June 21, 2024 by Jodie
One of the missionaries shared this statement below with me and I have been trying to adopt it. It helps me as I am learning and get so frustrated at times. I am trying to be patient with myself as we adapt to new things.
Not speaking the native Italian language has it's challenges and is good for a giggle or a little cry...but don't worry there are more giggles that tears. Adopting new practices and habits is getting easier as we are now one month into our mission and 3 weeks in Italy. 
We have small quantities of the ingredients and small appliances and of course all the labels are in Italian and the measurents are in the metric system of milliliters and kilograms. Google is my friend! 
"It's not good or bad, it's just different!"
Elevators
The Elevators in Italy are tiny...we have some giggles as we try and negotiate being in there together with our hands full of reusable bags of groceries or my new flowers for our deck or supplies for our missionary apartment inspections and fix it projects. Italians fit 3 or 4 people in this tiny elevator and don't think a thing about it and they all face each other. Now that's different.
We take the stairs when our hands are not full. AND....There are 90 stairs in our building to get up to our apartment. That last set of 18 are still a little rough for me going up because my thighs start screaming at me. I told our friend and manager Monica and her husband Samuele who were willing to share their elevator ride with me to our 4th floor apartments that I wanted to take the stairs to earn my bread and pasta and gelato.
Going down the stairs, I feel like a champion! One of these days I will do my "Rocky" dance when I climb up the stairs at a quick pace without stopping and panting!
In Italy they have a "0" floor so we live on the 4th floor here in Italy but it would be considered the 5th floor in the USA. Their bottom floor the 0 floor is called "T" for Terra or ground.
Garbage
Check out this garbage collection schedule and the amount of garbage bins we have here! 5?
My biggest learning curve...
I do love to recyle in the USA and have always been a big supporter of the idea even saving our recycleable things and driving to the places to recycle when they were not available curbside. However, here it's nerve wracking to me. I have been scared of the garbage police. We have 3 days a week that the garbage is collected before 6 am. So we leave it out the night beforehand. There are different colors of bags for each thing we collect and the colored bags are different in each city. For instance, we live in Alzano Lombardo, a "suburb" of Bergamo, and the garbage collection and colors of bags are different at our church building which is in Bergamo than in our apartment building and even different for our missionary district and their apartments which we help oversee who are in downtown Bergamo, Brescia, Lecco, Merate, and Treviglio Italy.
Umido=Humid garbage disposal for food waste and used tissues etc.
Vetro & Barattolame= Glass and Metal
Imballaggi in Plastica= Plastic
Carta e Cartone=Cardboard and Paper
Rifiuti or Indifferenziati= anything that is different than all of the above
Cooking/Baking
Baking and cooking have been fun and rewarding yet different. Yes, I brought some of my Demarle at Home/BonCOOK items from home. I would really be paralyzed without my cooking tools. I wish now that I would have brought more of my favorites items. Look at the size of the packages of sugar, powdered sugar, cocoa, and flour.
Our kitchen is small, lacks counter space, but it is functional. Note the drying rack up above the kitchen sink where I load the dishes to dry. It has a tray to catch the water that I empty when the dishes are dry.
This box cake was so delicious, I added an extra 2 tbsp. of lemon juice and then little lemon slices on top of each slice to squeeze onto the cake as I was serving it. In addition to the powdered sugar shown here for presentation we put whipped cream on top. The missionaries seemed to love it after our district council. How fun to make desserts for the missionaries! I love it!
Ah, I forgot to get a finished product photo. I was in a rush to get out the door for our district council. My first tarts in Italy are my favorite ingredients in tarts ~ and they are available here!
Brie Cheese (Formaggio Brie), Apricot (Albicocca) Jam, and Almonds (Mandorla). We tried them with both puff pastry and regular pie dough and we liked how they looked and held up with the pie dough the best. Blake was a super willing sampler as well as the missionaries for our first district council!
Brown sugar, molassis, corn syrup, sour cream, baking powder, vanilla and mint flavoring are things that are hard to find here. This makes baking cookies a challenge. I am going to give it a go tomorrow! I need to practice for an upcoming special visit by Elder Anderson of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles who is visiting our mission in July. All the senior couples are asked to provide 4 dozen cookies.
Laundry
Blake has been such a handy and handsome helper. Here he is pictured giggling over trying to read an Italian Washing maching manual. We have learned many things. An interesting fact is that the dryers here have no vents to send the air and humidity outside so they have this water collection drawer which we have to empty after every 1-2 loads of drying our clothes. We empty it into the bidet. We also use the drying rack in our extra bedroom. Decifering error codes on the washing machine and the dryer is a real challenge, but so far we've figured most of them out. At the moment both are still functioning.
Washing and Drying Clothes in Italian machines that are in a different language and function differently has been so interesting. Repeat after me, "It's not good or bad, It's just different!"
Bathroom
Yes, our bathroom is very European. We will not confirm or deny the use of the bidet. I hear it works well to soak my feet. I'll let you know...
Our shower is installed in a new direction so that's different.
Just remember" It's not good or bad, It's just different!"
