Welcome Home (sort of)

After thirteen years of frequent travel between Italy and Canada (or the US), having visited seventeen of its twenty regions, that's what Italy is increasingly becoming for me: home ... but not quite. Attached as much to the poetry of its language (Ph.D. in Italian Studies) as to its rich cultural heritage and its people (three Italian boyfriends so far ;)) returning to Italy evokes a specific feeling of homecoming shared only by my immediate family: coming here feels like being among my own -- in all the same ways.

That is to say, it is a homecoming neither entirely comfortable nor without conflict.

In fact, in the years I lived in Baltimore, far removed from my family by much more than the nine hours of transit and distance between us, traveling to Italy and traveling to Montreal occupied the same mental space and triggered much of the same sentiment in me. In both cases, I was a stranger, looking objectively and with fresh eyes (each time) at a familiar geographical and emotional landscape that was both mine and no longer mine. I was returning to a place that, no matter how easily and confidently I navigated it, still routinely frustrated me. Yet if you ask me what my favorite city on earth is, I'm likely to say "Montreal." And if you ask me to tell you my favorite travel stories, I am likely to draw from my 2008, 2011 or 2012 trips to Tuscany (and beyond).

Home is the easiest space to love and hate simultaneously.

Treating Italy like home (which it has been in the past and currently is, at least until the end of March), the purpose of this blog is to write frankly and casually about a place frequently either idealized or demonized in popular media. This is not a travel blog. My intention is not to post gorgeous photos, detailed accounts of, and philosophical musings on my numerous trips here. Rather, as its title suggests, this blog will aim to demystify Italy, to deconstruct Italian stereotypes, good or bad (and often both), and to present my understanding of a country frequently praised for its beauty (and its pasta), criticized for its politics (and its economic management) and almost always viewed, by people living outside it, as a somewhat clownish destination (Cue: "itsa place-a like-a noa other-a!" or "Ciao, bella!): let's talk about Roberto Benigni, shall we?

(Just kidding.)

(... FOR NOW!)

So, I invite you to join me in my sometimes big-picture, sometimes fine-print analysis, exploration, and (at times) celebration of THE REAL SLIM SHADY Italy, from outside in.

(Two trailer park girls go round the outside ....)

(Best of luck getting that out of your head.)

Happy reading!