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��generally i jump in with both left feet in these sorts of discusions...basically trying to defend what i see as simple and described wonderfully by gui gia...nigelh and gala... gala as aways being very diplomatic... my philosphy on life is that of her latin quotation and as a less literary person epitamised in the words of a song i like...wherever i lay my hat... which is ��also based as well on my admiration for the words of the Lee Marvin classic " wandering star"...such a wonderful singing voice...unlike many of you that have travelled the whole world i have always chosen European countries... and have spent more than half my adult life at least living away from the UK ... and have always felt comfortable with where vere i have laid my hat... ��even with the dastardley French... that have always treated my bastardisation of their language with as much politeness as those of my �������� neighbours of today... basically i think because i never desire anything that isnt available where i live... if i did i would jump on an aeroplane or in the car and go andd get a fix...having lived here for seven years or so now... it was only this year that the wandering habit kicked in...needed a fix l...so my son and i got up early one morning and drove off to france..germany and austria for a trip...hugging the northern alps... so always maintaining a safe distance to the border in case of withdrawal symptons...��i enjoyed it all very much...i love french cooking... and enjoyed the 5 course meals each evening... and especialley finishing off with cheese..and the wine... its taste is so much different to the �������� wines of Abruzzo... more delicate... bavarian food and the tyrol..heaps of chips and one of my favorite snacks curry wurst... ��i loved the organised way of everything in all these countries the Jura in France is as beautifaul as anywhere you could wish...the Black forest, the castle of leopold...and Salzburg one of my favorite cities ... and the wooden chalet hotels.. a picture and all so clean...��but after ten days of travelling i had had my fill...missed the unexpectedness of life here at home... and so we both agreed without a word to head back south one morning... had had a wonderful time...people that i had known for a lifetime almost had all been very kind and suprised when we popped in for a drink... hadnt seem them for twenty years or so..and might well be another before i do again...��a few hours drive and we were back on the racetracks of the italian autostrada.. the chaos of ordering a coffee in an auto grill and at Bologna the usual traffic jam as yet another accident..happened in front of us... caravan flipped... ...as they always seem to do ... and we all came to a standstill... ��praying that the drivers behinds were awake... but for me this is life now..home... i felt at home in France...we got chased by the police...thought it was speeding...but no customs and excise...took us off to a remote car park where another ten or so douanes people were waiting with their guns... one police car behind us another with a lovely red sign in french and english.. insisting we follow... when i reliased it wasnt police i was so relieved they looked at us even more strangely when i started smiling and treating them like long lost friends... meanwhile my son had hardly looked up from the psp console in the back... anyway they were looking for guns and counterfeit money... we have a car with sort of blacked out windows... we were travellin off the autoroute near the german border.. i wanted to fill up with diesel before leving... and we had �������� number plates... i felt quite proud to be stopped because of that ....made me feel more �������� ....a sort of sense of brotherhood with my chosen neighbours of today... anyway we all had a good laugh... they had led me to a car park near a shopping center with extraordinary cheap diesel...and after checking with them that it wasnt cheaper in Germany ... ��i thanked them for my escort to the petrol station explaining that i could most probaley have found it myself and we parted on best of terms... ��being french they did one of their shrug type things..����what i am trying to say in a very long winded way is that every place is worth being happy in... you adapt and if you are willing or able..its not language in a verbal sense its your body language..you will find yourself being treated well everywhere... language is not a problem... its attitude... ��i have argued and got ridiculed and continue to get ridiculed for my views on accepting and adapting to life in a different country... ��i get so tired of the stupidity of the comments about the food because people are just too stupid to order from a proper menu... ��the inability of people to get work done...not because they cannot speak �������� but they most probabley couldnt have done it in the UK or where ever without the same problems because they have never done it anywhere... why do people think that when they cross the channel they suddenly are capable of runnning a building project when they have barely mounted a shelf before in their lives... or take on an acre of land when they have always lived with a postgae stamp lawn back and front...sure..its good to take on challenegs ..it keeps us all going...but accept its often ones own limitations that are the cause of problems...back to food for one last word... i have no problems with wishing to eat or cook diferent cultures food... but its the attitude that it not being available here is something wrong ... ��for two reasons... one is that as the marche people have proved it is available and seemingly easily enough... the other point is that should you choose to live in say cornwall as opposed to london or manchester or any ��mid to large city in the UK... you will find exactley the same thing... i lived in devon.. and a fresh food market dealing in exotic type foods was not a common site... my advise is if that is an important life choice for you ...you go and live in Milan, rome, florence,bologna, naples... wherever...there you will find all the choices that you would have found in the cities you have just moved from... ��buy a ruin in the middle of a field half way up a mountain... and we are talking here levels of Ben Nevis or snowdon... the latest thai restaurant will be just as hard to find... its not the ��������s that have the problem its your thought process...��a gold star to anyone that arrives at the end of this post..and thankfully its not really directed to anyone on here..well they dont post their drivel on here luckily ...they post about these sorts of things on other less intelligent places... ��where i am cited as the devil incarnate for not wanting to join in their whinging pom sheep like mentality...��and no everything here is not wonderful, not for anyone �������� or foreign, but its Italy , and i like most ��������s that i know that dont work for the civil service will complain about everything to do with �������� life from job fixing to taxation and corruption.. but again that �������� and its true.. you just learn to take advantage of the way they do things here...

��when we moved despite the TV saying it worked everywhere did and does not function in italy... you either get sound or picture...its now used for games... so in the past they didnt do what they said because Italy uses a diferent set up and from what capo boi says it now seems that they will tune into the �������� way of doing things... so your memory does serve you well... ��

��you will have to explain that one... are you talking about scandinavians... ��if so you might be right although am sure that they as the much larger majority of northern europeans buying here would know a thing or two about fitting in... if its people from Newcastle it could just be the fact that no one outside that area can understand much of what they say but everyone likes them because they always smile when they say it .. so they should fit in well toono matter ... i do find it somewhat absurd that you make such a general sweeping statement about most of us considering your short stay here in Italy....��cannot really undesrtand where you are trying to get with this...��

��sheet ice on a steep hill like yours is not for the faint hearted...however before you go spending money on anything you should realise that even the best four x four will not do you that much good if it is not wearing the right tyres...firstly i would find a garage that you have faith in before i bought any off road vehicle here... and buy it throuhg them... with a degree of guarantee...that they will know the owner and the car... ��i say this because as most of you know from driving here the majority of ��������s know very litlle about ��taking care of vehicles or their capacities... and if you think the second hand car market in the UK is somewhat outside normal laws and consumer rights double that risk here ...��secondly i would only buy a vehicle that has all the electronic computersied systems that engage / dis engage wheels as they loose grip... ��basically most four wheel drives now run in auto mode... meaning in most cases the front wheels do the work in all normal conditions... if the computer senses any loss of grip it transfers drive to any wheel which needs it and or locks the diff.... to allow traction in slipery conditions... ��its a pretty basic requirment now of all modern 4 x 4 vehicles...the other thing is that many do not have low ratio selctors... for you that will be essential ... so make sure it has a switch on it...again electronic to move you into a low ratio drive systemback to tyres... the most effective thing on ice is studs after chains...so your sentence saying that chains did not work is to my mind the cause for concern... chains should grip on ice.... ��studs are generally illegal in most areas where there is not a continuos snow covering... ��and in reallity are only used by people living on tops of mountains and fitted to cars that never leave those areas... 4 x 4 vehicles do a bit better in snow than normal vehicles... but not that much especialley if going down hill... they are in geneal very much heavier than the two wheel drive vehicles so momentum generally when you apply brakes in slippery condition make them even more likely to skid off a surface... ��so buy one with at the very least ABS and at best with EPS... a sort of computersied system which tries to correct skidding and keep the car in a steerable state....finally tyres... some people do not like snow tyres and thats been argued enough... however living on a hill like yours i would say they would be essential... basically high grip tyres made of rubber which does not harden up so much in cold and so maintains grip... ��better than chains because you put them on at the start of winter and take them off at the end...or when the snow goes and temps are higher... you in your situation would be well advised to still have chains in the boot...well you would have to in ice...��what this means are two sets of tyres... each set about 800 euro... but in a sense they last you in general 3 seasons depending of course on use... so after the initial outlay it costs no more... than having one set...��the only car mentioned that i could even come close to agreeing with is the nissan x trail although parts for nissan and their availability here in Italy are hugely expensive and at times hard to find... ��the top one would be the subaru i guess...thats what our carbineri drive....��dont forget 4 x 4 vehicles have bigger more costley parts in any case and because of the extra drive even more parts to go wrong...most of the others mentioned are one purpose vehicles... ��the best of which is most probaley the suzuki or pand... not the new models ... but you will get your back shot to pieces and they would take a week to get you back to the UK... ��a landrover... even the most modern like a defender is about the most basic vehicle for that sort of money anybody could buy... an old one is a walking environmental disater... plus it might take you two weeks to get back to the uk...i would also suggest heated seat, heated mirrors and heated winscreen as additional requirements... ��anyway thats the d criteria in essence we used for when we chnaged our old misubishi along with high rating in the ncap regarding occupant safety... fifth gear did a program the other day showing the fallacy of the big is better arguement regarding older vehicles with less safety specs... something like a landrover was crashed into a small high rated car of today... and the landrover driver would have had no legs left... ��the door on the smaller car still opened and there was no entry of the engine into the passenger space...choose things like old pandas or suzukis and the stats get even worse...do more research... look for thigs like car of the year in the four wheel drive section for the year you are looking at... they will generally be the best... of that generation and see if you can get one for the money you want to spend via a garage you knowi would expect to pay here something around the 12000 - 20000 euro for anything decent ��in the sense of your specs and my additional essentials... ��������

��water ... differs from area to area... and can be very local... they generally stamp their martks on water meter cabinets so look at one near where your land is or ask at the comune... ��depending on which company you end up being served by you will then be able to see what online options they offer... we are with ruzzo that dont like anything much online...i would think that ENTEL would be best visted also in person... never heard of them but ��in general also... for us ��to do much with ENEL our supply company its generally easier to call into their office where a person with the right forms and diferent contact numbers to us general public types makes very quick progress of all these sorts of things...they then co-ordinate with the comune and get the various permisons to dig holes etc and fill in again on any public highways... although god help you if it needs to cross private land... ��it doesnt seem that people on this forum at least are having much luck in that sense... ��the comune bit can cost quite a fortune too.. so hopefully it will be a short dig...

��well according to this L'Aquila lies on one... and i know nothing about ley lines...just your question intrigued me... anyway here is the link... cannot be translated because the ��������s... well at least those few in the know use the same words...��anyway Italy seems to know plenty about these lines too ... ��and it seems to me that if you live in Puglia and this L'Aquila one...which seems to be a main one... ie the stonehenge one... then continues down to north africa... might well pass through your back yard...��anyway key in ley lines italia into a google search and filter with only italian sites... you get a lot of results for the film "ley lines" but there were several others...although this one seemed to answer your question in a preliminary senseand now i know a bit more about them too... so thanks for that

��penny��that is so right... ��their confusion to me seems to arise because we are not in the euro zone... ��and they cannot be convinced that we are EU citizens... ��and this is from many sides not just officials... ����������

��could be my last word on the subject... but who can tell...regarding evecuations and advice to citizens... luckily we do not live in L'Aquila province but that of Teramo... a choice based on many things...not just the seismic activity... ��but in a fre world we all make outr own choices and there are many people that prefer L'Aquila to the coastal side of Abruzzo... and justly so..anyway after the main quake in L'Aquila... in fact that morning... civil protection people were advisng many people that contacted them to sleep in cars... many more just did it anyway... ��Teramo the city looked like a seaside holiday resort the next day as tents were pitched and caravans dragged into parking lots or gardens... ��sports fieldes etc...used for emergency accomodation... all on the advice of civil protection people...��we even had a phone call from ex-clients up near cermignano to see if we knew a place to stay because they had arrived from England and were not allowed to go in their house because the church next door was considered to be in a dangerous state...now we are talking Teramo here... historically an abruzzo province with no major quakes ever... and damge in the north of the province which runs along the ascoli piceno fault line.. not one of the major fault line areas but active enough in the sense of little tremors...now depending on where you read ...ingv the italian site records the quake as 5.8 all other world sites record it at 6.3... sited 6.3km from L'Aquila along the known fault line that runs from the Po valley all the way to the south of Italy ... so why did half the population of this province either get sent off to sleep in cars when there is no real chance that any major quake will happen here... indeed the effects although worrying for many would have been much inferior to the previous three months of quakes centred on L'Aquila ��... the last two of very close to the surface... causing damage... but not collapses and yet people apart from Jehova Witnesses followed instructions to get back into their buildings...small communities here in Teramo the day after were being told not to sleep in houses... small villages that is not huge cities... ��sleep in a caravan tent or car away from structures was the advice... in some cases instruction that had to be followed...so waht makes L'Aquila so different to the rest of Abruzzo... why were not people given this advice...its not a mass evacuation...Teramo managed it and is on a par in size with L'Aquila... small villages throughout the province were informed... tents in gardens and sports field apparent here for many weeks after the major quke as people refused to enter their homes through natural panic... supported by civil protection people and the advice they were giving out... and yet logically there is no danger here... not one person died in the province Teramo and apart from churches and comunes trying to jump on the relief bandwagon no habitable building totally collapsed... ��and yes there are some buildings that did... but if you happened to know them if there had been a heavey lorry driving past you would have been suprised to see the building remain standing...so preventitive evacuation was used throughout provinces of Teramo, Chieti and Pescara...plus the southern L'Aquila area imediately in the aftermarth of the L'Aquila tragedy... ��i believe also many people in Marche and Lazio also chose to or were told to sleep outside their buildings... �� and yet the risk of any real quake damge this side of the Appenines is extremely minimal compared to that of the western appenines... makes little sense to me... either the arguements that evacutaion or limitation of human injury exercises could not have been affected quite simply as a precaution... in a city of such a small amount of people and its surrounding villages...

��well i could add chapter and verse...but artys succint appreciation of your efforts is something i heartily agree with... ��i too am not effected by this ... thanks to an arguementative �������� wife...god forbid anyone that tells her that i cannot get what is mine by right..... also being from Campania her accent has a certain effect on people... ��most of her conviction comes from the fact that when she lived in England everything was so easily done and efficient for a non english EU citizen that she has become quite a private crusader against the inability of �������� petty officials to see beyond their limited desk tops...sorry waffled on again...thanks Penny and Arty for much better words...

��Cialente, on the first of April 2009,��just five days prior to the earthquake, to the following people:- The Office of the Prime Minister (Civil Defence Department)- Regional Governor Gianni Chiodi- Regional Councillor for Civil Defence, Daniela Stati- L’Aquila Prefecture��"In the light of the serious and continuing episodes of seismic events that began on 16 January this year in the form of a daily “seismic swarm” of 200 or more shocks and culminating in a level four quake on 30 March, I hereby request that urgent and appropriate funding be provided to cover preliminary emergency measures, and that a state of emergency be declared for the purpose of undertaking the necessary interventions to repair both public and private buildings. Furthermore, I hereby wish to specifically report the serious structural damage caused to two school buildings housing five hundred pupils������thats a telegram from the mayor of L'Aquila after a meeting with the head of the civil protection group...��Al posto del cemento c'era della plastica», allarga le braccia un vigile del fuoco. Di cemento c'era soltanto un sottile spessore che non ha retto la scossa. Il risultato: tonnellate e tonnellate di materiale sono crollate sulle scale, proprio quelle da cui dovevano fuggire gli studenti. I vigili del fuoco e i professori che ieri camminavano con le torce elettriche per i corridoi bui e deserti dell'università non nascondono la rabbia: «Questa non è un'università, ma una trappola per topi». Tutti indicano le aule: decine, ma sotto il livello del terreno. Un docente allarga le braccia, forse immaginando anche se stesso in cerca di una introvabile via di fuga: «Se la scossa fosse arrivata in una normale mattina di lezione, non si sarebbe stato scampo».������thats one of the reports about a university building... they used spray foam instead of armoured cementtheres is also another report of ten years previous to the event sent to the comune of L'Aquila outlining that there were at least 500 buildings within L'Aquila proper not built or upgraded to the norms of a class 1 seismic area including the university building that collapsed on its sleeping students and the prefectura...as regards ways of doing things... the Jehova witnesses of L'Aquila adviced all its members to prepare for a major disaster... to have mobile phones close,prepare bags,park cars away from all buildings and during times of high seismic activity to sleep in cars away from buildings... all JW members survived the quake...and are sustaining efforts still to help those less fortunate.... ��all done before the big one that collapsed buildings... but if you see the mayors telegram its obvious that they knew buildings were already showing major problems and that there was belatedly real concern...... because they already knew well that given a major quake L'Aquila and many of its building were going to fall... ��its also quite well documented that the province did not implement the class 1 seismic regulations which it had been assigned allowing buildings of recent construction to be built well outside national regulationsis that were set for the area but not aproved by the local government... all of the province of L'Aquila is assigned as a class 1... (the highest) at risk of earthquake damage��thats the link to a woman who tried to warn the people of Paganica to leave their homes... suceeded with a few... but was in competition with the civil protection there...telling everyone to go home..and back to sleep after they had been shaken out of bed between 11.00 and 12.00 that night... ��her thoughts and her criticism of what happened have been continuosly censored since....��those are the three events.. the last one being the 3.32 big one... the first two being the quakes at around 11-12 that night... ��you may notice that these two although less in intensity were at the same depth as the 3.30 one... and would have been felt even more in Aquila because they were centred at 3km from the city...the big one at around 6-7 km...its also relevant if you believe in people power and that you are interested in anything much apart from point scoring that there are many blogs from quite respected although non establishment people from all sides here ...that are seriously asking questions not about the civil protection group but abouts its less than respected leader... ��everyone recognises that those on the ground did the best of what could be done at a great cost to their own safety... ... �� ��what you have o do is read the postings from people in reply to articles or news to get a real fell for what went on... and it takes time...as regards california... well you tell me in california what would happen if they had the main emergency hospital closed during the emergencey... because it had been built by a company renowned here for such sterling efforts as the salerno regia calabria motorway ... built of less cement than in my own houses roof ... or the student home built with foam.... would they be qquite so content at the thought of a big shake one night...if they had �������� politicians and building firms involved ... ��������s have the knowledge of history... recent...if you look at the school built ten years ago in campobasso and which killed all of one class... because they had skimped ... that is the comune politicians and their family building firms on the work... pocketed millions from the EU...The hospital in L'Aquila was built by the same company that has built several hospitals along the Appenine fault line... even the high speed rail links... and were due to build the bridge to Sicily... they are renowned for their government contracts and their dislike of cement in building works... ��sand comes in much cheaper..... ��