#46: One Year In Italy!
Today is officially our one year anniversary of moving to Italy.
On 10 July 2023, we landed at Pisa's Galileo Galilei Airport in 38 degree weather. It feels simultaneously like it was last week, and a decade ago. Such is the scale of the change we've experienced setting up a new life here - with absolutely no idea what we are doing most of the time!
While a year in the context of my life is only a short period of time, it is half of Leo's. He had just turned one when we arrived. He wasn't even walking yet, let alone talking. It's amazing really to think that he is possibly more Italian than Australian at this stage - depending on how you want to measure it.
Both our kids have done an exceptional job of taking to this big adventure with gusto. It makes me so happy and proud to know that the two little humans have already had such an interesting and challenging experience.
It's still mind-boggling to me that in the last 12 months we have done the following:
Become Italian citizens (!), and
Not been deported in the process (there were a few touch and go moments along the way)
Completed a full school year for the kids
Made amazing new friends from all over the world
Navigated tough moments where the lack of our Australian support network around us really put the pressure on
Blundered our way through a million language exchanges and always ended up with what we needed (eventually)
I feel like I'm always going on about the citizenship journey, but I really can't put into words how much this one means to me. I don't get emotional about much, but the connection that I feel to Jim and his beloved Italy is so special.
Lucca in 2024 is not Cittadella in the 1930s, but the experience of being born in Australia and moving to Italy as a young child is similar between him and our two. I can only hope that their experience will be even half as formative!
A very special mention needs to go towards my amazing, endlessly positive, adaptable, and long-suffering husband. Who else would pack up their very good life and move to literally the other side of the world with toddlers on the whim of their wife?
Not knowing the language, with no friends or support network, and without any emotional connection of their own to the new homeland to sustain them when things get tough. It's pretty amazing, and I am very lucky!
But at the risk of turning this letter into something overly soppy, let me share some of the most recent everyday interactions...
It felt fitting that this week I experienced a huge breakthrough at the local bakery.
Forno Francesco Casali makes THE BEST focaccia I have ever eaten. The small shop front of the forno is located on an otherwise entirely residential street in the top northeastern corner of the city centre. It is easily found however by following the most incredible smell of baking bread you have ever had the pleasure of inhaling, and then by spying the long line of locals waiting out the front.
The line is one of those Italian queues which appears at first to just be a clump of people waiting, but actually there is a system in place. As you arrive, you ask who is the last in line. Someone will reply that they are, and then you wait wherever you like until the person ahead of you goes in. You have to then remember to nod when the next person arrives after you and asks 'chi è l’ultimo?'
Of course, the presence of a non-Italian speaker in the midst of this group can throw the whole thing into absolute chaos. The end result usually being that they get mercilessly pushed in on by everyone until they eventually give up. Such are the laws of the Italian jungle!
The other indignity that tourists are occasionally subjected to is being given the tough ends of the focaccia. If an Italian ever lets you go in front of them at the bakery, they are most likely not doing it out of the goodness of their heart. They know that new bread is about to emerge, fresh and piping hot from the forno. And they are always willing to wait for that.
Earlier this week I was at Casali. An American tourist was ahead of me, and she was served before the two Italians waiting at the counter. Then it was my turn. The server, recognising me (I go there a lot), leaned across and said in a low voice that there was new bread about to be brought out. She recommended that I wait five minutes.
Victory! I took my place with the other two Italian ladies, standing back from the glass counter, while a couple more tourists were served. Sure enough, mere minutes later a few metres of piping hot focaccia emerged on the wooden paddle of one of the bakers and was quickly sliced up and handed across to us.
I'm still yet to wipe the smile from my face.
But to make sure I don't get too big of a head, I got the full tourist treatment at Pasticceria Stella recently. Despite ordering in Italian, the girl who served me my pastries hand wrote a receipt for me to take to the cash register. She clearly didn't trust my ability to communicate what I had ordered to the attendant waiting there. None of the Italians before or after me were given the same little notes. The shame!
All my love. We miss you every day.
