Disastro

First the good news.  We area here safely.  We arrived without incident as far as the travel logistics were concerned. No delays, flights on time, no bad experiences while flying.  Our dear friend Simone picked us up at the airport in Rome, and we made it to Umbertide in record time.  On the way he called Simona, who said there was a problem in the apartment.  We weren't sure exactly what the problem was, but we were too jet lagged to process the concern in Simone's voice.

When we got to the apartment we couldn't believe it.  The inside looked like a halloween house, with blackened cob webs, black walls and black dust everywhere.

So we pieced together the following.  The night before our arrival, (thank god we were not in the apartment, I would have had  a heart attack) there was a lightening storm.  We think somehow that the lightening hit our fuse box, with such force it blew it out and spread black melted plastic particles every where.  The fuse box you see below is the replacement.  Once we began to make sense of what happened, Simone called the electrician who showed up with his father.  Then Manuele came over to check things out.  Everyone was worried about the roof.  They climbed up there in the attic and no problem.  No black dust nothing.  So Manuele says no problem the fuse box did what it was supposed to.  All we need to do is paint.  Then he called the man to check on the hot water who showed up immediately.  We had 10 people in this little place doing this and that.  Electricity was restored, we had hot water, the fuse box was replace and everyone went home.  The apartment is now having a very thorough cleaning.  Painting will happen when we leave here and go to Cortina.

New fuse box.  Thank god the door was not burned.