Landlords: Italian Style

When you tell people you are moving overseas, everyone has a story to share.  A LOT of stories were about people being adopted by the Italian landlord and becoming part of the family.  This was a lot of people’s favorite part of living overseas and embracing a new culture. When we were looking at different places to live this was always in the back of my mind.  Did the family seem nice and inviting?  So naturally, I feel in love with a place that didn’t have the typical type of landlord.  We have an older gentleman that seems a bit intense.  Not the come to my house for dinner type of guy, although he melts when it comes to the baby.  I was afraid that by choosing this house, we were going to miss out on a real opportunity to “live” in Italy.  I don’t want to miss anything with this experience! But the house was perfect in all other areas,  I mean, who could resist the pizza oven? 

So, my fears were calmed during moving day!  We have very friendly neighbors.  Two families are military and one neighbor is Italian.  The Italian lady, who lives next door is named Rita and is very inviting.  She does not speak English which makes things even more interesting!!  During the move-in, she invited me and the baby into her house so that we would be warm.  And she made Matt and me big bowls of spaghetti for dinner.  Since we got here, she has done lots of little things to help such as try to fix our hot water heater, buy the baby warm hats and clothes because she doesn’t think we keep her warm enough, ordered the gas for the house, and watched our house!  I am pretty sure she knows everything that goes on in our little neighborhood!  SO even though we don’t have the landlord who wants to adopt us, we have a neighbor who does!