Why Turin and a simple salad of Bresaola with Arugula and Parmigiano Reggiano.

Plus, a bit of This & That.

Why Turin

Once we decided to take the giant leap and move to Italy, the next step was figuring out where exactly to go, as there were many factors to consider. Although only the size of California, Italy is a vast and beautiful country where so much changes from region to region, city to city, and village to village. The food, oceans, mountains, and rich history calling at you from all angles! At the beginning of our journey, we had a very romantic idea of where we might want to live, but we soon realized these were different from the places we should be living full-time based on our family's needs with three young children. While we love Puglia in the south, where Andre's Italian family lives, jumping into a rural, slow-pace setting would be extremely hard for us to adjust to. The resources and options for the kids and us are limited, and we were looking for a balance between our previous life and access mixed with our new desired experience. We decided to focus on northern cities, which tend to have more opportunities, services, organization, etcetera. In the end, a few factors played the most significant roles in our decision to move to Turin. 

As an Angeleno and New Yorker, we initially thought Milan would allow for the softest landing, giving us time to adjust to a way of life different than what we've been used to for so long. Milan has a solid international community, an incredible and diverse food scene, more services and resources we're accustomed to, several international and bilingual schools, and easy access to an international airport. No more are the days when Milan was just an industrial city. It's a happening place; culturally and experientially, it's like the equivalent of an LA or NY to America. In the same way, these cities are not really America, Milan is not really Italy. It has plenty of elements of Italy, but it's different from anywhere else in the country, and it truly is its own great thing. Unfortunately, it's also become a costly city to live in full-time. When we ran the numbers in detail, living in Milan would still mean keeping our costs high (though slightly less than in LA) and being in a purely urban environment with three young boys. Our high cost of living already felt so stressful in LA, let alone an entirely new country with a new language and trying to manage all that comes with navigating a foreign land! Andre's close friend, Erin, moved to Turin 5 years ago with her son, loved it, and suggested we consider it an option. So Andre went to see if it could be a good fit. It was a lot of long calls in different time zones relaying all the feelings, thoughts, and emotions in real-time of the positives and negatives. For all the reasons below, we decided Turin was a great place for us to begin again and the right place to start for our kids.