In many Eastern European countries, if you come to somebody's house and they offer you a cup of tea, it is considered impolite to accept immediately. You have to decline a couple of times, saying you don't want to bother the host, then eventually continue declining but with less emphasis, which means that you actually want a cup of tea. For a German who asks one time and expects to...

Do you have a dream country you want to move to? You have traveled there several times, you have figured out the paperwork, you already found a place to stay. You move there full of hopes and expectations. What can go wrong? The culture shock. It may take a few weeks or a year, it may feel like homesickness or develop into a depression. It depends on many variables but...

This is the second part of this post about being a happy expat in Italy. You can find the first part here.   6. Don’t be a guest   Even if you don’t want to spend the rest of your life in Italy, act as if you came here to stay. Our brain fatigues too much when we struggle to make a decision so convince it this is home.  ...

Your lifetime dream is to move to Italy and you are opting for the capital? Here are some things you should know before moving to Rome. Cost of life, cleaning, strikes and "sampietrini" cobbles are part of the Roman routine. To make them easier to remember, a Roman hill was associated with each one of them. 1. Cost of life in Rome – Caelian hill Milan and Rome are the...