#1 Operation La Dolce Vita (English)

Operation La Dolce Vita. By just reading these words, do you hear the coffee machine hiss, the happy clattering sound of the small espresso cups being very swift-handedly placed at the bar by the barista, and do you smell that delicious aroma of freshly made espresso? Exactly. Because don’t we all start daydreaming immediately when reading ‘la dolce vita’? Fellini’s world-famous film from the sixties has forever placed those three little words in our heads as an association with a wonderful and dolce life under the sun. To start your day piano piano with a cappuccino at a little idyllic square where the elderly men play cards under the pines and where the nonna’s keep each other updated from their balconies about the latest gossip. La Bella Italia caught in the sweetest cliché. But to what extent does this association relate to the truth nowadays? Because in fact, the newspapers are telling us a whole different story. Salvini (the one with the anti-immigration, anti-Europe stance) who keeps heavily challenging anyone who doesn’t agree with him, an unstable – however recently installed – government, close to 0% economic growth since the crisis and the young university graduates who leave Italy en masse in search for better career perspectives abroad. 

La Bella Italia caught in the sweetest cliché. But to what extent does this association relate to the truth nowadays?

Operation La Dolce Vita is my story. Contrary to many of my Italian peers, I have gone on a journey in the exact opposite direction: so heading south! About a week ago I’ve left for Rome, the city in which I have already lived for a year four years ago and that felt like coming home from the very first second I set foot on the Roman soil as a teenager when we undertook the – in The Netherlands very traditional – high school trip to Rome to learn all about the ancient Roman Empire. The city that has ignited a little fire inside me that has started to burn stronger and stronger over the past three years that I’ve lived in The Netherlands. During my studies I have lived in Amsterdam for more than five years and I always joke about how my move from my hometown in the more laid-back, most southern part of The Netherlands to Amsterdam had been a bigger cultural shock to me than my move from my hometown to Rome. Without a clearly defined plan, but with a head full of dreams and the strong will to turn these dreams into my new reality I’ve taken off to the eternal city. I’ve quitted my stable, full-time job in The Netherlands, and trust me when I say that it had not been an easy decision made overnight. In one of the long overseas phone-calls with my dear cousin – who has left The Netherlands already three years ago for a new life in vibrant London – we came up with a name for my big plan: ‘Operation La Dolce Vita’ was born. Very suitable, I realized shortly after, because an operation is what you could call it! Having lived in both Rome and Naples I know now that the earlier described sugar sweet cliché about Italy only makes up a tiny part of the truth: the small but most famous part tourists mostly get to see. The full picture is, with all its layers, so much more complicated however so much more interesting. Through this blog, I am going to take you along on my journey and I literally cannot wait to share with you all the highs, but definitely also the lows, I’m going to face on my unpaved Roman path. A great amount of humor and the capacity to put things into perspective will be indispensable, because no matter how dark the clouds above the piazza will turn, the pastries in the pasticceria and thus life in Italy will forever be dolce because of the unparalleled and incredibly inspiring talent of the Italians to enjoy the simple things in life, every day again. After my time in Italy and thanks to having plenty Italian friends, I dare to claim I master this talent now too and in fact, I cannot wait to infect you with it! So first things first, let’s put that coffee machine on the stove and get yourself a real caffè…