Today is Andy’s last day in Italy.  She leaves for home early tomorrow morning.  I will be alone in the apartment until the evening of the 24th when Evan arrives from his visit to Paris with his girlfriend, Cassie.  

Here is an example of the craziness of Italian bureaucracy:  Andy withdrew all of her funds from the Post Office bank last week and the next day, she went to officially close the account. The account has cost her 4€ a month service fee.  Since it had been paid for December, she owed nothing.  The first day she went to close it, they told her it couldn’t be closed until after Janaury 1st.  She told them she was leaving December 20th, so that was an impossibility.  So,they told her to come back in a day or two to fill out the paperwork.  She did that…twice before the paperwork was filled out to their satisfaction.  All of this hassle to close a bank account that didn’t have one thin dime left in it.  We figured that if she had just left without properly closing the account, they might have figured out in three or four months that it had ‘closed’ itself!  More likely, she would have come back to Italy one day and Immigrations would have dunned her 4€ a month for her time away…owed to the Post Office bank!  They must love their official paperwork even more than we do in America!   That’s all I know for today.