January began my 3rd month living in Italy. The New Year came and went without much fanfare for us. We had grand plans to be in Austria with friends of mine from Minneapolis. We were going to ski, hike up to a winter cabin on NYE and rodel down later on (rodeling is a type of sledding). However, the night before we were to take off, Nick ended up with a monster toothache and he found himself having a root canal the next day. Needless to say, we stayed home, he rested and we watched lots of movies. It was not the scene we pictured but we made the best of it.
The rest of this month has been spent settling in so to speak. On January 9th I started my new job at the clinic. It's not a job that's exactly in my field but it's close enough that my career shouldn't be damaged too badly once we return to the States. For my first week on the job I traveled to Frankfurt, Germany for training. The best part of this trip were the airports. I'm used to traveling for work....in the United States. I've been in large airports, small airports, newly remodeled airports and dumpy airports. But not in any US airport did I have the opportunity to shop at Prada, Rolex, Burberry, Hermes, and others. And for car enthusiasts, there are Ferrari and Porsche clothing stores! Who knew?
They say ('they' being others that have moved to Vicenza from the States) that it takes about 6 months to adapt. I guess I don't know how adaptation is supposed to feel. Nick and I settled into a routine while I've been unemployed for the past 2 months. I cook and clean and he works. Very 1950's! Now that I'm working again I'm not really sure what our routine will look like. Once I returned from training, Nick left for training and he won't be back for a few weeks. So my life sort of feels a bit like it felt when I lived in Minneapolis as a single gal. Only I don't have the short walking commute to work, I don't have Starbucks every morning, I don't have friends to meet up with for lunch and happy hours and I don't have my condo to come home to along with my sweet cat Isley. For those that know Isley she really isn't all that sweet but I sure do miss her!
The other thing I don't have is the familiarity of my surroundings. Living on my own in Minneapolis for 6 years was a piece of cake compared to this! I never felt concerned or worried about being home alone, dealing with a car breakdown (that's what the dealership was for) or household repairs (that was what the management company was for). So independence was EASY! This past week with Nick being gone has been the biggest adjustment so far. Staying the night in an apartment that I've never been alone in before was one thing. Commuting to and from work alone but with dozens of crazy Italian drivers is another thing. But I also had the fun of dealing with car repairs and a hot water heater that went out! These just had to wait until my husband was gone. I can't wait for him to come home!
While adjusting to the new work life and my new social life will be take awhile, the easy part is living with Nick. It's really nice to be away from all the busy-ness and have our quiet evenings at home. Of course there are times where we wish we had something to do. But overall our weeks are very stress free. I remember being double-booked, even triple-booked some evenings in MN. On the weekends I was running from one thing to the next. Now my weekends are spent with picking a place we want to visit and just going. We spend quality time together while seeing places we never imagined could be in our backyard. With the headaches that come with living in a foreign country, we have to remind ourselves of how fortunate we are to have this opportunity.
So while the month of January has kept us home-bound (or work-bound), we'll get back into the swing of traveling come February. We have another few months of ski season to take advantage of and then it will be spring already!
More to come in a few weeks!
No comments:
Post a Comment