Love in times of Corona crisis: My experience in Italy
The past two months have been a rollercoaster of emotions. The corona crisis has hit Italy hard. When the first news about the Covid-19 virus started popping up, even when the first cases arrived in Italy, many of us (me included) didn’t take it too seriously. “It’s just a normal flu” gradually went to “it’s […]
Street scenes
It’s a beautiful spring day in Florence. Windows wide open, sitting in the sun, coffee within reach. I’m working. Until I hear a sound. A trumpet? It sounds like a trumpet. I think to myself ‘someone must have picked up on a new hobby’ and continue with what I was doing. But the sound is […]
Exciting new steps!
It’s the 16th of February 2019 and today it has been one year, three months and a couple of days since I arrived in Florence. I eat, sleep, breathe Florence and I can sincerely say it is the biggest, most consuming and most fulfilling love I have ever felt. I am Florence. Florence is me. […]
One Year
It’s hard to believe I’m actually writing this post. This Sunday, November 4th, I’m celebrating my one year anniversary in Florence. Needless to say the year has flown by. Here I am. Cuddled up on the couch with my cat, in my Florentine home. I hear the noises from the street. People chatting in Italian. […]
Peaks and valleys
Whoever makes it seem like moving abroad and starting a new life is just one long chain of happy moments, lives in Disneyland. I have news for you: it is not. It removes the fundaments on which you have been living your life for years, it shakes your entire existence. It makes you doubt every […]
Back on track!
A little over a week into 2018 and I’m kind of back on my feet after feeling really lost for some time. Here we go again, ready to rumble! The daily structure of language classes has started again. It’s just two of us in our language class right now, which leaves my classmate and me […]
Not-a-home-sick
For a few days I’ve been back in Florence now. Discovered that my Italian actually improved (or at least it feels like that) by not speaking it for a week, grabbed some decent Italian food, already went for coffee to my favourite place a couple of times, met with some friends and getting ready to […]
No!
Maybe the one new thing I have been trying to master over the last few weeks, is saying ‘no’. No to people wanting to visit right now (sorry!), no to going to my brother’s 30th birthday party (mea culpa!), no to guys trying to sell me a selfie-stick (sorry not sorry), no to boys and […]
Want to feel like an idiot?
For whoever thought moving abroad is easy, let me kill your dream: it. is. not. I knew it on beforehand and being here has shown it even more so. It ain’t easy, but I never expected it to be, which helps a lot when the days are not so sunny and bright. Trying to build […]
Swimming
Tonight after class I walked with a classmate to a large grocery store. We chatted in Italian (she’s Japanese), our ways parted in the store and after stocking up on cookies, licorice (Dutch will be Dutch…) and chocolate I walked home. Rain was pouring down and I realized that this was the happiest I have […]