We’ve now lived in Italy for one month. It feels absurd to say that.

We’ve been in Italy for one month. We’ve been attempting to create a life in Italy for one month. We’ve been wrestling with Italian bureaucracy for one month. Each of these seems more accurate than saying we’ve lived in Italy for one month, because that denotes some form of comfort with a place, or at least (semi)permanence, and this still doesn’t feel real. There’s still an ephemeral quality to our existence here, as though a good strong wind would blow it away.

This feeling wasn’t helped by shifting from one Airbnb to another, as we wait to move into a longer-term home. Getting to explore a new neighborhood has been fun, but also a bit tiring. After two months of moving around, I want to settle in one place.

In the meantime, we’re enjoying our Airbnb’s lovely terrace; we’ve managed to eat outside each night. The food we cook is still very simple, and we’ve discovered the great Italian invention of pizza al taglio, essentially pizza by the slice. The bakeries make meter-long pizzas with a broad array of different toppings. You buy as much as you want by weight and, if you’re us, take it away for dinner. It doesn’t get much more easier than that, and when you’re wrestling bureaucracy or trying to make a life in a new place, there isn’t much better than easy.

* Originally posted on social media on 13 October 2023.