TRAVEL|CULTURE|PSYCHOLOGY
My Search For La Dolce Vita, The Sweet Life, Or Sweet Spot
An ongoing love affair unlike any other
In the fall of 2019, a friend of mine who lived in northwestern Italy told me that a language school in which she worked desperately needed teachers who were native English speakers.
I had visited Italy six times between 2014 and 2019 and had looked into possibility of legally living there multiple times.
The task seemed too daunting as a U.S. citizen (my friend is Welsh and this was before Brexit). I decided that Germany was the best country for me to move to start my new career teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL).
However, I asked my friend to ask her boss about the possibility of me working at her school. I did not want to pass up a good opportunity for me to legally work in a country I loved.
Long story short, her boss was interested in hiring me. He even asked if I could start as soon as January 2020!
However, I needed to wrap up things in my life first. I was in my last semester of college, and wanted proper time to say goodbye to friends and family after 16 years of living in Philadelphia.
Then the pandemic hit Italy hard in March 2020.
I could hardly believe it. It was the exact region of Italy where I was supposed to work and one in which several of my Italian friends lived.
My German boyfriend, who lived and attended university in Germany, planned to do a semester in Milan in order to live with me for six months or so in Italy. I had planned to arrive in Italy mid-June.
My flight was cancelled and I had no idea when I would be allowed into Italy due to the travel bans. I am quite persistent though and decided to move to the United Kingdom until I could move to Italy, since they still allowed Americans to enter.
I left for England in August of 2020.
Moving to England allowed my boyfriend and I to spend two months together after five months apart. We both hoped that I would be able to move to Italy once I secured a work contract at the language school, but the job fell through due to Covid-19.
I was really disappointed at first.
However, I also felt a bit of relief because Italy is notoriously slow when it comes to paperwork and bureaucratic processes. Whereas Germany is well known for being efficient and detailed regarding its bureaucratic processes.
Immigration can be a daunting task in just about any country, but I was happy to be moving to Germany instead of Italy in this regard.
In other aspects, I felt a bit torn. I had only been to Germany once for one week in 2019. I fell in love with Italy during my first 10-day visit in 2014, and my love only seemed to deepen until 2021, when I re-entered Italy for the 7th time.
First of all, I was ecstatic to finally be reunited with my boyfriend in Milan, after a great deal of uncertainty all winter.
I was not even sure I would be allowed to enter.
I flew to Ireland for 16 days before flying to Italy and did everything I was supposed to do regarding testing and quarantining in each country.
Due to Schengen zone rules, I could only stay in Italy for 90 days.
Milan is the first Italian city I ever visited, and I did not expect to love it as much as I did.
I dislike big cities. However, my four days there in 2014 were heavenly!
I felt inundated by all the beauty that surrounded me, despite all the man-made things that tend to turn me off about cities. I did not even realize how much I loved Italy (I also visited Florence, Rome and Tivoli during that trip) until I returned to the States.
It felt like something had been stirred deep with me and I longed to feel that on a more permanent basis.
When my boyfriend drove us into Milan on the way back from the airport, I was happy to see that there were so many trees around the flat we rented in northern Milan, but I was unhappy to be in such an urban environment again.
Eight months of living in a small town by the sea during lockdown in England was quite pleasing to my senses, albeit lonely for my heart.
One of the biggest challenges for me was the sound of the ambulances.
I am sensitive to sights and sounds. It took a while for me to adjust to the hustle and bustle of Milan. However, I was very happy to be able to see some of my friends in Italy.
Ironically, two of my close friends in Italy are from other countries (U.K. and U.S.). They all either had COVID-19 and recovered, or were vaccinated. I met up with them and stayed outdoors too, for the most part.
One of the absolute hardest things for me to adjust to after my return to Italy was not hugging or kissing people on the cheek.
It felt so unnatural to be around a group of my older Italian friends without hugging or kissing them, but it was still extremely good to see them.
My heart was bursting after not seeing them in person for so long.
However, Erba, near Lake Como, and Follina, known as “Prosecco Land”, were my favorite places to explore…
The landscape in Italy has always held a place in my heart, since that first visit.
The food, wine and the kindness of the people I have met there hold special memories too.
I used to want to retire to Italy, and maybe I still will, but I am more skeptical now.
As many of my Italian friends have told me over the years, it’s one thing to visit Italy and another thing to live there.
Living in Italy for 3 months straight opened my eyes to ways of seeing things that I had not seen before.
I also became aware, through observation as well as discussions with friends there, of the racism, sexism, xenophobia and homophobia that run rampant in many areas of Italy.
I also had the unfortunate experience of having my cell phone ripped right out of my hands by a thief, while I was texting on my way to a park in Milan.
I have taken off my rose-colored glasses in relation to Italy, and to Europe in general.
My move across the pond to Europe has been an enlightening, magical and, at times, disturbing journey. However, I did not expect anything less.
For what is “La dolce vita” without the bitter that makes us savor the sweet?
Being in love with Italy and visiting it regularly over the past several years helps me feel more human.
It helps me embrace the good, bad, pretty and pretty ugly, for better or worse, until death do we part.
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