I rented a car!

That's right!  I rented my first car in Italy!  It ended up being much easier than I anticipated b/c I got lucky and found a Hertz just a bus ride away, plus I was able to make the arrangements online last night.  Score!  Driving back home was interesting.  I haven't driven a stick in a while, but it came back to me.  The directions, however, were not specifically followed to get back to my house.  I had to follow my questionable sense of direction, which actually came through for me today.  Found a parking spot and everything!  Parking is tight here.

Tip: When you rent a car, you need your driver's license, credit card, AND passport.  Good to know.

Other tips in general:

-If you buy a weekly/monthly/yearly bus pass in Genova, you only have to stamp it once, then just carry it with you on the bus.  Officials occasionally come through and make sure everyone has paid.  (Hasn't happened to me yet.)

-You get your codice fiscale at the ufficio (office) delle entrata.  Not all offices issue them, and some of them are sticklers, while others aren't.  Story to follow, including a police station visit. 

-When you go to McDonald's (not that we have, clearly), you have to pay for catsup.

-No stores give refunds.  If you have your receipt, you can make and exchange for something that costs the same as or more than your original purchase, but No refunds.  Ever.

-You'd better know where you're going if you take the bus in the rain, especially at night.  In the mornings, most of the buses have an electronic sign up front that says what the next stop is.  (Don't count on seeing the sign out the window - they're tiny and sometimes covered by trees.)  For some reason, they turn off these helpful electronic signs at night.  And if it's raining, all of the windows fog up, and you can't see where you are.  It gets a little risky for stop-missing.

-Fanta rocks.

More tips to come as we think of them.  It's been storming and pouring all week.  Not fun for taking the bus to work, but it makes the ocean look really wild and beautiful.  From the comfort of the shore, of course!

But back to the car rental.  It's purpose: Kim and I are driving to Assisi this weekend to see the town and visit with Barbara (who helped my family while here), her family, and Francesco and Vincenza, in whose house my family lived.  I'm so excited!  As foreign as everything has been lately (both figuratively and literally), I think it will be a comfort to return to a familiar place.  I probably won't remember my way around very well, but it's not a big city like Genova.  We'll just be there Saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon, but hopefully we'll get some good stuff in.

We'll be staying at a hotel up in Assisi with a great view.  Barbara was kind enough to phone Francesco and Vincenza to see if we can stay at their place (wow - would have been really awesome and surreal), but their daughter is living there at the moment.  Still, as nervous as I've been about renting the car and making our way there, I'm so pumped.  The hotel is booked, the car is here, the hard stuff is done!  Kim's sense of direction is much better than mine, so with two minds in one car, hopefully we'll get there in a decent amount of time.  

I'll take pictures!