No doubt you know that I write this blog in three languages, including Italian. And that means it is also read by Italians. An Italy blog written in Italian by una straniera, a foreigner, makes it different from many others, so I often hear. But can this really be called an Italy-blog? All the more I …
We’re in the middle of winter. Inverno, in Italian. Not to be confused with inferno, which means hell. By now, I have a good memory of the meaning of the two words, which differ only by one letter, but until last year it sometimes happened that I mixed them up by accident. Then I would say inferno instead of inverno during …
It is the paradox of this time. Just like everywhere else in the world, the COVID-situation in Italy keeps changing day by day (hello British and South African variants) but at the same time it feels like as if we have been in exactly the same mess for almost a year now. However, there is …
It has been three weeks that I’m in the Netherlands now and all of the holidays are well behind us. “When are you coming back?” and “When are you leaving again?” were the two questions I got plenty of times last week. Although the answer to both questions is exactly the same, the wording is …
Every year again, when most people are still recovering from all the holidays with their bellies eaten round (and sometimes a slight hangover), my party actually only just starts as my birthday is on the second of January. As my family and friends know by now, I’m not the kind of person who prefers to …
Happy New Year! Buon anno nuovo! No doubt it will sound different when we’ll say this Thursday night, or actually Friday when the day will only be a few minutes old. This year, the message will come from deep within us and it will be spoken with more emphasis. Wishing the other a healthy New Year has …
In three days’ time, it will be Christmas Eve. And for most of us, it is probably going to be the strangest Christmas ever. After the news about the strict measures in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom was widely reported in the Italian media, the Italians were impatiently awaiting the verdict that Prime …
With both Dutch and Italian news apps on my phone, last week was a bustle of breaking news push notifications. There’s no need to even mention the cause of this stream of news messages, as we all know it all too well unfortunately. The general message in all these news updates was clear: things are not going …
#58 The Ten Christmas Lunch Commandments (English) Read More »
Last week I was waiting at the bus stop. There were seven people in total. Three of them were nuns and one was a priest. The priest was casually scrolling on his iPhone while the three nuns were giggling trying to cram themselves under one umbrella as it was pouring. A pretty ordinary scene in …
While the Italians are eagerly waiting for the end of the week, Thursday or Friday the new decree is expected and it will finally be clear how Christmas is to be celebrated, a tradition is broken by many at the same time. Eight December, the day of the Immaculate Conception of Mary and a national …