The following transcript was generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Carlie: Hey there, it’s Carlie back with another episode of the Expat Focus podcast after I took a break to head down under to get married. Moving from a global advertising career to the ancient town of Monforte in Piedmont, Italy is today’s subject now. No, our guest did not buy one of those one Euro houses, but if you have done that, I would love to chat with you on the show.
American author Barbara Boyle did however move to Italy with zero Italian, and alongside her husband, they renovated a 300 year old stone barn. They also embraced the slow food movement and all the little quirks that come with living in a small town. Barbara, congratulations on your memoir “Pinch Me: Waking Up in a 300 year old Italian farmhouse.” How does it feel to be a published author? I’m guessing this is your first time.
Barbara: This is my first author. Thank you very much, and thank you for having me. It feels fantastic. I’ve been a writer my whole life since I was, could walk and talk basically, but was in advertising for 36 years, writing ads for people and always having a little blog or a journal or a, always something on the side. But to actually have a book that I could focus on now that I’m retired and concentrate on and have it published, it’s, look at it.
Carlie: It’s just if you are watching this episode on our YouTube channel, Expat Focus, Barbara is holding up a copy of her book. The cover is gorgeous and so is where you’re sitting. By the way, I’m guessing this is your 300 year old Italian farmhouse.
Barbara: It’s where I woke up this morning. My 300 year old it’s really a barn. There’s a home that was now the couple guest rooms. This was a barn for animals and cows and we still have the random attack from ants and strange little things left over. But what’s nice is it’s big, this ceiling, I think, can I tilt this? It’s really tall.
Carlie: Yeah. Take us on a tour.
Barbara: It’s funny. It’s very dramatic. And we put in, it’s very dramatic where the door was. We made a very classic kind of bay window ’cause cows didn’t care about the views, although it’s funny, the people here in Italy build homes protected by the sun and the elements, and they’d leave all this to the animals and us crazy Americans come in and say, we want the views and, we’ll turn on. We want the animals views, they have the best views. It’s a really lovely place to live. Because of that, it’s funky and different and built. It’s covered with stone. It was built in stone 300 years ago.
Carlie: Yeah. For the benefit of our listeners, we have incredible old stone walls and then this stunning, I’m guessing it’s like black iron staircase. It’s right iron behind you. On glass. Just beautiful. I wanna get into what it was like to choose that property and do the renovations, but first of all, before you made this move to a small Italian town, I believe it’s called Monforte in Piedmont. Am I saying that correct?
Barbara: Monforte. Monforte in Piemonte.
Carlie: Monforte. You were no stranger to Europe in your working life, and as you mentioned you worked in global advertising. Can you tell me a little bit about where that career took you?
Barbara: It really did take me out of, growing up in California, the Silicon Valley. Just had a little job in advertising, went to the big city, San Francisco, and then ventured out to New York. And that sort of evolved into a one year stint in Paris, which was really fun. And then I came back, worked some more in New York and had an opportunity to come work in Germany as a regional creative director for Procter and Gamble in that area. And did that for a few years. And that grew into being, coming back to New York and kind of doing all of the advertising for Pampers, which is a, the biggest brand at Proctor and Gamble. The nappies.
Nappies. I know it sounds random, but it was really fun ’cause we got to work with babies and they had wonderful creatives around the world. So I got to work with all of them. I was, I grew up as a creative, so I’m a creative director, but a really great group of people. So as a regional creative director also for having lived in Paris for a year and then back to New York.
Once we got the brand globally, I got to travel pretty much every week. I once got on a Lufthansa flight and I looked at the flight attendant and I said, oh, hi. I liked your haircut. And I went to sit down and went, oh my god. I know these flight attendants like colleagues, it was crazy. I got to travel a lot. That’s wonderful because you can go for three or four days to Istanbul or Cape Town for a shoot, or you go to Tokyo for a to do in-house visits of moms for a week. Then when you get back home, you go, oh, I wanna go back here for vacation, or I’d like to go back there.
And the first day, actually the first day of my job as a regional creative director. It was in Rome randomly. We just had a meeting there. So I flew from America to Rome and as the plane landed, I looked out and said, wow, I could live here. I just felt that feeling very comfortable. So for the next 20 years, I was traveling a lot and got to see all kinds of nice places.
And then when my husband and I. I retired in about 2010 and couldn’t work for a year, which was nice. They wouldn’t let me, they had on my contract, I had to
Carlie: Oh, you had one of those gardening leave clauses.
Barbara: One of those things that, yeah, they don’t want me going to another agency, which was nice. But so when we finally got married and went on our honeymoon, I’m like, let’s go back. I really liked, Europe and France. I loved living in France and I loved Italy. And we just fell in love with Italy from day one. But it was nice. It was a great opportunity. I felt really lucky.
Carlie: And what initially struck you about this particular town?
Barbara: I, the night we pulled into it was this kind of weather, which is quite rainy, dreary, cold gray. And so it was really nondescript coming up here and I’m thinking, oh my gosh, where are we going? I don’t really know this town. I don’t know anything about it. Is it, this is the end of our honeymoon? Is it gonna be just nothing to do?
As we got outta the car, this charming hotel and this lovely manager, Monica was so excited to see us, treated us like family and friends, and upgraded us to their nicest room, and we felt so special and beloved and it was a crazy rainy night. And I said. Can we just eat in the restaurant? And she goes, oh, we don’t really serve dinner. I said could you make a reservation for us somewhere? She says it’s Tuesday, so the town is closed. And I’m just thinking, of course. I did not think of that.
Okay. I said she goes, but there’s one restaurant and I’ll make you a reservation. I said, great. And then she says, you could walk. It’s only a kilometer now it’s pouring rain, icy and straight downhill. So I’m, and I’m from California, so I said, okay, is there a taxi? And she says, yes, but he’s in Milan. I’m like, how did you know he’s in? It’s just such a tiny community and such a sweet different world.
She says, but that’s okay. I’ll take you. So she locks up the hotel, drives us down to the dinner. We have this amazing dinner. At the end of the dinner, the chef comes out and goes, okay, come with me, and drives us back home to the hotel. By the chef. By the chef and the owner.
And the next morning we wake up, there’s this fabulous breakfast, like a mile long, all this food. It was lovely. And I realized we’re the only people in the hotel, all this. Oh, that’s why she knew our name, that’s why she upgraded us. So it’s really peaceful and quiet and we felt like there must have been 40 different options for breakfast and a waiter with a black, white tuxedo. And we just felt like royalty.
They really were so kind. And every day there was another three or four moments like that where we just went, this place is so sweet and lovely. And the food was extraordinary for a tiny little kind of farm, community town. It had world-class cuisine, elegant food great wines. So it was this extraordinary combination of very sophisticated cuisine and innocent kind people who like Americans still, and were happy to see us and were kind and thoughtful and we were just in love.
Carlie: And you are a bit of a foodie, so what is it about the regions of food and wine that makes it particularly special?
Barbara: Where we live is about 10, 15 minutes away from the, where the slow food movement was started in Bra and it is how they have lived forever, but they’ve formalized it and really support it. So what happens is all the food you get anywhere in the markets, even in the grocery stores, in the restaurants. Is local, is seasonal, is so delicious, is so fresh, and has this deep, rich flavor.
I’ll go to the market and come home with my veggies and they’re all covered with dirt, clinging to the roots because they were just fresh from the soil. In America, they’re all wrapped in plastic and clean and all that. And here you’re eating real terrific, locally grown, delicious food, and for hundreds of years, the Italian culinary culture is amazing. The food has just been refined to be perfect.
Their ragu, their, the way of making pasta is how their mother did it, their grandmother, their great-grandmother. So it’s pretty good. A lot of it isn’t made up on the spot. There’s some improvisation and certainly they respond to the season, but the food is just delicious and presented with love, not giant portions, just enough that you feel comfortable and full. And I love San Francisco.
I grew up there. I lived in New York, but we were back home to launch the book for a few months this winter. And it was just hard to get the same quality of like salads and meats and cheese is, everything is just, it’s incredibly good. I sometimes think, I imagine it and then I leave and come back and I go, Nope, nope. It’s just different here. So I love all of that very much. I respect it.
Carlie: And what’s your favorite food season? Because everything is so seasonal.
Barbara: I’m less enthusiastic about the cabbage and broccoli season, which we just, but even then, we make a lot of soups and it can be just fine. But, spring summer’s nuts is so good. And then in the fall, it’s, gosh, it’s about truffles and wine. How could, I was gonna
Carlie: say, do you have
Barbara: truffles?
Carlie: Sure.
Barbara: And maybe I think down my, oh, what a dream. I don’t know. We haven’t found them yet, but I think down the hill we have some
Carlie: amazing,
Barbara: yeah, they’re great. Okay.
Carlie: I want to talk about your 300 year old barn and how you came to decide that was your new home. Can I ask, was it part of that one Euro home scheme that Italy has and did you look into that? If it wasn’t?
Barbara: We’ve heard about that before and since giving them away for a dollar. And I think some of the more kind of distraught towns do that. And I’d say, God bless ’em. What a great idea. ’cause you can get fresh energy and money and it’s good for the economy and it’s a really good deal if you could get in on that. I would think where I live, where we live here is in Forte is PI is a pretty thriving, even though it’s not touristy, it’s a thriving wine area, so they don’t need to do that to attract people.
But there aren’t very many Americans and there aren’t a lot of people who would come here and take an old barn and fix it up. We were you. Maybe slightly out of our minds at the time, but also just thought it would be a fun project, so we went ahead and said we would do it and the cost of the property, which is, I think it’s a little over an acre, maybe an acre and a half, not sure ’cause most of it isn’t usable.
We’re all on a plateau. And then there’s a nice hill down below with just views and a nice hill up above. So it’s lots of views and it’s lots of tranquility. But it isn’t like tons of you, you couldn’t build another house here. And so we paid what you’d have to pay for a very nice car in America right now. More than a dollar, more than a thousand dollars, but nowhere near what you would pay for the same kind of thing in America and probably in other places in Europe.
So the trick was though, it was, took a lot of savings and time to make it habitable. The first thing we have to do is get a contract that says it’s for people, not animals. So we did that and meanwhile then we put on a roof. ’cause the. As tall as it is, the roof was just twigs from the valley and you could see the stars and stuff. But it was great for the cows and for the great airflow. Great airflow. Yeah. Sun. So you could see the stars at night, I imagine. But not good for sleeping when it’s rainy and cold.
That was the first thing we did, and over a couple years we had to keep digging into savings to put in walls and heating and windows, but it’s so much cheaper than you would ever have been able to do in the states and homes like this don’t really exist in the states, certainly not for less than a, as I say, a king’s ransom. It would be quite expensive. So it was an economical thing to do. And fun.
Carlie: And how did, I’m guessing you didn’t know anybody when you first moved there. No. So how did you go about finding trades and let’s face it, reliable trades. I live in France and it is like pulling teeth to even get a contractor to come to your house to give you a quote for a renovation, let alone locking them in. Getting the materials on time. Exactly. And the communication factor. I have so many questions.
Barbara: The year in, where in France are you?
Carlie: I am in the Alsace region. Strasbourg.
Barbara: Oh, beautiful. Yeah. And they have good, work ethics there. They’re got that hint of Germany going on. But let me know when you find someone, they’re not too bad. No, we we got very lucky. Our neighbors are fantastic. They actually sold us this house because the house was left. The old woman who was born here and died here 98 years later. Gave the house to them in her will because they’re so kind and so they’re still the best neighbors ever for us as well.
We met them the first day, so that was fortunate. Also, our realtor happened to know a builder and not an architect. It’s called a geometra. It’s one step down. So we worked with a really good geometra, our arc, not our architect. Our builder itself was fantastic. He’s from Albania and he’s really good at stones as you can see. And he can take an old wall that’s half built, put in stone, finish it and you can’t tell where he started and where the old stone wall left.
Carlie: Oh, that’s incredible. Seamless.
Barbara: Yeah. Amazing. And we find the work ethic here has been fantastic. People got would get here by seven 30, quarter to eight work until the sun went down, which is in the summer can be eight 30 or so and hot. They work very hard. It took 18 months. But we had some good subcontractors too. We have since met ones that are a little less expensive and a little more available ’cause we’re local now.
But we got lucky with our builder, with our the kind of group of people that we met in town again, ’cause they were welcoming to us and they wanted us here. And it was, to be honest, an influx of American money into a little town that noticed it. They’re not struggling here, but it was nice to have, a job for 18 months working on a house. So we got very lucky.
Also, my hu this wasn’t why, but my husband was a real estate developer. So he knows building a little bit. He, obviously he had, he didn’t do it with his own hands, but he knows what he’s doing. He knows what things cost. So that was a confidence. But I don’t think it would’ve made any difference. We got lucky with the people we met, and we have found that, even right now, there’s a problem with the downstairs bedroom.
There’s a moisture problem on the bottom floor. We called our builder, 10, 12 years later he’s here drilling away, trying to figure out how to make it completely waterproof and. They’ve become friends. Our electrician, our plumbers, all those guys, we call ’em up. They’re here within an hour, they’re really nice and very good. Very lucky.
Carlie: Oh that’s really good. Yeah. And how did you go with the language barrier? Did you have much Italian before you moved?
Barbara: Zero. You can tell your listeners, I’m holding up a zero. I knew the word ciao. I thought I knew the word arrivederci, but I didn’t really know what it meant. I could say Buongiorno, but I used it at the wrong time of day all the time
Carlie: Oh, I still do that in French.
Barbara: Do you speak French? I’m saying bonjour to people in the evenings. Did you know French when you went there?
Carlie: Absolutely not. I I chose Japanese in school over French and regretting that for the rest of my life. Wow.
Barbara: You must be brainy.
Carlie: That’s a language. No. I chose to learn Japanese. It doesn’t mean I was very good at it, but
Barbara: Wow. No, I knew I had, like you studied French though in college and lived there for a year, so I was pretty good. I’ve forgotten most of it, but I was pretty good the year I was there and I lived in Germany as part of my job for four years. So I just dived into learning that. Again, I can understand both of those still pretty well, but it, right now the front of my brain is Italian, so I’m like, yeah, I said understandable.
When we were looking at where we might maybe have a project as a second place. I was assuming it would be the south of France. I always wanted to live in Provence, and my husband said, yeah, but I like pizza. But I’m like, and I don’t know a word of Italian. I could get pretty good at French again. He goes, oh, okay we’ll look at both. But then I fell in love with Italy too, so we just started taking lessons, but as I look back, it was 2011 that we started after school.
You’d go to these evening classes for adults and books and do lingo. And I had a very good school in San Francisco. The Istituto Italiano Scuola (ISS). Anyhow, they’re fantastic. And I still have a teacher that I use on Zoom who lives in Italy through them. So we’re going through that school. So this, their teachers are great and you just study it, it’s been now 15 years and I’m trying to get my long-term per, on my long-term residence permit, so you have to pass some certain tests.
So we’re back taking classes at school and they’re free here. But that’s great. You take it slowly, you do the best you can and I’m not afraid to sound stupid, so I’ll just say stuff. And they’re so sweet here. They’re, I think the French are tougher on you unless your French is perfect. At least in Paris, they were like. I would say something in French, they would answer me in English and you’d be like, oh, sorry. And here they’re like, oh, that’s it. They forgive you and they work with you and figure it out.
So it was fun. It was, it’s a good project in my, this chapter in my life. The, towards the end of the book I’m learning it’s great to keep your brain fresh and learning and growing. Maybe I would’ve learned it faster when I was younger, but I’m pretty good at it now. Get by.
Carlie: Yeah, I feel the same in French. I have a long way to go, but I can hold my own at the supermarket.
Barbara: I used to say I have taxi cab, German taxi cab, French.
Carlie: Yeah. I am really curious, Barbara, you went from a globe trotting, high pace, high stress career to retiring in a small town in Italy. How was that adjustment for you?
Barbara: It was really welcomed or welcomed for me. It it’s funny, I have these flashes of when I was seven and eight, the kind of innocent time back in Silicon Valley when, it was sixties and fifties, sixties, seventies, where you’re still, I don’t know, washing your own kitchen floor. You don’t all have dishwashers. There’s a life’s a bit slower, a bit more, I don’t know, natural. And it’s a very comforting feeling.
Sometimes I stop and I realize I’m doing things by hand. I hadn’t done in years, and I find it more of a pleasure than I ever realized. I like that. I like the tranquility. It takes us always, whenever we’ve been back in the States for a month or two, we come back here. It takes a couple weeks to not be going, okay, we gotta go here, we have to go here, and where are they? And just go, ah, they’re not ready. We’ll call ’em tomorrow and just slow down.
And I find it, I find it joyous and peaceful and good. Every now and then you’re frustrated with things not getting done. It’s a very bureaucratic country. I think France is too, America has its own problems right now, so I would trade any of those for being here. We love it here.
Carlie: And what is your outlet when you do need that, more sense of busyness?
Barbara: There are computers everywhere now and when I need to. I’m way behind on most of my emails. And again, publishing this book was wild because, I thought I’d write a book, I’d mail it and wait for people to, to tell me how it’s doing. It’s not like that you’re out there walking around and meeting people and doing events. And talking, and I’ve been breathlessly busy for the last year really getting the manuscript finished and then getting it out into the states, into people’s hands.
There’s no lack of busyness from there. I miss a little bit working, I’m retired now and I people knocking on my door and going, hi, we need something done quickly. And what do you think? And do you like this? And how can you know? I like that kind of problem solving intellectual challenge still. But there’s enough of an intellectual challenge here, figuring out how to fix the plumbing or how to get your new garbage tax paid. It’s fun. Keeps you, keeps your juices flowing.
Carlie: Yeah, for sure. If you wouldn’t mind, I would like to touch on your breast cancer diagnosis, if you’re comfortable to talk about it.
Barbara: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
Carlie: It’s obviously something that people don’t see coming and can be quite a shock. And this is something that you were diagnosed with after you moved to Italy?
Barbara: Oh, yeah. You’re exactly right. I did not see that coming and. I hadn’t planned on it and it was, we’d just been fully settled here for about 18 months and we went home in the winter. I had a mammogram, did everything you’re supposed to do in March. Went back in the summer for our kids’ weddings for a couple weeks. But I just found myself really tired all summer and I couldn’t get my second wind ever, but didn’t think about it.
And just one day I noticed a small lump. Not a big deal, but I thought, oh, I’m sure it’s nothing. I was just seeing the doctor, so I let it go for a week or two, and then I started thinking, yeah, I better look into this. Found a doctor here, but it was August, so things close in France too. Throughout August,
Carlie: everyone
Barbara: goes on vacation for the month. Yeah. So I couldn’t really get in until early September and everyone was, I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m sure it’s nothing. And they did some tests, but they never did the biopsy, which was interesting. They did sonograms and different things and when they finally, I said, they kept saying, I’m sure it’s nothing. It’s tiny, blah, blah, blah. I said, maybe, but kinda like it out. Can we just like get it out, they go, sure, we’ll just take 20 minutes in visit. You don’t have to be under or anything.
And it took longer than they’d hoped. They were in there for a while and when I left they didn’t look quite as cheerful. So I’m thinking Uh oh, but it was three weeks before they got back to me and said actually it is malignant. So I knew, but I was hopeful. Everyone kept saying it’s nothing. And that was a shock. It really makes you just stop and realize. We’re immortal. We are not immortal. We are immortal. And you get your values pretty quickly straightened out.
And I said, okay, what do we do? And my husband and I just sat down and decided our son who was in med school at the time, is now a doctor, said to me, you need to go where you have the best support. And really that was the states, we realized that. So we went back to San Francisco and it was partly because I was a little frustrated that it took them so long to figure it out. Took ’em two months to realize it was cancer. And in the states you’d gone in, they’d have done a biopsy within a few days.
Also my Italian’s fine, but if you’re not feeling well and you’re going through what you have to go through to cure cancer, you don’t want any translation issues. Exactly. In that context, do you? So we closed up the house, rented back in the city for a year. And I went to UCSF, which they really do have the best doctors in the world, but they tied me into a very, like a world renowned oncologist in Milan. And I met with him several times and he was fantastic.
Just great. And they were all that same top level, so he just was a local guy if I needed something. But still, that was two hours away. And when we go back to San Francisco, the doctors are 10 minutes away. So we did the right thing for that year to be back in the States. And I think for really serious things, I would do, I’d go back to the states again.
I’ve whacked my head really badly with 13 stitches. I’ve cut my finger. We’ve had, my husband had a hernia. We’ve done some things here that are just fine to be done here, but I really needed to go back to where I could speak the language to where I have family and friends who were showing up every week with a chicken or a bag of groceries or, something to help.
And my husband had friends and family and support. I’d like to think this book is a story of of hope and inspiration and about following a dream and going for it. And that the exclamation point at the end is a breast cancer diagnosis, which just proves that this is not a fantasy, this is real. Bad stuff can happen and I was so glad I had this to look forward to the whole time to come back to, and I would’ve done it all again. You have to plan for these things. You can have terrible health concerns and maybe someday we’ll have to go back for longer, but for that year I was where I wish I should have been for the care.
I’m considered cured now, which is amazing. Seven years.
Carlie: I was gonna ask, what is your prognosis now?
Barbara: No I’m like anybody else? Apparently it was the, it was a, the most dangerous kind of cancer, most likely to come back for breast cancer is called triple negative. And they can tell me I’m cured, ’cause I, I’m like the rest of the population in that my chances are still very good. So that’s wonderful. But it, it was an exclamation point to make me say, okay, yeah, boy, am I glad we have this. What if we didn’t have it? It was something wonderful to hold onto during a rough time.
Carlie: For others who might be assessing Italy and looking at its healthcare system. You mentioned that things were a little bit slow from taking a biopsy to getting, the result, for example. What else for you was a consideration when you looked at Italian healthcare versus US healthcare?
Barbara: They have wonderful people here, caring wonderfully brilliant people, the oncologist was just as good as my oncologist at in at UCSF, but it wasn’t like an arm’s reach. Even when my husband had his surgery, he would go to, he had one guy meet with him and diagnose him. He had another doctor set up the appointment. He had a third doctor do the appointment and the surgery. And the fourth doctor, look at it, he never saw the same doctor.
And every time he would walk, there’d be a room full of 45 people waiting, taking a number like at the post office. So it was less handholding that we’re used to in America where they meet you, it’s the same doctor he is checking up with you. You’ll have other people doing things, but you have this sort of continuity of care, less so here. And then the people are good with it and they certainly have great care. I think it’s not quite as good as what I’m used to on a consistent basis, but I’m sure you can find it just for us for the big scary things.
Also because our language skills, aren’t perfect and we have the social, support of friends and family. The choice was to be treated for big things there, for the everyday stuff. They’re great. I cut my finger in a blender. I had it stuck my finger stupidly.
Carlie: Oh gosh. Isn’t that one of those nightmare injuries?
Barbara: Yeah. Sorry. And again, my neighbor to the hospital, it took three stitches and I didn’t even lose a fingernail, but it was right after I’d come back from chemo, so I was just still weak and stupid. And it couldn’t have been nicer. Faster cost, $20, the whole thing for the out of pocket $20. You can’t beat that for something like that.
Carlie: This is with like international health insurance?
Barbara: Yeah, it’s basically you just show up and they’ll treat you, I don’t think we even had health insurance at that point. We had it the first year and we let it lapse ’cause it cost about the same amount as Medicare and we just stay on our social, we’re on social security so our Medicare is covered for anything big. So yeah, I wouldn’t, for little things, it’s fine for the flu. In fact, it’s better if you have something like a, I dunno.
We had a guest staying with us and the baby had a terrible urinary tract infection in her diaper. She was, they and they had some medicine that had been prescribed to them earlier and they were out of it, we take them to our pharmacy, the pharmacist can hand them the new prescription and care for them right then and there. They don’t even need to go to a doctor and it’s open nine to five or eight to 10, so that kind of stuff. Everyday things, they’re in some ways better ’cause they’re right there and very kind and really capable. So it just depends for the big stuff. I’m happy to be able to come back to the States for now.
Carlie: Barbara, how did you go about making friends with locals in your new town?
Barbara: That’s a good question. It started, when we bought the house, I just fell in love with the little couple that sell, sold it to us, and that we ended up renting one of their rooms so that while we were working on the house, we could stay in their home, which was clean and functioning. We had our own little apartment attached to theirs, and so we had our own door to go in and out and all. But we got to know them. They’d invite us down for coffee or even though they didn’t know English and we didn’t know Italian, we just smiled a lot and ate food and it all worked out.
Those were our first sort of friends. Then our builder was great. And I find when you, it’s maybe like the same if you have kids. We don’t have little kids here. Our kids are all back in the states and grown up. But you go to school to pick up the kids and you meet the other kids’ parents, and the kids bring you together. And I found that same thing about working on the house, building a house. You meet the plumber, you meet the electrician, you meet the tile guy and his family, and you get to be friends with them.
So at the very end of when the house was done, a year and a half later, we had a big party thanking everybody and invited our neighbors and invited all the workers. And it just felt like we always knew them. It was really fun. Plus here, what’s nice, I love this area, is the little osterias and trattorias and the little cafes you go into. The same guy is there all day, every day. They don’t have different people coming. The family runs it and they’re there, so you get to know them.
We make a point of going around to all our favorite restaurants and cafes whenever we get back and just say hi again. You see them at the grocery store, then you see them in the Piazza, they’re having coffee and after work you see them at the Barolo bar, drinking wine and dancing on a Wednesday night. It’s really, it’s a small community. Our little town has little, about 2000 people in the bigger town. Actually our town has 300. So between them, it’s like a small, everybody now you know everybody, or they certainly know the Americans. But it’s like a small college campus. Wave and say hi to everybody and every time you go into town you see the same 500 people. It’s pretty nice.
Carlie: One of the things that made a really big difference for me was joining some local clubs and associations and joining local sports teams. Yeah I do a Friday morning run club, that sort of thing. Have you gotten involved in anything like that in your town?
Barbara: It was a while here when we were first here that I went with five other women to a Pilates class. Kind of not far from here. And that was really fun ’cause they’re just, we’re all sitting around with the lady that runs the bar and the hairdresser and the two people that own the main coffee place stretching and talking. And I felt really like a fish out of water language wise, but I just kept showing up and smiling and figuring out what they were saying. And you really do let your hair down when you’re in those kinds of classes. So that was fun.
As for, didn’t really have soccer clubs that we would join, certainly, but there’s enough events going on, there’s festa at the church and we do that kind of stuff. But I think joining is great. I’ve joined some, an expat, something into Torino and I’ve never really actually driven all the way to Torino to meet in some of the, activities, but they have a lot of them. They have, a couple of times a week a get together and things, and I think that could be fun.
Carlie: I’m guessing the Pilates class, for example, wasn’t as sophisticated as you might find in San Francisco in terms of, the facility and the energetic teachers.
Barbara: It was great. It was all kind of yoga based and emotional and no, it was terrific. They didn’t have all those recliner or what the, all those different machines that they have. But it was at a school in their gym and we’re all on our mats and, it was challenging. I loved it. It was actually my favorite time that she doesn’t, isn’t doing it anymore, which is a shame. I would love to. Doing that.
There is a gym I belong to down in another town, Dogliani. It’s a medium sized town, about a 10 minute ride. But the funny thing about them, unlike America, has 24 7 gyms. They open at nine 30, they close at lunch, they close on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sunday.
Carlie: This is one of my gripes, Barbara, about smaller French City gyms is they. They don’t like working out in the mornings? Nope. Before work. No. They all, and even when you can scan yourself in and go independently, the doors might not open till seven or 8:00 AM and I’m a 6:00 AM girl.
Barbara: We’ll try nine 30 to 12:30. Like really did. And I tell to them, did it ever occur to you to open on a Thursday? Just, I know it’s crazy, but maybe on Thursdays, just one more day a week so I could go. Is Thursday sacred? Is there a reason why Thursday is not a thing? No, it’s me. I didn’t set the hours, but it’s Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and it closes on Saturdays in the summer, and they’re closed for a month in December.
And, it’s just not the, in the apartment we live in San Francisco. 24 7. You go down to your gym. No, I love, I have a new appreciation for 24 7. Anything? No. I have an appreciation for the balance of life here. Don’t get me wrong. But if I go back to Australia, I’m hitting up 24 hour Kmart at two in the morning.
Carlie: Just because I can.
Barbara: Yes, you can. There’s no excuse for me. Not walking every day. So unfortunately I do that and it’s pretty hilly where we live. The whole thing about the Langhe, all the ridges and the beautiful views. There’s no level anything. It’s all, so that forces me.
Carlie: At least you get that automatic workout, right?
Barbara: Automatically. Yeah. Living your life Here, we have stairs again in San Francisco. Everything’s an elevator. Perfectly flat. Of course you’d be used to that. Yeah. You never twist your ankle anywhere here you’re like, whoa. At all times. It’s a workout, so it’s a different way of life. I gotta tell you, the people here are in good shape. These little ladies walking up and down the hills in their little heels to church every day. They live forever and they’re slender. Americans are really heavy and I, Australians are all amazingly in great shape, in my opinion. But the Americans, possibly, not all of us, but Americans could learn a thing or two from just living well and exercising in your daily life. Walking around, digging in the garden making your own lunch by hand, all that stuff. They’re not outta shape, that’s for sure.
Carlie: Barbara, if any of our listeners are aspiring to do what you have done and move to a small town in Italy, what would be your recommendations knowing what you know now?
Barbara: What I like to if I had to sum it up, I would say be open. In other words, I always wanted to live in France, but now here I am in Italy, ’cause that just worked out better. So if you have a plan, keep your eyes open. Listen, be aware, look for stuff, be curious, but be open to tweaking it and changing it as you go. Be humble in that. Know that you’re gonna make mistakes, you’re gonna sound stupid. Trying to learn a new language and it’s all okay. Don’t feel like you have to do it all perfectly and show up and it’s gonna work. Be humble in that. That didn’t work, or I looked pretty silly when I tried to do that.
And then it’s all worth it. Then I like to say, go native. When you get there, learn the language, understand the customs join in on the holidays, know what holidays they are, and do what the locals are doing. But then my final bit of advice is leave breadcrumbs. If you get halfway down the path and it’s not working, just find your way back. Have a place you can go back to until you’re really sure. Or, don’t put, don’t wake up one morning, take all your money, quit your job, and move someplace. Take it a step at a time until you’re really sure. And as you get there you know where you’re going. Once you’re two thirds of the way, then maybe you jump in with both feet at that point. But take your time, but do it. Heck do it.
Carlie: Just finally, Barbara, if one dish is going to convince someone to move to Italy. What do you think it would be?
Barbara: For me it was Ravioli del Plin, which are the most perfect little pieces of food on the planet. They’re little tiny ravioli that have been pinched on either side, so they curl up and the sauce they put that I prefer the best is burro e salvia, which is butter and sage. Simple. Simple. And in, I love like a burnt sage butter. Yep. Anything. Yep. This does even, they don’t even burn it, some do, but mostly here, they just melt the butter, a little sage, and inside the ravioli is a little bit of meat, lots of veggies, and the pasta itself is very eggy, very yellow, so it’s lots of protein and it’s like the perfect little pouch of food. I could live on that the rest of my life. Oh, I think it’s delicious.
Carlie: I need to seek this out. Ravioli del Plin, definitely.
Barbara, thank you so much for joining us on the Expat Focus Podcast to talk about your memoir. It’s called “Pinch Me: Waking Up in a 300 year old Italian farmhouse” and Your Life in a Small Town in Italy.
Barbara: Thank you so much. This was fantastic. Just the best. I really enjoyed it.
Carlie: That’s it for today. Be sure to roll back through our podcast archives where you’ll find more conversations about life in Italy. We speak to social media influencer Casey Rose, who chats about her move from the US to Florence and Ashley Barna gets real about what it takes to run a B&B in the Italian countryside. Be the first to know when new episodes drop by signing up to our newsletter. Just head to expatfocus.com/newsletter. And if you like what we do, we’d love it if you’d leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or however you like to listen, and I will catch you in the next one.