For the past 6 months, my mind has been dominated by sickness, surgery, doctor appointments, tests, and a world-wide pandemic. And I’ve been grasping for something that feels familiar, an everyday action and that has turned out to be coffee. I’m not a coffee drinker, I don’t really like the taste and often times I don’t even like the way it makes me feel. But during all of this uncertainty and upheaval, I’ve been drawn…
Woo-hoo! Today is the first day of phase 2 in Italy – meaning that the lockdown is being slowly, gradually, cautiously lifted. We are finally allowed to leave our house to go for a solitary walk and to visit our family members. Up until this point, I had only left the house 3 times in 56 days – twice to walk into town to get money out of the cash point and once to the…
Here in Ischia, the island is keeping safe, but we’re also battling with our own positive cases of COVID-19 and I wanted to give you an update on Ischia and the corona virus and what’s going on here. Since everything is closed and we’re all staying at home, I feel like I’m in a vacuum. I read the local newspapers online, read the comments and follow the local Facebook groups, but what I most come…
UPDATE: 12.3.2020 Conte announced that further restrictions have been put in place and all shops and businesses are now closed except for grocery stores, pharmacies, banks, tobacco shops and newspaper stands. I’ve updated the rules down below. Things in Italy are changing day by day and my post today could very likely be obsolete by tomorrow, but I still want to document this very strange and surreal time and give you an update about Italy,…
During my long convalescence from surgery in December, I’ve been spending a lot of time studying Italian and I’ve discovered a wonderful group of Italian teachers through Instagram. These are great teachers to follow because they share a bit of their Italian selves giving you a chance to understand the great varieties of Italian culture throughout the regions and practice Italian along the way. They are very generous in giving lots of authentic content and…
At the moment, as I’m going through a heavy bureaucratic period in my life, I’ve been thinking about how much Italy has changed me. I had major surgery in Naples back in December and I’m now dealing with the aftermath of doctor visits and further tests. That part is straightforward, but along with that comes the bureaucratic mayhem of getting referrals and prescriptions, filling out forms, and navigating the labyrinthine system of requesting hospital records.…
