Downstairs Fun

Looking for the Pages usually listed on the right?  They moved to under our masthead!

One of the things we hope this blog does is allows you to "picture" what our life in Italy is like.  Obviously, there are a lot of differences between life in Italy and life in the States.  One such difference is the cantina (I'm not referring a Mexican restaurant here. . .).

I am not sure that cantinas exist all over Italy, but they are pretty common around Bologna.  Since Bologna was fairly decimated during WWII, most buildings have at least been built in this century.  Where as the average age of a building in Florence is probably 800 years old (no joke), the average age of a building here is probably 120.  All of that to say, the newer buildings took into account such things as automobiles and storage.

Underneath our apartment building, we have both a garage and a cantina.  Our garage is so small that if we didn't back into it, the door wouldn't be able to close because of the height of the back of our station wagon.  And it's so narrow that to be able to get out of the driver's side door, the passenger's side mirror has to almost scrape the opposing wall.  Absolutely it's a pain, but we are so thankful for it!  Not every apartment comes with a garage.  In fact, if you do have a garage, it's quite popular to rent it out.  The going rate is about 100Euro a month.

One half of the garage area

Our cantina is also under our building. It's in a long hallway than runs the length of our building and only residents can access it.  It's like a little storage unit. We had no idea cantinas existed before we actually arrived in the city, so we were blown away at the idea of having a little bit of storage space for things like luggage and bikes.

One of the hallways of cantinas.  Ours is just to the left.

It's really not a lot of space (maybe 4 feet by 12 feet), so to fit bikes in, we have to maximize it.

Since we don't have a backyard to speak of, the garage area of our apartment building has become a great substitute.  The kids can't just run down there, but it's ideal for riding bikes in a substantial but secured environment.  And when you live on a busy intersection in the middle of a city, that is a great blessing.

Hannah has also starting taking up rollerblading.  It's just called "inline" here, but a couple of her friends are into too.  It seems so grown up, but she's really having a great time with it.

Just before we left the States, Gavin mastered riding with no training wheels.  He had also grown so much that he needed a bigger bike when we returned.  There haven't been too many warm  (or dry!) days yet, but he's asked every opportunity he's had to practice his new skills.

Sweet Ben has loved, loved, loved being able to bike with the big kids.  I think he could literally peddle around down there for hours.