I get a lot of hits and a good deal of personal emails from people who are either involved in a long-distance relationship with an Italian or are planning to tie the knot with a foreigner and want to talk to someone “who’s been there.” Interestingly enough, I’m actually the “foreigner,” in this relationship, but since this is my blog-and he rarely reads it-we’re not going to worry about that detail.

Read the rest of this entry »

Adjusting to life in southern Italy-without a drop of Italian ancestral blood in my veins-took a bit more practice than it did for my Italian-American counterparts. You see, I didn’t grow up eating seven fishes at Christmas or fearing the dreaded malocchio.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the hardest things for me as an expectant expat was the idea of not talking to my family every day … and of course, by family, I mean my mom.

In the US we talked two or three times a day and I knew the costs of maintaining that habit would be prohibitively expensive once I lived in Calabria.

Read the rest of this entry »