The Kindness of Strangers

I've mentioned in a previous blog that we sometimes frequent a particular bar for elevenses, which is run by a French chap and his girlfriend. When we first went there, the guy told us that there is an Australian lady who comes in all the time, and we will surely meet her one of these days.

On Wednesday we were introduced to K from Perth, her Italian gentleman friend and a friend of K's who is visiting from Perth. It turns out that K had decided a few years ago to make a major change to her life and had come to Orvieto on a three-month trial to see whether she might like to live here.  One day the planets aligned themselves and on a visit to the vegetable market, she got chatting to another woman (also Australian) who revealed that she was regretfully looking to sell her apartment here in Orvieto as she had decided to return to Australia.  That's the short version of a story that's a little more complicated to tell here.

With one thing and another, K returned to Perth having made a verbal agreement to buy the apartment and had a piece of paper in hand to show that she had paid a deposit and everything was in train for her to make the move to Orvieto permanently.  Months passed, permits were issued, legal papers drawn up, etc etc and K has now lived happily here for about two years.  All is swell.

After drinking coffee together and chatting amiably for an hour or so, K very kindly invited us to come to her home for dinner last night, an invitation which we greedily accepted in light of the fact that we were (a) so excited to talk to someone apart from each other, (b) we were so excited to speak English to someone apart from each other, (c) we wanted to see her apartment and of course (d) we are always hungry.  K advised us that she had just bought a case of prosecco and had plenty of food, so we knew the pre-requisites were all there.

The apartment was absolutely gorgeous, very modern, bright and airy and with a magnificent view out to the surrounding patchworked Umbrian farmlands.  We immediately made her an offer on it and she accepted ... just kidding, we really are coming home to Melbourne in the near future... *sob*
We grilled K on how it all works, this whole "buying property in Italy" thing, which is quite mysterious and interesting;  it is also not material for this blog but it did get my heart racing just a little bit.

We dragged ourselves home after a wonderful (huge) meal and rather a lot of alcohol, thinking "Wow!"  We are still reeling from the idea that a perfect stranger could so open-heartedly welcome us into her home and share so much with us, presumably never to see us again.  I've decided that it's just an Italian thing.  That's the way it is, here.  People can be just nice, with no ulterior motive.

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