It started with a vague need to have a Plan B. After years of living in Southern Africa (Malawi) and very happily thinking that Africa is the place for us for the rest of our lives, we gradually started gravitating towards the idea of returning to Europe for all sorts of reasons. As I am from Finland and my husband John is Irish, we wanted to find a neutral third country where we would all have to start afresh and where a plane trip to our respective countries would not be 24 hours door-do-door, but three or four max. Our 16 -year old Daughter has had a very happy childhood in Malawi, but now needs something else, such as an opportunity to expericence a Big City life. As all parents of teenagers are aware, it would be risky to let this happen withouth any supervision.
Why Genoa? We like the idea of living on the coast and close to the sea. There are good connections to Milan, Turin and Rome from Genoa. The Italian Riviera is not an entirely unpleasant place to be either, we hear.
We do not yet speak Italian. This will be a challenge as Italy is one of those refreshingly different places where people simply think there is no pressing need to speak English. We are determined to learn the lingo as it might be totally impractical to telephone friends fluent in Italian to translate in case of an emergency.
What will we be doing in Italy? We are not yet entirely sure that there is a comprehensive answer to this question. That is why I have decided to write about it. This is a slightly crazy move. But that is also the beauty of it all.
Why Genoa? We like the idea of living on the coast and close to the sea. There are good connections to Milan, Turin and Rome from Genoa. The Italian Riviera is not an entirely unpleasant place to be either, we hear.
We do not yet speak Italian. This will be a challenge as Italy is one of those refreshingly different places where people simply think there is no pressing need to speak English. We are determined to learn the lingo as it might be totally impractical to telephone friends fluent in Italian to translate in case of an emergency.
What will we be doing in Italy? We are not yet entirely sure that there is a comprehensive answer to this question. That is why I have decided to write about it. This is a slightly crazy move. But that is also the beauty of it all.
No comments:
Post a Comment