Letting it go

Today I checked off another item on my to-do list by going to our local bank branch to alert them to my new citizenship status and inquire about a mysterious 72 euro charge on our bank statement from last December.

The extraordinarily pleasant man who helped me out rummaged around in his computer for a few seconds and printed out a ledger explaining the charge. It turns out that since we have a "non-resident" bank account, we are entitled to only 15 free transactions every three months, including use of our debit card, online payments, you name it. For each of the next 10 transactions during that three-month period we're charged 2.50 euros. After that, each transaction costs a whopping 3.25 euros. or almost $4.

When we opened the account at the end of last year, as luck would have it, the euro was quite a bit weaker against the dollar than it is now. So ever since we've been back in Italy we've been using the debit card every chance we get, and congratulating ourselves for spending the cheap euros we already have instead of handing over a U.S. credit card and paying for more expensive ones.

Doh.

That 72-euro charge was just for a few weeks in December. We've probably run up at least another $150 worth of bank charges since then--most of which we could have avoided if I'd inquired about that charge a few months ago, instead of waiting till now. Procrastination is a very expensive vice.

As a newly minted citizen I now qualify for a regular, that is, resident, account. But since everything having to do with our bank seems to require a minimum of seven working days, nothing can be done about this until we return. Between now and then we are operating on an all-cash basis.

At least I got the unpleasant part of the day over with early. It was almost all pleasure after that. First I had coffee at my favorite bar, La Strega (The Witch), with my upstairs neighbor and new pal, who turns out to be a retired Italian teacher. While at La Strega we ran into a friend of hers who is a pianist (and a very good one, she says) looking for people to play music with. So the pianist and I are now connected and planning to play together when I come back.

After I got home, I kibitzed while Danny finished hanging the first artwork to go up in our apartment, a suite of three photographs by our multi-talented friend Pam.

They are extreme close-ups of three of my favorite things: pepper, onion, and spaghetti. Aren't they beautiful?

After lunch I had another Strega date, this time with Franca, who remains my favorite person to speak Italian with and my favorite English tutee. I am really going to miss her while I'm gone. 

I came home and did a few little chores and practiced the violin for a while, getting ready for the workshop in Vermont that I'm going to with my mom next week. I'll be playing two gorgeous pieces of music there, the Shostakovich piano quintet and Dvorak's first piano quartet, and even the most repetitive practice of these wonderful pieces is a bit of heaven, for me if not for whoever can hear me. (Which I hope is no one.) (Danny takes his ears off, so he is safe.)

Before we sat down to the veal stew Danny made to go with the rest of the polenta, we decided to take advantage of the mild /weather and have a drink outside at another bar in our immediate vicinity. (There are at least six within a few blocks of us, and they are all busy in the evenings.) 

Tonight many of the people sitting outside having drinks had their children and dogs with them. The kids ran around the piazza with each other, while the dogs sat quietly under the tables. and everyone talked and talked and talked, as Italians are wont to do. It was delightful. And in the big scheme of things, worth a few hundred dollars wasted. But we paid for our drinks in cash.