17 August Sunday

Even though this picture is from 2 years ago, Wälle still looks pretty much the same while grilling.

This morning I forced myself to sleep longer since I’m sure I have quite a good sleep debt going. Eventually I couldn’t resist the lake calling to me to wake up – even though the sky was overcast. I watched some of the Olympics while cleaning out the carpets from the hallway – the one under the table was especially grody as it seems to have been disintegrating. At first I was surprised to find what looked like sand, but, upon closer inspection, it was grit from the carpet itself. That's the grit in the foreground and the lovely carpet hanging on the railing.

Around 16.00 I walked down to Marianne and Walle’s. They had finally gotten home along with Marianne’s parents from Zürich. Walle and I decided to go get Luciano (my car) sooner rather than later since he had heavy grilling to do later. First we had to liberate an air compressor from Diego’s father. Then we had to interrupt some kindly Germans’ vacation to move their cars from in front of the garage. Luciano was looking as good as new, especially after Walle pumped his tire. I grabbed the winter tires and the rest of my junk and we headed back downhill. It was a bit of a gamble since it’s illegal to drive without a license plate. But, Walle said, it’s fine to tow a car without plates so we just pretended to do that! Unfortunately Luciano didn’t fit into my garage all the way due to the crap still left in there. I didn’t clean it all out because it was a weird mixture of things that seemed to belong to the house like chairs and a lawnmower and personal items like shoes and pieces of art. Nevertheless, we got Luciano in as far as possible and closed the garage door most of the way – enough to render him invisible from the tiny little street.

Walle did a quick look through of the house and confirmed that indeed the awning was broken. Unfortunately now I’ll have to get a professional to fix one of the gears and it is stuck down, which makes the mountain peaks invisible from the living room unless you sit down.

We retuned to his house. I went through some mail from UBS and we sat around the table talking – all six of us (since Nicole was home too). I tried to pay close attention to Walle’s grilling techniques since he is the best at it of anyone I have ever met. I think the secret is in the marinade and I didn’t see how he made that. As I sipped my pescafrizz and watched the sunset (wishing La Perla faced west more) I realized why I have always loved Ticino. All the troubles and headaches over the last year seemed worth it. The morning had been overcast but now the sun was out, I was with my friends, costina (ribs) were on the grill, life was good.

Over dinner I was explaining to Marianne’s father that now I actually understand Italian better than Schwitzerdeutsch. What does that say about a “dialect”? (See my long-standing obsession with the difference between dialects and language).
I realized I had been wrong. It’s not that food tastes better when you eat outside in Ticino – food tastes better chez Imbaumgarten! I have to learn the secrets.

Towards the end of the evening I was able to ask some of my more annoying questions after Marianne’s parents went to sleep. Getting my phone connected is apparently pretty straightforward – I just have to call Swisscom and let them sort it all out. I can do that. Getting the license plate will be more difficult. Last year apparently they had to go three times to the DMV. Even though they had the paperwork and Luciano had been registered the summer before, twice the bureaucrats told them to go away as it couldn’t be done. Naturally they were incredibly frustrated as they had to keep coming back to talk to a different agent. I hadn’t realized it was that involved. Basically each agent that says it’s impossible is wrong and you just have to come back the next day and find someone else to talk to.

However, this complication is based on the fact that I have a targa provisionelle (provisional license plate). Now that I have a Wohnsitz (permanent residence), I should be able to get a real plate. But, I explained to them, I don’t have a Bewilligung (a type of visa) so I’m not sure that I’m legally allowed to live here yet. Thereupon they recommended going to the comune (like city hall) tomorrow and showing my kaufvertrag (purchase contract) etc., to the official there and officially announcing myself as here. Then at least I have some legal status, and perhaps he can speed up getting my Bewilligung. It all sounds rather risky, but I’m set to try it. I can’t buy anything for the house without a car.