkeley where we were staying. ( we stayed in the cutest little one bedroom apartment we found on air bnb, by the way. it was adorable and I would stay there again in a second.) we ate some eggrolls and got our last lemonade of the weekend. this one tent sold the most delicious lemonade I've ever had in my life. word. they made it right in front of you with these big lemons that they squeeze right into your cup. you can taste the little sugar granules when you drink it. or maybe the little crystals are really meth, because it was THAT good.  we drank a cup every day we were there, which means we spent about $20 on lemonade over the three days. whatever. it was vacation.

         

van loved fishbone! while he really took in all the bands we saw, i'd say fishbone was the only one that really moved him to his feet and got him super excited. it was pretty funny. we also checked out trombone shorty, hall and oates, vampire weekend and the red hot chili peppers on our last day.

               

hall and oates were so much fun. I didn't ever expect that they'd be a band i'd ever see live, so it was so cool getting to sing along to all their songs. there is so much greatness behind their stuff - so on point and soulful and melodic, but there is something else so cheesy and kinda funny about them too. I freaking love them. we'd seen vampire weekend before and wanted to check out willie nelson instead (he played at the same time) but van fell asleep during hall and oates so we were stuck at the main stage for the vampire weekend set, which wasn't bad at all. they sounded better than I remember them. the chili peppers were pretty magical for me - and probably most people my age who probably remember them as one of their first favorite bands. they kick so much ass and have so much energy. the only point during the weekend where I almost wished I didn't have a toddler to look after was when their set started. the tween inside me wanted very badly to just run up to the stage and whoop and dance through the encore!

           

 

all in all it was a surprisingly successful and memorable weekend. i'm glad we were able to enjoy it together. honestly, it's not my natural instinct to say, "hey! let's take our year and a half old to a huge and crazy music festival for three days." really, it isn't. i knew it would be logistically difficult and we'd be experiencing the festival differently than we'd had in past years. we had to find quieter areas to sit, further away from the stage. we had to pack healthy snacks. we didn't drink beer after beer all day or get to enjoy the huge Wine Lands area they have. there wasn't a ton of lounging on our part since we had a crazy on the move toddler we had to chase around. our MO has been modified, and we have a new kind of fun now. ob la di, ob la da.

The Biggest Pain in the Ass of my Life

buying our house was the biggest pain in the ass of my life. i've decided to make a little timeline of all the nonsense that was involved because it was so lame and cumbersome and illogical that i know i'll soon forget the details. my mind has already blocked out a number of them.

March 2012
i got pre-approved for a home loan. this was the easy part. i answered some questions and filled out some paperwork and boom. pre-approval done.

April 2012
we looked at a few houses but weren't blown away by anything. this was all fine because we knew that we were picky and loved our rental. we'd happily stay put until we found something that would rock our world.

May 2012
our dearest family friends, a divorced couple, were going to have to sell their home. they approached me to see if i would be interested in buying it. my eyeballs turned into hearts and popped out of my face on metal springs. i called the realtor and we put in an offer. our offer was accepted.

i signed a bunch of papers. the deal was set to close by the end of may. yay!

we ordered an appraisal. the property appraised at our offer price. yay!

we got a home inspection. the home had dry rot and termites and needs a new roof. these problems would cost 15k to fix. oh no!

June 2012
we ask the owners if they could drop the price by 15k. they say no. we redact our offer and are sad. we look at another couple houses but they are lame.

July 2012
our realtor and mortgage guy suggest a 203k streamline loan. this loan enables the buyer to receive a loan for the house and also allots some money for repairs on the home. we thought this was a great option since it would allow us to get the home and deal with the termites and roof. looks like we are perfect candidates for this loan. yesssss.

i fill out all new paperwork. i'm told to contact some contractors to get estimates of what it would cost to repair the roof, dry rot and to treat the termites. i'd also have to repaint, since dry rot repair requires cutting out of wood siding and lots of wood replacement.

August 2012
i finally acquire all the appropriate estimates and paperwork from all the contractors (insurance, licenses, etc.) this took so so long. i submit it all to our loan officer.

weeks pass, and then we get a notice that ALL that paperwork that took me months to get is totally void. i'm told that i needed to hire a general contractor that works specifically with 203k streamlined loans. awesome. back to the drawing board.

meanwhile, seller(s) are getting antsy. the deal was supposed to be done in freaking may. good god. the bullshit process and set backs and misinformation i was given doesn't really resonate with them. it's really confusing and i hardly understand what is going on myself, so explaining this to the sellers is even more nonsensical.

September 2012
new special 203k general contractor comes and looks at the house. we tell him everything that needs fixing. he gets us a bunch of estimates, which we approve. he also tells us that we are required by the 203k FHA streamline folks to get a new appraisal. yeah, a new one even though we got one early on in the process. we needed a special 203k streamline appraisal guy to come. he needs to tell the FHA people that once all the repairs are made, the house is worth the asking price. we were purchasing the house for 185k. we needed the bank to give us an additional 15k to make the repairs. the appraiser needed to okay that the house was worth 185k as is, and once the repairs were made would appraise for 200k.

appraiser visits the house. our realtor is there and pissed, because appraiser is from galt, california. our house is in historic roseville, california,  a place very much unlike galt. we ask him if he's familiar with roseville's unique vintage home real estate market, to which he replies he is not familiar.

after appraiser is done walking around the house and property, our trusty realtor provides him with print outs of recently sold homes in our area. these illustrate that these older roseville homes are legit and in high demand. many fixer uppers in our surrounding neighborhoods that are in FAR worse shape than ours are going for around the same price as ours. we are making out like bandits with a 185k purchase price.

October 2012
i get a call from my loan officer informing me that our sloppy bumpkin of an appraiser appraised the home too low for the 203k streamline loan. the FHA folks say the most we can get is 185k.

oh no! this means we can't make the repairs. eff it, we say. we've been set on this house for months at this point. we'll take it for 185k and make the repairs out of our pocket within the next few years. it's not like the house is falling down or anything...

i then fill out ALL NEW PAPERWORK, and resubmit to just get a regular old FHA loan. again. just like i did months ago, way back at the beginning.

sellers are SUPER antsy at this point. loan officer assures me that this shit will be done in a jiffy. he puts as big a rush on it as he is capable of putting. this will be all done and over with, with keys in my hand by halloween. for sure. at the latest. the absolute latest.

November 2012
FHA tells loan officer that we need a new appraisal. the one we had done originally (185k) has expired since this process was taking so damn long. we call our original appraiser who makes a quick visit and signs off on the 185k price. we are good to go! any day now, the paperwork will all be pushed through the appropriate channels and get the right signatures and we will get the keys. any day now, the assure us over and over.

meanwhile, sellers are INSANELY and rightfully antsy. they say if it's not done within a week, they will put the house on the market. oh nooooo! some other people could end up in MY house!

a couple days go by and my loan officer informs me that there is a conflict with the appraisal. that's because, floating somewhere in the FHA universe, is that fucking low appraisal from the sloppy bumpkin that has yet to be cancelled. a request was put in to cancel it, but things like that take for-ev-er since FHA is a bloated, enormous and inefficient government agency. things like appraisal cancellation, according to their web site, should take like, 10 days. we are on day 30 and it's still hanging out somewhere, waiting to be officially cancelled.

a week goes by. i check my phone and email incessantly. like, i spend hours per day looking down at my phone and logging into my email.  it's the longest week ever. ever!

FINALLY! the appraisal gets cancelled within HOURS of the sellers' realtor getting ready to put a for sale sign in the front yard of my new house.

 i got the keys the day before thanksgiving.

and we moved in just in time to spend christmas in our new house.