It only takes six weeks and one foreign language for the average expat to figure out that life overseas is not for the faint of heart. I’m sure my grandparents felt the same way at a very young age, when they left Italy for America. Our comfortable support system of friends and family becomes voices on the phone or words in an email. Creating a new, local support system takes a lot of time and emotional energy. There is a certain […]
Anne-Marie can be very persuasive. ‘Just come and see what we’ve done so far’ she cajoled. And that’s why, rather reluctantly, I drove one March morning to La Scuola Media in Cortona to meet Patrizia, who teaches English there. She’d had an idea how to make her class of 13 year olds more confident about speaking English. They would do a play, in English, and put it on for their parents. They had decided to do ‘Grease’, a full-blown American musical! They’d […]
This young, energetic couple have restructured their antique farm house into a spectacle of modernity! We love the contradiction of the exterior appearance and the interior functionality. Their variety of art: paintings from local painters; famous ones too; photgraphs; sculpture. Instead of exclusively embracing the local flavor, their interior design could be mistaken for a New York City aparment on Central Park West. There is a taste of many different cultures instead of a concentration of Italian themes. We hope […]
An Incredible thing happened to me after my kids asked if the “economic crisis” had taken our money away. I decided to get involved with our local community. I wanted to remedy the worry that had been planted in their young minds by doing something positive. I organized sixty six shop keepers to have a window display contest, and invited all of you readers to go shopping. But the incredible thing that happened to me was how I came out […]