#19: Healthcare Success and a Coconut Disaster
Ciao Nonni,
Success! I have ticked off another major bureaucratic task on my list. I finally went yesterday to the local hospital and enrolled myself and the bambini in the Italian national health service.
And to continue the general theme of our move here so far, it was far less complicated and stressful than I had built it up to be in my head. I didn't even have the two little princelings with me.
Of course the experience was not without its quirks and challenges. First I had to find out where to go. No information about this can be found anywhere, by anyone. Luckily, the school told me to go to Padiglione B at the smaller of Lucca's two hospitals. This was only half correct, but at least it got me to the right building. Once inside, a kind of escape room experience began.
Corridors, rooms and counters (sportelli) are all labelled with either letters or numbers, and these link loosely to the functions they perform. Although not always. There is a big directory at the entryway, which is rendered redundant by the ticket machine next to it. This machine asks you via touchscreen which service you require. Once a selection is made, you are given a number (in my case B024) and are told to wait. Where to do this is not clear. There are about five sala attesa (waiting rooms) along a very long corridor. Each one serves about four counters. But because of the ticketing system, you don't know to which one you will eventually be summoned. So you just pick a waiting room and hope for the best.
Of course when your ticket is called, the sportello number given is nowhere near the waiting room you have chosen, so you must rush back into the corridor and quickly locate the correct room.
Once at the counter, you must explain why you are there. If you have selected the wrong ticket type for the service you require, you are in trouble and will be scolded. You will be sent back to the machine to try again. This is confirmed by a big sign on the wall behind the desk. No amount of pleading about how long you have already waited will change this. Offt.
Luckily, I had the right ticket. I handed over a bundle of documents and vital records for myself and the kids and stumbled through my request in Italian to be enrolled in the health service. The woman serving obviously took pity and didn't ask me any more questions than the bare minimum required to get the information she needed. I had some forms to sign, and that was it. I left 15 minutes later with three printed copies of our Tessera Sanitaria and an assurance that the proper plastic cards would arrive in the post very soon. A roaring success!
As I have mentioned before, many of our friends here in Lucca are also foreigners. This has provided us with an insight into cultures other than Italian and Australian, and I've loved this unexpected bonus. One of our most recent experiences was our very first proper Thanksgiving. An entire turkey was roasted to perfection, and a huge array of delicious and traditional foods were served. The request of guests was to bring a dish that is traditional from your home country.
This presented something of a pickle for me. What actually is a traditional Australian dish? And more so, one that would be appropriate to serve alongside a roast lunch on a very wintery day in Italy? The first thoughts of BBQs, seafood and beer all ruled themselves out pretty quickly. As did a pavlova, given that I am terrified of making one and that we don't have an electric mixer. My only confidence was that I would definitely not have the arm strength or endurance to whip the egg whites by hand!
In the end I decided to make lamingtons.
Well. So much for choosing something simple. The sponge cake was easy enough. The chocolate icing too. But the coconut. Do you reckon I could find dessicated coconut anywhere? The recipe called for making the sponge the day ahead, so that it has time to cool and harden ever so slightly on the outside to allow for the icing to not result in a lumpy, crumbly disaster. Having already committed by making the cake, thus began my panicked tour of all of Lucca's supermarkets to find the blasted stuff. I even tried to grate some myself, using lumps of coconut I found at a grocer. This was an unmitigated failure. I ended up with a kind of coconut paste.
Finally, I found some the morning of the lunch at the ridiculously overpriced health food store near the kids school. Relieved, I went home and proceeded to cover the kitchen from top to bottom in icing sugar and coconut. Luckily, they tasted great. But never again. And the most annoying thing? I'm now seeing dessicated coconut everywhere! I don't know how I missed it. Every shop I've been to since has it.
Lots of love and hugs to you and everyone back home!
Kate
