photo by Donato Miranda
JB: Since you are an Italian citizen, you don’t need a work permit, correct? Although I guess you wouldn’t need one anyway since your job is technically in the US.
DM: I have a strange complicated situation because I’m working for this company in Boston, but they are paying me in American dollars in my American bank account. In a way it’s almost like Italy doesn’t know I’m working. In that sense I don’t need a work permit since I’m not working here but if I weren’t a citizen I would be here illegally. You can’t just come to a country for years.
JB: Well, I think that depends on the country. A lot of countries, you can leave for a day every six months and just renew your tourist visa forever.
DM: Yes, there are Americans who do that here in Italy. But as a citizen, I can do whatever I want. I have no issues whatsoever. I even vote.
JB: Why did you pick Rome over other locations in Italy?
DM: I had come to Rome on vacation a couple years before moving basically to see if I would like it here. I also spent a week in Bologna taking an intensive Italian course, and the following year I went to Milan, Florence, and Turin. I picked Rome because I like big cities. I liked Bologna, but Northern Italy has a different culture too, more like Northern Europe. Bologna is smaller, it’s a little university city, more like Boston, and I’ve already lived in Boston. I wanted to live in the big crazy capital.
JB: How many people live there?
DM: About 3-4 million. Rome has a lot of green space and it’s not as dense as London or Paris. We don’t have skyscrapers.
JB: Do they have rules against tall buildings like that?
DM: I don’t know if there are laws against it. One of the cultural things that’s different about Italy is no one follows rules here. Here the laws don’t matter. Just like the earthquake that happened in Abruzzo, no? The buildings there were not up to earthquake code. Even though the law says they have to be up to code, the inspectors don’t seem to notice until an earthquake happens.
JB: So how much Italian did you speak when you decided to move to Rome?
DM: I was taking some classes in Boston, and I’m good with languages, so I spoke enough. I knew a little what it was like because I was coming here on vacation for a couple years previously. I spoke well enough and I understood even more.
When I got here, I did everything in Italian, got my apartment, you know, anything that I had to do, go to the bank, do this, do that, I did it in Italian. I didn’t ask for an interpreter. Obviously after 4 years I know a lot more.
JB: Sure, it makes a big difference being immersed in the language rather than just going to classes.
DM: Yes, I moved here in February 2005.
JB: When you moved out there, did you have to figure out how to do everything yourself or did you have help?
DM: In 2003, when I came here on vacation, and I was taking classes in Boston, I told one of the girls in the class, I’m going there on vacation this summer. She said, “Oh, I have a friend there, I can put you in touch, she can show you the real Rome.” I figured this girl was Italian, but when I met her, it turns out she was an American who ten years before on a whim, didn’t know Italian, not even one word, she took one of those trips around the world and she decided to stay in Rome. Ten years later she was still here.
I met her, she showed me around, and I told her of my desire to move to Italy, and she kind of challenged me at the end of the trip. She said, “Oh I bet you’re not going to come.”
JB: It’s like she dared you to move to Rome.
DM: So when I decided to come I sent her an email because we had kept in touch. I told her I had my ticket, and if she knew of an apartment that was available to let me know. A friend of hers who was also American who had only been here a few months who by coincidence was going back to the States in February for one month. So it was perfect, I basically sublet that apartment for the one month she was in New York and I was here, and that gave me the chance to find my own place. I didn’t want to look for one remotely because then you can’t see it. I found an apartment looking at ads in the paper.
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