Our Moderators
When this website was started it was basically a one woman show. Once our forum took off though I needed a few extra hands. Those helping hands came from a born and bred Italian and a born and bred Swede. In August 2005 we added a little testosterone to the mix. I hope that you appreciate their contributions to the board as much as I do.
INTRODUCING - ANNIKA
I am a visionary and a dreamer, a perfectionist and a planner.
I was born and raised in Sweden by a Swedish family, and I am still living here with my husband and our sweet son Alexander, who was born in the year 2000.
My heart belongs to Campania, to the vivacious Naples and the alluring Amalfi Coast. I have promised my volcano-lover son that some day we will climb Mount Vesuvius, and he and I are equally fascinated by Pompeii. He insists that the two of us have lived there once, and who knows?
The beauty of Tuscany and green
Umbria is unquestionable and breathtaking in its serenity and smoothness, but there is something about the wildness of the untamed rocks around Amalfi that fills me with pure joy. Tuscany calms and soothes me, but Campania fills me with energy and life.
Before going to Italy I spent countless hours doing research, reading books, browsing the Internet in three different languages, trying to learn as much as possible.
My first trip to Italy was in June 2006, and many will follow! The photo shows me in Rome, in April 2007.
My ultimate dream is to move to Amalfi and run my own beauty salon, a beauty salon that is not only about how you look but also about how you feel. I believe in having a holistic view, and all in all I am very interested in different alternative treatments and methods. I achieved my Level B European Hairdressing Certificate in April 2007, and am now working at a local salon and running a Swedish website for curly hair. One way or the other I am going to finance that place in Italy one day!
I believe in: Fate, happiness, passion, freedom, the good in people, reincarnation, pleasure, life lessons, sunshine, energies, spirituality, beauty, intelligence, following your dreams and pursuing your goals, making things happen, taking chances, preparation, taking responsibility for your own life.
I do not believe in: Coincidence, luck, evil, God, guilt, shame, borders and limits, living for others, cold weather, good things coming knocking on your door if you just sit and wait for them.
INTRODUCING - ALICE TWAIN
Alice Twain started studying at 11 and 25 years later she's not 
yet done with it. That's what pushed her to join English-language forums. She is Italian and lives in Milano, working as a freelance typesetter for several publishing houses and wishing to travel more.
She likes to knit, cook, eat, read, sleep, discuss politics and feminism, western movies, Philip J. Farmer, tea, and sushi. She hates personal fights, dancing, loud people, cars, hypocrisy, discriminations, sports, salmon, and censorship, but she still puts up with some of these things.
Alice twain's real name is Silvia and she lives in Milano with a mother, a granny, a too big stash of knitting yarn, lots of books, and a subway pass. her blog (mostly in Italian) is A Typesetter's day
INTRODUCING - TINA
My body was born in Seattle, WA - while my soul was born in Italy. I live between the US, Italy and Argentina. No, I am not a "rich" woman of leisure - I'm a very hard worker who believes in making things happen because I want them to.
Raised in a true (Toscana/Piemontese) Italian-American family, I've always had the fortune of being close to Italian culture, language, history, food...
No matter what I do in my life, I always find myself coming back to Italy. Last September I even relocated to Perugia (Umbria) where I spent almost 6 months, before changing directions and moving to Buenos Aires instead.
Now I use Seattle as a homebase, while spending as much time (month minimum) as I can in Italy and Argentina, my two loves. My goal is to work freelance as a translator so that I can live either half-time or full time in those two beautiful countries.
I enjoy dancing Argentine Tango, reading maps, blogging, discovering new places, making pasta by hand, and drinking red wine.
I believe that there is no such thing as coincidence.
INTRODUCING - GIL
I am the husband of a wonderful woman. When our youngest child started college she went back to college to get certified as a teacher and get her Master’s Degree in Special Education. She is currently teaching special needs children. Prior to that she worked for me for no pay as she stayed home raising our two beautiful children. Our twenty nine year old daughter is also a teacher. She is teaching special needs preschool children. Our twenty seven year old son is a computer programmer working for a major defense contractor as a program manager outside of Washington, DC. Me, I’m a cranky old guy who for the State of Connecticut‘s Utility Regulatory Agency for too many years. I currently have a small tax and accounting practice and am not trying to set the world on fire.
After coming back from the dead in April, 2004, I have a completely new outlook on life. I survived (thanks to my wife knowing CPR) double pneumonia, fungus infections in my lungs, a slight heart attack, etc. All of this is the result of many years of smoking cigarettes. Even though I now have chronic bronchitis, asthma, COPD and diabetes, I am now very lucky to be mobile
.
I am the son of a Neapolitan Father and a Sicilian Mother. My daughter spent her junior year (1997-1998) of college studying in Florence at Middlebury College’s Florence branch and at the University of Firenze. That is when my wife and I first visited Italy. We went for two weeks around Easter and toured from Venice to Sicily and back to Florence. We visited my grandfather’s hometown outside of Naples and both of my grandparent’s towns in Sicily. When my grandparents left Italy they were so happy to become Americans that none of them really had a desire to return and as children we believed that it was not a place to go. I can still remember getting together stuff to send to the poor family members still in Italy during the 1950’s. My father was a physician specializing in Psychiatry and Neurology. He went to Medical School at the University of Naples as his mother’s brother was a professor there and he got in for free as the family was too poor for him to go to Medical School in the US. He graduated in 1939 and returned to New York on the last boat before the war broke out. He never returned until 1974 when my youngest sister finally got married.
My wife and I have been to Italy for quite a few vacations and just love it. After visiting our daughter in 1998 we have been back in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005 and 2006. We didn’t go in the summer of 2003 because of a reaction to a new diabetes medicine and we missed 2004 because of my cigarette induced death. We have plans on returning in June, 2007, for a few weeks as soon as school gets out. We will probably limit this trip to Naples, the beach and maybe Florence. In future years we hope to vacation in the Fall and explore more of Sicily.
I believe in God, freedom and that people should volunteer in something for their church, community, friends, Expats, etc. Besides my family and life, I enjoy freedom, Italy, Italians, automobile and boat racing.
I dislike greedy people, especially those who want to make big money but want to spend little money for goods made by poor, suppressed workers in third world countries. Also, I dislike the United States current method of trying to win friends in the world we live in.
INTRODUCING - CRISTINA
Expats in Italy was started by me, Cristina Fassio, in 2004 after having hosted moving to Italy information on my private website for more than 5 years. In the summer of 2004 we also moved the Living in Italy/Moving to Italy forum that I had been moderating over at SlowTalk to its own server which is now ExpatTalk.
My goal has always been to help people sort out all of the little things that make moving to a new country so difficult. I remember having to go shopping when I first arrived and I could not figure out what type of soaps I should get, what type of milk, etc. etc. Oh and don't get me started on when I had to pay a bill for the first time.
Hopefully with this site and the forum we can help the future expats make the transition easier as well as helping each other out with the day to day things that can still get confusing.
You can read more about me in my Expat Story
