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60 minutes in California
Yesterday I had my first teleportation experience. My husband has been sick for some days now and asked me to go cover up for him at a conference he was really interested in: “How to expand your...
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A quiet romance
The coffee shop where it all started Bad romance. Cursed romance. Sick love. I have just completed my overdose of tv and finished watching season 2 of Homeland. (I went through 12 episodes in 2 days...
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Five things I learnt about love
I spent more time thinking about love than probably Elizabeth Darcy (née Bennet). At the age of 6 I engaged myself to a boy named M. without him being aware of that. I would take him by the arm to …...
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Chivalry, Sexual Harassment and a matter of latitude
“Speeches are like women’s skirts: the shorter, the better”. This is how a few days ago an Italian diplomat welcomed the guests of one of the many Brussels’ institutional gatherings. Someone I know was...
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100 years of feminism and a little boy
8th of March, International Women’s Day. Around 8.30 am, I am strapping two reluctant kids into the car for the daily, exhausting, school run when something makes us have a surprising conversation. We...
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FAUX PAS – Why clumsy people shouldn’t use instant messaging
I am clumsy. Always have. Always will. And there should be a law to prevent people like me from using instant messaging or any kind of communication tool where a small distraction does have...
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Some countries do care about children
I This is my brand new passport, with optical something and fingerprints. If you have small children and are thinking of claiming Italian citizenship because your great-great-great grandfather was born...
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The California Diaries – getting a taste of San Francisco
So here I am. After much babbling about sinking Europe and dreaming about faraway lands, I finally got on a plane and landed, almost a day later, on the other side of the planet. It wasn’t as easy as...
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The California Diaries – Through the Silicon Valley
My last day in San Francisco started at Plow, the city’s best spot for breakfast and brunch (according to local press and to our landlady) in Potrero Hill, a few blocks from our room. It’s cool, it’s...
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The California diaries – Hiding in the woods and the Ketchup castle
We didn’t die after visiting Carmel, luckily enough. But we continued exploring the region after settling for the weekend in a wood cabin a few miles from Big Sur. It was cozy, eco-efficient and all...
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The California Diaries – In love with Los Angeles
L.A. swept me off my feet. Literally. I didn’t really know what to expect. Some said it was just a dizzying megalopolis. Some others pointed out that there’s no city center, just neighborhoods sitting...
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Journals are better than Prozac
“I’d sell both kidneys just to be 20 again”. This is what i said last night to my nephew who’s 20, gorgeous, youthful, handsome-and-doesn’t-know-it and totally lost. A year is a century for him, today...
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The perks of being an expat (or how I got socially promoted)
Being an expat is a privilege. None actually knows you. None remembers you with a fanny pack and a walkman back in 1989, none can talk behind your back of all the times you got dumped by boyfriends...
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30s: regretting 20s, looking forward to 40s
I write, think and talk a lot about age. Everyday. It became an obsession when I turned 30 and people expected me to be an adult when I couldn’t feel any actual difference from my younger self....
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Modern times, modern husbands
My husband is very busy. Constantly busy, apparently. He wants me to pass important communications via email. He won’t answer phone questions. He won’t even listen to a real life question. If I ask him...
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Ghosts from the past (or when an expat gets caught)
A few days after writing on the expat status something strange happened. I was coming back home from the market and saw a woman pushing a pram down my street. She looked familiar but truth is my sight...
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Dinner with an old flame: 5 days in Rome
Have you ever bumped into an old love? Someone you spent nights talking to and dreaming with but that at some point you had to leave, because he wasn’t right for you? Do you remember the...
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“Ma vatte’ a fa’‘na passeggiata, va’…”: Go have a walk, or the Italian answer...
Many says that Rome’s only flaw are the Romans. I think that the Romans are actually Rome’s greatest asset. Without its cynical, proud, indifferent, wise inhabitants Rome would be just an open museum....
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When expatriation gets to your face: how I became a foreigner to my people
I am a walking Italian stereotype. I tried everything to look different: bleached my hair during teenage (ending up more orange than blonde), tried an endless number of hair coloring later on, avoided...
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Little Expats I (or the thousand and one correct ways of raising your offspring)
One of the few things I still like about Brussels is the open show of expat parallel realities. Bringing the kids to the playground is per se an anthropological relevant moment: there I see mothers and...
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