WORDS & PICTURES: Valeria
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I never planned on moving to Bologna, Italy.
I’ve wanted to live abroad since I was 13 and my family has always supported me in that. But did I dream of Italy? Definitely not. I know there are lots of people dreaming of living la dolce vita, but for sure it wasn’t me. In my case, it all happened so quickly that I couldn’t call it anything but destiny. My plans were going well beyond Italy, but a few coincidences (namely, a sky-high rent in Paris where I’d wanted to go originally, and my family’s very unexpected decision to move) decided for me.
So there I was, a lost nineteen-year-old, who had decided to give it a go. I moved together with my family and kept saying: it’s temporary. I’ll stay in Italy for a year, I’ll learn a new language, and then I will move on. Well, it’s been five years, now.
I came here first, by plane, with just one trolley and a backpack – it almost felt like running away, not moving. My family had to arrive two weeks later, by car, bringing the rest of our stuff. For some reason, I had volunteered to go first and start searching for an apartment. Those two weeks were the loneliest in my life.
My first impression of Bologna was that it’s too hot and dusty. I was doubting my decision to move here. I didn’t speak a word of Italian. I didn’t know anybody. Everything felt wrong.
“My love affair with Bologna, Italy, could be compared to a loving, committed relationship – the kind of love that’s calm and trustful, but also passionate at the same time“
An apartment search felt like an eternity, which wasn’t essentially true: I managed to secure a great deal after seeing just three or four apartments – but I’ll only appreciate it two years later when looking for a place of my own. Things weren’t getting easier – we found out that to move in, we needed to wait at least ten days to get our utilities activated. And that’s not to mention the queues and hours of waiting at various offices. Almost at the same time, our old car broke down. Meanwhile, my parents were trying to buy another car in Italy – which was impossible without an Italian ID card, which, in turn, was a tricky affair of its own. Apparently, local offices didn’t know which type of insurance we needed back then as EU citizens, so it ended up being an endless push between various offices – I know, it’s a complicated story.
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At this point, looking back at my first weeks in Italy, I can’t help but wonder: do other expats really have a transition as easy as they often describe? Because, honestly, no story of rainbows and unicorns found abroad could prepare me for that.
This story, though, is not about all the difficulties a new expat could face (or, better, not only about them). Because life is a weird thing, and along with all the troubles it throws at us, it also gives us the solutions, sometimes in the most unexpected way. For me, for us, those solutions came in the form of very real human beings.
As I’ve mentioned before, I didn’t know anyone when I first came to Italy. My family and I were staying in an agriturismo, in the most picturesque hilly countryside of Emilia-Romagna, while waiting for our new home in Bologna, Italy, to be ready. Our hosts had already given us the warmest welcome upon arrival, but when our car broke down, they offered to drive me to the train station and my sister to school.
I started a language school and my teachers there made me fall completely in love with Bologna – they taught me Italian, yes, but they also taught me to love this city patiently and unconditionally. My love affair with Bologna, Italy, could be compared to a loving, committed relationship – the kind of love that’s calm and trustful, but also passionate at the same time. That’s not the love that comes immediately with fireworks, but the love you learn and nurture over time.
The day we finally moved into our flat, my father was abroad for work. That same day, we managed to close the front door… leaving the keys inside. I don’t know if getting into trouble all the time is my thing, or runs in my family, or is a general expat thing (because, let me say, moving abroad is stressful), but again, help arrived from somewhere we didn’t expect it. I knocked on the door of our neighbours, who were in the middle of a late-night dinner with their friend, asking if they knew which service I should call. Matteo, our neighbour, together with his friend, went up to the first floor where we lived – and they both spent the next half an hour trying to figure out how to open the door. Spoiler alert – they did it.
A few months later, when our (new) car broke down, my mother and I had to leave it at the nearest service and went to the first cafe to wait for our car to be ready. In those few hours we spent there waiting, my mother befriended the owner, a nice old lady, who could have been my grandmother. Should I mention that she still calls my mom at least once a month and offers us free treats all too often?
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I moved to Bologna, Italy, five years ago without knowing anybody, but I’ve never felt alone in my struggles as an expat. Of course, it took me some time to make friends, the ones you have something in common with, the ones you’ll call anytime for help, or when you simply need to chat together over a cup of coffee. But what stuns me to this day, is the sense of community Italians have, and how ready they are to offer help – even to strangers. This year it’s been especially noticeable when these people have shown unity and solidarity in the face of the global pandemic that’s hit Italy really hard. Italians want to care for other people. They want to protect them. And if you ask for help, you’ll get it. Sometimes, from where you least expect it.
Looking back at the last five years, each struggle has always been balanced out by something good – usually, by meeting people in the weirdest, and often most stressful, situations. Somehow the sense of community was created in a place that suddenly felt like home – in a really short time, to be honest.
I never planned on moving to Italy, but I stayed – after a year, and two, and five. I never planned on moving here, but I can hardly imagine myself living anywhere else. Despite the initial struggles (who am I kidding? they never end), I love this place.
I never planned on moving to Italy, but now I call this country home.
