All posts in category Italy, here we come!

Expat Friendships (musings, a question to other expats, and a poll)

Ciao Readers!

I have been spending quite a bit of time thinking and reading about being an “expat.” Now, what differentiates an “expat” from an “immigrant” is an entire other discussion, so for our purposes I’m using “expat” to mean someone who changes countries more from desire than need. In any case, the psychology of expats is very interesting – why do we do it? what are are psyches like in our our new country? should we be a diagnoses in the DSM-5? (I’ve actually been toying with the idea of eventually writing a scholarly paper on the topic.) But for now, one area in particular has me puzzled….friendships.

Soon after we arrived and I started attending events with other expats, I noticed people seemed to be fairly concerned with figuring out whether I was a short or long-termer. Apparently, as I’ve discovered from talking to enough folks, this is a pretty common phenomenon. In the world of expats people come and go and some folks are very weary of “wasting” time with someone who might be gone 6 months from now. I find it really strange, though I have read about it on several people’s blogs I like/respect (some examples here and here). Nothing I’ve read however really explains it in a way I can fully wrap my brain around – it’s usually about the pain of people leaving, but there’s got to be more to it than that (or not?)….

Personally, I have already had this experience happen twice – I have met two lovely women, each of whom was just here for a short period of time. While they were here we had great fun – walks and talks and lunches and dinners and soakings in the rain. Maybe you’re different, but I don’t have a zillion friends, so when I meet cool people I want to hang out with all I can think is “yay!” They are both gone now (one home to CA, the other to continue her/her hubby’s adventure in Turkey, now Botswana). Do I wish they were still here? Of course! Am I sad they are gone? No doubt! Would I ever turn back the clock and un-meet them? Not in a million years!!! How amazing to have made new friends, have more folks to commiserate with on Skype, get to learn about countries I know nothing about, get cool little gifts from California and Turkey, and so on. So, here are my queries to expats and non expats:

Expats: If you subscribe to the “I only make friends with people staying _____ long” philosophy, can you help me understand that point of view? Or if you have any insight at all, would love to hear it!

Non-expats: What do you think:

23 Comments

by Newmexicotoitaly on February 6, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Culture Shock, Italy, here we come!

Tagged culture shock, expat friendships, expats

Posted by Newmexicotoitaly on February 6, 2013

https://newmexicotoitaly.com/2013/02/06/expat-friendships-musings-a-question-to-other-expats-and-a-poll/

We Just had an Earthquake!!!

Ciao Readers!

Okay, at first we had no idea what was happening, but then we both realized – we just experienced an earthquake – ARG! The building basically shook (and not too much, everything/one’s fine), but I hate earthquakes – they scare me! Just now finding information online – looks like it was a 5.0 magnitude originating somewhere in Northern Italy. Never a boring time here, for sure!

9 Comments

by Newmexicotoitaly on January 25, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Italy, here we come!

Tagged Earthquake in Italy

Posted by Newmexicotoitaly on January 25, 2013

https://newmexicotoitaly.com/2013/01/25/we-just-had-an-earthquake/

Behind the Scenes of an Expat Blog

Ciao Readers!

Today is one of those “words only” posts where instead of photos of food and fun you get an unsolicited peek into my psyche. As always, I’m giving you fair warning in case you’d like to stop reading now…

I’ve been an “expat” going on 5 months now, though I’ve been writing this blog for about 9. In that time I’ve gotten a pretty good look into the world of expats and their blogs (and have succumb to some of the associated pitfalls). When you’re an expat with a blog you are simultaneously trying to digest a huge life-altering experience while providing information and/or entertainment to your readers. The trend I have seen (and am guilty of) is that you want to be upbeat and portray your new home in a positive light. The reasons are many – you want to appear well-adjusted, you want to be gracious to your new home, you don’t want to scare your readers away with orneriness, or, maybe you really do find your new home to be a utopian paradise. However, from my experiences meeting the expats behind the blogs, their reality never quite matches what I’ve read on their blogs. Here’s my own personal example – I feel like every time I try and vent/gripe, I get comments reminding me I get to live in Italy, that the food/art/[insert cool thing] here are fabulous, and so on. What I have learned from this is that people don’t want to hear me gripe. As a result, I only write blog posts when I am in an upbeat mood and have had a positive experience. The product is a blog that, while true in its content, is a bit misleading in its silence. Even when I do speak about unpleasant things, I tend to underplay them (like when I said I was “under the weather” over the break, that was to spare you all from reading about how Exorcist-like sick I really was). Today I read a woman’s blog that made me want to break the silence…

The blog is written by an expat who has been here 11 years, so her ruminations are not a result of initial culture shock. I recommend the entire post, but she explains the difficulties of living in Italy in a nutshell when she says:

“[L]iving in Italy is like wearing impossibly high heels–it’s lovely at times, even sexy, but completely impractical. And I don’t mean it’s impossible to live here–just impractical. It takes the mettle of a Joan of Arc to slash your way into the fabric of life in the Bel Paese. What Italy offers–lavishly, deliciously–is culture, of course. Art litters the landscape like weeds. History oozes from every brick. The cult of the table has been well-noted by the gobbling hordes, and though mediocrity is fast becoming the norm in tourist meccas like Florence, in most of the country you can still get a stupendous meal wherever you happen to flop. And meals have a lovely way of unfolding here that feels very civilized, indeed. But for me, one of the hallmarks of a civilized society is the dignity allowed humans in the performing of life’s most basic functions (i.e. paying bills, peeing, grocery shopping, strolling about town–granted, an eclectic litmus, but nevertheless indicative)–and here, my friends, is where Italy fails miserably.” (Letters from Florence, 2011).

I found not only this post, but much of her blog equally honest and intelligent and it made me want to persist in interspersing some deeper thoughts in with my food-filled-photos. I don’t know this blogger, but from people’s blogs you sometimes get a sense that they’re a person you’d like to meet. For example, the folks from goal42 have their entire travel budget right on their blog for everyone to see. I found the openness surprising/refreshing and “liked” the post, which led to an e-mail, a meeting, and a friendship (unfortunately, they are now in Turkey en route to Africa!). So, I am pretty sure there is more of a purpose to this blog than purely entertainment. Or, maybe this is just the kind of post you get when I write after spending 1.5 hours waiting at the health office followed by an hour at the laundromat as opposed to following a lovely lunch with a 1/2 litre of vino…

Funny thing is, the next scheduled post IS about food…until next time…

20 Comments

by Newmexicotoitaly on January 4, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Culture Shock, Italy, here we come!

Tagged blogs, culture shock, expat blogs, expats, life in italy

Posted by Newmexicotoitaly on January 4, 2013

https://newmexicotoitaly.com/2013/01/04/behind-the-scenes-of-an-expat-blog/

When it Rains in Florence….

Ciao Readers!

It’s been raining here – lots! You may have seen on the news how Venice was recently under water (more than usual). Pretty much all of the northern half of Italy was drenched. So, I decided to share some of the rainy day activities we have undertaken (seeing as we have no car and no mall to drive to)…

When it rains in Florence….it’s a good excuse for an extra-thick ridiculously rich cup of “cioccolata calda” at Grom (think hot chocolate/pudding hybrid):

When it rains in Florence…it’s a good time to go to the laundromat to use a clothes dryer and be amused by the lost-in-translation signs (here they are trying to tell you to empty the washer when it’s done washing):

When it rains in Florence….it’s the time I stare at our ceiling and think about how much I hate the “chandelier” that hangs where a perfectly functional ceiling fan should be. (In order to make my gripe more humorous I actually tried to write a haiku about a ceiling fan; the results were pretty pathetic. I then tried to write the song “Oh Ceiling Fan” to the words of “Oh Christmas Tree” – complete failure). Maybe the picture is amusing enough; behold:

When it rains in Florence….I try (half-successfully) to see the glass as half-full and take photos of the lovely rainbows that follow:

Thanks for sharing a rainy afternoon with me! P.S. – if you enjoy the blog and are so inclined…you can click on the “top blog” logo on the upper right of this page and review my blog for some possible virtual kudos. Grazie!

11 Comments

by Newmexicotoitaly on November 27, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Culture Shock, Food, Italy, here we come!

Tagged cioccolata calda, Florence, grom hot chocolate, rain in italy, rainbows, top blog award, weather in Itasly

Posted by Newmexicotoitaly on November 27, 2012

https://newmexicotoitaly.com/2012/11/27/when-it-rains-in-florence/

Ambling Along the Arno in Autumn

Ciao Readers! (And happy short-work-week to those of you back in the States; Thanksgiving post to follow Wednesday.)

In addition to the joy of even more alliteration (thanks for the “ambling” idea Steve), today you get to go on my morning run with me (you’ll have to add the ipod playlist on your end)!

Fall is here and the leaves are starting to change color (while the grass remains that amazing shade of green). As I’ve been going for my morning runs along the Arno, I have been thinking “wow, this is really pretty, I should bring my camera sometime.” So, last week I did just that. Instead of running, I walked (but still in my goofy American running clothes) and carried my camera.

Below are some shots in the park I walk through to get to the Arno and from the trail that runs along the river. On my usual run I go east – headed out of town – those are the majority of the shots – where you don’t see much but trees. But for you I also went west towards the center of town to get some cool building reflections on the water (I usually don’t run that way cause the trail is full of tourists blocking the path [of course, with that view, you can’t blame them]). If you recall from my “Sundays in the Park Revisited” post, this is the same trail along which, should you decide to take a break from running, you can sit at a cafe on the river and have a cappuccino (or other beverage of your choice). Thanks for coming on my walk with me!

8 Comments

by Newmexicotoitaly on November 19, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Italy, here we come!

Tagged Arno river, Fall in Florence, running in Florence

Posted by Newmexicotoitaly on November 19, 2012

https://newmexicotoitaly.com/2012/11/19/ambling-along-the-arno-in-autumn/

To Everything There is a Season

Ciao Readers! (and Happy [early] Birthday Pop!)

The title of this blog refers not to the 1965 hit by the Byrds (originally done by Pete Seeger in 1962 and taken almost verbatim from the book of Ecclesiastes, later to be quoted by Kevin Bacon in “Footloose”), but to how everything here runs by the calender. And I mean everything – what you wear, what you eat, whether or not you’re allowed to turn on your radiator and whether or not you can find mosquito repellent in the stores. Let me explain…

I suppose before moving here I had the vague idea that people in Europe eat more seasonally than most folks in the U.S. But I don’t think I really appreciated the full extent of that idea. I always notice here that what I can buy at the market directly relates to what’s being harvested that week – which is actually pretty cool – this August/September was the first time ever I have bought nothing but sweet/ripe cantaloupes – not a dud in the bunch! However, I had no idea this principle even applied to the available sweets. When we first got here and would have our “breakfast” pastries in the park, they never seemed to have chocolate-filled ones, just marmalade. I was really missing the chocolate-filled ones I remembered from my “breakfasts” in Bologna in March. I have since learned that Italians think chocolate is bad for you in the summer as it is heavy and will make you hot and unhealthy; chocolate is reserved for the fall/winter (and lo and behold – more varieties of chocolate goodies are starting to appear – yay!).

Now, when it comes to food, I think this seasonal perspective makes sense. But I’m a little less convinced when it comes to other areas of life (less convinced = more spoiled). For instance, the calender dictates what home supplies you can buy in the stores. When we first got here in August we bought a trial screen for one of our windows (not knowing if it would fit and serve the purpose of keeping our cat from jumping 4 floors). We decided we wanted to buy more for the rest of our windows, so when we had the rental car for Greenday the first weekend of September, we drove back to the OBI (Home-Depot “light”). There were no screens to be found. As the employee explained to me, it was past August 31 and they were no longer on sale. Not fully understanding what he meant, I asked when there would be more in, to which he replied “next summer.” That was the dawning of the realization that you can only buy certain things here at certain times. I had also been meaning to buy a second oscillating fan for the guest bedroom (should we finally get some guests, hint hint)…

As I surmised at that point, there were no more fans to be had. It didn’t matter that the temperatures were still reaching into the 90’s – it was September and that was that! The same held true for mosquito repellent (fyi, mosquitoes are onomatopoeicaly called “zanzare” in Italian – love saying that word). While all of the mosquito repelling supplies were taken off the store shelves, no one bothered to tell the mosquitoes they don’t exist after October 1st (they’re really bad here, and their calenders are set for sometime in the future). And then there’s the way people are dressed – it went from mini skirts and 0pen-toed shoes to winter coats and scarves almost overnight – with no transition in between and (from my perspective) a disregard for the actual weather conditions outside. But I can tell the feeling is mutual – I can’t tell you how many weird looks I get when I go out for my morning run (still in short sleeves – crazy stranieri!).

Today the owners came over to show us how to turn on the gas/water radiator system (it’s amazing how idiot-like we are about some things here). Lucky for us we don’t really like heat or we may have wanted it turned on before November 1st (which we just learned is the official day the CITY will LET you turn on the heat!). Oh, no, I forgot to ask the exact date that we need to shut it off….

Until next time!

Someone is happy it’s radiator season:

2 Comments

by Newmexicotoitaly on November 10, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Culture Shock, Italy, here we come!

Tagged eating chocolate in Italy, food culture in italy, italian culture, mosquito repellent, seasonal dressing, seasonal eating

Posted by Newmexicotoitaly on November 10, 2012

https://newmexicotoitaly.com/2012/11/10/to-everything-there-is-a-season/

Sure, Park There! (A photo anthology)

Ciao Readers!

In light of the upcoming election in the U.S., I had two choices – write about the surreal experience of voting and watching the election from abroad (for the second time; in 2008 we were in France), or post a total “fluff” piece. As any good party host knows, you should always stay away from politics and religion, so I chose the latter!

In Friday’s blog I made the following statement: “…we have learned that street signs, signals, barriers, etc. don’t mean much here (one day I’ll have to post a photo of the cars parked all over the street downstairs).” Right after I wrote that, I thought “good idea,” and leaned out a window with a camera. I also shot a few pictures of cars parked in and around Piazza Beccaria (the end of the main street in the neighborhood). The thing to keep in mind as you see the photos of cars literally parked in the street, behind other cars, and in front of clearly marked “no parking” signs is that it took NO effort to take these photos – I didn’t have to wait for the shots – this is how people park ALL THE TIME.

Happy Election!