Expat Interview: Sarah Dowling in Bologna

Today I'm so excited to share a project that I've been working on for the past few months. Living in Italy for the better part of four years has been such an amazing experience for me and I'm always interested to hear other people's stories, experiences and adventures in Italy. Since Cortina is such a small town, I don't know many other expats who have taken a different path than I have, so I rounded up a group of American expats who are living in different parts of Italy and interviewed them to find out what they love about Italy, what they miss most from home and what their favorite Italian meal is.

First up is Sarah Dowling who currently lives in Bologna, where she teaches English and writes two blogs: Italy Project 365 and Bologna With Love.

Sarah was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia and when she was 18, she headed to Providence, Rhode Island to attend Providence College where she studied accounting, Italian and completed her MBA. Now she's been living in Italy since 2012....here's her story:

When and why did you first come to Italy?
I first came to Italy to study abroad in Florence in the fall of 2009. I had been studying Italian language as a minor at my college and had always been fascinated by Italy. So naturally, I chose a city in Italy to complete my semester abroad and I absolutely loved it! I wanted to move back so badly that after graduating from graduate school in 2012, I decided to come back and live in Italy permanently.

What was the most difficult thing to get used to?
I think we are very spoiled with “convenience” in the U.S., so coming to Italy where going shopping is nowhere near as convenient and easy as shopping in the U.S. was difficult. I remember having to go to five different stores to finish all my weekly shopping. I think now larger supermarkets are becoming more popular in Italy, but they still don’t offer the same variety that we have in the U.S. You have to go to this market to buy cheese, this store to buy batteries, another shop to buy soap, and so on…

What do you love most about living in Italy?

For me, I love the lifestyle here. There is a stronger appreciation for sharing a meal together or even just meeting a friend over a cup of coffee. It’s all about relationships and human interaction. You go to a coffee bar and everyone is chatting – sometimes there isn’t even WiFi so sitting on your computer alone just isn’t an option! I think that’s something we often miss or forget to nourish in the U.S. I also just love the fact that I'm constantly learning something new in a foreign place.

What do you miss the most from home?

OH, definitely the people! I miss my family and friends a lot. I really wish I had the power of teleporting. Then my life would be perfect. 

What do you think is the hardest part about living in a different country?

I think being away from family and friends can be really challenging. Also learning to cope with reverse culture shock is something you have to get used to (in fact I recently wrote a blog post about reverse culture shock and some of my most dreaded questions that I get when I go back home (here). There are a lot of times when I return home and my instinct is to immediately compare everything to Italy - but you can’t do that because you’ll end up either offending someone or boring them to death. 

What have you found to be the biggest difference between Italy and the U.S.?

The people. Americans have a tendency to plan out every moment of their day and we often complain at the slightest inconvenience just because we’re so used to having everything easy and readily available at our fingertips. We also tend to just go along with the rules and abide by the laws without thinking twice about it. Italians are more relaxed. They plan things at the last minute and can improvise. Convenience isn’t so important for Italians as is quality and they’re used to having to wait for things or work harder to make something happen. When there is a rule or law they tend to ask “why?" and then make a decision based on their own reasoning. I’m not saying that Americans are dumb and Italians are criminals, but just that we are used to handling things differently.

Beppe Severnigni wrote a fantastic book called La Bella Figura (on Amazon here) that I think explains this Italian mindset really well.

What Italian habits or mannerisms, if any, have you adopted?

Well apart from drinking lots of espresso every day (I’ve always loved coffee so this wasn’t difficult for me to catch on to), I find that I’m much more aggressive. I don’t mean that I’m a meaner person, but just that I’m much less passive. In Italy if you want to cross the street you can’t just wait at the sidewalk until a car stops for you; you have to tell them that you want to cross by beginning to cross. Another example is that if I’m waiting to be seated at a restaurant and I notice that someone cuts in front of me, I immediately say something because if I don’t, Italians will walk all over me and probably even take advantage of the fact that I’m a foreigner. Before coming to Italy, I probably would have sat back passively and nothing would have ever gotten done. 

What's your favorite Italian meal?

I love everything, but the one thing I never get tired of is pizza. A good pizza margherita with fresh tomato sauce, basil, and bufala mozzarella is like heaven on a plate for me. 

Do friends or family back home ever ask you questions about when you're coming home or what exactly it is that you're doing in Italy, etc? And if so, is there one that bothers you more than others?

Well again, I recently wrote a blog post about my most dreaded questions about Italy, where I explain a lot more about this topic. I think if I had to choose one question, it would be “When are you coming home?” because it’s a question that assumes so much. I know they mean well, but for me it sounds like they can’t imagine me having a life elsewhere. 

How did you learn to speak Italian?

Many, many years of practice. I started learning at University (I minored in Italian) but when I arrived in Italy I could barely speak, even though I knew a lot of the grammar. I learned a lot on the street, meeting Italian friends and having Italian boyfriends, but I would say a good portion of my learning took place when I studied for five months in Bologna at an intensive language school.

Where is your favorite place to travel in Italy?

I love it all, but for different reasons. For the beaches, I love Sicily. In terms of sheer beauty, I think the area near Positano and the Amalfi Coast is amazing – it’s a little piece of paradise down there! For the mountains, the Dolomites and the region of Trentino Alto-Adige is spectacular. 

Favorite thing to do?

Eating and hiking! I recently visited Positano and went hiking through some of the trails there. We would stop and have lunch in the little towns and it was the perfect combination! Whenever I travel to a new city in Italy, I always have to find the best places to eat and usually my travel itinerary is centered around food. I just think the variety is so wonderful and should be explored beyond the standard Italian dishes.

Thank you so much, Sarah!

2015

Happy New Year! Did everyone have a nice holiday? Ryan's mother came for Christmas which was lots of fun - we skied and shopped and ate and spent a day in Venice. And she brought us lots of things from the US that we can't find here....like candy canes and Ziplock bags that don't cost $5 for 10 bags.

When I was thinking about what we were going to do this year, I re-read my first post from 2014 which said that we were going to learn verbs, make canederli and figure out what the best Italian cheese is. Well, here you go:

Some of our favorite verbs are sciare (to ski - which there is not a lot of going on in this mountain town because there is no snow), giocare (to play - Ryan has played about a million games in the past few weeks, some bad but mostly good), mangiare (to eat - because, obviously) and viaggiare (to travel - because that's a goal for 2015).

I made canederli for an article in Italia Magazine (which won't come out until February in the US - but I can tell you that it turned out very well).

And there are too many delicious Italian cheeses to pick just one, but my favorite is Stravecchio, which we ate a lot of in the past two weeks.

So! What's up for this year...

We're starting a new interview series with other expats living in Italy (coming up later this week). We're going to try (again) to make homemade gnocchi because that didn't get done on the 2014 list. We're exploring Venice more thoroughly and we're going to master the perfect antipasti platter. And we're planning a very exciting, very long road trip for April and would welcome any suggestions on any Italian places to see or Italian things to do (or eat. or drink.)

In the meantime though, here are a few pictures from the past two weeks:

 We've been having some gorgeous weather lately which is bad for skiing but perfect for long walks and sitting out in the sun.

Although, we did manage to ski one day...

We did a little window shopping...

...and made fresh pasta

But Cortina is HUGELY busy in the week between Christmas and New Years...

...so we escaped to Venice for a day and a night, where we wandered around enjoying the beautiful views, tried new wine bars and ate lots of fresh seafood.

Then, suddenly it was New Year's Eve! We celebrated the end of a great year with a delicious dinner at the Hotel Menardi here in Cortina, complete with sausage and lentils after midnight (the Italians believe that lentils bring prosperity for the new year). Cheers to 2015!

This December in Cortina

It's no surprise that we love December in Cortina (last year I wrote about it here) and last week, I wrote an article for the Steamboat newspaper (here) about how living in Cortina in December is like living in a snow globe.

And it is, of course, because there are lights! And glasses of Prosecco! And giant Christmas trees! And skiers! And fur!

There are also some things that you have to battle in December though (and I don't just mean the crazy tourists with their crazy dogs).

The post office, for one. This December, I went to the post office six times - pretty standard for December, you may be thinking. Here's how the post office in Italy works though:

There are no lines (of course, because no one would stand in them anyway). Instead, when you walk in, you take a number from a machine by the door. The number system works like this: there are three letters (E, C and P) and then there are numbers to follow each letter. So, you may get E33 or P55 or C18, depending on which button you press on the machine.

There are usually two postal workers working at any given time, although there are windows for four. The workers make their way down the list calling out "E55! C20!" as they become available to help you.

Now, I'm not Italian, but I know how to read my slip of paper that says P40 on it. Other people though, are very confused by this. For example, if E20 is called, they may run up to the available window even though they have P20. Apparently, no one is actually reading the whole number which includes the letter.

Anyway. As you can imagine, it takes quite a long time to buy stamps.

Once you finally get up to the available window, you have to be prepared to spend. Of course the price of stamps to North America shot up this year (right before Christmas), to 2 euro and 30 cents per stamp. So to everyone we sent a Christmas card to this year: please save those for next year as well.

The other problem with the post office is that it's the only place in town where you can buy boxes to mail presents in. This means that people tend to bring shopping bags filled with presents that they pour out on to the post office counter while the postal worker finds a big enough box which is then assembled, packed, taped, addressed and finally, paid for. In Italy this process takes about 23 minutes per person. Also the post office only takes cash.

But! Now that it's December 22, I'm done with the post office! The most expensive Christmas cards in the world have been sent and all the presents have been mailed. Now it's time to tackle the grocery store. With that in mind, I'm taking the rest of the year off!

Ryan's mother is arriving tomorrow for Christmas and we're going to be relaxing and drinking Prosecco and watching Ryan's games (you can watch the live ticker here).

So! We hope you all have a very merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year and we'll be back on January 5th, ready for 2015! xo

Switzerland

Last Sunday, Ryan had a few days off so we decided to head to Switzerland! Neither of us had been before and we were excited to check out a new country.

We started in Lugano, which was probably beautiful but we couldn't see the lake or the surrounding mountains because it was SO rainy and foggy! So instead we gazed at their giant Christmas tree and decided that we might have to go back again in the spring....

We huddled under our umbrella and walked around downtown and then escaped the rain and had glasses of Prosecco (Lugano is Italian-speaking and Italian-cultured so we felt right at home). Luckily all the cafes were warm and cozy and had blankets that you could wrap yourself in while having a drink.

That night we had fondue which was hot and drippy and delicious:

The fondue was served with cubes of bread and small potatoes and we drank white wine...it was a very white and completely delicious meal.

In the morning we drove to Lucerne, passing through the Gotthard road tunnel which, at 17 kilometers (10 miles) in length, is the third longest road tunnel in the world (FYI).

It was also gray and foggy in Lucerne but it was a great day for a hot lunch and a nap followed by a walk around the Christmas market.

And no trip to Switzerland would be complete without chocolate! So we took some home as a souvenir and road trip snack...

PS - Our December trips from last year: Salzburg (also rainy!) and Prague

Radicchio Ravioli

Italians don't make Christmas cookies. They make Panettone, which I would never make for multiple reasons, the biggest one being that it takes something like 20 hours to make because the dough has to rise three times. And also, I don't like it, but you're not allowed to say that in Italy.

This December though, instead of Christmas cookies or Panettone, we decided to make ravioli.

Radicchio is everywhere in Italy, and it comes in all different shapes, sizes and colors.

Italians eat it raw or grilled; they stuff it into things, mix it into salads and use it as a garnish. So if you don't feel like making Christmas cookies this year....here's another idea:

Radicchio Ravioli
(Serves 2)

For the pasta:
Here's a previous post on how to make pasta, but for two people, we used one cup of flour, one egg and a little water for the dough

For the filling:
1 cup cooked and finely chopped purple radicchio
1/2 cup ricotta
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
Salt and pepper to taste

First make the filling by cooking the radicchio in 1 tablespoon of butter over medium heat, then chop it finely and add to a bowl followed by the Parmesan and ricotta. Mix together and add salt and pepper to taste. Roll out the pasta dough into strips and place about a tablespoon of the filling on the dough. Depending on how long the strip of dough is, repeat, leaving about an inch or two in between each dollop of filling.

Using your finger, trace a line of water around each spot of filling (this will help the top layer of dough adhere). And a side note - when we made this, Ryan accidentally dipped his finger into my wine glass and that worked fine too...

Place another strip of dough on top of the first and seal the top strip to the bottom by pressing your finger around the filling - make sure that you get all the air out for cooking. Cut out each ravioli square using a ravioli stamp or a knife.

Bring a pot of salted water to a gentle boil and cook in batches for about 3 minutes each. We like to eat our ravioli topped with olive oil, black pepper and extra Parmesan.

PS - Spinach and ricotta ravioli

Christmas Market Season

It's....

...Christmas market season!! Christmas markets originated in the Late Middle Ages in Germany, Austria, Northern Italy and South Tyrol - which means that we're right in the thick of it. If you find yourself in this region in the month of December, you can't miss them. We put together a short list of our favorites:

Lienz, Austria - for "The Potato" 

"The Potato" is something that we dream about in July. It's a baked potato with a really crispy skin that gets split open and filled with a bacon and onion mixture and a sour cream - garlic sauce....and it's heaven. We usually have to hit this market twice in the month of December because once is just not enough. (http://www.tyrol.tl/en/highlights/christmas-markets/lienz-christmas-market/)

Munich, Germany - for the ornaments

This market dates back to the 14th century and has amazing ornaments (a lot of the ones on our tree come from here) and gingerbread. And a bonus - this market, too, has an amazing potato dish - but their version is flat like a pancake and you dip it in to a different but still amazing sour cream - garlic sauce. (http://www.germany-christmas-market.org.uk/munich_christmas_market.php)

Salzburg, Austria - for the glitter

It's not December without a little lot of glitter and Salzburg's market has tons of it. I snagged as many glittery ornaments as my husband would allow (and yes, they have a good potato here too). Also, if you like Christmas music, Salzburg is a very musical city and has tons of Christmas performances - some are outside, right in the middle of the Christmas market, some are in church basements and some are in fancier halls. (http://www.salzburg.info/en/art_culture/advent_new_years_eve/advent_christmas_markets/salzburg_christkindlmarkt)

Bolzano, Italy - for the best warm drinks (and Italy's largest market)

Vin brule (gluhwein) is a staple at all Christmas markets but Bolzano takes it one step further with the Bombardino: it's a popular apres-ski drink in Northern Italy (although not so much in Cortina) made with Advocaat or eggnog and brandy and topped with whipped cream. At the Christmas market, they serve it in a small ice cream cone. (http://www.christmas-markets.it/en/christmas-market-bolzano-south-tyrol.aspx)

Innsbruck - for the odd doughnut and sauerkraut snack they thought up

This is fried dough that you can eat plain or with a sauce like vanilla cream or Nutella - but the most popular way to eat it is topped with sauerkraut. It's oddly tasty and definitely worth a try. (http://www.innsbruck.info/en/experience/events/detail/article/christkindlmaerkte.html)

And last but not least....

Cortina - the hometown favorite

Cortina's Christmas market is tiny compared to the ones listed above but when it opens, it's fun (and festive) to buy a cup of vin brule and stroll through town. Our favorites are the lavender hut and, of course, the chocolate hut which sells fancy chocolates with pistachios and hazelnuts. (http://www.dolomiti.it/en/bellunese/cortina/events/christmas-market-in-cortina-/)

Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

December is HERE! It's always been my favorite month and being in Cortina just makes it that much better. In this region of the world, they take Christmas very seriously. There are Christmas markets all over Northern Italy, gluhwein is everywhere, and Cortina is decked out in twinkling lights. I love the people watching, the light at the end of the day and having aperitivo - even the Prosecco tastes better in December.

There is a rule in the Dingle household that on December 1, you are allowed to start singing Christmas carols. So, in honor of one of our faves, we decided to roast chestnuts at home. I love chestnuts almost as much as I love December. They're in season for a few months beginning in November and luckily they sneak their way into all the Christmas markets. When I saw them in the grocery store though, I realized that I didn't have to go to Innsbruck to eat chestnuts! I could roast them at home. So while we didn't quite do it over an open fire, like this:

 

...we still did it in the oven! (The above picture was taken from a chestnut festival that Cortina hosts every year).

Roasted Chestnuts

(About 20 chestnuts; serves 2)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Using a sharp knife, cut a fairly deep slit in each chestnut, about an inch long. Place chestnuts on a baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes. When they're done, the shells will be separating from the meaty part inside. Take them out and place in a bowl - careful - the shells are hot! Peel the shells away and eat.

PS - Chestnut soup....one of our friend's made this last year and it was heaven.

And also...the only bad thing about December