Italy expat, living and working

Italy traveller

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:07:00 +0000

I simply love it when I find a new site or blog that talks about my adopted home Italy, Why? Because people are always writing to me and asking this or that. Visas, receipes, locations, where to get married, best place to stay. It's endless, and as much as I love it, I simply can't be the reserve for all this, so here I list a group of blogs that will make you happy and answer all your questions.
If you want to know what real life is like in Italy and how to start a new life here you can of course also order my book .
italytraveller.com
How to Italy
MissExpatria
bellavita
italylogue
divinacucina
bleedingexpresso
Happy Italy dreaming.

My Italian Island trip excerpt from my book

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:09:00 +0000

You take a long walk, to your agriturismo, thankful you packed light. Climbing endlessly up a winding road through vineyards and lemon groves, with a sea of three shades, indigo, azure and turquoise surrounding you. After an hour, the road seems to wind on forever with the sun beating down on your head, and so you climb on a bus heading in that direction since they all circle the island. When the driver tells you to get out, you clamber off, and immediately there’s the traffic and noise, cars and motorbikes racing around the ring-road again. You leave the main road and start walking up a track that heads up the mountain. Apparently the agriturismo is one and a half kilometres further up, the path is walled in on one side by a pumice stone wall, and then you stumble upon a farm-like sort of gate. You go through it, and walk like trespassers through a vineyard and an orchard of very low lemon trees which give a lovely lattice of shade from the sun. You still haven’t seen a sign and aren’t really sure if you are on the right track. The track then goes around some very gnarled olive trees. Suddenly there are some buildings ahead and a fierce dog rushes out at you, it’s a pastore abruzzese, a huge white breed you know well from Tuscan farms. A breed of dog dedicated to protection, so you both stand like chess pieces waiting for him to make the first move, trying not to flinch too obviously when he rushes at you. Amante makes calming, friendly noises but it doesn’t soften him up. After ten minutes of his ferocious barking, a cleaner comes out with her broom and mops and chases him off. Slightly shaken, you ask if there is anyone home because you need a cold beer, and she points upstairs to the terrace.
Upstairs is a large sun-washed patio with four tables set for lunch, looking out over sea and mountain, it’s glorious. You set down your bag and a couple come out to greet you and give you an icy beer, and then a hand-written menu which says they serve a cold plate of salumi or bruschetta. You order both, and then stretch out your post-winter legs in the spring sunshine, and there isn’t a thing to worry about, so you drink in the fresh air and views. The dog has done his job and now lies snoring in the sun.
On either side of you, two German couples arrive to do the same, you listen to the strange words and understand only that the beer meets their approval. The hosts have already told you that Germans make up the majority of visitors at this time of the year, they are certainly quieter than Italians as they too set about soaking up the sun.
Your lunch arrives, and like all real Italian specialities, the secret of a good bruschetta lies in the quality of the ingredients. Large slices of toasted home-baked bread, perfect sweet plum tomatoes, new virgin olive oil, garlic and some fresh oregano, perfection.
It’s time to take a walk to the sea, where people say hot thermal springs bubble up on the beach in the rock pools, producing a natural spa. On the other side of the island this has been made more commercial, but here apparently the bollente, or boiling water, is open to all.
When you finally get down the millions of stairs with aching knees, you arrive at a rather empty pebble beach. There’s a small wooden restaurant perched above halfway up the cliff, with a deck. You de-robe and climb into the shallows which contain rock pools, natural Jacuzzis if you like, where the water comes boiling and bubbling up from the sea bed. You are enveloped by the slightly sulphurous smell, and are joined by assorted northern Europeans of advanced years, bathing their arthritic limbs, and oohing and aahing as a jet of unexpectedly boiling water scalds their ample behinds. Not an Italian to be seen, other than Amante that is, who now, rather uncharacteristically for an Italian, sets out on an epic swim right out into the sea in frigid water. It’s still early spring after all.
When he returns and jumps back into the steaming pool, the Germans and Dutch are impressed and they tell him so. You are impressed and you tell him so, while the assorted women admiringly take in his muscled body. “Strong man, like a beer” (sic) they say. He laughs, you have never seen him as a bear, he is not chubby enough, perhaps it’s because he’s quite hairy.
Eventually you have enough of the hot puddle and you go exploring. Riding on Amante’s back into the icy sea, you go to investigate a cave the sea has carved into the rock. As he pulls you along, you tell him that he really must look like a polar bear right now with its cub on its back.
The cave is smooth soft rock, and the size of the average bathroom. You are alone in it, all over the floor of the cave are tiny holes through which a hot jet erupts when you least expect it. You lay around entwined in each other’s arms. It’s like a scene from one of those black and white films from the sixties, a ‘Roman Holiday’ kind of film. The tension from traveling is stripped away, and you seem to float along carried by steam rather than water. You start to talk about living in this cave. This could be your permanent bathroom, your own sauna. You love bathing and Amante watches with pleasure as you revel in it, he knows how many hours you spend soaking in a bath. “Bello.” he says with a sigh. “Over there should be our kitchen with boiling water, then catch some fish and eat very well, and when you are tired of fishing, you go climbing up the hill for some buona bruschetta e birra”. “Do you agree?” he asks. You agree. Your limbs feel as if they are pieces of string, not the heavy tired legs you brought down those thousand steps with you. In a small pool in your cave home, a tiny crab and a shrimp have set up home, the odd couple. The water is cool in their pool, there is no steam vent in there to cook them. At the front of the cave where you sit side by side dipping your toes into the sea, you have a lovely view out of the cave right across the bay. “Even winter would be a breeze here with built in heating,” I say.

Want to read more? get the book

A tourist again in Como

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:47:00 +0000

I am enormously indebted to my Italian family and friends for releasing the real Italy to me to examine, dissect, accept and finally call my own. I feel immensely privileged to have gone backstage in Italian life. I make no apologies for the romanticism of some posts, and acerbic observations in others, for as Henry James said; “Italy is mostly an emotion”, and this blog has both kinds.
I recently started being a tourist in my own town again and the province of Como is not a bad place to do that in , blessed as it is with such beauty and wonderful little villages that dot the shore line on a 70km glacial lake that's blue and clean to swim in. Well, I swim in it, some are too scared of lake monster.
Recently we had a romantic weekend up near Tremezzo where at the Tremezzo grand hotel life seems to have stopped in the 19th century and they serve G and Ts, Testarossas and other wonderful cocktails and food on a terrace that overlooks the entire ampitheatre of mountains and lake. It's five star bliss in the proper imperial way. Nearby is Villa Carlotta, and villa Balbianello at Lenno where James Bond and other movies have been made. We shared the hotel with all the guests and sponsors coming to the F1 grand prix at Monza.
Take a tour

Expat evolution In Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:46:00 +0000

nick Says:
August 27th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
This comment by an Italian came up on one of my blogs and I thought Id let you hear it from the horses mouth so to speak, and so feature it here as a guest post.

Let’s talk about the standard evolution of Living in Italy for English/Irish/American/Australian/South African people:
step 1: people read about Italy (wonderful)
step 2: they decide to come to Italy for holiday (wonderful)
step 3: wonderful x two = let’s go to live in Italy!
step 4: settling in Italy (not too bad)
step 5: dealing with Italian bureaucracy (very bad)
step 6: dealing with Italian laziness, Italian TV addiction, Italian closed mind, Italian xenophobia, Italian soccer obsession, lack of opinions (dreadful)
step 7: f… Italy! Let’s go back to our country.
90% of the English/Irish/American/Australian/South African people I met followed this evolution (I am just an Italian witness).
Good luck

Do you agree, disagree what has your experience as an expat been? leave a comment below.

A few of my favourite things

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:53:00 +0000

Another blogger I've been reading, posted this questionaire based on the questions that James Lipton asks all of his actor guests on Inside the Actors Studio.

Here's mine:

1. What is your favorite word? Fabulous
2. What is your least favorite word?The word saw pronouced sore by Brits " I soar him"
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually, emotionally? nature music and silence, and a good book
4. What turns you off? Apathy
5. What is your favorite curse word? Hell's teeth
6. What sound or noise do you love? puppy snuffling
7. What sound or noise do you hate? Motorinos with their silencers removed
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? garden designer, interior designer, dog trainer
9. What profession would you not like to do? Taxman
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? What took you so long?

Please feel free to respond with some of yours under comments

favorite town in Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:03:00 +0000

Recently I wrote on what I missed living here in Italy, The dream of many. Roses lime juice was my top missed item and that prompted a flury of comments from expat readers who told me what they missed.
So realising how fortunate I am to live in a place so filled with art and beautiful ancient towns, I set about choosing my favorite one while writing on wine in the Montecarlo region of LUCCA, my favorite.
COMO my present home town, runs a close second

What's your favorite Italian town and why? Click on the words lucca and como above to visit them.

Roses Lime juice

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:39:00 +0000

Of all the things I miss after 8 years, and can't find a substitute for this has to be top of the list.
Roses Lime juice cordial
tangy, lip-smacking good. Nothing like it, but I can't buy it. A terrible state of affairs, especially as summer comes knocking. I always ask at bars, and they look at you as if you have no idea. In Italy have never found it, they have a syrup drink called cedro. It is a sweet syrup laced with chemicals, gastly! Recently in Brientz Switzerland I saw two small bottles of Roses lime juice on the shelf, next to the wines. I snatched them up and also two bottles of Roses cranberry cordial. They were the last.
Roses is available around the world so why not here? I got an agents number, he just grunted at me. For gimlets, vodka lime and soda, margeritas and so many other cocktails, what are you supposed to do barmen?
Anyone have inside info?? Im prepared to offer a reward ( still undisclosed at the moment)

Rose's Lime is a world wide success. Countless classic drinks have been created with Rose's Lime. Use it in drinks, beer, white wine or mix it with cold water or soda for a refreshing non alcoholic thirst quencher.
Gimlet
4 cl Gin / 4 cl Rose's Lime
Grand Margarita
1 cl Grand Marnier / 2 cl Tequila ...
Latin Lover
4 cl Tequila / 2 cl Grand Marnier ...
The perfect Margarita
3 cl Rose's Lime / 2 cl Tequila / ...
White Beast
8 cl Vodka / 2 cl Triple Sec / 4 c...

Today Rose’s Lime is known the world over for its fresh taste, the high quality and the countless ways it can be used. It is sold in more than 130 countries and is a fixture in many bars, cafés, hotels and restaurants.

Today – 2007

Since 1956 Hans Just A/S in Denmark has been distributor of Rose’s Cordial Mixer. In 1993 a Scandinavian production was established and from 1997 Hans Just A/S was appointed to produce, sell and market Rose’s Cordial Mixer on a number of European markets. Hans Just A/S and Schweppes International Limited have in cooperation developed Rose’s Cordial Mixer so that the assortment today consists of the well-known Lime but also Lemon, Apricot, Grenadine, Blackcurrant, Blue Curacao and Cranberry. All variations are of extremely high quality and are today an integrated assortment in many bars, cafes, hotels and other pouring out places on the European continent.
What do you miss most as an expat? write a coment and tell us.

Euro 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:13:00 +0000

Well the world cup champions play tonight in Bern Switzerland a city I loved when I visited. I watched the traditional Swiss dances on the BBC today. The Italian team seemed quite chipper and confident of winning as they watched the festivities in Bern, despite the injury of Cannavarro the Azzuri knight invincible.
I heard Fabio Capello ( the English coach) saying today that Italy hasn't won the Euro cup for forty years. The last time was in Rome. They face a strong opponent which should make for an interesting game. Donadoni was called by Berlusconi, and what would Italian football be without Berlusconi? Donadoni says the Italian team won't appreciate any critics, and the press should not expect them to emulate Brad Pitt.
Go Azzuri!

(ANSA) - BERNA, 9 GIU - Donadoni pensa alla sua Italia non a piacere alla critica: 'Non posso essere l'Alain Delon o il Brad Pitt di oggi, ho altre ambizioni'. Il ct, a poche ore dall'esordio dell'Italia all'Europeo e' tornato sul sondaggio che lo vede solo ottavo fra i ct piu' amati (in testa Lippi). 'Mourinho ha conquistato l'Italia con un 'pirla'? Purtroppo - ha poi spiegato a Rai Sport - non conosco il portoghese. Qualche allenatore e' piu' comunicativo, altri sono fatti in maniera diversa'.

Why Italy?

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:40:00 +0000

People often ask me, as a foreigner, why I came to Italy. So now Im asking you the same question. Those of you who subscribe to, or read this blog sometimes, will have noticed we have a poll up. The poll asks this question: "What brought you to Italy?"
The reasons people come are often very different, as are the reasons they stay on in Italy.
So what is your reason for coming to Italy?
1. I visited on holiday and fell in love with an Italian and stayed.

2. I followed my partner.

3. I came to find my family roots.

4. I just loved Italy ( although I'm realistic about the problems) I'm an Italophile.

5. I just landed here by chance with no grand plan and I don't feel strongly about Italy.

6. I came for the adventure and have left now.

I am a 4. Which one are you?

Italy in the summertime, when the weathers fine!

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Thu, 15 May 2008 09:29:00 +0000

Well, the days are those of summer already, although the "big heat" hasn't arrived yet. The mornings are still blissfully cool here. The new lime-green tendrils of the grapevine and wisteria over the pergola have been bursting forth, and now the lovely leaves give us shade in the courtyard to have summer lunches out there, to drink a glass of wine in the evenings after work. Evenings that now last until 10pm. Bliss! The good life al' Italia. We can now sit up on the lakeshore on those long evenings and watch the pinky sky as evening closes in.
Its time to start thinking of that Italian obsession - getting away to the sea. As soon as spring releases us from winter, that is the talk of every meeting, every gathering. Where to go?
I call to mind our recent summer holiday on the island of Ischia close to Capri.
The metro jolts to a stop, you both peer out and see the sign, and so climb down into the intense light and humid air of the platform. You go down the stone stairs and walk down to the port, through a town grown shabby at the edges, but charming all the same. You sit on some stone steps while you await the next boat, the waves climb the stairs and lick at your toes, washing way any trace of Milano. Amante sits behind you stroking your hair, as you point out the islands on the pale blue morning sea “Can you also see Sorrento and Capri from here, is that it?”
You get onto your big boat when it arrives with all the others escaping the mainland for the day or weekend. The ferry noses its way out of the bay and heads for deeper waters, spray leaping up the sides of the boat and blowing in the wind, as the cliffs of the mainland are left behind.
You settle near the rails on the boat, the wind playing in your hair, in front of you there’s a large group of Italians and in the middle of them there is a guitar player. They sing traditional songs probably learnt in childhood. Amante knows some of the words and sings softly along with them, you watch the cliffs which are full of caves.
The island is before you. You disembark in a small colourful port set in gentle basin with boats that look like toys floating on it. The flat Mediterranean sea, no crashing waves, the whole scene is suffused with that smell of sea and sun. The breeze carries something of Africa, that hot dry earth smell. While all around exotic plants, palms and lush foliage grow. It’s a mix of all the exotic locations, part Greece, part bleak Cyprus, lush Africa, the lemon trees of Sicily, a ridge of mountain hidden behind wispy clouds with white houses built on the lower slopes like Cape Town. It seems like another country although it’s in Italy, and it is, it’s Ischia! Nature doesn’t respect borders.
You take a long walk, to your agriturismo, thankful you packed light. Climbing endlessly up a winding road through vineyards and lemon groves, with a sea of three shades, indigo, azure and turquoise surrounding you. After an hour, the road seems to wind on forever with the sun beating down on your head, and so you climb on a bus heading in that direction since they all circle the island. When the driver tells you to get out, you clamber off, and immediately there’s the traffic and noise, cars and motorbikes racing around the ring-road again. You leave the main road and start walking up a track that heads up the mountain. Apparently the agriturismo is one and a half kilometres further up, the path is walled in on one side by a pumice stone wall, and then you stumble upon a farm-like sort of gate. You go through it, and walk like trespassers through a vineyard and an orchard of very low lemon trees which give a lovely lattice of shade from the sun. You still haven’t seen a sign and aren’t really sure if you are on the right track. The track then goes around some very gnarled olive trees. Suddenly there are some buildings ahead and a fierce dog rushes out at you, it’s a pastore abruzzese, a huge white breed you know well from Tuscan farms. A breed of dog dedicated to protection, so you both stand like chess pieces waiting for him to make the first move, trying not to flinch too obviously when he rushes at you. Amante makes calming, friendly noises but it doesn’t soften him up. After ten minutes of his ferocious barking, a cleaner comes out with her broom and mops and chases him off. Slightly shaken, you ask if there is anyone home because you need a cold beer, and she points upstairs to the terrace.
Upstairs is a large sun-washed patio with four tables set for lunch, looking out over sea and mountain, it’s glorious. You set down your bag and a couple come out to greet you and give you an icy beer, and then a hand-written menu which says they serve a cold plate of salumi or bruschetta. You order both, and then stretch out your post-winter legs in the spring sunshine, and there isn’t a thing to worry about, so you drink in the fresh air and views. The dog has done his job and now lies snoring in the sun.
On either side of you, two German couples arrive to do the same, you listen to the strange words and understand only that the beer meets their approval. The hosts have already told you that Germans make up the majority of visitors at this time of the year, they are certainly quieter than Italians as they too set about soaking up the sun.
Your lunch arrives, and like all real Italian specialities, the secret of a good bruschetta lies in the quality of the ingredients. Large slices of toasted home-baked bread, perfect sweet plum tomatoes, new virgin olive oil, garlic and some fresh oregano, perfection.
It’s time to take a walk to the sea, where people say hot thermal springs bubble up on the beach in the rock pools, producing a natural spa. On the other side of the island this has been made more commercial, but here apparently the bollente, or boiling water, is open to all.
When you finally get down the millions of stairs with aching knees, you arrive at a rather empty pebble beach. There’s a small wooden restaurant perched above halfway up the cliff, with a deck. You de-robe and climb into the shallows which contain rock pools, natural Jacuzzis if you like, where the water comes boiling and bubbling up from the sea bed. You are enveloped by the slightly sulphurous smell, and are joined by assorted northern Europeans of advanced years, bathing their arthritic limbs, and oohing and aahing as a jet of unexpectedly boiling water scalds their ample behinds. Not an Italian to be seen, other than Amante that is, who now, rather uncharacteristically for an Italian, sets out on an epic swim right out into the sea in frigid water. It’s still early spring after all.
When he returns and jumps back into the steaming pool, the Germans and Dutch are impressed and they tell him so. You are impressed and you tell him so, while the assorted women admiringly take in his muscled body. “Strong man, like a beer” (sic) they say. He laughs, you have never seen him as a bear, he is not chubby enough, perhaps it’s because he’s quite hairy.
Eventually you have enough of the hot puddle and you go exploring. Riding on Amante’s back into the icy sea, you go to investigate a cave the sea has carved into the rock. As he pulls you along, you tell him that he really must look like a polar bear right now with its cub on its back.
The cave is smooth soft rock, and the size of the average bathroom. You are alone in it, all over the floor of the cave are tiny holes through which a hot jet erupts when you least expect it. You lay around entwined in each other’s arms. It’s like a scene from one of those black and white films from the sixties, a ‘Roman Holiday’ kind of film. The tension from travelling is stripped away, and you seem to float along carried by steam rather than water. You start to talk about living in this cave. This could be your permanent bathroom, your own sauna. You love bathing and Amante watches with pleasure as you revel in it, he knows how many hours you spend soaking in a bath. “Bello.” he says with a sigh. “Over there should be our kitchen with boiling water, then catch some fish and eat very well, and when you are tired of fishing, you go climbing up the hill for some buona bruschetta e birra”. “Do you agree?” he asks. You agree. Your limbs feel as if they are pieces of string, not the heavy tired legs you brought down those thousand steps with you. In a small pool in your cave home, a tiny crab and a shrimp have set up home, the odd couple. The water is cool in their pool, there is no steam vent in there to cook them. At the front of the cave where you sit side by side dipping your toes into the sea, you have a lovely view out of the cave right across the bay. “Even winter would be a breeze here with built in heating,” I say.

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Thu, 15 May 2008 08:41:00 +0000

Italy the good the bad and the plain old ugly

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:56:00 +0000

It seems every now and then those of us who have chosen to live and work in Italy, come up against another fledgling who has fallen out of their tree.
Italy can do this to you, sometimes on a daily basis. I purposefully exclude those who were able to come to Italy, buy a villa in Tuscany, tinker with growing vines and olives and then flit back home every now and then to keep a foot in the door in the old country. I am bold enough to say "If you don't work for someone else in Italy and ride trains you don't really know Italy".
For you its paradise, villa owners, no one will chase you for tax payments in Italy or expect you to wait in line at a state hospital to see a specialist, so you can spend a little of the the 42% tax you pay to the government. You will never know what it feels like to wonder if you can fill your own teeth, with that metal resin stuff that bonds in seconds, because you can't afford to go to the dentist( believe me I've considered this).
So what about those of us who work at those lowly paid jobs in Italy, us graduates who somehow found ourselves hawking our madre linqua as our means of income, what of us, what is Italy like for us?
A love-hate relationship, an addiction?
My last post was about being a tourist again for a day. Try it, it may work for you.
But generally, as your stumble back home from the sweaty train where you couldn't get a seat and switch on the news while you cook the pasta, only to hear the same old, same old Belusconi or calcio, ( the content of 99,9999% of T.V.), droning on, you wonder what the .... am I doing here.

I can give you a, list of the good now.
Gelato (nothing like it)
Being pregnant (everyone will treat you like the virgin Mary).
I'm too scared to ride on a train after a big lunch for fear of a man insisting I take his seat because I'm pregnant. I wanted to shout "I'm not bloody pregnant Ok!". but I took the seat in silence, all grateful and coy.
Being chased by Italian men (whatever your age)
Italian mamas. they iron his shirts so well, you'll never be able to compete, so why try?
Homemade tiramisu and pannacotta!
Almost all the food you'll find in any small hilltown in Liguria, Tuscany, Umbria, or where-ever.
The art, free art! that's why I came and that's why I stay.

Italy expat, living and working#links

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:55:00 +0000

Italy expat, living and working#links

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:38:00 +0000

I recently wrote a post about being a tourist again in your new country, which a gremlin seems to have eaten. Which is a pity really, as if I have to rewrite it I'm not sure I can work-up the same fervour I had after we had shown some guests around our Italian world a few weeks ago. We had to listen to them saying it's beautiful its bella and fantastico so often, it reminded us we were like that too not so long ago, and we wanted to return to that state:
Heres some of the things we found bella:
The lakes above Como, Cortona,Tuscan villages, seafood , real pasta, the boatman handling the ropes at our stops on the tragetto, and putting out the little metal bridge for us, and saying"attenti piede" a million times without seeming bored. The laverello served on lake Como. The shops, a fashion lovers dream. The gelato, even Milano has great gelato. You have to try-if you can find it, fondente, real dark chocolate icecream! now that is trully Bello!.

Apparently its Carnevale in Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 18:15:00 +0000

Well this weekend has been a nightmare for poor Nicola. Never mind the fading future of Italys young, well wer'e not so young but..... This weekend Nicola hired a car ( a brand new Nissan micra) because he has just changed jobs and is waiting for his new company car. So we went grocery shopping and on the way home it stopped dead 500 metres from home late last night in the rain. We phoned the car-hire people no answer. It was 6,45 on a Sat but no answer. So we called the assisstance and after much stress and explaining, they decided to come while we lugged all our precious things out of a unlockable car we had pushed into the station parking.
We left the groceries (too heavy) in the boot.
When they finally called me back and Nicola was running back to meet them, they said they couldn't wait as they had another call out ( more money no doubt) and were leaving. I lost it! and shouted "stay there my husband is running to you", in my worst Italian. They changed the battery and he drove home and parked in our normal street parking outside the house.
All was well.
Well Sunday started ok after all the stress, and after lunch carnevale started with noise, banging drums, brats, and paper and confetti eveywhere, the big floats were coming down our street so I called Nicola to look out of the window at all the floats and costumes coming down the street. He looked out smiling and then I saw him staring and frozen with a look of horror, I though someone had been flatened.
Wheres my car he shouted! my car! the've taken my car! he ran down stairs and looked at an empty street full of confetti. We couldn't beleive our eyes! no car. The realisation that they had towed the bloody hire car so that the processions could come down the street, hit home.
There was no notice as there normally is when there something in our street. It was Sunday pm everything was closed and he needed to get to his new job in the morning.!!!
So I tell him to run after the vigili driving down the street and ask for his car. They have towed it and he has to take all his documents to the police station and there they give him a fine. He goes to the ATM for money "out of order". By now the poor man is foaming at the mouth.There is no response from the place 10 kms away that has the car.
Eventually he gets through to someone who says he must first speak to the police. So he goes back and they want proof that he owns the car, so he has to come back running home to get the documentation for the car. !!!!!So I give him all the money I have on me, and he goes to beg our friend Silvano who lives nearby to drive him to this place. Where he has to pay 100 Euro for the towing, PLUS the fine from the vigili. Bloody hell!. He came home a destroyed man. The path is crowded and the way is narrow and many are those who fall to their death here. We hope tomorrow will be better. we are too tired to care actually.

cinque Terre

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 22:33:00 +0000

Amante drives with the precision and confidence that I’ve come to admire in him (I still apply imaginary brakes). Neither of us is sure if this road is one-way as we’ve seen no signs. I’m convinced it must be, because our car takes up the whole road. But no, here comes a car roaring up in the opposite direction! We must reverse to a wider part and wriggle past each other like fat legs into jeans.
We reach the upper part of town where we will park the car, and walk on from there
coming to a little track that follows a stream splashing over rocks.
I’ve only ever been here in the dazzling heat of summer by train, this is so different. The air, clean and crisp, the village washed clean of all its’ tourists. Only a few locals come out into the piazza to stand and talk in the sun. We sit on a stone bench outside and watch the sea run into a small grotto that edges the piazza. We listen to the villagers talking in the dialect of Liguria, the cats roll and bask in the sun, children dash around, dogs chase their tails. Everyone is in the sun while it lasts.
The lazy peacefulness of a Sunday morning is so tangible, as a lone yacht rounds the harbour wall and comes in. The sails are taken down, the boat tethered and a couple jump out and go into the trattoria next to us where the cats are rolling and stretching.
We decide to climb up to the fort. We climb many steep spiralling stairs and arrive on top of the world out of breath. There are a few others enjoying the magnificent view out over the open sea, sparkling like a million diamonds in the sun. We want to walk along the promenade set high up on the rocks, so we descend the staircase, only realising after we have had to reverse, that it’s definitely one way traffic.
We walk along the wall and then sit on the edge of a huge flat rock, basking in the sun and listening to the rolling of the stones as the waves advance and recede. Far out on the horizon a lone fishing boat bobs.
While we are lost in silent contemplation of the azure sparkling sea and the bluest of blue skies, an enormous wave jumps up and breaks against our rock drenching us completely, Swallowing gulps of sea water, we simultaneously catch our breath and erupt with laughter. People behind us watching are open-mouthed in surprise.
It is as if the sea wanted to say, Don’t just sit there and look at me! taste my saltiness and feel my wetness.
We walk dripping back to the church steps and sit in the sun hitting the wall to dry off. Amante then lies down on the wall and uses my lap as a pillow, reaching up to kiss me, a salty sea kiss.
Che Bello the sun after the wavissimo! (sic) he says, using our language of Italese.
The sea and the sound of the laughter of children are the background music. The smells coming from the nearby trattoria eventually draw us in and we go and ask for a table for two, right at the waters edge.
Our patron tells us he has just got back from New York where he ran a restaurant. He uses English crudely, which he insists we speak back to him in. He tells us he misses the hustle and bustle of the city but he came back to Vernazza for his family. To me this seems the difference between night and day, New York and this idyllic little seaside village, and I tell him so. ‘This is a long way from New York?’ I say. He nods, and replies ‘Eh!’ with resignation, he doesn’t elaborate, but rather gives the typical response to a rhetorical question. We share a delicious Risotto al Mare, followed by a fish plate piled up with the catch from that day lightly grilled and washed down with some of their local wine grown mere metres away. We push back our chairs and sigh with satisfaction

suprising demographics

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 11:54:00 +0000

Largest expatriate groups: The largest group comprises other Europeans, Albanian, Romanian, Ukrainian and Polish. Followed by North African Arab groups, mainly from Morocco and Tunisia. Smaller groups include south Americans, Asians and sub-Saharan Africans. The top five foreign groups in number rank are Albanian(316,659) Moroccan(294,945), Romanian(248,849), Chinese(111,712)and Ukrainian(93,441)
State religion: The Catholic Church has never been the State religion, however, it plays an important role in governmental and political affairs due to the holy see being in Rome the capital city.
Most followed religion: Catholicism, in a recent poll 87.8% said they were Catholics although only one third (36.6) professed to being active members.
Other Christian groups are Jehovah’s witnesses 0,9%, Eastern orthodox’s 1,2% including 470,00 newcomers, and 180 Greek orthodox. Then 450,000 Pentecostals and evangelicals 0,3% of which 300,000 are members of the Assemblies of God, 30,000 Waldensians, 25,000 Seventh day Adventists, 22,000 mormons, 15,000 Baptists, and 5,000 free Baptists, 7,000 Lutherans, 5,000 Methodists, affiliated to the Waldensian church. There is also a Jewish community of 45,000.
Other religions that have a large following in Italy are the Muslim faith of whom 840,000 or 1.4% of the population, live in Italy. (Of these a scant 50,000 have citizenship).

learning how not to drive.

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Fri, 11 May 2007 07:31:00 +0000

On the bus, Amante ignores your ranting and raving (because he is so used to it) at the bus driver who careens around the mountain like he is in a car chase, and not driving a bus, loaded with tourists standing, who grip onto rails, and also your clothes, to stop themselves being flung against the seats and doors of the bus. The driver races past a bus stop where two pensioners shake their fists at him, he doesn’t mind, he’s chatting up one of the American girls squashed up against his drivers compartment, while he simultaneously fields a call on his cell from his mother/wife, and hurtles us towards the dock.
It’s a special kind of person who can drive a bus in Italian traffic, a very special kind of person. The bus screeches to a halt at the dock narrowly missing a motorino just pulling out, you fall out of the bus, still ranting and now running, the strap of your sandal snaps, Amante, still ignoring your ranting grabs your hand and propels you up the gangplank of your ferry saying ‘Dai! Su!’ You have almost missed the departure of the ferry, the man in a white uniform smiles a gigolos’ smile at you as he shouts ‘Andiamo’ and unhooks the ropes. How do they keep up the energy levels needed to be forever ‘on the pull’ you wonder. Maybe that’s why you never see adverts in Italy for bus, train and boat drivers, the men are lining up for the chance

bella figura

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 08:41:00 +0000

Come sei bella!
I learnt quite soon that fare bella figura – to cut a good figure in public was very important, and that the accompanying exclamation ‘Come sei bella’ literally, how beautiful you are, was to be desired.
I think I can safely say no-one in my past goes around telling people at random. ‘you are so beautiful’, but perhaps If I had made a really special effort, they may say you look stunning!
I go into work wearing a new dress, all the girls there say “Come sei bella!” At first I was a bit taken aback, but now I like it. I’ve watched Amantes’ six year old niece and his daughter being constantly given verbal adoration, not to mention every baby in any piazza around Italy. So now I say ‘Thank you’.
The opposite, fare brutta figura - to make an idiot of yourself, was to be avoided at all cost. Italians also have that wonderful verb sculettare, meaning to wiggle your bum down the road.
The most interesting Italian television shows ‘Blob’, concerns itself with constantly taking the mickey out of politicians and assorted show girls on T.V. (the content of 90% of Italian T.V.). Berlusconi, with his all too frequent gaffs, features regularly on it.
Italians take the impression they make in public very seriously, thereby laying themselves wide open to derision. Huge melon-like breasts straining under too little lycra, are thrust in viewers faces constantly. Lips that should look pouty but are rather too ambitiously plumped up with silicon, giving the impression of tarted-up blowfish are ever present. My mama in law calls them all troie- whores, and yet I sense, the majority love all this prancing around on T.V.
Sunday brings a show called Buona Domenica, an all day long ‘boobfest’ masquerading as a current events show. The host, rotund and in his twilight years, mumbles incoherently behind a CharlieChaplin- like square of moustache, while nubile girls gyrate and pout all around him, no-one saying anything of much significance. This would almost be tolerable, if it wasn’t for the fact that this year he is now also on Channel Five every morning from eight till lunch doing a talk show of sorts, with more or less the same suspects, boobs and bums.
Recently, there is a wife swapping reality show on, that my colleagues talk about. The things that shock them are not the moral decisions, but rather what the other wife wore, how often she dusted her ornaments, how hot she made her husbands coffee, how she did her washing, how clean her house was. There was little or no sexiness about this wife swap. In the end it all boiled down to ‘being in control’ or sistemazione, something women threaten boyfriends, husbands and children with, and bosses their employees.
So T.V. doesn’t supply much culture, but in the towns of Italy, there are concerts going on, with fabulous talent, largely going unnoticed.
Amante and I often say to each other Italy is full of talented musicians, but none of them are on T.V.
Around the world Pavarotti, Bocelli and their kind are lauded and greeted with delight, but when I speak to people here in Italy, they say Pavarotti is not really Italian anymore,
“Why?” I ask
“He left Italy to escape tax,”
“But who hasn’t, and he still has a home here.” I counter.
“Well he really became unpopular when he left his lovely Italian wife and ran off with his young assistant.
“Really?” I say, thinking, “ Well, that rules out quite a slice of the male population from lasting appreciation”.Whenever I mention these maestri the locals snort with derision, and in all my years as a visitor and now resident I’ve never seen them featured on Italian T.V. It seems, in the past Italy’s best often left to seek fame, fortune and support in the West, and then, when they returned to the bel paese, they were treated with scorn. It’s the traitor syndrome

paperwork in Italy, permesso for EU citizens

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 14:46:00 +0000

This post is the footnote on obtaining a permission to stay in Italy promised on my last post.

Note: For those who eagerly await the new posts, you will know that you should go to the last post listed in the archive of posts and then work your way forward to this one, so new readers NOTE.

Well, last August I had to go and renew my permesso, this is not something one does without much consideration as to your state of mind on the day, and how much sleep you had the night before, etc, because regardless, you are almost certain to loose your sense of humor and throw a hissy fit outside in the street, with passersby staring at you, the mad Inglese.
Of course all your Italian friends, students and even your partner, have been telling you it is not necessary, because you are from Grand Britannia as it refered to here, you are an EU citizen!
No, but you know the dirty inconvienient little secret, that every person (from UK or any other European country), that has lived in Italy knows, that it does not matter!
So you go, and you wait in a room the size of a shoebox in the heat, with 500 people crammed in, pushing and shoving, most of the people are from places like Ukraine, Pakistan, China, Senegal, Nigeria, Egypt, Russia, Poland, but you are not, you are from Grand Britannia, but you know it does not matter, because you have been here before.
You cannot move out of the queue and remove the Marrocan's elbow from your side, or his sweaty breath from your neck, or his front end from brushing against you, because you will loose your place, you must stay in there, in that hell of a sauna.
You listen to the two men behind the panes of smudged glass shouting in Italian to this motly crew of assorted foreigners of whom you are one, finally you get to the window, having collected every document, and work contract that you could possibly include, the dossier is as thick as a mans arm. You push it under the window, they size you up and look at it, discarding items willy nilly on to the floor. They sieze your photos, staple them to the papers crudely, all the while still sizing up the area below your neck. They stamp a strip of paper and push it underneath the glass without a word. You know not to ask any questions, you've been here before.
You are so happy to be out, so you can breathe a breath of air, you thought you were going to faint. You look at the slip, it has a date in three months time, Three months! to renew a permesso. You have heard that in Milan there is a separate queue for the EU citizens and a shorter wait, but it doesn't matter you do not live there, you live 40 kms away and you are obliged to submit where you are resident.
You go home happy to be rid of the pile of papers, and have a stamped slip.
To cut a torturously long process short, what transpires next is that you go back on the date it is not ready, then you go back with your Italian partner and it is closed, a piece of paper is on the wall, saying that in future all this must be handled by your local post office.
Where does that leave me you say, I'm caught midstream, they have all my documents !
The only thing your partner can say is, I told you you don't need this permesso, which is the same thing everyone has been telling you, but, you have been there.
So you go to your local post office and ask if they do the permesso, the woman asks where you are from,when you say Grand Britannia, she replies, but you don't need one!
You ignore this, then she goes into the back and produces a large envelope stamped EU which just disproves her theory. You do not need a new application, you need to follow up your exsisting , she shrugs her shoulders at your question. You leave.
You go back to the Questura with your Italian partner, the place is open and ominously empty of people, they say that you have to wait for a letter to arrive at your home, when it does, you must bring it back with the slip.
Your partner uses his best charm and says but it is taking so long, and you are without a permesso. The man shouts back at him she doesn't need a permesso, for what, "Shes not a Russian whore" is she?(I raise my eyebrows)
My partner grows more insistant, saying, well, if she doesn't need it, why are we applying. They fail to give him an answer.
We leave, I am in tears, my partner is faintly embarrassed to be Italian(not a new experience for him) and we go and have a nice lunch instead.
We finally got the letter four months later and I went to pick up the Carta, that they now had ready for me. Ten years, it said on it. I wept (not an unusal experience for foreigners here either)
Apparently, Prodi's new government, which has already resigned once after a few months in power, is trying to do something about this..............

The immigrant, papers and more papers

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 16:11:00 +0000

The longer I experience the Italian way of things, the more I realise in saying something, I may have to later contradict myself completely, Job protectionism thrives here, yet one day at a large market, some Senegalese and other Northern Africans, selling trays of lighters, CD.s and fake designer sunglasses on the edges of the market, are besieged, by the Guardia di Finanza, tax police. One of these African men is screaming, howling, baying like an injured animal, it curdles the blood. I ask among the crowd, that has gathered. “What's happened?” A Senegalese tells me it is his friend, and they have seized all his merchandise, hence he is rolling around on the floor, in agony at his substantial loss, hoping they will take pity maybe, and not arrest him, but no, its seems he has merely enticed them to act further. Three of them, dressed in their grey uniforms, pin him down on the ground and handcuff him I feel great sympathy for him, having probably fought his way through hostile Africa, to arrive here illegally, set himself up, making a living by wandering the hot streets, selling his trays of cd.s and lighters. (I reflect that this is the only violence I’ve ever witnessed in Italy, Luccas crime statistics are almost non- existent) I feel the kinship with this exile I've often felt before, when they stop me on the street to sell books of African poetry printed in Italian, to me, and I see the lines cut into their souls by the separation from children, wives, from family, and their culture. Yet the reaction of some of the Italian shopkeepers, whose shops front onto the market, surprises me. ‘Che schifo, schifo!’ - how disgusting they say at the rough treatment the Guardia are giving to the man. One would imagine, the storekeepers with their licences and tax to pay, exorbitant rents and expenses, would be contemptuous of the illegal trader, but no, they are partners with these drifters in their hatred of the Guardia. Italian ambulanti stall holders, have hidden the illegal cd’s under their wares, to prevent the guardia from finding them, and the illegal traders now retrieve them, and are immediately back in business while their friend is carted away to the Questura. This is but one example, of the Italian way of disregarding fiscal control whenever they can, controls enforced by the stealing government. Italians bend the rules wherever possible, only don't be caught, that's stupid, yet I can’t help wondering how this weighs up with everyone stamping their ticket on the bus voluntarily? Well, you wouldn't want to look like a fool if the inspector turned up, and pay a fine of two hundred Euro to those thieves, the government. Mai! Never.
Of course after you've been here a while in Tuscany, you realise that there are virtually no foreigners working in any of the shops, bars, tabacchi anywhere really, other than the backroom plate-washers or cleaners, you'll see one or two Chinese stalls from Prato, with their van at the market, but they are ambulanti, with portable stalls and even they have to wait for another ambulanti to die or retire, before they can by an ambulanti licence or trade for someone else in the area, No new ones are available. Ambulanti Licences cost anything from Euro 40,000 to Euro100,000, depending on the area traded in. Why is this? you begin to wonder, I did , because everywhere I'd been in all the cities of the world, there were waiters of every nation, dishwashers, street sweepers, multinational chefs, nurses of all nations.
I admit, I rather liked this about Lucca, and Tuscany when on holiday. No polyglot London this, No, here they had managed to keep their restaurants so Italian, their shops so authentic. In London you could spend a week in the city and never meet a Londoner. These people were born and bred Tuscans.! It was so thoroughly Italian, I rubbed my hands in glee, as I said ‘Buongiorno’ to Francesca at my bar on the
corner where she would make me a perfect latte macchiato, with zucchero di canna, brown sugar just like I like it. I could only hear Italian being spoken around me nothing else, the man who drove the rubbish van, the idraulico-plumber, the macelleria- butcher the panettiere- baker. All Italian, lovely, really lovely.
With the perspective of a few years spent here, I now realise why. Is it a government plan you ask? Maybe, but more importantly because family is family is family, and the red stuff is thicker than water. Shops are handed on to children when the parents retire, just as an apartment or house must be bought, for them all they will never be able to marry until they get a house, their own house of course. Licences are handed down too. Well, you may well ask, doesn't this also happen elsewhere in the world? There must be many foreigners with the Euro 200,000 necessary to set up shop Ah! But you see it's not that easy, first you have to get a licence, they only issue few of those in each commune - community. No new ones are available. So how do people come in? They could buy one from an existing licence holder whose son ran off to Milan to be in computers, and didn't want to be in the trade ‘Che Peccato’ - what a pity! at a hugely inflated price of course. The stall owner will manufacture figures as to how much money is to be made, to justify the price.
Every alimentari - mini-market/deli, I’ve ever been into, across Italy, is seemingly Italian owned and run, as are the bars, and the barristi who work in them. So what choice does the illegal immigrant have, but to walk the streets selling their wares? No place to set them down, the Guardia are around every corner, and a look-out must always be posted. They can, and do, resort to prostitution and hawking and this you see along the roads outside towns and cities. Just as in other places like between Mexico and U.S.A., where its unbelievably trying and complicated to apply for residency, immigrants find a well established illegal way financed by local criminals, to enter. Who then rent them houses for cash- or, in the black as they call it here- without paying tax. These people by necessity stay forever out of the system, and of course increase fiscal crime in Italy. Any one who, has ever applied for a permesso to stay in Italy, will tell you, how frustrating and time consuming this can be. Surprisingly, Italy requires British Nationals to apply for a permesso, against E.U. principles. (See footnote)
I am reminded of this, when Enzo tells me he was shocked when his English girlfriend came over to stay for nine months, and was required to get a letter of employment for her permesso, while he, an Italian, had gone to work in London for five years freely without any documentation, other than his passport.
Scores of Italians from the south, take government jobs in the northern Italian cities, policing, nursing, and driving trains and buses as this is considered hard labour by the Lombardi. You too, will discover this fact if you ever try to go south from Milan by train, over a public holiday, and fail to get a seat.
Where do the illegal Africans live and work? Often, in broken down houses, all together, charged rent in cash, and often owned by the same man who supplies them the goods they sell on the streets. They set up some kind of life, at least they have each other, and are glad to be out of the war zone of Africa. They definitely pick up Italian quicker, either because the North Africans speak French, and for the Central and West Africans the vowels and sounds are more similar, to their own languages, than English is.
But, if you are English or American and are a sun or lifestyle exile, you can offer some kind of service to the wealthy in Italy. Teaching, nannying, restoring, gardening, have no permanent contract and earn a low salary. Alternatively you could be self employed as an artist, tour-guide or translator, here you will compete with Italians too, State schools and universities are filled with Italian teachers, who teach English with an authority that’s rarely questioned. In case you’re wondering, the majority of Italians find the notion of an English chef, incomprehensible, since most of them regard all English food as hideous, and a good English chef, an oxymoron.
Of course the same rules and bureaucracy apply, if you want to rent an apartment. If you are Italian you will have to be referred, and if you are unfortunate enough to speak English or American, you will be charged tourist rates, given a short lease, and, in my case, kept waiting to be accepted in to the stable community of Lucca. ‘Chi sa,’- Who knows. They like the monthly tourist rent, you pay in cash, no receipts, the taxman, you know. They are very nice and smiley about it all. The children are at university, and may get engaged soon and need an apartment, or they will never be able to marry, “Is better not you to believe you are here per sempre, no”?. Somehow you find yourself sympathising with their ferocity in getting their children hitched. ‘E’ La legge’- Its the law, they suddenly quote at you. ‘All tourist, must to give the passport at the carabinieri before three days’ (sic). These people who have been happily breaking the law, all their lives tell you this, you, on the other hand, have never broken any laws that you are aware of.
‘I live here!’ You lament, ‘I am not a tourist’ (at this stage you’ve been renting for a year). Whereupon, they look at you through narrowed eyes, as if you were trying to pass yourself off as baby Jesus. “You will always be a tourist, even after forty years”, this advice is given to me by my Lucchese friend.
Of course like the employment laws, which state you cannot fire someone summarily, making it harder to get a job in the first place, the letting law states you cannot kick someone out of the apartment (once they have a contract) if they are a family.
So perhaps, being single then would have its advantages, you say. Well ….single people are always on the fringes of Italian society. The ticket in to the best seats, the royal box, is to be a family with one child, neatly packaged, with your marito- husband safely out of harms way. To be house-owners. It’s unthinkable to most Italians, to produce a child in rented accommodation, and a scandal to use furnished accommodation what’s more. Among my friends are two women who have been virtually excommunicated by their families because they followed their husbands and produced a child in rented accommodation. The shame of it!
I am aware as an author that the reader may find it hard to believe that these social norms still exist in this day and age, yet they do. My neighbour, Francesca , is a house-owner with a boyfriend. Recently, she has come to know Sergio from across the street, they have become friends over the months and visit each others homes. The signora in the house next door, and indeed his own family question them constantly as to when they will marry. What a bella coppia they would make, and what a waste to keep two houses, so close. They could live together at Sergio’s, it's bigger more comfortable, more than enough for a family, she could cook for him.
What they have failed to see, refuse to see, is that forty year old Sergio, is a member of the gay community, and on occasion has been known to bring home young men for the night, who slip out of his door in the morning, into the same piazza that the neighbours are standing talking in. While Francesca's boyfriend visits her regularly. Who can say what they may be thinking as they continue to press the two of them on the issue of marriage. The words they anxiously wait for him to say are Voglio sposarmi e avere dei bambini - I want to marry, and make babies. A baby! the ticket to Italian affections, they must produce a bambino, but when, when will they marry?

Living working and renovating in Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 18:02:00 +0000

This Post follows on from the previous post, "one day in august", to follow the postings you should read the last first and then work up to this one, the most recent, "living,working and renovating in Italy".
In the months to come we would nickname this slippery owner Signore Brutto-ugly, because of his waving arms which glossed over details or direct questions by saying everything was bella-magnificent. He told us the roof was new, as was the heating, the bathroom and the terracotta floor downstairs. We believed him, our friend Constantino back in Lucca would have laughed at us.
A fireplace had been closed up, but we were assured we could easily open it as the chimney still existed. We tried to get a reduction in the price to mend some damp, caused by this closed chimney on the downstairs wall, but were told that the garden was the bargaining point and we would have that included.
A payment was required to accept a written offer which we signed at the house, with the owner and friend turned agent in attendance, apparently the architect had better things to do and no more plans materialised, but they were always coming.
So having gone out to dinner to celebrate our new home accompanied by a bottle of the best vino nobile and finally securing an appointment to see the notaio, (supposedly an impartial person), to receive the expected plans and papers from the architect, we arrived to find out there were no papers. All building had been legal with the comune we were assured.
We loved our ancient home and determined to track down its original date through the archives, with the help of a local contact. Later we found old photo albums from the turn of the century and other personal accounts in the old barn at the back of the garden, dating from the nineteen twenties. Through this we met our neighbours who filled us in on just how brutto Signore Brutto actually was, we now had our very own horror story. Apparently he had emptied the coffers of the entire family of aunts even before their deaths. The grandmother telling us this, uses the word diabolico which sounds much worse in Italian, literally of the devil, to describe how he had hit her brother over the head with a pole. This dispute had gone to court, they hauled out all the documenti of this travesty to show us, and successive ones when a gas and water line had to traverse the private road and he had refused them access. After an entire afternoon trapped in a kitchen which was made in the seventies, where we sat at the kitchen table and were offered sickly orange fizzy drink, we were just relieved to emerge semi alive. We were no longer untouched by the furbi-crooks, but we had a house.
However, after the double agent and the notaio had been paid in advance, (thanks to the workings of the Italian system), we discovered that the garden at the back had not been included in the deeds, and according to the notaio, the legal expert, this was a legal matter that we could persue if we wanted.
We didn’t. We decided after some sleepless nights and fretting about all the money in the notaios’ greedy paws, which we would likely not get back if we retracted, that we would behave like any Italian would. We would put a table and chairs in the small piece of garden, rope it off and fight like hyenas should our future neighbours in the barn like building, sharing our garden, want to argue with us. We had been told by Signore Brutto the building would be renovated into three luxury apartments, sometime in the future. Subsequently the nonna who lived behind us told us that the developer who was to convert this building ran away with all the money, after selling future luxury apartments. At present it is still unoccupied and we have the only gate key, while as I write this, the grapevine is verdant green with bunches of purple black grapes (oh the taste! as they burst in our mouths). It has shaded us this summer, although it looked dead in winter.
Possession is nine tenths of the law it is said, and we were here first. We are ready to fight to the death for our small piece of soil. As an Italian opera has it ‘cling to the bricks, don’t give in!.We later discovered when looking over the town plans with the mayor that our house was the original old part of town the centro-storico. The building next to ours with the stone columns, and indeed our own were the oldest standing probably 200 years old. In our garden the huge stone had been placed over the original well that fed the town. Miraculously next to it there is a tap that pours out ice-cold water that the comune knows nothing about, and we receive no bill for.
So we spent many weekends when we weren’t going to visit family back in Tuscany, working to get the house ready to move into. We fitted a wonderful beech kitchen in the empty room, banged our heads and elbows installing plumbing, a first for both of us, we contemplated calling in a idraulico, but decided we could do it, and if a disaster emerged we would ask in the plumber. Workmen all insist on being paid in cash, up front, no receipt as proof of work done and frankly from what we had heard, were largely unqualified. We selected the paint, a soft ochre for the fat ancient walls. We got the garden cleared of junk, moved rocks around, one whole afternoon. It looked like one of those strongman competitions, with Amante sweating and grunting to move the huge rocks to the right spot to sit on, and me flailing around trying to help him and getting my toes trod on. Without heavy machinery, we got back to our apartment tired, sweaty and muddy but fulfillled.
When you buy a house in Italy, and move in, you will find no taps, no basins, no kitchen furniture, just bare walls. We were lucky, we were left the light fixtures, The toilet and shower were intact, but thats all. Why? maybe because it is assumed you won’t want to cook in another womans’ old kitchen or wash your face in anothers’ old basin. So its all removed.
We were pleased to get the new kitchen we wanted albeit at great expense and we celebrated when the big teak table for six was delivered into the kitchen, but it would have been nice to have had a tap to switch on, to test when the water got turned back on, instead of two holes in the wall. Finally the gas was also switched on and we discovered that the exhaust for the caldaia, (the gas water heater) had been diverted into the chimney that we had hoped to install a woodburner in.
So we came to make friends with a spazzacamino (the chimney sweep) who turned out to be so much more than his Dickensian name suggests. He was apparently an expert on fireplaces, chimneys and their ilk, and also a Tango dance teacher, an incessantantly cheerful talker, and a mine of information which we greedily drank in. On the Sunday when we first met him, he had arranged with us to meet him in his village to go and look at stoves. We drove miles and miles with him into the mountains until we could see Switzerland, to meet a man who designed and made heaters, wood burning ones. He talked non-stop about his competitions in Tango dancing. We arrived and were shown the modern version of wood burners. Encased in ceramic and looking like something that belonged on a grave they were, bleak, cold towers of engineering. We searched for a way out without offending the artist, who clearly thought they were magnificent.
In the end I couldn’t take the shadow boxing anymore and simply said that, we wanted an old Ghisa stufa (cast iron woodstove) a black one, that you could boil water on, like I had had on the farm as a child. He looked at me with sympathy, since kettles are not used in Italy, who knows what he thought. However, we eventually left saying we would call him, and then on the way home the spazzacamino told us he had one of those stoves from his grandmothers’ home lying behind his house, did we want it? He delivered it a week later for me to restore, and it was wonderfully set on turned legs with all its grills and bits, and so I set about rubbing it down, so I could paint it black, and he could come and break open the chimney and install it. This was what occupied my thoughts at night. A stove! we had a real woodburner, or as Amante still calls it a ‘Sturve’
What followed was the most breakbreaking work I have ever done, we had decided that we would take the wall that housed the chimney for the woodburner, back to the bricks. So we set about chipping off the cement and plaster from hundred year old red bricks to get a surround that looked rustic and Italians call grezzo-rough. It was slow progress, we had been promised that the jack hammer that the spazzacamino had used to open the wall for the chimney would be used to take off this layer at the same time. Unfortunately the tool stopped working after the hole was cut, and yet again like the courtyard outside, our bargaining point disappeared like water in the desert. So dust covered and exhausted, we chipped away at rock-hard cement making painful progress, finally when there was only a square foot left and Amante said he just couldn’t go on as his forearm was too sore and the chisel was slipping, I gave into the frustation of coming so close to completion after three entire weekends spent chipping, and called him a bimbone and a mammone a big baby and a mommies boy, neither of which he remotely is. He agreed that he was.
It’s early June, the bedrooms upstairs have been painted a soft butter and when the sun hits the fresh paint it looks light and warm. We have screwed together designer bookshelves, beechwood bathroom and kitchen units, taken the head of our metal frame bed up on ropes over the balcony window ( it wouldn’t go up the stone staircase that turns a tight corner), installed gas and scarico - a water outlet under the sink We are resting in the sun in the courtyard, now full of greenery under the grapevine and huge pink hydrangeas which have recovered, amazingly. We make a fire outside, and we sit side by side on our rocks and cook seafood spiedini-kebabs on old vine wood pruned last autumn. The stove inside has been lit by Amante he doesn’t miss an oppotunity to test it again although the temperatures are soaring, ‘next winter we will be warm’ we say in unison, as we watch with satisfaction as smoke curls up out of our new copper chinney up on the roof. ‘Expensive, but it works’ I say. Theres a feeling of great achievement between us. The swifts are with us they have a nest of mud up in the eaves, as it gets dark they circle endlessly performing their acrobatics in the air, we watch them mesmerised, they never seem to tire apparently they catnap in the air, truly free from the earth.
The bells begin to sound, we are perched in the most ancient part of the town between two large parish churches, one adorned with angels trumpeting, saints and popes and the other with arched porticos and a magnificent frescoed ceiling. Since there is only about 200 metres between the two churches, with our tower in the middle, when they ring, we don’t only hear them, we feel them. The steadily increasing ding dong and a single louder stroke dong! In the mornings an entire sweet tune is rung out. All our labours here including many pages of this book have been acompanied by these two campanili –steeples adorned with angels and their bells. It’s a sound I have always loved and a sound I now associate with home.I wake to them in the morning and I try to be in bed before midnight strikes.
Talking about the future, we realise that soon our family and friends, soon to visit from Cape town will be looking out of these windows at our tower. We had already taken photos before the renovations to send to them.They applauded our efforts as brave and the results as beautiful, this fuelled us to do more work in the garden and buy garden furniture. One Sunday in the garden centre I dream of trailing wisteria next to our columns, and so we haul two hudge pots home and set the plants free to climb them and produce those lovely mauve orbs, that same wisteria that covers Tuscan walls. From the back of our house it looks like the tower comes out of our roof and is part of the house. It’s so close it may as well be. The photos showed the last late snow we had, it softens the roof and made our little dirt road and archway look romantic and mysterious, and the trumpeting angels on the steeple had cloaks of snow. Finally we have our house-warming dinner in autumn, friends troop through the house, declaring how wonderful it looks, using the Italian espressions, ‘Complimenti, siete stati bravi, è come la Toscana’ – just like Tuscany. Amante and I smile at each other over their heads as we descend the stairs. ‘Bravo’ I mouth at him.
At moments when we thought we might have driven a harder bargain on the house and been wiser, our friends consoled us with their stories, which were amazingly similar and often much worse. It seemed that, if you had survived, and were still clinging to your pile of bricks you had done well.
Donatella, who has English lessons with me weekly, tells me how her family was effectively robbed of two basement rooms that formed the foundations of their family house in Venice. Her stor…
A cousin had lunch with them one day and seemed to remember he had played in two big rooms under the house as a child. An investigation was launched. Apparently, a local fisherman had stored his things there and had taken ownership of the rooms from the now deceased grandfather. No record of this change of ownership was found, and a legal battle commenced, the fisherman clinging to the basement and the family trying to prise his fingers off their basement. After six years of expensive and fierce battle, they finally got back their two basement rooms, with the help of a lawyer in Milan. This is the stuff of Operas.
It was she who advised me to set up the table in the garden and fight like hell for it.
My father in law has been fighting for ten years, after exchanging a piece of land big enough to accomodate two semi-detached houses with gardens, on it, for one of the houses, after completion, plus a small cash payment, this for an extra piece he later surrended to build the access road. The promised payment has never been made and ten years later he fights on. Amante, one Christmas Eve asks him what his dream in life is, his answer, to win the case.
Small dream, big principle. Amante’s brother smiles, everyone understands, even I do now.

a weekend in August

noreply@blogger.com (Italy expat) — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 15:11:00 +0000

With some hindsight, I always used to say that you couldn’t comment on life in Italy if you weren’t a resident here, I amend that now to, you have no idea of the real workings of Italian life until you buy a house.
Certainly, in our case buying a property in the ancient village of Castelnuovo in the province of Como, developed our capacity for patience and irony beyond what we could ever have imagined. As my foreign friends had always warned me, there is no end to the curved balls thrown at you by the property market in Italy. Yet we came like lambs to the new green grass disregarding all the dire warnings.
So, from the safety of our cosy rented apartment, we began our initiation. Firstly finding an apartment or a house that is for sale, is the first hurdle, the second is finding one that will be available for occupation within a year of buying it, the majority of housing isn’t constructed yet and is sold ‘off plan’.
After asking everyone we knew, or came across, we finally discovered buying privately wasn’t done. Later we realised, after making many evening and weekend visits to Estate agents, that we were expected to pay 25% of the purchase price as an offer, to be taken seriously and then, after paying the agent and the notaio-notary their fee, (another ten thousand up front), plus the balance of the purchase price, we would have to wait for about nine months to move in. While the present owners used our money to finance the purchase of their new condominium, we would continue to pay rent, with no definite date to move in. Moreover, they were not prepared to pay occupational rent for our prepay while we waited for the paid up notaio who would take four months to register the property in our name.
I was told that the risks were: that they may change their minds, and if they experienced delays on their not yet built condominium, it would be our problem not theirs. That our money, would be almost impossible to retrieve, since the whole Italian legal system runs on a five year delay, and the advice I’d always been given, was never to go to court in Italy if you are in the right, but only if you are in the wrong.
The solution seemed simple, choose a house that was already empty. Well, there aren’t any.
There is this chain going on in every city, people waiting to move into a property they had paid for months ago, while the former owners waited for the rain to stop so the builders could complete the apartment block they had promised to move into a year ago.
Actually there are a few empty properties, the catch?. They are old and needing restoration, and therefore uninhabited, since the majority of this post rural, post farmhouse, boxy concrete apartment loving generation, dream of a condominium with newly built concrete walls, plastic windows, double glazing and triple locking doors.
We traipsed around with sycophantic agents, showing us examples of building sites that would one day sprout into palaces. While we continually reminded them we wanted something ancient (Italian for old), with character, were prepared to do some restoration, and wanted to be near the train station. Somehow they couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that we didn’t want a condominium.
Finally months later, we boycotted all the estate agencies and looked in a newspaper published in our province, called La Provincia, there in the classifieds I read something that sounded promising, It was a Saturday morning, we were having a cappuccino in the local bar, so we called the number, there was an answering machine, we left our number, something we didn’t normally do. Miracle of miracles the call was returned, the man agreed to meet us at the house which was just across the street, at 4pm. We were so excited, over a mere successful appointment, how our expectations had been lowered over the year!.
So we hung around at the door to the double story house, which was right opposite an ancient tower we had often admired, looking out for a tall man, the only description we had of him. Finally at 4.30 a tall man got out of a very small car and approached us.
We entered a darkened house, the shutters were pulled up by him and then we saw a large living room and a kitchen big enough to have a dining table in, the thick walls, the high beamed ceilings, the beams were whole trees, rough, dark and old, which we were told were cherry and had been there for hundreds of years. The stout walls were white washed, the window frames were chestnut and the wiring and heating system had been redone. We climbed the stone stairs leading to the landing on the second floor, and discovered, two huge, light filled bedrooms the main one with a small balcony, looking into the tower which was almost close enough to touch. Here too, the ceilings were high and beamed, the floors were wood and had been restored. There was also a bathroom, and a laundry which had a ladder leading to an attic which we could convert into a open space if we desired. On the landing opposite the bathroom was a French door which opened to the back of the house over an arch spanning our private road which ran into a small courtyard garden at the back. The house was bordered by another ‘ancient’, barn-like building needing restoration that wasn’t part of the property. The walled garden with a grapevine rambling over the wall, we were told was for our use and the back door opened out onto it.
We were enchanted and, asked the man if it was his, and the price. He told us it belonged to a friend and gave us the approximate price. Then he locked up and left, leaving us standing on the pavement contemplating if this was the house for us.
As we stood at the base of the old tower in front of the house, in the historic centre of the village. we both realised something rather serendipitous (which my dictionary defines as making happy discoveries by accident). Yet was it an accident? When we pieced it all together, we came up with what I like to call happy accidents and others call coincidence. In the weeks before, walking around this village searching out property, we had stopped at the archway over this little private road and I had said this is the kind of place we’d like. ‘Yes’, said Amante ‘I like this archway with its heavy old beams’. Once again we both admired the tower and said we’d like to live in it or near it. Walking near the tower another day I looked down and discovered some coins on the pavement which I took to be lucky and picked up, (I now realise) right outside the front door of the future house.
Call it what you will, it was a sign, and had become our fate.
We walked to the station, it was a mere four minute walk and would be a thirty minute journey to work by train. So we went home to put together our finance and decide what our offer would be.
Little did we know that the most stressful month was to follow, and so we entered the rarefied arena of the notaio, in Italy, a person only slightly lower than God.
We were also to discover that the man who showed us the house was not a friend but an agent in disguise. In Italy commission is paid to the agent by both the seller and the buyer. A fat 6% in total. for doing very little work. Certainly, he could answer few of our questions, as to the age of the property, since it had been in the same family for generations. The town planner of Castelnuovo was not any more helpful, as to existing plan of house, the deeds contained a tiny photocopied plan, very short on detail, despite talk of many architects who had helped in the renovations, what was clear, however, was that our house and the buildings next to it dated back to the origins of the village, a place the Romans built as a place to administer the region from.
When we met the seventy year old owner of the house, a yellowed barrel-shaped man who spoke in the mobs’ gravelly whisper, to sign an offer on the house he had inherited from his aunt, He too, not give us exact dates of renovations either. He always assured us that at the next meeting the architect would arrive with all the plans to answer our questions. He spoke to Amante mostly, but addressed me occasionally in the most servile simpering way. The English woman he called me, in a manner than seemed at odds with his mob image. Mr Brillo told us everything was ottimo and of the finest quality and workmanship. Documents, here had not replaced words, words still mattered, or the lack thereof as we would discover.