My first apartment:
Picture it -- Vicenza, Italy. 1973. It's summer. One Navy Journalist/Broadcaster has been assigned to the U.S. Army post Caserma Ederle to work in the Southern European Network radio station, a division of Armed Forces Radio.
One of two Navy men assigned -- a proportional billet, along with Air Force personnel as the station served all military facilities in Italy -- I was single and there was no room in the barracks for me on a permanent basis as I was not assigned to the Army.
I found an apartment building a little under two miles from the post, beautifully situated between two cornfields on a road parallel to the main road entering town. I had a third (top) floor apartment just over the landlord's...there were six apartments total...two on each floor. I had a balcony off my living room and a balcony off my bedroom (in the rear). It was a two-bedroom apartment. All the floors were marble. The apartment was generous in size, but the kitchen was small.
This was where (and when) I began learning to cook. My mom sent me my favorite recipes. For my first Christmas, my folks sent me a crockpot (which I still have) and my first New Year's in that apartment, I cooked a "boeuf bourguignon" from a recipe that came with the crockpot. It was delish.
It was my very first home away from home, and I loved it with all my heart. I had a view from my living room across the cornfield to the Caserma. From my bedroom balcony, I had a view of a structure (called "La Rotonda") built by architect Andrea Palladio...it was sitting in the middle of surrounding fields with no structures nearby. This building was the inspiration/model for the central part of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Behind it were some hills, atop which was a monastery. To the right, I could see the city of Vicenza.
I could walk to work in just under 20 minutes, if I had to. I had a bicycle at first, and that took me all of 10 minutes to ride to work. But I often worked nights. I had read, a year or so before, Tom Tryon's "Harvest Home", so riding my bicycle after dark on the road that cut through cornfields was an "experience." Often it was foggy, and my imagination was fertile, but I never freaked/wigged out. Just gave myself a fit of giggles every now and again.
I also bought a second-hand car -- from my conversational Italian instructor. It was a 1963 Fiat four-door. It didn't have much get-up-and-go, but it didn't need much. I drove it on rainy days, or when I wanted to shop in the commissary. Mostly, my forays into the city of Vicenza were on bicycle, along with the majority of other citizens there.
I had lived in the building several months when, one fine crisp autumn day, I looked out and to the right, and beyond the city I could see the Italian alps, aka the Dolomites, in the distance.
Living in the industrial north, one had many days of fog or smog blocking such views. But when it was on, it was ON!
I lived in this apartment two years. I had many wonderful times there, and it's one of my fondest memories.