Dreaming of moving abroad but loath to give up the job you love? On Episode 546: Advice for Would-be Expats, we discuss the hazards of giving up or interrupting your career in order to pursue your expat dreams.
Tiffany also gives listener Darlene practical tips to keep in mind when moving to Italy. Future expats, this is the show for you!
Thanks to textile designer Darlene Sullivan, originally of Brooklyn, NY, for writing the letter that prompted this conversation that aired a number of years back. Flash forward to the present: Darlene is now a happy and successful expat in Italy! (Yes, expat dreams can come true.)
To hear an interview with Darlene shortly after her move to Italy, check out Episode 435: When Expat Dreams Come True.
You can listen right here, or find the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and elsewhere.
Related Episodes:
Episode 361: How to Move Abroad (with Jessica Drucker)
Episode 391: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Moving Abroad (with Lori-Lee Elliott)
Episode 435: When Expat Dreams Come True (with Darlene Sullivan)
Here are 5 key points from the episode:
- Darlene, 36, dreams of moving to Italy but is hesitant to leave her stable textile design job in New York.
- Katy relates to Darlene’s situation, having left her public radio career in Seattle to move to Rome at a similar age.
- The hosts discuss the challenges of starting over in a new country, including loss of professional status and industry connections.
- Finding work in Italy can be difficult, though English-speaking expats may have some advantages.
- Obtaining legal documents and long-term housing in Italy without a job commitment presents additional challenges.
Full Episode Transcript:
Katy
Hello, this is The Bittersweet Life. I’m Katy Sewall. Support for this show comes from you. If you have the means and you like to listen, please support this work at www.patreon.com/thebittersweetlifepodcast. There’s a link in the show notes, and please know you matter to the health and life of this show. Now, when a show is ten years old with over 500 episodes, there are a lot of great topics and shows in the archives, plenty you’ve probably missed. Today we’re going to revisit one of those conversations. Today we listen to a conversation from January 28, 2018. If you want to hear part two of this conversation, look for episode 191 titled advice part two in the archives.
Introduction
Hello. This is The Bittersweet Life, a show that began as a journey through the different difficulties and joys of living in a foreign place and has become a show about living, taking risks, moving, adapting. So welcome expats, former expats, future expats, travelers and reinventors. Thanks for letting us keep you company. I’m your host, Katy Sewall. I’m a veteran public radio producer and writer who recently moved to San Francisco after living in New Orleans and Seattle and Rome. My co host, Tiffany Parks, is a full time writer and expat living in Rome, Italy. She’s also my childhood friend. I’ve known her since the school bus in 6th grade. If you’ve never heard the show, don’t be afraid to start at the beginning and come along for the whole journey, which begins in Rome. And without further ado, today’s show.
Welcome to Rome. This is The Bittersweet Life with Katy Sewall and Tiffany Parks.
Katy
Hello. This is The Bittersweet Life. I’m Katy Sewall.
Tiffany
I’m Tiffany Parks.
Katy
And today, once again, we’re going to do an episode based on one of your letters, which we love getting people writing to bittersweetlifepodcast@gmail.com, and we’ve gotten some pretty, pretty deep letters lately.
Tiffany
Yeah, I was just going to say, one of the perks of this job is that people, they confide in us, they tell us about their lives and their questions and the things they’re seeking. And we’ve, for the most part, been in their shoes, either myself or Katy, so we can relate to them. And we don’t always have the answers back, far from it. But they definitely are thought provoking. And it’s really an honor to get to read these letters.
Katy
Yeah, that’s sort of what we’re doing, too, on the show is not necessarily having all the answers to the questions, but exploring the questions to try to figure out whatever all of our answers are for us personally. I’ve also, side note, been trying out some of the recipes people have been sending you because of your New Year’s resolution.
Tiffany
Yeah, we’ve had so many.
Katy
Tonight I’m trying out my third recipe. I’ve tried the Moroccan lentil soup that someone sent in. I believe Kay sent that in last night. I made the cacio e pepe that Nick recommended, which was amazing. The closest I’ve come to eating roman style cacio e pepe since I’ve been away.
Tiffany
I gotta try that.
Katy
I know. And tonight I’m making a fish stew.
Tiffany
Wow.
Katy
Yeah. It’s a fish stew with coconut milk and lime and chilies and all sorts of stuff.
Tiffany
These recipes were supposed to be for me, Katy. I know, but how dare you steal my recipes?
Katy
Well, feel free to join me.
Tiffany
I’m just lazy.
Katy
I did the early reviews.
Tiffany
I’m going to, I’m going to. But I have to tell you. Cause we’ve gotten a lot of recipes and I’m going to write back to all of you. I haven’t written back to every single one of you yet, but I do have to admit that when I see, like, more than six ingredients, my eyes kind of start to glaze over and I just start to think, oh, that’s going to, like, take a serious, hardcore grocery shopping trip. Like, okay, is there anything that I have already in the kitchen?
Katy
True.
Tiffany
See, that’s my ideal meal, is that I have everything already.
Katy
So you’re looking for even more simple.
Tiffany
I’m just great. I’m so lazy. No, you know what it is? It’s not that I can’t be bothered to go to the supermarket. It’s that there are a lot of things are difficult to find here.
Katy
Right.
Tiffany
That in the states you could just sort of pick up in the, you know, the ethnic section or whatever. It’s just not so easy here.
Katy
That’s true. And there are also things I remember from living in Rome that, while they’re very affordable in the United States or in other countries, they are extremely expensive in Rome.
Tiffany
Yeah.
Katy
The only one I can specifically remember off the top of my head was quinoa.
Tiffany
Oh, my gosh.
Katy
Quinoa in Rome was like $10 for a little tiny box.
Tiffany
Yeah.
Katy
And here you can get a bunch of quinoa, bulk for like $6. You can get a pound of it or something like that. So it’s different.
Tiffany
It’s very expensive. Also, black beans, if you like Mexican food, which I do. Black beans. A can of black beans at the imported black beans at the international supermarket is $3, €3 or something. And, like, in the States, it’s like $0.50. So, yeah, so tortillas, all that stuff. If you want anything asian, you can get it, but you really need to go to the asian market. It can be a challenge, which is why I haven’t done any of them yet. But some of them are simpler, and I’m gonna try those first.
Katy
Yes. Try the cacio pepe.
Tiffany
I’m going to. Well, I mean, I do kind of make cacio e pepe. I just don’t know if I’m doing it exactly right. I just sort of improvise.
Katy
Yeah.
Tiffany
So we’ll see. I’ll check out Nick’s recipe and see how. How it compares to mine.
Katy
All right. But anyway, that’s a side tangent. Thank you for the recipes. Keep them coming. I will try them. If not Tiffany, but the email that we want to do today has nothing to do with cooking at all.
Tiffany
Nope.
Katy
And I believe you have it in front of you.
Tiffany
I do, and I will just put it out there. This is slightly edited just for time, but hopefully the content is all there.
“Hi, Katy and Tiffany. I wanted to share my story and why I find comfort in listening to both of you speak of your personal experiences as expats. For my whole life, I’ve dreamed of moving to Italy. My mother has family in Veneto, which I visited at least five or six times in college. I had studied abroad for one semester in Urbino. I thought of going to grad school or taking off to work, random jobs or teach English. But for one reason or another, it had never panned out for me. Part fear, part money issues, part love interest kept me from leaving my home. At some point, I did manage to teach ESL in South Korea. At another point, I lived in Thailand, so fear of travel is not my problem. However, I never did manage to live my dream in Italy. I am now turning 36 in February. I don’t have kids, but I have a job I love as a textile designer in New York. For the first time in my life, I’m doing what I love and getting paid for it. However, for the first time in my life, I am no longer tied down by someone. I constantly think of finally making that move. It’s sort of how I get through the day, but at the same time, I feel like I can’t give up the career I have finally built for myself. It took most of my adult life to get my current stable work situation and my rent stabilized Brooklyn apartment for a country without any job prospects for me. Wondering if you can provide any advice for someone at my age who’s dreamed of this my whole life. It goes on from there.”
And I’ll read the second half in a minute, but I want to talk sort of about, you know, the first half is more practical, and then we’ll get into the second half, which is a little bit deeper in a minute, but I can totally get where she’s coming from. By the way, this is from Darlene. I can totally get where you’re coming from. Even though I moved to Rome when I was about ten years younger than you, and I did not have the career that you’re talking about, I can still imagine what that is like. And I’ve talked to other people who are in similar situations. A close friend of mine. It’s not an easy situation. It’s really closer to Katy. What you experienced when you decided to move to Rome because you did have a career that you loved and that you’d worked very hard for.
Katy
Yeah, it’s almost eerily similar in a way, because she’s just about the same age as I was, if not exactly the same age. I can’t remember. 36 years old.
Tiffany
I think you were about 36. Yeah.
Katy
Yeah. And I did have a job I loved, and I did not have anything that was tethering me to Seattle, except for my job at that time. Like, I had an apartment that I loved, but my landlord had told me I could sublet it for a year if I just wanted to take that time off and go try it out. Maybe she could make this kind of arrangement, too. I don’t know what kind of a situation she’s in, but some landlords are extremely reasonable if you’ve been with them long enough, and you have been a very responsible tenant. My guy really trusted us to pick somebody who was good if we were going to sublet it out and not ruin his apartment, because he knew how much we liked living there. But, yeah, it was that one of those things where I had a beta fish that was still alive at the time.
Tiffany
Oh, Gill.
Katy
No longer with us. But that was the only thing besides my job. But my job was nothing. Something small and insignificant. I had worked so hard and for so long to do that job well and to grow and change my position within the organization, from being a producer to being a senior producer to being more of a host. All of those take years and incremental steps and learning and education and all this stuff. And I was sort of finally breaking through a little bit more out of the producing game, more into the hosting game. And I had to choose to walk away from that at the time to go to Rome. And, man, it was a hard decision. Derek would tell you that, you know, I whined, I cried. I kept changing my mind, you know? But in my heart, I knew that Rome would be an amazing experience. And I also knew I really wanted the break, but I just didn’t know. Does this mean I’m throwing my career away for good? That was the unknown. Now it sounds for her she’s hoping to move and stay. I kind of thought, hey, if a way to stay comes about, that’s great. But I also thought it was a year, probably, and that I’d be going back. And maybe it would be helpful to think of it just like that. You’re going for a year, and maybe then you can hold onto your job and take it as a sabbatical and hold onto your apartment. I would encourage you to explore that, and you could still decide to stay.
Tiffany
I agree. But at least you wouldn’t feel like you were giving up everything.
Katy
Exactly.
Tiffany
If it didn’t work out. Because, I mean, the truth is, you never know. Move to a place that you’ve traveled to and loved and just not like, living there full time.
Katy
Yeah.
Tiffany
So I think that’s brilliant. But, of course, we don’t know her exact work situation, whether it’s the type of job that would allow a sabbatical. But that’s definitely something to look into.
Katy
Yes. My job decided not to give me one, so I had to make that decision anyway, that I was going to go or not go.
Tiffany
Okay, here’s the big question for you. Do you feel like it was a. I don’t want to say a mistake, but do you feel like, you know, the fears that you had about, quote, unquote, losing your career, do you think that those were well founded? Do you think that those followed, you know, that those came to be? Or do you think you’re just, you know, you’re just as well off as you were before?
Katy
From a work standpoint, I’m probably not as stable as I was before, certainly. So I do think I gave up a lot of the stability. I gave up my insider status a little bit. But, I mean, that said, I go back and forth. It was a major decision to leave. Sometimes I still regret it, but on the whole, I don’t regret it because I think that the skills that I picked up afterwards were so valuable. Like, sometimes I feel like if I had just stayed in that job, it would have been great. I probably would have continued to grow, but would I have grown as exponentially as I did? That’s what I don’t know. I certainly wouldn’t have met some of the people who have been the most influential in my life in the last five years because I ended up jumping careers in different ways that I wouldn’t have otherwise. And I definitely became a better interviewer because of creating this show and from working at town hall, Seattle, which was a performance venue in town where I did interviews on stage all the time. So I think for the idea of wanting to be a host, in some ways jumping out of the system, but still pursuing it made me a lot better at it than I would have been if I was continually working within the parameters of the job that I had. Does that make sense?
Tiffany
Yeah. And I think it’s fascinating, and I think that that’s kind of the classic what happens when people do challenge themselves, themselves and step out of their comfort zone. It’s kind of a cliche, but it’s a nice cliche that, you know, you step out of your comfort zone and you grow and you learn and you just, you can’t even imagine. Like, you’re sitting there in your cushy, comfortable job, predictable job that gives you all the stability and, you know, you’re good at, and people, you know all the things that come with that, and you give that up for the unknown, and at the end of the day, you become way more than you were before. I mean, that’s what obviously we want. Perhaps it doesn’t always happen, but it’s awesome that it happened for you, and I’m really happy to hear that.
Katy
I don’t want to make it sound like it all works out, too, because some of the ways that you get dinged is about ego more than anything. So I left a job where I was well established working for public radio in Seattle. I’d been there for well over ten years, if not longer. I basically lose count. I believe I started there in 2003.
Tiffany
People used to recognize you because of your voice. Like, people would be like, oh, I know your voice. Right on the street.
Katy
Yeah, certainly my name. And still, if I go to Seattle, I’m going to be in Seattle next weekend, and I’ll be on the air. When I’m there, I’m a fill-in announcer for them, and people will call up my parents and talk about how much they heard me on the radio and how they always hear me, even though I’m hardly ever there. It’s sort of memory, and radio is very short. But that said, the station has grown exponentially since I left. So from an ego standpoint, there are so many people who work there now who have no idea who I am, which, from an ego standpoint, you have to be able to take that as far as they know. You have no experience at all, even though you do. Or I just moved to San Francisco, and on Friday night, I went to a podcasters meet up at the local public radio station. And of course, in podcasting, there’s this huge range of people, people who are just starting working in radio and or in audio, and people who have been doing it for decades and decades. And when you’re at a meetup like that, it’s just like this square playing field. That’s just a really odd experience for me to be in a new city, because normally I realized that when you’re in a field where you’re known, in a city that knows you, you just walk into every meeting at an advantage. Just because I can say, oh, I’m Katy Sewall, or I can say, hey, I know that guy, that guy, that guy, that guy and that guy, because I’ve interviewed all of them in the span of my career, so it’s like I never have to walk into a room alone. And now, as a result of moving to Rome, I do. So there’s that, too. And that’s what I remember about the early days of Rome. Also, the majority of the time, it’s just going to be you.
Tiffany
Really. Just thinking back, honestly, I know a lot more about you now than I knew when you moved to Rome. Strangely enough, even though we’d already known each other for, what, 25 years by that time, I really can’t even imagine what it was like for you to go from that. What you just described, knowing everyone, being known by everyone, everyone knowing what you were capable of, and going to a place where literally no one knew you had any idea who you were. And even as you have talked about, really even noticed you, you know, you thought people probably didn’t even notice you.
Katy
Oh, yeah. For the majority, vast majority, I don’t think anyone. San Francisco reopen. What happened to that girl? You know, I don’t think people even I am.
Tiffany
I mean, technically, I’m not on San Francisco repo anymore, but I was like, where’s Katy? Every time I walk past your apartment, every time I know to this day, even when I’m there, I think of you. But that’s me.
Katy
At the time, it was actually very freeing. But it comes with challenges, because the way that you feel, it’s going to go up and down, and that comes along with professional challenges. I think at the time, when I moved to Rome, I needed to not be known and to not know. I wanted the mystery and I wanted the discovery. I was tired of being in the know. And that’s part of the reason why I moved here in Ordon, New Orleans, was because I wanted to not know everything for a while. But it is hard. I’m not gonna lie. It’s up and down. It’s thrilling, and it’s hard.
Tiffany
I bet. Now, getting back to Darlene.
Katy
Yeah. Textile artist. You can do that from Rome, right? Or from Italy. Right.
Tiffany
I’m not going to lie to you, Darlene. It is, as you already seem to know, it’s not easy to start a career in Rome. It’s very different from the United States in the whole job aspect. I feel in the US, and correct me if I’m wrong, literally, because I haven’t lived there in a long time, and so it could be totally way off. But I feel like in the Us, people, at least, at the very least, educated people, and I don’t mean to be, like, classifying people based on privilege or anything, but for educated people, it seems to me that people leave their jobs because they know they can get another job, a better job. They get tired of a job and. Or they’re not being challenged or whatever it is, and they say, it’s fine, it’ll work out, I will find another job. And they do. It’s different here. And I don’t know whether it’s. People can’t find other jobs or whether it’s… people think they can’t find other jobs, so they just don’t leave their jobs. It’s probably a combination of both, but it’s considered to be very, very difficult to find work here. I don’t want to downplay that, because if you do love your job, I mean, it’s such an important thing to love your job. It’s such a rare thing to love your job. And I think that might be one of the most important things in life for a happy life.
Katy
Can I ask you a question? By way of example, can we talk about how it is that you got your job? Was it extremely difficult?
Tiffany
No, actually, it was not.
Katy
But first, remind everybody what you do.
Tiffany
Yeah. So I am the deputy editor of Where Rome magazine, which is an english language magazine that is geared towards tourists who are in Rome. So it’s only about Rome. It’s about culture, art, shopping, dining, entertainment. All things that a tourist would be interested in doing in Rome. It’s not a guidebook, it’s a monthly magazine. But there’s a bit of crossover there. And the people who run the magazine, their most important requisite, besides obviously being able to write and knowing the city of Rome, is you have to be an english mother tongue speaker. No discussion on that. So what that did was that completely narrowed down the pool of possible applicants. I did not even see the ad for the job. My close friend did, and she wrote to me and she told me about. And so I applied. I mean, I got that job in the quote unquote old fashioned way. I mean, actually, no, I guess that’s not the old fashioned way in Italy. I got the job in the American way. Applying for it and being qualified and, you know, having a good interview and all that stuff. The majority of the way people get jobs in Italy is through knowing people what they call recommendazioni, which sounds like recommendation. It sounds great, like what your, your teachers write for you on your college application. But that’s nothing. What it is in Italy. In Italy, it means that somebody, you know could be your father. It could be your uncle. It could be your father’s best friend. It could be, you know, somebody. It could be your mom. It could be your. Somebody that wants you to succeed will get you in the back door, basically, whether you’re qualified or not. And sometimes people are, but a lot of times they’re not. And it’s often favored, traded for a favor. So I might ask someone that I know to give my son a job, and then I’m going to have to pay him back in some way. It’s a little bit mafia-esque in that sense, although it’s, you know, I’m not talking about the actual mafia here, just to be clear. Just the same sort of philosophy of favors for favors. So this is how most people get their jobs. I mean, most. I don’t know if it’s most, but it’s a lot of people who get desirable jobs anyway. And so when people have a job, often it’s because of this. They don’t want to give it up because they think, I’m not gonna ever get another job. So I don’t wanna go too into detail about this because we’re here to talk about Darlene’s situation and people who might be in a similar situation to her, not, you know, the typical Italian person who’s trying to get a job. But having said how difficult it is to get a job in Italy, I will also say that expats like myself, we have an advantage. English speaking expats, we have an advantage in some ways. And there are certain jobs that expats will be seen as desirable for. And one is obviously writing in English, but, you know, there are others as well. So it’s not impossible. It’s just not going to be easy. And then, of course, there’s the whole documents thing. And can you work legally? In the long version of her email, she wrote that she is trying to get EU citizenship through a grandparent. That’s really, really difficult. And it can take about ten years. I don’t want to be like, raining on anybody’s parade because I am not about that. I wouldn’t allow, I mean, I didn’t allow anyone to rain on my parade. When I decided to move to Rome, it was like, whatever, I’m doing it, you guys can just watch me. I do think you should go into it with your eyes open, and if you have a job that you love, just consider that very, very strongly. If you think that you won’t be able to get that back, if you decide it’s not worth it and it doesn’t work out, don’t take that decision lightly. And I’m sure you aren’t because I can tell by this email that you’re not taking it lightly. But I. But, yeah, it’s not easy.
Katy
Do you know, or do you find that certain businesses, like if where Rome had really, really wanted you and you were technically not able to work in Rome, like, let’s say you didn’t have the proper documentation, but they really wanted you. People have stories about businesses writing on their behalf and making it so that they can work in a place. Is that something that you actually see happening?
Tiffany
I do. It didn’t happen for me. Luckily, I already had documentation by that time. But I have a friend who is an english teacher, and this is kind of rare for english teachers because English teachers are kind of a dime a dozen in Italy. But she had worked for this English school, teaching very young children, and she was very good at her work. She, I think she’d been on a student visa for a while, but she wanted to be on an official work visa and the school sponsored her. And there’s a lot of documentation involved, but it can be done, and they did it for her, and that’s how she got her work papers, which she renewed until she eventually married an Italian. So now she doesn’t need it, but it definitely can be done. But it’s not like some random company that doesn’t know you is going to hire you unless you’re extremely specialized in one very specific thing and nobody else can, can do that job. You’d have to kind of have a past with a company for them to hire you. One last little thing. I don’t know lot about designing textiles, which is what Darlene does, but I think it’s worth it to look into if that’s the kind of thing that she could do remotely. I don’t know how much she has to be in physical contact with the product or whether it’s just, you know, her intellectual designs that she sends on. But some companies, especially in the states, where they’re a little bit more open minded about this kind of thing, I feel they will, you know, if they value somebody enough, they will work with you if you really want to do something like that, if it’s physically possible.
Katy
Yeah. And what about staying for a longer period of time, if it is?
Tiffany
Do you mean, like, the legal aspects of it?
Katy
Yeah, I mean, I was there for a year illegally. We’ve established that.
Tiffany
Yeah.
Katy
And I was able to come and go a little bit, but still, it’s.
Tiffany
You know, that’s the kind of thing that, like, you never want to give someone advice on because you never want to say, oh, don’t worry about it, you’ll be fine. They’ll never check you. And then, like, they get deported and they come after you because you gave them that advice.
Katy
Right. So in general, you do need some way of legally being there.
Tiffany
I mean, technically, yes.
Katy
I mean, if Derek hadn’t been legal, I don’t know how I would have gotten an apartment. Yeah, well, certainly would have been a challenge.
Tiffany
Exactly. I mean, I was able to do it, but that was 13 years ago. Things were different back then. It was easier. But there are always people renting out rooms. If you don’t want your own full apartment, you can rent out a room from somebody. And that’s. That’s pretty easy, but it’s just. It’s hard. And it brings up a whole load of other questions, which actually Darlene voices in the rest of this email.
Katy
So, one more question before we move on. Now that you’ve worked in the same job for I don’t know how many years, but quite a long time, have you gotten into that more Italian thinking? I mean, you’ve been in Rome now for 13 years. Do you feel like you can’t do what we do in the United States is, I think people very rarely just quit a job and then hope they find something else. What they do is like the monkey bar thing where you get another one and then you let go of the bar behind you. You know, it’s sort of like that swinging forward thing. Are you to the point now where you feel like that’s not possible, or do you still feel like an American where you think that that is possible?
Tiffany
I’m somewhere in between. I do think it’s possible, but I will admit that some of that Italian thinking has crept in, and I’m like, oh, my job is so, you know, it’s so comfortable and, you know, it’s so secure and it’s this and that, and I have all these perks, and. And it’s not. I’m gonna be brutally honest here. It’s not the most stimulating job that I’ve ever had. I mean, it is a job writing, which I am very grateful for. And every day I have to remind myself there are so many writers out there who would love to be paid to write. I do consider that a great blessing, but, yeah. So I’m kind of. I don’t know how to answer your question. I’m somewhere in between.
Katy
Yeah. Well, I think since we’re getting a little long in this episode, we should do the second half of her email in another one. But before we go, I just wonder, in the realm of tips, say you did things in a very scrappy, fly by the seat of your pants way. Obviously, Darlene’s in a little bit more of a position to plan if she was gonna do this. It’s something she’s thought about a lot. Would there be things that you would, tips that you would give her of what to expect that you wish you had or if you don’t want to go that direction, give her things that she should think about in trying to make this decision. Maybe both. We should do both. Maybe. I just broke the cardinal rule of interviewing right there. Never asked two questions in the same sentence.
Tiffany
Yeah. Because I’ve already forgotten them both.
Katy
Tips of what you wish you knew prior to going. Expectation wise, that would be helpful to her.
Tiffany
Oh, God.
Katy
Or to anybody planning a move to Italy.
Tiffany
You know, it’s so hard to say because I moved here so long ago that not only do I have a hard time remembering, but I just feel like the city, or at least the way that expats live in Rome, has just changed so much. I just feel like it’s so different to move to Rome as a foreigner now than it was 13 years ago. For good and for bad.
Katy
Well, what are you seeing that’s different now?
Tiffany
I’m seeing that it’s much more difficult to just sort of fly under the radar, at least long term. It’s difficult at borders. It’s more difficult doing things like getting apartments. People are a little bit more careful now not wanting to rent to undocumented foreigners, possibly also in job situations where before you could kind of work under the table, those things might not be so possible anymore. Better things are. I think there’s a really great community of expats, and part of that is, thanks to social media, it’s so much easier to move anywhere in a foreign country now because all you have to do have is a Twitter account and an Instagram account and you can kind of curate your own group of expat friends in your city before you even get there. And they’ll just be there. It’s just something that was unheard of ten years ago. So there are positives and negatives. As far as tips, it’s hard. You can’t look for a job before you go again unless it’s something very specific where you know you’re being almost sent from your previous job to a new job. It’s just, it’s when I’ve had to look for other writers for the magazine. Anytime I got a resume from someone who wasn’t currently living in Rome, I just threw it away. I only considered people who were already here. So many people plan to move and then don’t ever come, so they’re not going to hire someone until they’re there. So I would say don’t bother looking for a job before you come unless it’s something that is very connected with what you’re already doing and you’ve got people recommending you, quote unquote. And the same is kind of true for apartments. I mean, set yourself up with maybe a temporary place before you come, an Airbnb or a sublet or something. But you’re not going to find a long term place until you’re here and you’re not going to want to. I mean, you have to go and look at places. So those are two very practical tips. Hopefully they’re helpful.
Katy
Yeah, very helpful. Well, what would you, if you were in her position, what would you do?
Tiffany
Oh, God, it’s so hard. It’s so hard. I mean, my life philosophy is kind of leap and the net will appear if you want it bad enough, just make that leap and things will work out. It depends how much she wants it, really. It depends. I mean, she says it gets her through the day, which makes me think it’s something that she really, truly wants. And if she does, you know, she might regret it for the rest of her life. She has to weigh what’s more important, the job that she loves or this dream. And no one can answer that but her. I can’t. I don’t know. I would probably have gone. I think I would have gone. But that’s me.
Katy
The super cautious me, which is basically just me, says that you should go for a while.
Tiffany
That’s good advice.
Katy
Go try it out for three months or something.
Tiffany
No, I would say a year. A year, three months. You’re not gonna really get it.
Katy
If she can get the leave. I mean, which Americans don’t get very much time off. So there’s that issue, and we’ve already established through much of this show that you can learn a lot in a month. You can rule a place out in a month, but you cannot rule a place in in a month. That’s what I learned in New Orleans. So I do think that going for more than a month would be best. But, yeah, in a year, even in a year, at least in a year, you would start to feel like you sort of know what’s going on and you have some friends. But if you can’t do a year, maybe just go try planting yourself in one particular place in Italy for as long as you can and see if you can get slightly beyond whatever romantic notions you have just from visiting a place. Because it’s so different to visit a place than to live in a place.
Tiffany
Yes. And also newness. The newness of a place will wear off eventually, unfortunately. And, yeah. And so you have to make sure that it’s something that you truly, truly love. I mean, just like, you know, I kind of have equated it to dating someone. You know? You know when you start dating someone new and it’s all new and exciting and, like, you just get so excited just to see their face eventually that kind of excitement, just seeing the person does wear off, and you’re left with either you truly love this person, or maybe you didn’t love this person after all. So it happens the same thing with cities. I know for me, the love for Rome is real because it’s been 13 years, and I still will stop on the street and be like, oh, my God, this place is so beautiful, I can’t take it.
Katy
Yeah. Yeah. That’s how I feel about it, too.
Tiffany
Yeah. But there are also a lot of negatives that come with Rome and Italy in general that, you know, that make life difficult there. I had a friend who retired to Rome, a little bit older than us, and she dreamed and dreamed and dreamed about it and she moved and she was in a totally different situation. I mean, she was out of work and finished with work and she just had so many setbacks, you know, with bureaucracy and trying to get legal and trying to buy apartment versus renting an apartment and trying to get herself, it was just too much for her. And she finally said, I can’t do this anymore. I just don’t, it’s not worth it to me. So, you know, I don’t know what the point is, but just take Katy’s advice and give yourself a nice long trial period if you can.
Katy
If you can.
Tiffany
Yeah.
Katy
All right. Well, we should leave it there. But next week we’ll get to the second half of Darlene’s email, which is much more existential and are the real head scratchers because they’re the questions we ask about life. At least I do all the time.
Tiffany
Especially if you’re an expat, you’re asking yourself these things or especially, let’s, I should say, if you’re dreaming of being an expat, yes.
Katy
So until next week, this is The Bittersweet Life. I’m Katy Sewall.
Tiffany
I’m Tiffany Parks.
Katy
Join us again. Bye. My thanks to the recent donors to the show. Your support is the reason the show is continuing and we still need more, more donors to step up to keep the show alive. So if you love the show, support it. Open your laptop, visit thebittersuitelife.net and click the donate button on the right hand side of the screen. If you give us your address, too, you’ll get a handwritten thank you note in the mail. That’s how important your donation is and how much we appreciate you. And my thanks to our intern, Estrella Gomez. Be sure to check her out at Lacasabloga.com. And finally, if you’d be interested in sponsoring the show and reaching listeners all over the world, send us an email at www.thebittersweetlife.net. Thanks for everything and we’ll talk to you next week.
