Thanks to your stories and information, I have moved beyond wondering if a life in Italy will always be a dream to the next stage--a life in Italy will be reality! My two daughters and I are flying to Rome March 5th for a six-month trial. My intention is to move to Italy permanently but only after Italy and I have become good friends during these six months will I be willing to make this decision.

To visa or not to visa was never a question for us, thanks again to your helpful information. If our attempt to renew our tourist visa in Italy is denied for some reason, we have friends and contacts throughout Europe and my daughters' father is in Croatia.

I really wanted a job and the security that comes with so I exhausted all my options for finding employment from this side of the globe via the internet--websites in Italian and in English. The worst and most frustrating part of this was that it is impossible to get a work visa without an employer in Italy and no employer in Italy who posts vacancies on the internet wants to hire someone who doesn't already have a work visa. I have decided to put my search for employment on hold for now. I don't need to work for a while anyway.

My Italian gets better every day, but not as quickly as it will once I use it regularly over the next few months. Using the internet to find employment and house hunt has helped a ton because I now know the basic words I need to for house hunting once I am there. I hope to rely on friends and contacts to find a rental home/apartment and will use an agent only as a last resort. Is it common to take lease paperwork and examine it (slowly and painfully with my basic Italian) before signing?

I hope to live within 1-2 hours of Rome or Naples. I will decide after more exploration but would love to hear suggestions from any of you all. We will know "home" when we find it.

I am exhausted, excited and have a lot to do before our departure...please pray for us!!!

Stefania

Stefania:

You are doing something several of us have done before....we are all here to lend you a helping hand where we can! Come see me out on Cortona sometime!

Many thanks...I needed that bit of encouragement.

I am not sleeping so well (excitement) and when I do wake up, I listen before I open my eyes to see if the Italian dream I am leaving is also reality yet. The sleeplessness is not helped by force-feeding myself the book 501 Italian verbs every evening. This could bring on serious nightmares!!

I hope to seek you out for a visit someday when I am traveling near Cortona or perhaps we can meet at a slowtrav get-together, if any are planned for the near future.

Your blog's lyrical description of Florence makes me wonder if expats experience the same devotion to their geographical region that native Italians seem to. If so, where will we practice our own version of regionalism? I suppose we will know when we see it.

Stephanie

Hi - I just had to reply. I'm from Portland, Oregon. I just came back from 3-1/2 months in Italy. My husband and I bought a house in Lanciano, Abruzzo. I'm happy to share my thoughts with you, or come up to Portland and we can talk in person.

Cathey

Cathey,
I would love to hear about your adventures in Abruzzo. I just read that you are going back in September. Do you miss it? Are you going to be working there?

It seems that everyone raves about Abruzzo. I'll have to make it top priority for exploration when I get there! Is your home rented out already?

I won't be in Portland until the day we fly out so maybe we have better chances of meeting up in Italy. Email me your phone number and we can at least have a chat once before we fly out.

Stephanie