So you’ve gotten your Italian visa and you’re all set to move to Italy. Congratulations! I know that wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but now you need to think about the next steps. What do you need to do once you get here? I’ve put together a little guide to tell you the steps you need to take in order to get settled in Italy as a new resident.
Last week I wrote about 10 ways to combat expat fatigue and get through the expat plateau. The expat plateau is that point you reach after the newness and scramble of getting settled that first year wears off and you’re left facing the reality of everyday life. This can lead to expat depression or feelings of regret, but it doesn’t have to. I wrote to my favourite podcast The Bittersweet Life, a podcast that discusses…
I’m in my second year of living in Italy and I’ve been feeling bummed out due to something I’d like to call the expat plateau. Often times people talk about experiencing a honeymoon period when they first move to Italy, where the joy and beauty of living in Italy can far outweigh the daily grind of bureaucracy, language mishaps, and loneliness as you get used to life here. However, that period (anything from 6 months…
After going through the labyrinthine process of getting your permesso di soggiorno, carta d’identità, codice fiscale and health card, (congratulations, by the way) the next step in your integration into Italian society is get your Italian driver’s license. You’ll find lots of posts on the internet about people’s experience how to get their driver’s license in Italy, but since I’m going through the process right now, you may want up-to-date info. In this post, I’ll…
Sometimes when I get a bit of homesickness for life in the city, I’ll go for a walk to the center of Forio and throw myself into one of the side streets and wander until I get lost and can’t tell where I am anymore. I love the buildings squashed one next to the other, the smells and sounds coming from the windows, the cats darting into garden doors, and the strange and meandering streets…
When I lived in Rome, it was my first time living in Italy full-time and it was really challenging. There was so much to learn about Italy, not just how to live there, but what the hell people were actually talking about. I hardly got any of the cultural and historical references that came up in conversations and films and I was always asking questions like ‘why’ and ‘how’. Like who was Aldo Moro and…