Category

Italy

Generic Holiday Blog Post: It was like this in 2022 and it’s pretty much the same in 2023!

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We’ll be in Italy of course because we live there. That’s always weird but less weird every year and this’ll be Year Seven EIGHT! Our first year living in Italy we went to Venice for Christmas and got ripped off at some supposedly great restaurant. C’est la vie, live and learn. This year we local americani will have Thanksgiving dinner with some likewise Americans etc. at...

Favorite Italian Punk Bands! Musicarelli, Tuscan Geology and More!

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Favorite Italian punk band from Arezzo: Osaka Flu Favorite piece about Tuscan geology: The Life of a Tuscan Wall Favorite funny Outdoor Dining in the Pandemic video This Week’s Favorite Italian News in English web site: TheLocal.it Favorite Italian Bob Dylan Scholar: Alex Falzon, author of Bob Dylan: Tu Sei quel che sogni (You are what you dream])    Favorite 60s music movie genre: I love...

How do I tell people to put on a mask?

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Dear Cary, Why is it that when I tell people they need to wear a face mask, I’m the one who ends up feeling terrible? I don’t just go around willy-nilly telling this to any maskless person, although I have been known to speak up in supermarkets if someone gets too close or exposes his or her nose. But in my apartment building, where there are a lot of high risk people (including me)...

Three Quick Thoughts on Living in Tuscany

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No kidding, people are different here. Everything’s got a story and often it’s a long story. We’re glad we got out of San Francisco when we did but the real Tuscany is both much more amazing and much more about regular daily life than the brand “Tuscany”  co-opted by sellers of “Tuscan-brown sofas surrounded by Tuscan-yellow walls,” etcetera. That’s...

Having left America, listening to NPR in Italy

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Having left America two years ago for Italy, having used the money from selling our house in San Francisco to buy a smaller less expensive house in Italy and live here for a while, maybe for a long while, having fled, as it were, as if the place were on fire, having felt tremors like an earthquake in the social strata, having seen our city, once a refuge, turn against us, having felt suddenly and...

Finally it got hot in Italy

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Finally after the rains of May and June the sky went a brutal blue day after day and the ancient stones warmed and the air grew hot  and everyone slowed down, even the animals. The dogs that barked all winter and spring now lie on the concrete and let me pass. Even the motorcycles sound lazy. Now the weather is barefoot, short-haired, slow and workless, without ambition, a weather of waiting, of...

How to fake it in Italy and avoid making a fool of yourself

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Dear Folks, Well, I’m the last person you would expect to be writing a travel guide but the truth is I want to help you avoid making some of the mistakes I made when I first came to Italy. Learn to say buongiorno and buonasera: You can say buongiorno and buonasera and make people happy. Say it first when you walk in somewhere. People like to be greeted. Wear great shoes or, better yet, buy...

Letter from Italy

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I have this image in my mind of saying goodbye to someone on a river, maybe on the Arno in Florence, on a bridge, maybe the Santa Trinita Bridge, that would do, that would be a good bridge, and I can see the sky, a bluish color, you’ve seen a sky at dusk when it’s bluish,  you know how good it looks. I’m not sure why the image of saying goodbye to someone comes up. Maybe because I feel I have...

Breaking up with San Francisco: How we decided

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The way this whole thing started was my wife and I were sitting at the dining room table and I had my head in my hands and at this point I can’t remember but I think it was she who first said, Well, we could sell the house and move to Italy and yes, now that I think about it I’m sure it was she who said that first, not me, because if it had been me saying it then it would have been just another...

Letter from Italy

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It’s strange, isn’t it, the ideas we get as children that we carry into adulthood, ideas we  keep secret, ideas that keep us from doing certain things like dancing or singing or speaking in public, that keep us from even admitting that we cannot do something or do not know something? Isn’t it strange how we will make up a story to cover up, like, Oh, I don’t dance, or Oh...

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