Atualizando a vida

Há muito tempo não escrevo. Imagino que ninguém tenha sentido falta, pois näo tenho, infelizmente, seguidores no meu Blog. Neste retorno, resolvi mudar o idioma do Blog para o português. Isso porque aliado ao meu projeto de um dia viver na Itália, há algum tempo venho cuidando incessantemente de arrumar meus documentos para o reconhecimento de minha cidadania italiana. Imagino que escrevendo em português e relatando, como tantos outros fazem, os passos para a realização deste sonho, é provavél que eu consiga iluminar um ou outro caso semelhante ao meu.
O trajeto para o reconhecimento da cidadania italiana não é fácil não, principalmente quando se tem por objetivo fazer esse reconhecimento na Itália. No Brasil, infelizmente, isso leva muito tempo.
Estou feliz em poder afirmar que já estou de posse de todos os documentos necessários, faltando apenas algumas retificações e, em seguida, a tradução dos mesmos para o italiano.
Descobri que se pode obter muita ajuda na internet em foruns de discussão com pessoas na mesma situação. Mesmo assim, o processo é longo e precisa-se ter muita determinação.
Espero poder continuar atualizando este meu Blog com os meus sucessos, até um dia expor aqui a foto do meu sonhado passaporte italiano.

The future

This is me envisioning the future I want: a sunny place, a house in the country, full of light. Not too many people around, but good friends always nearby. Work, yes, but most of all pleasure of each moment lived.

Who can give me a nice job in Italy? Can you?

I am looking for a good jon in Italy. Here is my profile in Linked in. There is no mistake, no regrets. I am a competent, dedicated and reliable employee. So, please contact me!!!

Table for Two

I have this incredible attraction to everything which is countryside style, vintage, shabby and beautiful. I love flowers, printed in everything, like in paintings, blankets, cups, plates, fabrics. Sometimes I wonder if it has to do with some previous life I have lived were these things where present in my day to day life. Now, for example, I have taken an enourmous passion for quilts. I wish I could buy lots of them. Better than that, I wish I could make quilts myself!! Could my life take a different turn in Italy? Most of my life I have spent in the city, working in offices, where I was mostly satisfied with my work. Lately, however, things are changing and I have this feeling of anguish growying inside me, as if it was a steady force trying to move my direction in life. Somehow this could mean a more fullfilling life in Italy, doing other sort of things. But exactly, when, how and where in Italy, we don't know...
The beautiful painting above, called "Table for Two" is by Linda Paul, who paints Tuscany landscapes. Isn't it beautiful?

Inspiration everywhere

Italy inspires me in many ways. The landscape, the food, the way of living. When we visited Italy last year (Toscana area) we used to go out for pizzas (of course) during the warm evenings in August and it was a pleasure to see Italians sitting outside talking. By outside I mean not only restaurants, but park and street benches. It seems they really like to get together and talk. This is common among Brazilians as well. Not so much among Norwegians, though.

Some people wonder why I want to move to Italy, being from Brazil (Rio) and presently living in Norway. Well, we have been in Norway for two years because after having lived in Brazil for 9 years, my Norwegian husband, our daughter and I came to Norway in search of better work opportunities for him. We have succeeded in that. However, Norway lacks good weather, sun and the social proximity one can find in Brazil and in Italy. Everything works fine here, no problem with slow internet connections, telephone lines or digital TV. You can have your passport renewed in one week and get it mailed to you. I call this efficiency. But, what are we looking for in a place to live? In Rio I resented having to live with fear. One is constantly afraid there. There is too much crime. In Norway I have only felt fear for the winter and how cold the wind will blow when I have to go out.

Italy seems to me to be in the middle of the two extreme situations described above. It seems to be safer than in Brazil and the weather is milder (in the winter) than in Norway. Not to mention that I would probably have many more visits from my relatives in Brazil, that seem to be convinced Norway is too far away (and too much out of the way) to come and visit me here.

Visualising and waiting

Lately I discovered a very useful site called Expats in Italy, in which there is a very useful forum for people wanting to exchange ideas about expat life in Italy. I posted a first question there and quickly got nice and friendly answers from the expat community. One of these answers came from Kataroma. I checked her blog and read something that inspired me to write a little today. She wrote a very interesting posting on the different kinds of foreigners she has managed to distinguish during the time she has lived in Italy. She picked up 6 types and the one I identify most with is nr. 5 (with elements of nr. 2 as well).

Who wouldn't be inspired by the film "under the Tuscan Sun" (mentioned in point nr. 2)? I definitely was, mostly because it represents aspects of a life I would like to be living. I like Italian culture, food and Italian landscape. It does remind me of my own Brazilian culture too.

Brazilians and Italians have a lot in common, including the language. I can easily see the mess I was used to living Brazil present in Italy too. Anyway, why not live in Brazil then instead of Italy, one could ask. There are several reasons and I will mention them eventually in future postings. I have to say, however, that my family and I moved from Brazil to Norway almost two years ago. My husband is Norwegian and we have a 9 year old daughter. Rio de Janeiro, where we lived for 9 years, until August 2006, was not proving to be a good business environment for him and we then decided to try our life in Norway. I managed to be transferred from the company I used to work for in Brazil and presently I am still working for that same company here in Stavanger. Life in Rio was too caotic, crowded, with lots of traffic jams, not to mention a high crime rate. We longed for a calmer and safer life.

Norway, however, is too cold and dark most of the year and this is too hard to bear. So, as my husband also nurtures a big admiration for the Italian culture, we have decided Italy would mean a very nice middle way alternative between Norway and Brazil. But we have our feet on the ground and we do not intend to just throw ourselves into some kind of crazy adventure. This is why the move will not happen so very soon. But it will and in the meantime we dream and try to visualise, as precisely as possible, the ideal place for us to live in Italy.

A house in the country side in Italy

A small farm, a cozy home, a computer with a high speed internet connection, some sort of work I could do from home, an international school nearby, my husband working from home and making enough for us to live a comfortable life and temperatures in the winter that do not go below 10 degrees C. Is this too much to ask for?