This morning I started a project to create a user-driven compilation of all the best Italophile Instagram accounts to follow, the only criteria were that those included love Italy and/or Italian as much as yours truly. We did it “chain-reaction” style in order to get the widest reach and the most diversity in contributions so anyone who was added was then asked to add their own favorite “Italophile” to the ever-growing list. It's easy to find a "blog roll call" or a list of recommended blogs to follow these days, but I have yet to come across a community-curated list of Instagram accounts. The best part about this list is that all the featured accounts have essentially been "hand-picked" by YOU AND ME, mutual lovers of Italy and all things Italian. Social media is powerful now, it’s even opened up a whole new career pathway for bloggers and “influencers”. But the best part about it, in my opinion, is its ability to connect us with a community with similar interests, share the love, and give us the chance to even one day, meet in person! I know the Italy-blogger sphere is a big one (who doesn’t fall in love with Italy?!) so I wanted to make this list available to anyone searching for inspiration and for current and aspiring Italy lovers….So if that's you, drumroll please...HERE'S YOUR TRIBE, (listed in alphabetical order):

A

•  
•  

B

•  ​

C

•  
•  
•  
•  

D

•  ​
•  

E

•  

F

G

H

I

•  
•  
•  
•  

J

•  
•  
•  

K

•  ​
•  

L

M

•  
•  
•  
•  

N

O

•  ​

P

•  ​

Q

​R

•  
•  
•  
•  

S

•  
•  ​
•  
•  

T

•  
•  ​
•  ​
•  ​
•  

U

• ​

V

W

•  

Z

•  

 
 
If you don’t see yourself or someone you know on this list but you/they love love love Italy too, please message me on any social media for an add and I’ll update it ASAP. And vice versa, if you ended up on this "directory" and you'd prefer to be taken off, let me know! For any future Italy accounts that you come across, please feel free to tag it with #questadolcevita to give me a heads up! Also, if anyone has any other ideas as to how we could organize this list better, I'm all ears. I would obviously have loved to organize them by city or genre (foodie vs. expat life, for example) but as you can imagine, it would be a HUGE undertaking. 

Finally, grazie a tutti that made this little project possible by taking the time to contribute and tag fellow Italophiles! 

​Two years ago, I wrote the post Random Everyday Things That Annoy Me in Italy. The very first point on that list was "bad English translations". Fast forward and I find myself ever the more immersed in the translation world at my current job (though it is not my main undertaking) and ever the more frustrated when I happen upon a shitty (excuse my parolaccia but it's needed here!) translation. This was already an issue that put Italy on the global shame-scale when not one, but more like one hundred, translation errors were spotted throughout the marketing materials used for EXPO 2015 in Milan. These language goofs might seem funny at first, but they sure make companies, businesses, and entire countries lose credibility on an international level, not to mention the costs involved in essentially re-doing your content a second time. Apparently the head honchos at EXPO put translation at the bottom of their priority list, choosing to use cheap translations services and as a result, ended up being the BUT of jokes (bahah, see what I did there?!) for months afterwards. 

​There is absolutely no excuse to not use qualified translators. In my honest opinion, I believe that translations done from Italian to English should be done by a native English speaker who learned Italian and not any someone who learned English. Unfortunately the nuances and finesse of a language cannot be learned to perfection, even after a lifetime in a country unless of course, you were raised bilingually, then by all means, translate away. I know some people might get haughty about this opinion of mine, but I've just read too many butchered translations to have faith in non-native speakers translating into English. Some of them have degrees in the English language, some have lived in London, they are all extremely good, but short of perfect. My husband lived and worked in Canada for six years but he still makes small errors. I have yet to read a perfect translation and that is why I think that even if you use a non-native speaker as a translator, even with the educational qualifications, the very end step still needs to be a quick mother tongue proofread. A quick once-over. No exceptions. Because translations are not just about the words, they are about the cultural innuendos and references and the underlying tone. There is, in fact, a whole other side of this called translocation which is adapting the context to the target country and language. I apologize for what became a slight rant but if you're reading this and you're an Italian business owner, please take note. 
 

If you enjoyed this post, you may also like to "dare un'occhiata" at these ones:
​
​Random Everyday Things That Annoy Me in Italy​
My Biggest Language-Related Pet Peeve: When Locals Switch to English
Musings on Being Racially Ambiguous in Italy 
A Bad Expat Language Moment
​Is the Grass Always Greener on the Other Side of the World? 

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Oh hello there! Here's a quick mid-week post on essentially all of the language learning apps that I use on my phone to continue training my Italian. As I've said in a number of previous posts, learning languages never really ends and hopefully I'm not the only person that feels that way. Just for background, I studied Italian in university with the Faculty of Modern Languages for six or seven semesters while I attended pharmacy school. I cannot stress enough that the foundation for language learning needs to start with formal instruction  and grammar. I am not saying you need to go to a university for this, or that you need to get a degree in the language, but I can definitely vouch for the effectiveness of this baseline. It has worked well for me so far and I've seen it work well for some of my other English-speaking expat friends who have taken Italian courses. Once you have this grammatical foundation to build upon, some of the language learning strategies that I talk about in the post "Parli Italiano?" can then be put into use.


Where do smartphone apps fall in then?


I think that there are some genuinely great apps out there now but that they work best as an adjunct rather than as your only learning tools. The weakest part about most apps is that while they may help your vocabulary and reading, you often end up neglecting listening and speaking skills which, as we all know, are the most important in "real life". This is merely due to the fact that the robotic DuoLingo voice is just not speaking with the same cadence, speed, and animation as your boyfriend's eccentric Roman friend Marco after one Spritz too many...Then you might cite the speaking portions of these apps but again, essentially they are testing your regurgitation skills in an elementary "repeat after me" way. This could prove effective if everytime you had to talk to a native speaker, you could have an earpiece in your ear and repeat what it told you to say. Ok, I spoke too soon because apparently this real-time language translation earpiece is actually a thing in the not-so-distant-future!

However, for the here-and-now, my advice is not to rely too heavily on these apps and instead practice speaking with a language exchange buddy, your boyfriend/girlfriend (if they happen to be native speakers of your target language which 90% of the time is the reason you're even reading this article in the first place right?!), or pay a private tutor. In regards to tuning your ear, this might seem ridiculously nerdy but a method I use to "test" myself is to actually do sample examples online where you're provided with the audio file and the listening comprehension questions.

For Italian learners, you can check out the sample exams on the Accademia Italiana di Lingua site. 

Finally, I do want to put in my two cents for my favourite app of the moment, I've literally just discovered it as of yesterday and have been "playing" with it non-stop. It's called CLOZEMASTER and tries to take the banal "the pen is on the table" - type sentence formations and instead teaches you a language through the "cloze" method, where words are missing from real-life context and based on that context, you are tasked with figuring out (and thusforth learning) the missing word. There are a variety of different ways to play which include having multiple choice options or just typing the word, as well as the choice of listening to the sentence read aloud (again, creepy robotic voice here) before filling in the space. If you don't like to be attached to your smartphone all day, you can also play online on your desktop and it looks like the screenshot below. 

I had to update this post to include this screenshot of a very valid context example with a *gasp* swear word! I have to applaude the Clozemaster concept though because this sentence is completely valid and you'd have to be living under a stone in Italy to not have heard this phrase or a variant of it! Standing ovation Clozemaster! Click right here to try Clozemaster (<-- my referral link), it's totally free unless you want to subscribe to the PRO Version (which I haven't tried yet but so far I'm loving the free version!). 

Which apps do you use on your phone to learn a language? Let me know in the comments section or on Facebook! 

If you enjoyed this post, you may also like to "dare un'occhiata" at these ones:
​
What I'm Really Thinking While Speaking Italian as a Second Language
​Taking Risks in Language Learning
​Language Burnout
​The Gift of Language: Italian and Beyond
The Neverending Story of Learning Italian
Living in Italy, Speaking in English 
Parli Italiano? 
How to Keep Learning Italian in Italy

​
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One of the beautiful things about social media these days is that it allows you to connect with like-minded people all over the world and for me, that means fellow ITALOPHILES who want to move to Italy. The most frequent question I get asked (I’m sure all the other Italy-based bloggers will nod heads in agreement) is: do you have any advice for the move? Well, as one might imagine, asking me that question is like opening a fresh bottle of prosecco on a Friday night…it means you’re in for an earful of my blabbing! That’s why I’ve decided to limit this post to a mere five things, that seems fairly manageable right?
 
LEARN ITALIAN TO A PRE-INTERMEDIATE/INTERMEDIATE LEVEL. This needs to be more of a priority for people. It always baffles me what gives people the impression that “getting by” with English and some Lonely Planet Italian phrases during a trip to Rome where you never ventured more than 500m from the Coliseum and essentially only had to order food and alcohol, followed by moving to Italy = sudden magical ability to open a bank account and hassle the TIM technician guys when your internet isn’t working for the umpteenth time. Italian learning needs to start happening one year before a move to Italy, minimum. And I highly recommend attending a course as opposed to self-learning, especially if you’re starting from zero grammatical base.
 
Here’s a quick snippet about the hours that usually go into getting to this type of level (taken from the blog, ikindalikelanguages.com where the author is referring to learning French):
 
A1 – 60 hours
A2 – 160 hours
B1 – 310 hours
B2 – 490 hours
C1 – 690 hours
C2 – 890 hours
 
"That is, about 900 hours and you are pretty much fluent in French by their standards. How much is that? That is 37 full 24 hour days. It is more reasonable to think that a person would study a language for three hours a day so it would take him around eight times that which is almost 10 months. If you double it to six hours a day, you can do it in 5 months. From my experience, it is very hard to practice the language more than that (and even that) in any given day, so if these estimates are any good, it is achievable and maybe realistic, granted you are living in a French-speaking country, to become fluent in half a year or so. If you are only aiming for B2 (B2 is pretty communicative) and you’re good, you can achieve it in 3 months."- Linas, How Much Time Is It Realistic to Learn a Language In? 
 
CONNECT WITH SOMEONE. Anyone will do! Well, no that might be a little creepy but do connect with at least one or two people (fellow expats are ideal) who are living in or near your chosen city. This might be a friend you already know there, in which case, you’re lucky. If you don’t know anyone, try to join groups on Facebook, Meetup, InterNations, Tinder (hey, I’ve heard it can be VERY useful for getting local restaurant recommendations!) etc…you will absolutely need someone to ask the annoying questions to in the beginning. These people will be like your training wheels until you get the hang of things. If you’re moving for work, chances are, you’ll probably get to dive into an already established network of friends which can honestly be both a good or bad thing. Another great way to connect with other expats in Italy is through Instagram, you’re likely to stumble on the right accounts by searching hashtags such as #thisisItaly #italophile paired with #expats.
 
TALK MONEY. Check your finances. I would never advise moving to any foreign country on a whim (defined here as without an offer of work, a work transfer, or a sugar mommy or daddy!) without having savings set aside which would allow you to survive a minimum of six-months without working. If you’re work is transferring you, that’s different. If you need to move to Italy and find a job after the move (which is 99% of cases), you need the time and you need to have the money to buy yourself that time. Navigating Italy is stressful enough in the beginning without having to worry about where your next meal is coming from- you’ll need to learn so many basics from scratch again and be job-hunting at the same time. Be aware that if you’re not coming to Italy to work with a foreign company, salaries can be laughably LOW. It wouldn’t be unusual to hear things like 800 euro a month. An offer of 1500 euro net would be very much in line with the national average, even for professionals or workers with advanced degrees.
 
DO THE LEGAL WORK. It may come as a shock to many of you, but I’ve heard many a story of someone “moving” to Italy without first looking at the legalities involved with becoming a resident of a foreign country. A passport allows you to visit other countries, it does not contain your right to move, live, and work in another country. Depending on your nationality, you will need to look into document requirements for living in Italy. These can vary depending on the reason why you’ll be in Italy, whether you want to work, and how much money you have back home. Speaking very generally, most North Americans require a visa of some sort prior to coming to Italy. This visa is usually granted (but can obviously be refused as well should you not meet the criteria) while you are still in your home country and you enter Italy on it. It is then part of your application for your Permesso di Soggiorno upon arrival in Italy. Visas can take a long time to process as they require the usual paperwork and an appointment at the nearest consulate or embassy of Italy to you. That’s why you need to get started on it as soon as possible.
 
READ ABOUT REAL EXPERIENCES. If you’re reading this post, you’ve already got this one covered. You need to research and read about other people’s experiences in Italy and find some characters and voices that you identify with. It’s not useful to anyone to just read the Italy chapters of “Eat Pray Love” and think that living in Italy is going to be just like Elizabeth Gilbert’s three months. Three months is still just an extended vacation people. You need blogs like this one or any of the blogs on this fantastic list by Ciaone: and get a first-hand look at what it’s really like to navigate the ins and outs of expat life, most of the blogs on this list are extremely honest so you’ll find both the good and the bad in their posts! 

If you enjoyed this post, you may also like to "dare un'occhiata" at these ones or the Category "Moving to Italy":
​
​Quiz Time: Will You be a Happy Expat in Italy?
A Memorable Expat Moment, from the Book "Once Upon an Expat"
​How to (Legally) Move and Live in Italy Oh You're an EU Expat in Italy? That's cute.
Immigration Update: Italy, I'm BACK!
Should You Move to Italy?
Living in Italy, Speaking in English 

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Happy half-way to Friday everyone! I’m usually a fairly upbeat person (unless you’ve caught me right after an immigration office visit) and I think that this comes across in my blogging as well. But as I’ve said many times, being an expat is hard at the best of times and almost unbearable at the worst of times. This is one of the latter. We recently found out earlier this year that my dad’s cancer is now considered terminal. Terminale in Italian. That up until now, I’d always associated with train stations and points of departure for a long-awaited trip rather than the end of the line. Now, it means that we’ve used all the ammunition that modern medicine can provide at the moment, and that the enemy has out-run and over-powered us. Having come from a background of pharmacy and briefly being exposed to a course in oncology, it still amazes me the strides that we’ve made against cancer but it also makes me realize how far we still have to go. When you think about it, here’s what we can do to cancer: poison it, burn it, or cut it out and as you might imagine, we’ve done all three over the past three years.

I’ve decided to share this on the blog as a means of catharsis and a way to cope, I know it’s a bit of a stray from my usual topics. I just feel like somewhere out there on the interwebs and in this great, big world, someone may need to read this and know they are not alone. Or maybe it’s just me that needs to know. Today, while browsing blogs, I noticed that and somehow, they managed to be both heart-breaking and heart-lifting at once. I suppose because this is a shared human experience, a universal certainty and perhaps there is some uncomfortable comfort in that. I wanted to express that this is undoubtedly the most difficult thing anyone might have to face as an expat, although truthfully, I could stop that sentence before writing “expat”. As you know fellow readers, I’ve just returned from a month-long trip to Canada, of which I spent time with my dad. Spending time is a different concept at this stage of a consistently worsening illness like cancer, it essentially meant checking on my dad every now and then and feeling my own heartbeat quicken if I happened to catch him mid-breath. It meant checking he took his pain medication 2 hours ago and seeing when he last drank something. It meant fighting with him to eat something, even the smallest crumb has since become a victory in our books.

Now I’m back in Italy, a choice that I struggled with the entire month before my flight back and still struggle with. Why did I make this choice? Was it the right one? I ask myself that a lot. The answer isn’t black or white. I prayed a lot. I thought a lot. I thought about what my dad would tell me.  I thought about life and death and time. Because amidst even the deepest agony and heartache and sadness, we must also remember to live. In fact, I feel like we owe this to everyone who wishes they could leave a hospital bed. Before cancer, my dad was the opposite of what you’d call a homebody. You’d be pretty much guaranteed to find him wherever there was fun and a good time to be had and there was usually wine involved. So here I am, continuing the philosophy. I don’t believe there is a right thing to do in this situation. If I had delayed my move to Italy three years ago, when the initial diagnosis was already at Stage 4 and the emergency room doctors had uttered the words “weeks”, none of this would have existed. This life that I've created would not exist. Not this blog or any of the living that you’ve read about or seen on its pages.  That’s why before returning, I confided in my friends and we prayed and asked for a sign as to what I should do. One morning, laying in bed, I heard a plane fly overhead. Loud, unmistakable. And so I got on mine, knowing that I can be back on one in an instant if needed. Trusting God with both our journeys. 

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If you've managed to click on all my blog Categories, you'll have seen there's a section called Recommended Books and you'll have realized I'm a rather obsessive reader. I've owned a Kobo and two Kindles, and am infamously known for having shipped my entire library overseas from Canada to Italy. There are still stacks and stacks leftover at my parents' home, waiting to make their way back to me, just ask my mother. Lately, I've been "restricting" (that sounds negative and it's not at all a bad thing) my reading to Italian books. This is two-fold: one, it's a way to continue studying Italian and learn new vocabulary. I find that reading helps me remember "how things are said". It's different from writing out grammar sentences because a sentence can be grammatically correct, just like English, but sound completely awful, inorganic, and unnatural. Instead, reading helps me visualize the organic structure of sentences as well as the extent of creative ease and liberty that can go into Italian. The most recent book that I finished is "" written by Susanna Casciani. 

This is the first book I've read by this author and I found it particularly poignant. It is essentially a first--person account of the end of a relationship. I know that sounds horribly sad but I promise that it is surprisingly uplifting as well because it's a universal theme that most people can relate to, most of us have had a similar experience at some point in our past and while the memory of loss can be melancholic, the fact that we rise up again is such a contrasting joy. Sometimes, languages lend themselves to certain emotions. Italian is the perfect language to tell this story. I feel like a translated version in English would not be the same just as an Italian is so much more adept at pouring out his heart compared to an Englishman. The culture is to blame for some of this, but the language for the rest. Below is a snapshot of an excerpt from the end of one of the chapters, isn’t it beautiful? ​
​

​Has anyone else read this book? Let me know if you have any recommended reads of your own, especially in Italian!  

If you enjoyed this post, you may also like to "dare un'occhiata" at these ones:
​Book in Progress: Italian Ways by Tim Parks
Book in Progress: Finding Me in France by Bobbi French ​
Recommended Reads: Come Away With Me by Karma Brown 
Recommended #Italy Reads: At Least You're in Tuscany by Jennifer Criswell
​Recommended Reads: A Zany Slice of Italy by Ivanka Di Felice ​

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​This post was inspired by Diane of the blog Oui in France, she wrote a similar post entitled "What I'm Really Thinking When You Correct My French" which I absolutely adore. I'm an extremely analytical person and a recovering perfectionist so I had to really renounce my innermost urges to default on these personality traits when learning a second language. Perfectionism does not suit language learning at all because you are going to make mistakes, be wrong, and embarrass yourself time and time again. Even now, I struggle to quiet that voice inside my head that is constantly critical of what I am saying in Italian. I know I just need to let it be. Anyways, here’s a little sampling of what I’m usually thinking when I’m speaking Italian…! 
​
“Non mi ricordo la mia password.”

Shit, is password a girl?

Isn’t there that rule about foreign words used in Italian always being masculine?

Ya, it's definitely a boy. There's a rule about it. IL meeting. IL film. IL computer. 

*feeling of complete and utter doom* 

But wait, there are always exceptions. 

Maybe this is an exception.
 
Please language God, make this be an exception. 

La password.

Il password.

La password.

They both sound good to me.

It was probably masculine.

Now I sound like a complete idiot...

​I need to redeem my credibility and linguistic skills by saying something really complex.

What can I say?

Oh I know! I’m going to throw in a subjunctive. Yes. That’ll be impressive.

“Penso che sia una buon’idea!”

Take that! Subjunctive master.

Why isn’t this person acknowledging my mastery of Italian?

There are even Italians who don’t use it when necessary and I just did, bow down!

Wait, did I mess up the gender of “idea”?

Shit.

I can’t believe I’ve studied Italian all these years and I’m having doubts about the gender of “idea”.

I’m the worst.

How is this possible?

I hate this.

*conversation ends*

I just had that entire conversation in Italian.

I’m a fucking genius.

I wonder if his English is better than my Italian…

I hope he has a super thick accent and can’t use phrasal verbs.

Phrasal verbs in English are hard.

I mean, practically very few non-native speakers can use them like we do.

English is so underrated in difficulty.

Italian verbs are definitely harder though, I should probably study them more.

Yeah, I’m going to study one verb a day, every day, FOREVER.

Who am I kidding…I’d rather go for gelato.
​
THE END. 

What about you? What would your dialogue look like? Let me know below! 

If you enjoyed this post, you may also like to "dare un'occhiata" at these ones:
Taking Risks in Language Learning
​Language Burnout
​The Gift of Language: Italian and Beyond
The Neverending Story of Learning Italian
Living in Italy, Speaking in English 
Parli Italiano? 
How to Keep Learning Italian in Italy

A note on the photo: I took this from an article that is equally interesting, called: Guest Editorial: Why is the Italian Language So Difficult to Preserve? It's quite an interesting read so if you have another 5 minutes to spare, check it out! 

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I've just arrived back in Italy and I'm writing this with a slight bit of jet-lag and a whole lot of homesickness. When you're an expat and you visit your origin country for an extended amount of time, leaving it almost feels like the official move all over again. I was feeling exceptionally teary at the airport and stayed that way the entire flight to Amsterdam. Once I set foot on European soil, it started to feel less like a going-away party and more like a homecoming; with Italy less than two hours away, the excitement of arriving back home outweighed the previous day's sadness. I thought for a fun post, I would list the ten things that I can't wait to do now that I'm back:

1. Speak Italian: in Canada, I did speak Italian with expat friends and with my husband, but you obviously don't do it "naturally" or in everyday situations and there's no need to either. 

2. Catch up on new Italian music: I'm a really big fan of Italian music, especially all those super annoying songs that come out every summer that basically just talk about well, summer. Take the new Tiziano Ferro song "l'estate è tornata e chiede di te..." (summer's back and asking about you). Profound right?

3. Eat slowly: it's impossible to eat slowly in Canada, even if you want to and especially if you go out with friends to a restaurant. I recently went out with two girls who both speak Italian, one took Italian with me in university and the other lived in Rome. All we could keep saying was "che palle" (what balls!) when the waitress wouldn't leave us alone. In North American fashion, she pressed us first on drink orders, then the main dishes, then came back every five minutes to check on how "everything was tasting" (surprisingly it tasted the same as four minutes earlier). This is considered good service across the pond but now I'm used to the Italian version of good service which is that you should feel completely at ease in a restaurant and the waiter should only appear at the most opportune of moments when you actually require something, otherwise he/she should essentially be invisible. 

​4. Eat well: I am so excited to eat well. By “well”, I’m not trying to say that the food in Canada is bad or tastes terrible because I had a truckload of amazing meals, especially all my favorite ethnic dishes that I can’t get here in small town Italy. HOWEVER, I missed the freshness and simplicity of Italian cooking. Once I finish writing this, I’m going to pop out into the garden and cut myself some salad which I’m planning on having with a farm-fresh egg and the first tomato (again, from the garden) of the season! Due to Canada’s weather, unfortunately this is just not possible most of the time there whereas here in Italy, it’s a reality for most of the year. 

5. Choose cheese: so the cheese variety in North America can be pretty depressing. I’m not talking about specialty stores, or cheese shops, or European markets, because I know there are places to get an assortment of cheese. But what I missed is just going into any random grocery store and finding a huge selection whenever you fancy.

6. Pronounce Italian words the right way: my goodness, I was getting sick of being corrected whenever I would say “bruschetta, panino, provolone” and the list goes on…we have adopted these Italian words into English but we apply our pronunciation rules to them and if you say them the right way, 99% of the time, you will be misunderstood and/or corrected by your server. FACE PALM.

7. Never having to use the term “day drinking”: so in Canada, we’re all obsessed with this phenomenon that is “day drinking”. Because for whatever reason, it’s considered rebellious to drink during the day so American English has literally come up with this term to describe exactly that…In Italy, no one is looking twice if you have a glass of wine, or two, at lunch. I once went out to a restaurant during my lunch break at work and saw a fellow with an entire bottle of wine to himself. No judgement at all and I appreciate that.

8. Neighborly chats: in Canada, we don’t chat to our neighbors. I know, it depends who your neighbors are and what kind of rapport you have with them but I just speak for my family when I say that we’re pretty closed up in our houses in suburbana bliss. We sometimes pretend not to see one another to avoid conversation. In Italy, I have to literally hide or wear camouflage in order to NOT have an hour-long daily conversation with my neighbors. It’s going to become over-bearing five minutes in, but I’ve put it on this list anyways!

9. Driving: I’ve adopted a more Italian-like driving style and I suffered alot in Canada from everyone following the rules and the speed limits. I’m excited to not feel guilty about going over the limit or not signaling 200m before your turn or refusing to let people in just because you can. 

10. My Italian husband: self-explanatory.


Did I miss anything? Let me know! Or else tell me what's on your Top 10 when you return to your adopted country! 

If you enjoyed this post, you may also like to "dare un'occhiata" at these ones or the Category "Expat Life": 

Annoying Things Non-Canadians Say About Canada 
​Two Sides of the Italy Coin 
​Dating Diversity: Italy vs. Canada (and North America)
My Canadian Identity Abroad in Italy: The Conundrum