What I’m Returning to: A Meditation on Simple Pleasures
This month’s blog is a reflection on a few very simple things that I find myself turning to in a time of chaos and major life changes. It’s really just a list, and while the items on it might seem simple, they provide me with an infinite and complex amount of comfort, groundedness, and distraction […]
Florence Finds: Three Spaces Worth Discovering
• Small and impactful: how La Città dei Lettori proves that when it comes to cultural value, size doesn’t matter. • Creative regeneration: The Square as a case study in how former industrial sites can become vibrant cultural hubs. • Adaptive reuse: the Goldoni → FitActive transition as a reflection of changing urban uses from […]
My Favorite Things (about the holidays in Italy)
I won’t be in Italy for the holidays this year which is a little unusual. Since Giada was little, I’ve preferred to stay in Florence. I’m not a big fan of traveling when everyone else does, and I love spending time in a cozy, decorated house cooking and baking to Christmas music. It’s also such […]
Unanchored
Is Florence still my home? Of late, I wake several times a night, gripped by something I’m still unable to name. Is it solitude? Worry? Fear? Regret? Restlessness? I look out my window and stare at the darkness, hopeful for answers that never come. If I’m lucky, I get a little call from a particularly […]
You Get What You Pay For: Underconsumption, Minimalism, and Cultural Contaminations
Chi più spende meno spende For years, and I mean years, there were limited options in Italy when it came to shopping. You had to frequent small boutiques, of course there were national chains like Benetton and a few large department stores, but there were wasn’t even a mall near Florence. Many years ago a […]
Beyond the Sea
On Italian Beach Culture Italian beach culture can be a bit of a mystery for first time visitors. There are, of course, free beaches (usually you pay for parking only), but many beachgoers across the peninsula opt for the comfort of stabilimenti balneari, beach resorts, or at least they did so in the past. Typically, […]
September, full of promise
A typical Italian high schooler’s stack of books. Dictionaries not pictured. Back to School, il rientro/ritorno a scuola First things first, back to school happens later here in Italy than in the majority of US States. While I write this, Florence is fairly empty, there is little traffic, and people are definitely still at […]