“Oh Tina, you silly girl,” everybody at the table says, laughing, “that’s so cute that you think it doesn’t matter if you go outside right after you eat.  Chuckle chuckle, ha ha ha ha ha.  Everybody knows that if you go outside after a meal you get la congestione!”*

Six months later…. I’m on an air-conditioned shuttle bus, covering myself with a shawl, with a tummy ache, and frantically text-messaging a friend, “I ate lunch and then walked and then sat next to the air conditioning!  I think I have la congestione!”

*La congestione: an Italian phenomenon that takes place if you don’t allow for digestion to fully take place after you eat and go be where it’s cold, or go swimming, go where you might sweat from heat and make yourself cold, or really any sort of environment that has anything to do with being cold.  Apparently, it messes everything up as when you digest all your blood is concentrated on your digestive system.  When you go into a cold environment the blood distributes to the rest of your body to keep you warm and digestion is blocked.  Which is why you should always wear a scarf!  As a bonus, you could also get the influenza (not to be confused with the common flu), which is an Italian flu-like phenomenon that lasts exactly two days.  Remember, cold is evil!

1. Do your homework. I know your local university has had an exchange program with the Italian university for so many years, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll be able to help you once you get to Italy.  Perhaps you’ve been offered a job, but it may not be wise to assume your employer actually plans on getting you a visa.  Even if they do, and even if your university does help its students, you would be wise to take the responsibility of doing as much research as you can.  One great place to start is Expats in Italy.

2.  Learn the difference between a visa and a permesso di soggiorno. It is very important to keep in mind that a visa simply gets you into the country.  To actually stay, you need to get your permesso di soggiorno, or stay permit.  The visa is important to have because it is sort of a springboard to get you started in the bureaucratic process of applying for your stay permit.  But that’s all it is.  When you have your visa in hand, remember that this is Italy and the paperwork is never done.  To get started on applying for your permesso, you can ask for help at your university or from your employer, or go to the post office where they have the application packages.  This is something that needs to be done within 8 days of entering Italy.  Again, the people on the forum at Expats in Italy are very helpful if you need to know more.  My friend Georgette at Insiders Abroad just posted a link to this very informative blog post dealing with just this sort of thing.

3. The magic number is 90. When you arrive as a tourist, you are allowed to stay 90 days.  But don’t assume that you can just hop the border every 90 days and keep staying.  It used to be so, but now you actually have to leave for 90 days as well.  That’s right – 90 days in and 90 days out.  And not just Italy.  You have to leave the entire Schengen area (which includes most of Europe) for 90 days.  Be very careful about abusing this rule.  I personally know people who have been caught overstaying their allotted 90 days and it was not pretty.  You could risk being banned from the entire zone for five years.

I don’t like to sound negative or discouraging, but it really perplexes me when people don’t do their research before coming over here.  Maybe I’m just obsessive-compulsive, but I would never move to another country, legally or not, without trying to learn as much as I can about how everything works.  It is completely your choice if and how you want to come to Italy, but no matter what path you choose, you will find that so many doors open for you if you just do your research before you move.  It’s worth it!

*This post was written for AffordableCallingCards.net.  Do you have loved ones living in Italy?  You might want to click here to learn about cheap phone cards for keeping in touch. You can click here to read more posts about expat life written by myself and other bloggers.

I also have Pino at BelTango to thank for trusting me with his students and “sponsoring” me as a teacher here.  There are several tango schools here in Lecce, and while I don’t know them very well I can at least say, from my point of view as someone who lived in Buenos Aires and danced with the best milongueros,  that Pino teaches a high-quality social tango that works for everyone.  His students love him – he seems to attract really nice people naturally.  So it’s been a joy to have them as my students too.  Very respectful, enthusiastic, ready to try new things.  My didactic is different than Pino’s but they were all very open and I think that he and I can compliment each other well.

I am dying to travel (you know me).  I’ll go back to Palermo, Sicily again in a week’s time, and then I’m off to Napoli (Naples in English) to see my best friend Kirsten who will be stopping there with her new husband while they are on their honeymoon.  I’m sure I will fit some tango in there too.

I’m dying to go back to Buenos Aires.  I really need it, for my dancing and for my soul.  Buenos Aires will always be my home and I miss it so much.  I may be able to in December for a while, let’s keep our fingers crossed.  I love that as “continuing education” for my “profession” I “have” to go to Buenos Aires.   Business expense!  Ha.

It would be nice to get back to Seattle as well.  I miss my friends there a lot.  So much.  There are a lot of things here that I wish I could share with them.  I also miss how included and a part of things I feel with my Seattle friends.  Being a new girl in Lecce has it’s ups and its downs.  I have a social life here and I have people that I can count on, but since I haven’t been here long enough, I don’t have a solid, permanent circle of friends.  That’s the life of a gypsy soul, however.

The translations are slowing down for the summer and I’m glad.  Between giving the tango courses, DJing and having giant translations projects on top of everything, my head is spinning.  I just got a Trados 2009 license (thanks  mom!) and will be able to use the summer getting used to the software so I can be more productive than ever when summer is over.

It’s been a tough couple of years.  Despite all the beauty (living in Buenos Aires, having great friends there and in Seattle, moving to beautiful Italy), it’s been rough.  Things I’ll never write about here.  This year was very healing for me and I think I might be done clawing my way up the hill.  I have a feeling things are taking a turn now and all the work will have paid off.  If you follow astrology, you know that Saturn is about to leave my sign (Virgo) until the year 2036 and I say, Ciao!  Saturn has been the planet of hard-learned lessons, and I have learned and would like to move on now, thanks.

In any event, when things don’t go my way, I just hop over to Natale, get a cone of gelato, and eat it while staring at the ancient Roman amphitheater in Piazza Sant’Oronzo.  I can only do that here.

…spending lazy days at the beach, nibbling on fresh (really fresh) almonds from a beach vendor, wondering how I managed to live this long thinking I actually knew what almonds were supposed to taste and feel like…

…nibbling on olives and sipping very cold local white wine on my patio while looking at the strange plant that lives here…

…dancing tango under the stars at night (not pictured)…

While some people relocate to just one country, there are others who, like me, have changed country/continent of residence several times.  My first living abroad experience was in Switzerland in 2002… later I lived in Italy, then Argentina, and now I’m in Italy again.  With the exception of Switzerland, which, while beautiful, was just not my cup of tea, my identity has become so intertwined with the places I lived that I have no idea what to say when people ask where I’m from (which happens often here).  Having two passports does not make things any less complicated.

It’s rather entertaining when they try to guess.  Germany? France?  Uruguay? (Yes, someone in Italy asked if I was from Uruguay and I have yet to understand why.)  They can’t always tell where my strange accent in their language comes from (because it’s mine, all mine!), and I don’t encompass a “typical look” of any one place.

My answer, like Chantal’s, is “it’s complicated”.   This usually draws the curiosity of the asker, and I am launched into my story.  Responses I get are usually in line with “Oh yes, I totally knew it”, which makes me chuckle.

A while ago, a friend shared this video. It’s Argentine and the song is called “De donde sos?” …which means, “Where are you from?”.  It’s sweet and silly (and the guy singing it is cute) and I thought it was perfect for this post.  It defines my “expat type” – the whole reason I started moving abroad in the first place was because I wanted to become part of a place from the inside. What happens really is that the place becomes a part of me and stays that way.

How do YOU answer when people ask where you’re from?

*This post was written for AffordableCallingCards.net, the expat community site. You can click here to read more posts about expat life written by myself and other bloggers.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you:

But when the leaves hand trembling

The wind is passing thro’

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I:

But when the trees bow down their heads

The wind is passing by.

I wonder if there is a Southern Italian version involving the various winds that we have down here.  How do you make the phrase: “When your curls are extra curly and your patio is covered in Saharan dust it’s probably the Scirocco” rhyme?  Or “When, despite the warm weather and sun, the wind makes your skin shiver it’s probably the Tramontana and you’d do best to drive a ways and take a dip in the Ionian Sea”…?

Growing up in Seattle, I never knew the wind to have different names, only because it wasn’t part of our culture to speak of the wind in such a way.  As far as I was concerned, it was a language reserved for deep sea fishermen.  Here, however, people base their activities on the wind, and every wind from every direction has a name that everyone knows, rendering it exotic.  The Levante, the Tramontana, the Scirocco (my favorite), the Maestro, among others.  I can’t keep them straight!

The two winds I do know very well by now are the Scirocco from Africa (my apartment stays humid, and outside the wind is warm and pleasant, though at times so strong it’s a nuisance to my hair, which I just throw into a bun) and the Tramontana from the north (it’s a cool wind but that’s when we choose the Ionian Sea over the Adriatic and have the loveliest beach days).

It’s rather impressive to me that such importance is given to the wind.  It’s something I love about living in the Mediterranean – here, there is a connection with nature that seems truly ancient.  From the wind to the soil to the sea to the phases of the moon.

How do people relate to nature where you live?

*This post was written for AffordableCallingCards.net, the expat community site. You can click here to read more posts about expat life written by myself and other bloggers.

I think some people don’t realize what a job it is to DJ.  I had people make requests, and while I kept their requests in mind, I couldn’t simply play what someone wanted unless it went with the rest of the evening.  I was mostly concerned with paying attention to the dance floor and how the people were reacting, so I could arrange my music accordingly.  I like to think I did a nice job – I kept the floor pretty full at all times and there were smiles all around.  Part of that is probably that it’s finally summertime and spirits are up in general.

Several people came up and invited me to dance.  I felt bad saying no, but I really preferred to pay attention to organizing and playing the music.  When I felt comfortable leaving the table, I would signal to someone who had invited me earlier, so we could dance.  I missed a few guys and I hope they understand.  I really just wanted to take care of the music and the people.  But it was nice to be part of the dance floor as well so I could feel what they were all feeling.

A few people asked if I would include a rock & roll tanda, or maybe “tropical” (aka salsa, cumbia, etc). I really wanted to but the time flew by and I didn’t get a chance to.  I promise I will next time.  I always enjoyed the rock & roll tandas in Buenos Aires – even if I don’t dance rock & roll myself, it’s always great to watch.

Today I begin a month long course on milonguero style tango here in Lecce.  And this summer I hope to DJ some more!  Things are going pretty well for me down here.

I sit down at the outside table of a trattoria recommended by Claudio, the B&B owner.  I ask the waiter what I might like that is typical from here, and he recommends that I order pasta c’anciova. I agree.  I am served long pasta with a tomato sauce that includes anchovies (which have been cooked into the sauce and therefore are not noticeable apart from the familiar salty flavor that comes up every now and then), raisins and pine nuts, as well as breadcrumbs. I swear a taste a spice from the east as well, but I am not sure.   Pine nuts and raisins seem prevalent here, and my second course (consisting of fish, of course) includes both.

I sleep for two hours in my room, in a daze from the local white wine I had with my lunch.  When I wake up, Claudio kindly prepares me coffee and invites me on a tour of Palermo on his scooter.  A family from Ireland arrives to check in, and once they have settled, the two of us leave.

I am normally a little nervous on scooters but for some reason I feel totally relaxed and don’t even feel a need to hang on for dear life.  He is a gentleman and takes care of me, the passenger, intuitively guessing which speed will work best for me at what time, instead of showing off and trying to impress me with speed and fancy maneuvers.  He is a milonguero on a scooter.  He slows down once in a while to point things out to me – strange trees whose branches drop other branches to the ground, eventually planting themselves into the earth to form new trunks.  Old wooden church doors with tiny crosses embedded, made of mother of pearl.  The gates to the city near the port – gates through which boats used to enter, but now people enter by car or on foot.  The port was built up over stones from buildings that were destroyed in the second world war.

We stop for gelato and I have the dark chocolate and panna cotta flavors.  I have mine in a cone, but here most people have it served in a brioche (a pastry) with cream.  The gelato here in Sicily is out of this world and merits its own blog post.  He drops me off at the B&B before leaving to run some errands.

I look out the window and think about my day, the things I’ve seen and how kind the B&B owner has been to me, a girl who knows nothing about Palermo or Sicily.  I am moved and decide that I really like this city.  This is not a museum city whose beauty is laid out before your eyes to overwhelm you.  Its beauty is not obvious at first.  Its beauty is hidden in corners and above us in the details of buildings.  Its beauty is also in the people, who have all been kind and generous to me from the start.  If you don’t have your eyes and heart open while here, you might miss out on some of Palermo’s most special treasures.  Palermo itself IS a treasure.  A real gem.

*This post was written for AffordableCallingCards.net, the expat community site. You can click here to read more posts about expat life written by myself and other bloggers.

The Swallows.  They say one swallow does not make a spring, and I think I can safely say it’s spring here.  Lecce is covered in swallows every day at dusk.  They swoop around in flocks and fly quite low.  I tend to stare at them in admiration, but it is almost reminiscent of a certain famous Alfred Hitchcock film.

The Mosquitoes.  I already got my first mosquito bite in April.  This is the Mediterranean, folks, and what we’ve got is warmth and humidity.  I’m already waking up to that funny high-pitched buzz in my ear, and my tango dancer legs are constantly covered in repellent to avoid unsightly bites.  And if it’s like this in May, what will it be like in the summer?

The Smells in the Air.  I’m discovering so many new flowers, as everything is in bloom and we’re in a place where we have several different winds.  The perfume changes depending on which wind is blowing.  The orange blossoms, the pitosforo (butterbush), and sometimes the smell of the sea.

What are your telltale signs of spring and summer?

*This post was written for AffordableCallingCards.net, the expat community site. You can click here to read more posts about expat life written by myself and other bloggers.

Well that short film just so happens to be made here in Lecce!  And now I know all those people!

I forgot all about it until Ornella, the beautiful woman in the film, asked if I’d seen it.  “That’s me!” she said.  It’s more fun for me to watch now that I know the people in it.

Heh.