Expatriotical

Episode 14: What Saved My Expat Life in Italy

• Chandra Alley • Season 1 • Episode 14

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In the spirit of last week's episode, Chandra shares what saved her life (for 4 years) during her first expat adventure in Italy. Some of these cherished "life savers" have carried over to today, could be super helpful for you also, and may continue to be "life savers" well into the future!

Plus stay tuned until the end where you can learn about a special new feature on the Expatriotical podcast and have a chance to get free "merch" when you help us test it. This is a super fun episode you guys, listen in!!

 


Like what you hear? Text and tell me!

"Live and Travel in the Know" with Expatriotical!

Expatriotical- Episode 14: What Saved My Expat Life in Italy

 

Bienvenue, Benvenuti, and Welcome to Expatriotical, the podcast for expats, travelers, and other adventurous souls. I’m Chandra Alley and after living as an expat with my husband and 4 children in two different countries for almost 6 years, I’ve learned the arts of pivoting during pitfalls, travelling tastefully for less, and soaking in amazing new cultures without loosing your own.

 

Join me, as we dive into the joys and challenges of travel and the expat life in every episode!

 

Well hello everyone! Fancy meeting you here. So glad that you decided to tune into Expatriotical today! Today, I am going to do a spinoff from last week’s episode, which I had actually mentioned that I was eventually going do, but I just felt like I still had the inertia from last week coursing through me, so to continue in the same vain…

 

This week I am going to tell you about what saved my expat life when I was living in Italy. And honestly, I think this episode will be even more useful to you than last week’s episode, as there are several things that translate to living in any other country, even if that’s your home country.

 

Ok, so let’s just go ahead and jump in! The first thing is IKEA. Ikea has been a special place in my heart for awhile you guys. When we were so new in Italy, it was somewhere that I could go and feel like I was “home”, since there are thousands of Ikea stores all over the world. My first exposure to Ikea was when we first moved to Seattle and needed to furnish our bedroom with a dresser and night stands and that was all we could afford because we were newlyweds. So we went to Ikea to get them and I am happy to say that we still have them and they have held up in multiple moves, some of which where obviously to different countries.

 

But Ikea served a greater purpose in Italy, as my dear friend Jena and I would load our littles that weren’t in school up in her van and drive to Ikea and have like a mommy girl’s day. Any of our children that were potty trained could go into the IKea childplay area (Carson fondly calls that “kid jail”, where (even though he loves it, I have to put that caveat in there. He asks to go there) where employees would watch them play for an hour and a half and Jena and I could go shopping with one less child.

 

Then we would not only grab some household essentials, like ziplock bags (which where very hard to find in Italy), frozen meatballs, and pickles, and jelly, but also we would have an inexpensive lunch while there.

 

Chris and I would occasionally go on the weekends and make a date of it, doing our shopping, grabbing some lunch, and even getting a glass of wine, because in Europe that is also served there.

 

As a side note, here in Paris, I notice that so many students also flock to IKEA to buy their essentials. I hear English being spoken in with many different accents as roommates or friends shop around trying to make their new apartment a “home”.

 

I will add, as it is essential, that I am not an affiliate of Ikea or of any of the places or businesses that I will be mentioning at the time of this recording, I don’t get any kickbacks, I just simply want to share things that have been super helpful for me.

 

Number 2 on my What Saved My Expat Life in Italy list, was McDonalds. NOW, before you judge, hear me out! In 2006, when I was living in LA, I began to notice that anytime I had McDonalds, which really wasn’t that often, but regardless, anytime I had it, I felt like absolute “poo” afterward. And I remember talking to my bother about it and he was like, “Yeah, that’s because they put the pink sludge in their meat.” I looked that up on the Internet and was absolutely disgusted, so I stopped eating any form of meat from them and rarely ate anything their in general. Usually I might have a little bit of softserve and on occasion French fries.

 

In fact, the only time I ate a McDonald’s burger between 2006 and 2018 when we moved to Italy was on a road trip from Dallas to Arizona in 2017 to see my dad and stepmom. We were in the middle of nowhere, it was lunchtime, the kids where hungry and the only restaurant on my phone for the next hour or so of driving was McDonalds. So I gave in and ate there.

 

Fast forward to August 2018 living in a hotel room in Milan with 3 small children and no kitchen. I was constantly desperate to find a food establishment that was open at 6:00 in the evening (because Italians really don’t start eating until 7:00 and 8:00 is probably the more appropriate time for dinner) so that I could feed my kids, and then bathe them and get them to bed and there happened to be a McDonalds just two blocks away from the hotel. So one of our first nights, when tucked in there to buy our dinner.

 

Right away, I noticed it was different, there were beautiful cheesecakes, and tortes, and other desserts in a separate section called McCafe (but it really did look like a real café), where a barista was make espressos, and the occasional cappuccino for a tourist, because Italians don’t drink milk in their coffee after 11:00 in the morning, due to a belief that it is best suited for digestion in the morning and it was 6 o’clock at night.

 

Anyway, we ordered our burgers from a menu that resembled one in America, but had a section called McDonalds Signature with burgers the looked artisan crafted with something or like something I could get at a real restaurant. And when we tasted it, it honestly tasted different, better, fresher and I didn’t feel like absolute “poo” after eating it. We soon found out that Italy had very high standards and regulations for their food and McDonalds was simply not allowed to put all that other junk in.

 

So while, I didn’t love that we were eating fast food once every two weeks, I didn’t have a ton of guilt that I was feeding my children something potentially hazardous for their long-term health. And while I still don’t love eating there, when we are forced to find a quick bite, even here in France if McDonalds is all we can find, I’m not gonna balk and my boys are usually elated.

 

Moving on. Number 3 on the list in knowing cheeses. I’m not sure if I have ever mentioned it here on Expatriotical, but I love cheese. As a child, after learning something in science in school when I was 9 or so and not fully understanding, I exclaimed to my dad one morning when he said he wasn’t going to put cheese in the scrambled eggs, “But Dad, you’ll die without cheese!” A bit dramatic, I know, but it goes to show that I have always had a love for cheese, especially the cheddar variety, and I cook with it often.

 

The problem that I faced when I moved to Italy, was while there were more cheeses than I even knew existed, in literally every grocery store, cheddar was extremely hard to find. I mentioned in Episode 12- Take it At Your Own Pace- an interview with my friend Michelle Packer, the local market that we both went to called VG. At this market you could not get cheddar at all. I also mentioned a market called Esselunga in Episode 10- Hospitalizations- Chandra Edition, and there I could get slices of cheddar. But block cheddar, the kind you might use to make enchiladas, for example, was only found at store called Iper and it was only available on occasion and it cost a fortune! For about 6 oz. you would pay 4.00, probably 5.00 euro.

 

This left me in a real bind, as Mexican food is Chris’ favorite, I also love it, and it has always been something that my kids eat really well. Thankfully a couple of friends introduced me to using Asiago and eventually Cantal cheeses as a substitue. Ironically Cantal is a French cheese that some people even say in the French version of cheddar, which I actually haven’t really noticed here in Paris, because I can easily find cheddar in Paris, but regardless, learning about those two cheeses was a true life saver!

 

Number 4 is Amazon.it. By the way, I think that this is good time to mention that this list is in no particular order, just like last week’s episode, this is just simply the way things came to mind when I was making the list.

 

Anyway, Amazon.it became my best friend in the beginning of the year 2020. I had used it on occasion before, and especially liked that it was the only place in Italy where I could purchase something and then return it if I didn’t like it, it didn’t fit, etc… because in Italy, unless things have changed since I moved from there not quite 2 years ago, returning items for a full refund is prohibited. You only have 15 days to return something for an even exchange or a store credit. So this made Amazon very ideal when buying things.

 

But it was actually during the Covid lockdown of 2020 when I really felt a strong kinship, if you will, with Amazon. We celebrated 2 of my 4 children’s birthdays in lockdown and because of Amazon I was able to order decorations and gifts and make things special even under terrible circumstances. I also ordered a printer and ink to do home school- homework with- with my two older children, I ordered a lawn mower and rake for Chris to do yard work, and I ordered every day essentials like hair products, diapers and wipes, and Starbucks coffee (because I had discovered that I could get it there and I wasn’t allowed to drive to Esselunga anymore because it was outside of my community and the government prohibited it.)

 

I remember driving back from the MRI that I did, the one which revealed that I had had a stroke (once again listen to Episode 10 to learn more about that), and as I was driving I passed a semi truck with the Amazon blue colored trailer and Prime with the curved arrow smile written across the side and I started crying. I was so grateful in that moment for that company and that driver, one of many, that was making my life as normal as it could possibly be at that time.

 

Number 5 on the list is short and sweet and that was when I learned how to make homemade peanut butter. Peanut butter in Italy, really isn’t a thing. Nut butters in general are not, in fact the closest thing you can find to one is Nutella, which is tasty, but not a true substitute as it contains a lot more sugar and not as much protein. So finding a decent peanut butter was not only difficult, but also pricey. An 8 oz jar, that’s about 250 grams for my metric system listeners, cost about 5 euro.

 

My kids could go through one jar in 2 sittings, easily! So one day I looked for a recipe on Pinterest and found one. It did require time and effort, but for 3 euro plus a bit of my time, I could make about 1 kilo (or over 30 oz of peanut butter) and that litte tidbit saved my school lunch making life every week!

 

Number 6 is a big one guys! One that I think a lot of you who are listening now could really benefit from, if you aren’t already using it. And this is website/business called iherb.com or I HERB.com. According to their website, IHerb, I’m going to say “herb” because it makes you hear that “h”, but normally I would say “erb”, Iherb is a US company serving customers worldwide” that “ships to over 180 different countries.”

 

IHerb was crucial for me, especially during that years of 2020 until the summer of 2021, as we had not been able to go back to The States to buy essentials that we were used to having such as hard chewable kids vitamins, shampoo and conditioner for me (as I am of mixed nationality and my hair is neither fully Black or African American nor fully white or Caucasian.)

 

I also would sometimes treat the kids (and myself) to Annie’s Organic Mac & Cheese or Bunnies Grahams. Many times IHerb would be running a sale and they were always offering a deal on free shipping if I spent around 40 to 45 euro, they would ship for free.

 

Having access to niche products that I couldn’t go back to the states to get, was so crucial and I was so thankful to have been introduced to this website, in fact the only reason I am not still using them, is because we moved to Paris and they have Costco here, actually two, which obviously carries a lot of American products and essentials.

 

Moving on to number 7, which is the Chan Select from my very first episode: Who I Am and How I Started My Crazy Expat Life, and that is Ristorante Borgo di Vione. This amazing restaurant is the reason we started our Friday pizza night tradition during the Covid lockdown, because we could order pizza and they would deliver it hot and ready to devour right to our front door, which was great because we weren’t allowed to leave to go out to get it. And I know for any US listeners you’re like “yeah, that’s just what delivery is”, but that’s not a thing in Italy, you don’t usually have a lot of  “delivery” in Italy, so it was a big deal.

 

During this time the owner, Marco, still offered amazing menu selections with deliver for Easter and Mother’s Day, which was so special and felt like a treat not only because the food was amazing, but because we moms needed a break and not an extra weight of having to cook a huge feast added to our plates.

 

Ristorante Borgo was also a wonderful place for an impromptu date night when we could find a babysitter, because it was literally right around the corner from our house. So many memories of celebrations, hellos and goodbyes happened there and like I said in Episode 1, we felt like we became a part of the restaurant family there. Which is a really wonderful feeling when you are thousands of miles away from your own family.

 

The 8th thing that saved my expat life in Italy was a store called Decathlon. If you don’t have this store in your home or current country imagine your local sporting goods store, but with great items for a lot less expensive prices (at least compared to store in America).

 

From bicycles, to beach towels, tennis shoes to bow and arrows, I have bought a ton of different items from Decathlon and have been exceedingly happy with not only the low prices, but also the good quality. Every store I have been in is clean and organized, not only in Italy, but also here in France. I recently went there to buy things in preparation for school trips and end of year programs, and walked away with a bag full of items, the most expensive or which was only 17 euro.

 

Even my mom, who is visiting from the US and was with me commented on how inexpensive everything was. If you have seen one of these stores and haven’t yet been to one, I highly recommend you check it out.

 

Number 9 on my list is the Marco Polo app. This was introduced to me by my dear friend, Jena, whom I mentioned earlier in this episode, after she repatriated to America. I started using it to keep in touch with her and then quickly shared it with some other friends, and while I currently only use it regularly with my friend Tasha and on occasion with Jena, at the height of my use in Italy, it really helped me to feel connected with those friends that were far away. It helped to close the distance.

 

Now on to number 10. As I mentioned in last week’s episode Google Translate has been a mainstay in my life as an expat and definitely earned its place in this list as well. Italy was my introduction to this app and I used it constantly to read menus or street signs. To tell a taxi driver where to go or translate a request to a store sales rep. I have used it countless times, not only to translate things from Italian to English or French to English or even Spanish to English when Karen is here (again listen to last week’s episode to understand the reference), but also from languages that bare no semblance to English or a romance language, such a Greek.

 

Over Spring Break we went to Greece, a bucket list travel destination for me, made doable by a budget airline and staying in some booking.com accommodations, I’ll be having an episode or two on bucket list travel as an expat and tourism some time soon, so stay tuned for that. But anyway, when I was in the market to shop for food, I literally could make no sense of what things said, and I noticed other people whipping out their phones and using the camera function of Google Translate to also try to understand what they were purchasing. What a life saver!

 

Now granted, I didn’t use it every time and ended up buying a refrigerated version of chicken spam, when I thought I was buying ground chicken, but all worked out in the end and I am so thankful that I had the app!

 

And finally number 11 is the City Mapper App. When I first moved to Milan, the Apple Maps app, was not very reliable. It worked ok for driving, but was lacking when it came to getting around the city by public transit. Thankfully only a week or two into living there, my friend Marny told me about this handy dandy app, and my life of carting around two little boys to do errands whilst pregnant, not only got easier, but also more time efficient and I discovered that CityMapper was growing and worked in a lot of other cities. London, Rome, Florence, you name it, the app knew the way to get you around the city.

 

And even though the Apple Maps app has improved, I will still sometimes break out City Mapper to verify if a metro line is really down or to see if it can show me another route to take to get somewhere. It’s worth the download the space on our screen to have it in you back pocket whenever you need it.

 

Woo! Ok all, we made it through the list and I hope that there was at least one thing that you can take away with you today and apply it to your own life to make it easier, even if only by a bit!

 

Now for today’s “Chan Select”! Since this episode focused on all the things that saved expat my life in Italy, I thought it would be fitting for an Italian restaurant, actually located in Paris, to be this episode’s “Chan Select”. The restaurant is called Gruppomimo, (I’m going to say Gruppomimo in my regular American accent.) And they actually have eight different locations throughout Paris. But the one we go to is in Levallois Perret. It is our family’s favorite and it’s the closest pizza that our family has tried to what we had in Italy.

 

And for the first time this last weekend I had some of their pasta. It was  delicious! It was a creamy truffled spaghetti prepared and tossed inside of a cheese wheel of Gran Padano cheese. The servers are friendly, the portions are generous, and the ambiance is fun, quirky, and eclectic and yet also very classic and like retro-chic. And the food comes in a flash!

 

I highly recommend it if you have an extended visit here in Paris, or if you live here and want a break from the traditional French fare. I will include their website link and their Instagram handle in the show notes.

 

For our quote of the day, I also wanted to keep it Italian-centric, so I drew from a famous American actor who lives part-time along the shores of Lake Como. If you’re thinking his name is George you are right. George Clooney is usually either loved for his acting or loathed for his politics. Personally, I know little of his politics and adore his acting so I fall in the first group.

 

He has owned his own Italian villa since 2001 and has had plenty of time to absorb the culture. In an interview with Healthy Living and Travel he said, “Italians have taught me about stopping to celebrate life. I love the way life is spent in Italy… it’s about taking time and enjoying things.”

 

And after 4 years of living there, I would say that is absolutely true. Honestly everything takes longer in Italy, the bureaucracy is very thick there and it’s something you just have to deal with. But when it comes to sharing a meal with family and friends and spending time with one another. There is no rush and it is simply wonderful to sit and enjoy amazing food in the company of delightful people. Italians have truly mastered this and I also love it!

 

Ok guys, that’s it for today! I hope you have enjoyed this episode and if you have, I have a fun new way for you to let me know! When you open your podcast app to this episode of Expatriotical, at the end of the show notes you will see a link that says “Like what you hear? Text and tell me!” if you click on that link it will open up your SMS app and you can text me your comments.

 

And as a fun thing, if you liked this episode about all the Italian things, if you send me your email address in that text, I will email you a really fun, weekend, long weekend itinerary for visiting the city of Milan. It’s my first on ever and I’m super excited to get it out to you. So again text me using the “Like what you hear? Text and tell me” link in the show notes.

 

Now, as I disclaimer, I am not sure how many countries this works in, I tried it myself and because of my cell phone or mobile phone plan, it did not go through. But, don’t let that discourage you from trying this fun new feature! Standard text messaging charges may apply. But it may also be free!

 

And I will also put another disclaimer. If you try it and it doesn’t work feel free to DM me on Instagram with your email address and I will shoot you this fun itinerary as well!

 

Thank you all so much for listening and helping to build this community of people helping other people! I’ll see you hear again next week and until then this is Chandra Alley reminding you to “Live and Travel in the Know” with Expatriotical!