invia il tuo elenco

Resto perchè

Sono Italiana
Amo il mio paese
Vivo in Campagna lontana dalle seccature, quindi sono fortunata
Qui ci sono i miei ricordi più cari
I miei amici più cari
E poi voglio essere qui per continuare a portare la coccarda tricolore e festeggiare l'anno prossimo il 150° anniversario di questa povera "Repubblica"
e poi se andiamo tutti via qui chi ci rimane?


Vorrei andare
Non mi piace questo clima di terrore instaurato dal"Ministero della Paura"
Non sono razzista e non respingo ( le leggi ci sono e basterebbe applicarle)
Odio la corruzione, e tutto le associazioni a delinquere che impediscono lo sviluppo di questo paese
Sono stanca di sentirmi ripetere ( da più di 30 anni) ma come fai a vivere in Italia?
Sono stanca di sentirmi chiedere dagli amici che non sono italiani: ma chi a votato Mr. B. ed essere di conseguenza costreta a fornire lunghe speigazioni sul come, il quando e il perchè.

Tanti auguri per il programma che sono certa sarà belliassimo.

A tutti e due un saluto cordiale.

Annamaria Marcato dalla toscana

My Country: are you thinking of buying a house in Italy? Part one.

I am not a very productive blogger for many reasons:
I will never dream of  writing  or twitting  trying to convince you” how to make money on the internet using Twitter , Facebook or anything else”, if I only knew ,sorry, I would keep it  for myself.
I will never write  about things I do not know.
Above all I will write  when I have something  interesting to  write about.

Plus I am not a housewife, I am busy  and time is precious.


So I just come to the point, that is'
 What you should know when you decide to move and buy and house in Italy.
This subject came  up  few months ago, when by pure chance  one of my  rental agencies in UK  send me an email  containing the request of an American gentleman ,who  was  half through the process to buy a house  fairly close to where I live. He was looking for a person who was fluent in English  and eventually was willing to be his house manager.
 I answered him and well… The Hell broke loose”
 Luckily I have been able to help him ( a lawyer , an architect  and many other people were involved in the process since the situation was really a messy one) and save him  from a very messy situation , but the all process, that by the way, will likely end up in a week from now , made me think .
So  after consulting with all the people involved  here I am.
Italy is a beautiful Country  so  I can understand that many people  see it as a dreamland where to spend holiday or retire, but if you want to buy a house here , you will find below some useful tips.
If you have already decided where  you want to stay, come and live in the area for a while, scout the place, ask for all the information you can think of and please if you do not speak the language (“find yourself an independent translator” I can assure you that she/he will be worth any amount you will pay)
What you need to know, depending  on the area:
 Where is the nearest village, are there shops, bank, church, all the thing that you expect to find in a civilized place.
 Weather  How is the weather during the year ( nobody will go to a weather forecaster)  but people who live in the area will be able to tell you many things. Lifestyle. Please ask  away you will find out that many people will be happy to help you.
Estate Agencies , this is going to be the tricky part, many people who already bought a house here, will wonder why I am saying this. If everything went well : either they found the Perfect estate agent or they have been extremely lucky.

Well  the choices can be different : you chose an agency abroad , in this case you must check if they have a subsidiary in Italy, if they know the Italian law about the matter  in short if they know what they are doing ( I am sorry many do not ).
You must also be aware that to be an Estate agent  in Italy you must have   at least   a  school Diploma(  Secondary School Diploma ), be an Italian citizen or if foreigner has to have an Italian regular residency and work  permit , also  she/he have   to take an exam and  be registered  to the Camera di Commercio ( Chamber of Commerce) of the region in which the agent operate, to be a qualified agent, the person has also  to prove that she/he never went bankrupt , that she/he doesn’t have a criminal record and that he/she have never been associated with someone who has a criminal record .. And so on.
To check if your  Estate Agency is regular  you can go to the web site of the Association that gathers  all the regular Estate agents is called F.I.A.I.P (Federazione Italiana  Agenti Immobilari  Professionali) : http://www.fiaip.it/ ( the web site is in Italian but is user friendly,).
There are many good  Foreign agencies who have a subsidiary  in Italy care of an Italian Estate agency ,anyway I strongly advice to check  their credential before you start any business.

I also stress that there are a lot of people who pretend to be what they are not, also again I stress that  should any problem arises, the Italian law recognizes only professional ( this subject only can take hours, but since I do not want to bore you I keep it short) so please keep this in mind.

So now you have found your Estate agent and unless you are in a big town, or in a specific area when people can reasonably expect to speak English  , you will need a translator ( if the estate agency  is a well equipped one, they should be able  to provide  one)

Looking for the right place
I am sure that when you eventually start looking for  the house of your dreams, you must at least  have set a list of your priorities :
Where it should be and what it should have… notwithstanding I   recommend you:
Try not to fall in love at first sight
as the old Burt Bacharach song says when you fall in love …..
” A guy with a pin to burst your bubble
That's what you get for all your trouble..

Absolutely true…

to be continued

About my Country and countryfolks....

Since, I slowly started writing, I have been searching the web and reading many other blogs on Italy , I found  out that  the majority of them are written by  foreigners or  expatriates who love Italy ( its culture , its food ) very much ( forgiving us, our many faults  and accepting  our good qualities).

The most  interesting ones are written by these people.

So I  have chosen the ones I like more and I am following, finding them most of the time very amusing and above all caring.

Yesterday I really laugh  when I read about the travelling tips  a lady gave, about our trains and railways ( at the moments not functioning properly at all), about toilets, and many other things.
(By the way I laughed since I did not want to get mad , not with the nice lady, but with the train company and many other things not functioning at all in this moment).

I want to help you to understand Italy a little better, mind I am not an a teacher  and I do not want to give any lesson to anybody, I simply want to help  people  who want to understand us better ( again don’t forget I am Italian)

Few points.
Point one
Italy is a relatively new country : it became a united country only in 1861, and next year we are celebrating our 150° anniversary.

Before 1861 , what we called Italy was divided in many small states ( there are millions of  books and articles about this subject).

Italy in 1494

What I always found interesting is this sentence, allegedly written by one of our founding fathers

“ Fatta l’Italia bisogna fare gli Italiani” that means literally  “Now that we have made Italy we must make the Italian citizen).

After 150 years this most impossible  task has not been achieved.

Point two

Well, I can assure you , that as a category “Italians citizens “  do not exist but on the paper.

Very few time, and very few people when introducing themselves to you will say I am Italian …they will say I am from Torino, Alba, Venezia, Bologna….. Rome , Naples and so on.

 There are many reasons for this behavior , but again I do not want to give any lesson, I just want to point out, that the "Italians" differences  are not only dialects, characters, food, culture  but are  buried deep in every people whatever part of Italy they live..

Maybe that is the reason why  up to now we haven’t been able to have a stable government and are so unruly.

I assure you I am not making this up.

Try to envision the difference between people who live in Milan and in Venice ( I have already  gone through  both experiences  quite a few years  ago)

Generalizing to the extreme : people in Milan  are always work and business  even having fun is becoming a work.

In Venice people are compelled by the nature of their  city and land  to move slowly , to take their time  and eventually life is more slow.

Point three

Italians  by nature cannot stand rules, sometime I think we were anarchist even before the term was invented.

Try to write down a rule of any kind  and unless you force it down to our throat and make it respect with heavy and expensive fine , nobody will abide  it, since we all things rules are made for others not for us.( well there are very few exceptions)

Examples: it is quite a few years since they apply a new Street code with speed limits ( different from normal roads and highways),  I  paid my due at the beginning  than  I decided that I did not want to lose my driving license and I did  not want to give away money without reason , so now I am a very sedate driver, I respect  the speed limit everywhere.

Result : Now  I feel like an Idiot , other drivers  blow their horns, blink their lights  like I was the one doing wrong.

Point  four

Italy is populated by about 60milions of independent  individuals  and I stress the word independent .

I think this is enough to help you to understand  that even  if you try to generalize it is impossible,  we are unique in bad and in good deeds.

Point five.

There is no Country such as ours ( actually there is one but   I do not want to mention it) where  religion is so intertwined with  politics and culture and this is a big drawback.

Well I made only few points but I thing that those are the most important ones to understand  who we are.

Most commons places

Italians are loud  ( it can be true somewhere and somehow) , but try to go and visit Piedmont  that is by the way a very fascinating Italian region,  there people speak slowly and softly, using their hands very little.

Italians do not work  ( ahahahahaha) we have to and we must, at the moment we  have event to invent  works, since thank you to the situation ( but I refuse to talk about politic) there is very little work.

Italians are all “ cuore , amore, mamma” come on… some …but the times of” Oh Sole mio” are long gone by.

Italians love arts, this is such a big issue that I will reserve it for another  post.

Italians are always trying to cheat  tourists : some of them, it is true,  but the same   happens in all  Big European  touristic cities  ( I could write quite a few funny stories about it)

Italians are all nice and funny..please since when?

Do you know that I even found a web site about all the common places about Italians?

I could go on for hours, but I spare you for now, I  found some new one quite funny, and I report in the next few days.

At this point , the few who are so nice to read  what I am writing would probably wonder why, I consider my life here a long vacation.

Easy  I do not think that there is another place in the world where I would like to live… while , I want to be able to criticize with good reason all the things I do not like at all.

Beside I am lucky , I can make comparison and I truly live  in a small paradise.

…….

Revenge

Driving from  my village( Laterina ) to Arezzo through a road called  ” Sette ponti” that together with HighwayA1 and another state road Called “Vecchia Aretina or  State road 69” connect us to Arezzo, I was driving behind a truck- since  in that part of the road is forbidden to overcome any car in front of you- suddenly  a car behind me darted  past me ,past the truck , past another car in front of the truck and … it was stopped by the police  immediately after .

I restrain to blow my horn since is forbidden.

I would be more than happy to receive any comments  from someone out there