living in Italy

Italian House Numbers

December 18, 2011

House numbers in Milan and many other cities are usually standard and boring, like this: . But sometimes you find interesting and unusual ones, so I’ve decided to collect them.

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Holidays Articles January 1 – New Year’s Day6 – Epiphany Smog Days February 14 – San Valentino March 8 – Festa della Donna(Women’s Day)Carnevale Italian Winter Weather April Pasqua (Easter) Holiday Treats May 1 – Labor Day Cambio di Stagione June 2 – Republic Day July Air-ConditionedCommuting with Nature Summer Fun August [...]

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Italian Train Graffiti

January 7, 2009

I like graffiti art (when it’s good – not that stupid tagging crap) and photograph it whenever I can. These are examples I’ve collected over years of travelling and commuting by train in Italy.

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What I Miss About Italy

January 4, 2009

unconscious (?) irony: a shop in downtown Milan displays this antelope head next to a photo of Brigitte Bardot, who, retired from acting, is a big animal rights activist Since I moved (back) to the US earlier this year, a number of people have asked me what I miss about living in Italy. It’s a [...]

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Apologia del Fascismo, in Flagrante

January 1, 2009

At this time of year, Italy’s newsstands offer a variety of calendars to suit every taste, from fast cars to naked women. But this one startled me, not least because it would seem to be in violation of Italy’s law against apologia del fascismo (“apology for Fascism”), which prescribes penalties against whoever “pubblicamente esalta esponenti, [...]

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The Bi-Professional Couple: A Conundrum Close to the Bone

September 1, 2008

My life is lived in multiples.

I’ve read books, articles, and blogs about multicultural marriage, living, and child-raising. I have written about being a third-culture kid, raising a bilingual child, and living and trying to work in a foreign country.

But this is the big question, more difficult than any of the above: how can a marriage survive being made up of two people whose careers are equally important to each?

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Leaving Italy: The Practicalities

April 21, 2008

On March 31st, 2008, my residence in Italy was officially revoked. This was easy to accomplish. A few days before, Enrico and I had gone together to Lecco’s Ufficio dell’Anagrafe (I guess a reasonable translation would be “Population Records Office”). This is where you go to record transfers of residence (within Italy), births, deaths, and marriages. To [...]

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Leaving Italy

March 19, 2008

Once again, I’m doing something unusual: leaving my husband behind in Italy while I move (mostly) to the US for work. And, as usual, I’m struggling to explain to people what I’m doing and why. (The story of my life is that there is almost no question about me to which a simple answer can [...]

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Italy Changing: La Dolce Vita Ain’t What It Used to Be

March 8, 2008

A few days ago I posted a message on the [now defunct] Expats in Italy forum about the fact that I am (partially) leaving Italy to take a job in the US. This has engendered much discussion, and has raised some points that I want to expand on. Simo, an Italian now resident in the [...]

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Decorating in Italy – Asian Style: Adding Some Eastern Touches to Our Lake Como Home

January 3, 2008

^ Tibetan prayer flags in Lecco When we moved to Lecco, we consolidated the contents of our household from Milan with Enrico’s parents’ stuff from their apartment in Rome (they were by then retired to a much smaller place on the seaside in Abruzzo). In this way we acquired some beautiful furniture, fixtures, knick-knacks, and [...]

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Off the Phone in Italy

November 13, 2007

Since I’ve been in Italy, I’ve gotten out of the habit of telephoning: anywhere, anyone, for any reason. Aside from the enormous difficulties of installing a phone line in Italy and keeping it working (which, if you’re lucky, you will only suffer through once), everything involved in using a phone is simply ridiculously difficult here. [...]

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Finishing Touches

November 4, 2007

When we moved into our apartment in Milan in 1991, we were young and just getting started in life – which is code for "didn’t have much money". Our furniture all came from Ikea, with supplementary storage: the old trunks we had shipped our stuff in from the US. Our light fixtures for years were [...]

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Vergogna Postale

October 31, 2007

Ci lamentiamo in molti del pessimo servizio delle poste italiane. In tutti questi anni, pensavo che stesse migliorando, e forse é cosi’, ma soltanto se contrastato con i propri livelli (ancora peggiori) di prima. Prendiamo in considerazione: Dagli USA quest’estate, ho dovuto spedire due pacchi: uno a mia figlia in India, l’altro a me stessa [...]

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Italy’s Postal Embarrassment

October 31, 2007

Complaints are common about the Italian postal service, but I thought things were getting better. And maybe they are, measured strictly against la posta’s own previous service levels, which have always been dire. But consider these events: I needed to mail two packages from the US this summer, one to Ross in India, one to [...]

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Religious Belief vs. Health Care – Tolerating the Intolerable in Italy

October 10, 2007

Britain’s Telegraph carries an opinion piece titled If Muslim doctors are intolerant, let them go, according to which a few young Muslim medical trainees have been allowed to refuse to see female bodies or to treat alcohol-related problems, on religious grounds. Sainsbury’s, a UK grocery chain, allows its checkout staff to refuse to scan alcohol [...]

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Where Italians Go on Vacation

July 14, 2007

Someone asked on Frommer’s: "Where do Italians go on vacation?" The majority go to the beach. For at least a century, a seaside vacation has been considered healthful: during the Fascist period, ocean front "colonies" were built, where urban children could be sent to escape the grime of the cities. The month-long summer vacation is [...]

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Italian Garden 2007: July

July 5, 2007

Unintended Consequences Here’s what happens when I leave my garden unattended: I get beautiful wild grains like the above – otherwise known as weeds. A weed I had been assiduously removing (but, obviously, missed one) turns out to have charming puffy purple blossoms. The insalata riccia (curly lettuce) bolted into meter-high stalks with delicate blossoms. [...]

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Pandecena Milano June ’07 – In Which a Cunning Plot is Hatched

June 19, 2007

Famed Italian blogger Luca Conti (pictured above at right, showing off his Nokia to Sara Piperita) has pulled off what many bloggers dream of (and quite a few actually do, in other parts of the world): making a living by blogging. Or, at least, managing to get paid for various kinds of consulting (as a [...]

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Italian Garden 2007: June

June 14, 2007

herbs for sale at an Italian garden center The garden has been largely left to its own devices in the last six weeks, and is thriving. We’ve had monsoon-like rains almost every day for weeks, so it certainly doesn’t need watering, and the vegetables are large enough now that they’re mostly holding their own against [...]

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