So I find myself…

…sitting in a house that’s somewhere between 400 and 800 years old in a Tuscan village thinking about what to do if I meet a wild boar again while taking a walk, business development for the company I run, what one more year in an Italian high school will mean for my teenage son, and what to have for dinner—all at the same time.

We are almost six years into the adventure of responding to a deep, unrelenting urge to change our lives, an itch, if you will, that inspired our move to Italy—enrolling the kids in the local school (where they started off not speaking any Italian), working with clients all over the world from our homebase in this Italian village, and finding our way in a new life.

Friends, understandably, ask questions. “Do the kids feel more Italian or American, and which parts of their attitudes come from which culture?” “What do the locals think of you?” “What do you actually do all day—don’t you get bored? ” “Where can we go in Venice to escape the crowds and see real neighborhoods?” “Where should we get dinner in Florence?”

So lately I’ve discovered a different kind of itch—a desire to answer these questions and more. Hence the birth of Itch, my notes about food discoveries, language insights, surprising cultural moments, and ideas for adventures in Italy, shared as we live them, weekly.

I invite you to come along for the journey and share with like-minded friends.