Italian Adventures – We Bought a House in Italy!

April 7, 2022

I mentioned this in my Lemon Tree post but I wanted to provide more details for those of you who are interested. Before I left for Italy, I shipped 4 boxes via ‘Send My Bag’ to Italy. Three boxes were filled with personal household items, including clothes, garden stuff, pictures, books, kitchen stuff and more. The last box was filled with new bedding items, since I have been unable to find the flat sheets and comforters here in Italy that actually cover the whole bed. TIP: If you are shipping New items, as well as used / already owned items, pack them in separate boxes and label accordingly. Otherwise, it will slow down delivery and could increase the import tax erroneously.

Note: I HIGHLY recommend the Send My Bag team (SendMyBag.com) for anything you want to ship to Italy. They were super easy to work with, the website was easy to use and the customer support was beyond responsive!!!

The SMB team came and picked up my boxes from my garage in Shoreline, WA at the end of March. I was arriving in Italy on April 5th so if we are assuming a 4-5 day delivery date, knowing they have to go through customs, I felt pretty confident that my boxes would arrive shortly after I arrived.

While I had flight delays, I still arrived on April 5th just a few hours after I was originally scheduled to arrive. But much to my surprise, DHL had made an attempt to deliver 3 of the 4 boxes on April 5th. WHAT?!?! This is Italy, NOTHING arrives on time!!! So I went online and arranged for a new delivery date and let me tell you, I was beyond excited to receive my boxes.

I received an email stating I owed a small customs fee (36 euro) so I paid it immediately, knowing that otherwise it could delay my boxes further. I was up on the balcony, filing my nails when I saw the yellow & red DHL truck hauling ass up SS71 past my house. And then I heard the brakes. So I sprinted downstairs to greet him at the gate, as I didn’t want to risk missing the delivery again. He hopped out of the truck, fresh from his drive from Rome, had me sign papers, and then proceeded to chuck my boxes off the back of the truck. SERIOUSLY?!?! Now I know why many of the delivered items are broken. Sheesh! The fact that I was standing right there, awaiting my boxes, and he still rapidly chucked them off the back of the truck astounded me. We had our niceties and then he drove away. My delight in receiving my shipment was not diminished by the roughness of delivery!!!!

Another note: This was the same day as my trip to Orvieto to fix the WiFi when I spotted the lemon trees at the Pet & Garden store.

I immediately set to my task of opening the boxes and dispersing the items to their proper areas within the house, even if a temporary location. I pulled out my handy garden wagon and proceeded to load it up with packing cubes full of clothes and shoes. WHAT WAS I THINKING PACKING ALL OF THESE CLOTHES?!?!?!?!!!

I was pleased to find everything in order, nothing broken and all in good condition. You would think I was moving here fulltime with the amount of stuff I shipped. But hey, I wanted to make sure I had the things I wanted here in our new home.

Guess what time it is… PROSECCO TIME!!!