Our new home

Our wish list for the apartment we want to stay in here in Lucca sounded like one straight out of House Hunters International:

• A mix of old traditional, Italian style, but with enough modernity that we would be relatively comfortable.
• A place with a room with two beds for the kids, one for us, and if we were lucky, some provisions for guests to stay as well.
• Two bathrooms preferable, but one would do fine.
• Enough space to for each to have their own space when needed, but still small enough that we feel close.
• Within the walls of Lucca.
• The girls have to love it.
• On a budget of less than €1200 a month.

Our expectation as we went out to look at properties today was that we, like families on HHI, would be playing the settling game at some point. Based on the places we'd been finding on our online research, we were figuring we would have to give up on some parts of that list. We'd for sure be saying any number of the following at some point during the day. "It's great, but it hasn't been updated since 1327." "Maybe a 15 minute, uphill walk to the city would be lots of fun just to buy groceries." "Well girls, you wouldn't mind sharing a single bed for a year...would you?" "€2750 per month is close enough, right?"

Courtesy of what I can only call some divine intervention, the first flat we visited today was the whole package. That picture above? That's our place. No joke. That huge gate is part of the original  Medieval wall (not the current/famous Renaissance wall). Our room connects with and is part of the right hand tower of that picture. We're on the top floor (the 4 floor stair case to our door being the only slight drawback, but a little exercise is a good thing!) in a just renovated apartment, we will be the first new tenants. It has an upstairs (the stairs curve along the interior of the stone tower) loft-like bedroom with two beds for the kids (Arya is excited by the sky light above her bed that will allow her to see the stars at night). It has 2 full bathrooms downstairs plus a half bath connected to the kids' room upstairs. A generous, but not obnoxious living space with a brand new (as is everything) pull-out couch for visitors. A perfect blending of Medieval architecture (complete with wooden beam roof) and modern bonuses (dishwasher, AC(!), and washer and dryer(!!!!)). All right within our budget. Oh, and the kids were begging us to get it!

I'm still unable to quite understand how this treasure fell into our laps. It just became available as it was just completed. One of the realtors Stacey had spoken to about renting for our visit this week remembered our story and let her know he thought he had the perfect place for us and he was right. We sign our contract on Monday!

With this step out of the way, the adventure is getting more and more real which for me is extremely exciting. A huge life shift like this can have so many things go wrong (see Stacey's last post about Plan B!), having this major thing go so well has really confirmed in me that this is not only a good choice, but it is truly what I feel we were meant to do. I can't wait to get back in September.

Now...who's going to be the first to come break in our sofa bed?!