Esterina’s Perspective – esterinaanderson.com

I Came to Italy Looking for the Mediterranean Diet

Posted on 09/22/2026 by Esterina Anderson

Nearly 7 months later, I’ve not found it. Not because vegetables, beans, olive oil and whole foods don’t exist here, I mean of course they do. But what Americans call “the Mediterranean diet” and what I’ve encountered while actually living and traveling in Italy are two completely different things.

So how exactly did Americans like me come to believe that Italians eat the way American nutritionists tell us to eat “Mediterranean”?

Where is the Mediterranean diet?

I’m standing in yet another Italian breakfast bar. The case is filled with cornetti (croissants): plain, cream, chocolate, pistachio, Nutella. I watch person after person order one with an espresso, eat it standing at the counter lickety-split, gulp down two euros’ worth of teeny-tiny espresso and take off like their pants are on fire.

Me? I’m still looking around for something to eat and wondering: Where are the whole grains? The fruit? The protein? For Pete’s sake, where is the fiber?

I came here believing I was moving to the homeland of one of the world’s healthiest diets. After six and a half months, I’m starting to wonder whether the Mediterranean diet is something Americans think they should eat because Italians supposedly eat it and are, supposedly, healthier for it.

First surprise: This is breakfast?

Breakfast is not really a thing here in Italy. At least not the kind of breakfast I know. In fact, it’s pretty much the antithesis of everything I was taught about a good start to the day.

For “food,” there’s a cornetto, pastry, dry (and I mean dusty kind of dry) cookies or biscuits, Nutella, white bread or rusks, and maybe some jam. This is washed down with a sip of teeny-tiny espresso, even smaller than the shot (or two, or three) we ask to be added to our drip coffee at the coffee shop when we need and extra boost. Sweet thing in one hand, coffee in the other, eaten standing up.

Unless I eat at home or stay in a hotel that offers a full breakfast buffet, finding breakfast as an actual meal is mostly not possible. We’ve taken to bringing our own fruit, oatmeal and yogurt when we travel. Even in tourist areas, there may be one or two places with something resembling pancakes. And the closest thing to pancakes by-the-way, may be crêpes – with Nutella, of course.

To be fair, Italians aren’t trying to make breakfast a balanced meal. It’s small by design. Dinner tends to be much, much later, and maybe people just aren’t that hungry first thing in the morning. It’s culturally different from the American expectation of what breakfast should be.

But I still can’t help wondering: If breakfast isn’t where the fiber, fruit, vegetables or protein are coming from, where are they coming from?

Seriously. Where is the fiber?

There is a lot of bread in Italy, as you might imagine. A LOT. But so much of what I see is white bread, white pasta, pizza, focaccia and cornetti. Refined flour everywhere. I continue to be surprised by how difficult it can be to find whole-grain choices, especially when we’re traveling.

I’ve heard about the Mediterranean diet for years. I was imagining beans, lentils, chickpeas, vegetables, whole grains and nuts. Weren’t you?

And I’m not just talking about restaurant food. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time with my family in Calabria, in the south of Italy – the very part of the country that figures so prominently in the Mediterranean-diet story. I can’t remember ever being served legumes. I ate fish with them once. Their staples are cheese, salami, cured meats, beef, pork and pasta. When I told them I’m mostly vegetarian, they were unsure what to say.

Being mostly vegetarian in the land of the Mediterranean diet

“Whata? You don’ta eata the meata? Butta why? I don’ta undastanda!”

And then sausage appears anyway. There is genuine bewilderment. Head pulled back. Confused look. Sometimes I think they assume something has been lost in translation, because I’ll turn my head and when I look back there are meatballs, pork, salami or cured meats on my plate, food I am certain I didn’t put there.

I’ve tried explaining that I limit meat for my health, that too much bothers my stomach, that I love animals and prefer not to eat very much of it. This mostly seems to make me more of an alien.

And that got me thinking about something I hadn’t considered before coming here. Nutritionists have turned the Mediterranean diet into a health practice. I haven’t encountered many Italians who necessarily think of their food as an avenue to health. Food is family, region, pleasure, identity and tradition. Health has little to do with it.

The Mediterranean Diet™ vs. the Italian diet

The “Mediterranean diet” described in American health literature really does exist. It’s a defined way of eating built around vegetables, fruit, legumes, whole grains, nuts and olive oil, with relatively little red and processed meat.

Where I went wrong was assuming that meant: This is what people living in Italy eat today. It doesn’t.

The idea of the Mediterranean diet grew out of research beginning in the 1950s, when American physiologist Ancel Keys studied populations in places including Southern Italy. The people he observed ate lots of vegetables, beans, grains, bread and olive oil, with relatively little meat, dairy or sugar.

But there was another piece of the story I had never really considered: they were eating this way partly because of the realities of the time. Meat was expensive, most people were relatively poor and they were far more physically active. Food was local and seasonal. What we now romanticize as cucina povera was quite literally the food of people who didn’t have much money.

Over time, researchers took the healthiest parts of that way of eating and developed them into the dietary pattern we now call the Mediterranean diet. Meanwhile, Italy changed. Economic prosperity made meat, cheese, sweets and other once-limited foods much more available. Lifestyles changed too. Researchers even returned to Nicotera, Calabria—one of the communities involved in the early Mediterranean-diet research—and found that by the 1990s the people living there had moved substantially away from the eating pattern observed decades earlier. Suddenly my experience in my homeland region of Calabria started making a lot more sense.

The Mediterranean diet is a dietary pattern inspired by how certain Mediterranean populations ate at a particular point in history. It isn’t a promise that this is how people living around the Mediterranean eat today. Apparently I arrived looking for a diet whose heyday I missed by about 70 years.

Wait—Italy has an obesity problem?

In my mind’s eye, I pictured this glowing, healthy, slightly tanned population with shiny hair and beautiful skin, nourished by olive oil, fresh produce and lots of legumes. Then I got here and looked around. Eventually I started looking at the numbers (my old data analyst job in my bones).

In 2023, 19% of Italian children ages eight and nine were overweight and another 9.8 percent had obesity. More surprising to me was where those numbers were highest. Italy’s national health institute reports a clear geographic divide, with childhood excess weight more common in the south.

Campania is particularly striking. In 2023, 24.6% of children were overweight, 12.6% had obesity and another 6% had severe obesity. That’s more than four in ten kids. Sicily was also above the national average, with 33.9% of children carrying excess weight.

These are some of the very places we picture when we talk about traditional Mediterranean eating. Adults have a similar story. National surveillance data from 2020–2021 found that about 43% of Italian adults ages 18–69 were either overweight or obese, again with excess weight more common in Southern Italy and Campania recording the highest prevalence.

There is an important caveat: Italy isn’t simply getting fatter every year. Childhood overweight has actually fallen since national monitoring began in 2008–2009, and childhood obesity declined from 12% to 9.8%, although that decline has mostly leveled off since 2014.

So this isn’t a story about Italians abandoning the Mediterranean diet and suddenly becoming obese. It’s more complicated than that. None-the-less, I still find the contradiction fascinating. Some of the places most closely associated in our imagination with the famously healthy Mediterranean way of eating are now the same places struggling the most with excess weight.

Fresh doesn’t automatically mean healthy

Americans romanticize the idea of fresh food in Italy: locally made sausage, fresh mozzarella, handmade white pasta, bread baked just this morning, local wine, prosciutto from the guy down the road….

While all of these things are indeed fresh, traditional, local and absolutely delicious; none of those adjectives automatically makes something healthy. I think as Americans we may have bundled local + handmade + European + traditional together and somehow arrived at healthy. Apparently, if the pig lived within a 20-kilometer radius and someone’s nonno personally turned it into sausage, the saturated fat no longer counts.

We do the same thing with bread. At home we know that for better health, white bread should be replaced with whole grain. But white bread made this morning by a fourth-generation baker in a tiny Tuscan village? Suddenly we’re discussing the craftsmanship. The flour hasn’t magically acquired fiber because I can see a bell tower from the bakery.

And then there’s cheese. Fresh mozzarella may be worlds apart in taste and processing from an individually wrapped slice of American cheese, but that doesn’t transform cheese into broccoli. Local wine doesn’t become water because the grapes grew on the hill behind the restaurant. Prosciutto is still processed meat even when you know the name of the farmer—and possibly the pig.

None of this means these foods are bad or that we shouldn’t enjoy them. I certainly have. It just means fresh, local, traditional, artisan are not synonyms for healthy. Sometimes a beautiful loaf of bread is simply a beautiful loaf of white bread, and a locally produced sausage is still… well a sausage.

And then there is the wine

For decades, wine, particularly red wine- somehow earned a supporting role in the Mediterranean health story. Many of us grew up hearing that a glass of red wine with dinner was actually good for us. And some of us (my hand in the air) assumed that if one glass is good, more is even better and developed a problem.

It was part of the image: fresh vegetables, olive oil, a little fish, a leisurely meal and, naturally, a glass of local red wine. Very civilized, very European, and practically medicinal! Except the health conversation around alcohol has changed. The supposed protective benefits of any kind of drinking have come under increasing scrutiny, and major health organizations now emphasize that alcohol carries health risks even at relatively low levels of consumption.

That doesn’t mean no one should enjoy a glass of Chianti. It means that being local, traditional and served beside a bowl of olives doesn’t turn alcohol into a health food. Wine is also part of the culture here in a way that’s difficult to appreciate until you’re living in it. It appears at lunches, dinners, celebrations, tastings and family gatherings, and declining it can sometimes generate considerably more interest than I ever expected.

Somehow, I’m the nutritional oddball

One thing I didn’t expect was how often my food choices would become a topic of conversation.

Saying I don’t eat much meat can be met with genuine bewilderment, often followed by another attempt to feed me meat. Looking for whole grains or asking about vegetarian options can make me feel like I’ve announced some complicated dietary disorder when really I’d just like to eat some greens sometimes.

I’ve had people seem almost concerned about what I eat while I’m standing there wondering how I’m the nutritional oddball in this situation. To be fair, this isn’t everyone. I’ve met Italians who eat very differently but it’s not the norm and it still has surprised me.

Before coming to Italy, I assumed that being interested in vegetables, legumes and whole grains and eating less meat would make me fit naturally into Mediterranean food culture. Instead, at times, I’ve felt remarkably American for wanting to eat the very foods Americans have been told are Mediterranean.

My unlikely Italian health-food store

After all my romantic expectations of shopping in tiny Italian markets, one of the places where I’ve most reliably found hummus, vegan products, whole grains and other foods that work for me is… Drum roll, please…

Lidl. Yes. Lidl.

Oddly enough something interesting I notice at Lidl is that the shoppers seem much more internationally diverse than what I encounter in many traditional Italian grocery stores. I hear different languages and see people from many different backgrounds. And the store itself feels remarkably like Lidl in the U.S., right down to the coin for the cart and the warehouse look.

But here’s the thing: I can consistently find whole-grain fresh bread, hummus, tofu, vegan products, smoked salmon and other staples that are either nonexistent or require way too much hunting in some traditional Italian grocery stores.

I moved to Italy and apparently found my health-food haven in a German discount supermarket. I did not see that coming.

So was the Mediterranean diet a lie?

Not at all, but I did misunderstood what the name meant.

There is good evidence behind the dietary pattern we call the Mediterranean diet. Its historical roots in Mediterranean communities are real. Those diets really did feature olive oil, vegetables, legumes, nuts, fruit and whole grains. What isn’t true is the assumption I brought with me: that modern Italians necessarily eat this way simply because they live by the Mediterranean Sea.

And I don’t think I was completely crazy for expecting to find it here. Americans constantly hear “Mediterranean diet” accompanied by photographs of Tuscan farmhouses, Italian grandmothers, baskets of tomatoes, bottles of olive oil and beautiful rustic tables. Of course we connect the health benefits with the people living here now.

After actually living here, I’ve realized that Italy’s food culture and “the Mediterranean diet” are related, but they aren’t synonymous. And now, after all the research, traveling, family meals and restaurant menus, I walk into an Italian bar in the morning and see the same familiar lineup. Cornetti. Nutella. Espresso.

I’m no longer wondering where they’re hiding the Mediterranean diet. This is the Italian diet. The Mediterranean diet is something else.

If you enjoyed this blog – comment, like or share it with others who may be interested.

Namaste!

Just Outside the Frame

Posted on 09/16/202609/20/2026 by Esterina Anderson

Mid September. We are now officially halfway through our initially planned, committed 13-month stint in Italy. A few days ago, I was sitting in a beautiful park in Puglia. This was my view.

A scenic beach with clear turquoise water, surrounded by trees and rocky shores. People are swimming and relaxing on the beach under a blue sky.

Beautiful, right? But it was almost as though I could only look straight ahead. The second I turned my head, breathed deeply, or paid attention to anything outside the photograph, some of the magic disappeared.

What you don’t see in that photo is the trash near my feet or the ants crawling all over me. You can’t tell that I’m sitting on dirt packed so hard that the towel underneath me offers almost no relief from the little rocks poking through it. You can’t smell the cigarette smoke drifting by or feel the dust being kicked up from the dry ground as people bustle past my towel. You certainly can’t feel the roughly 90-degree heat or the sirocco blowing in from North Africa and wrapping everything in humidity. None of that makes the photograph false. It just means the photograph has a frame. And there are many things outside the frame that cannot be seen.

Experiences like this, outside the frame of the beauty, took me by surprise initially. When I talk to anyone at home and express some of the frustrations or talk about things that are less than ideal, the first answer is usually, “But your photos are so beautiful!” Then they start telling me about how beautiful Italy is. Some have been here, some haven’t. Media and Hollywood have contributed to the American perception of the country. I wondered if I’m part of the machine that does that too.

On a separate but completely related note, I have been thinking a lot about the concept of Satya, or truthfulness, these days. Satya is part of the Yamas and Niyamas, which are kind of a guide to broad-minded, healthy living through a yogic lens. Mostly for fun, my friend Michele and I are writing a book on the Yamas and Niyamas in the workplace, so I’ve been thinking a lot about what truthfulness really means.

The same evening this photo was taken, Daren, two friends and I went to dinner in the old part of the town of Gallipoli. Daren and I had gone for a run through this area earlier that morning, before the busy time of day. It looked like a ridiculously charming fishing village. Fishermen were repairing their nets and a few people were sweeping the streets and getting ready for the day. By evening, it had transformed. The streets were packed, every shop was open, restaurants and cafés spilled into the streets, and lights reflected over the water.

The four of us at dinner are all retired (for lack of a better word). Three of the four of us finished our last day of paid employment before turning 50. In some way, we are probably all figuring out how to spend the rest of our days in a meaningful way. While we were sitting at a restaurant overlooking the water in yet another postcard scene, Daren asked the four of us a question.

Do you miss work? And if you do, what do you miss about it?

While everyone answered (myself included) and shared, I let this question marinate through the evening and into the next morning. In all honesty, I don’t really miss my job, but the question made me realize that I miss being completely excited and energized about something the way I once was at work. Because for a very long time, I loved my work.

Sometime along the path of my career, I had a job that changed my relationship with work for good. There were too many meetings, I felt increasingly removed from the mission of the organization, and there were what felt like way too many things that frustrated me. But one thing bothered me more than everything else, and it came up while I was writing the Satya chapter on truthfulness. We sometimes kept people hopeful about things we already knew were very unlikely to happen.

We didn’t lie. We said maybe. There were understandable reasons for it. We didn’t want people to become discouraged or walk away. We wanted to preserve relationships and keep people engaged. Saying “maybe” avoided a difficult conversation. Except that sometimes “maybe” wasn’t really true. People were spending their time doing work based on information we were giving them. They were planning around possibilities we knew were barely possibilities at all. Eventually, I found it increasingly difficult to participate in what felt like a charade. I stopped loving work and being excited about what I was doing.

What was marinating in my mind alongside the beautiful photo I took while ants were crawling on me and I was practically choking from the dust and cigarette smoke was this question: Can what we say or share be technically true and still leave someone with a false impression? I mean, yes, of course! But do we realize the impact that it has when we do this and that people are basing their impressions, decisions and work, on it?

This is what has been bothering me about Italy and the reaction I get when I share the not-so-perfect moments with others who are not here. Nothing I’ve posted about Italy is untrue. The flowers really are spectacular, the quaint towns are picturesque and adorable, and some of the food is extraordinary. The ancient streets, the evening passeggiata, the cafés, the vineyards, the olive trees, the old men sitting together in the piazza—all of it exists.

The photographs and blog experiences are real. But so was the “maybe” at work. Sometimes something can be completely true and still leave out enough of the story to give someone the wrong impression. I lost my appetite for work by participating in what felt like a charade. I don’t want to do that with sharing anything about my retired life. But how do I do that in modern day without posting pictures of dirty diapers, half built buildings and graffiti? Of course we’re going to photograph the beautiful sunset instead of the overflowing garbage bin twenty feet away.

I am bothered by the concept of Satya (that yogic concept of truthfulness) and impressions because I think we also arrived here with a story already written. We’re moving to Italy for a year. That sentence practically comes with its own Instagram filter. Italy is romance, reinvention, pasta, Tuscan hills, walkable villages, slower living, long dinners and flowers pouring from ancient stone windows.

Then we actually lived here. It has been six and a half months now. Living somewhere is very different from visiting. When you live somewhere, you need doctors and pharmacies. You realize that the walkable village requires parking outside ZTL zones and can be a big hassle. You deal with government offices, use the trash system, drive, and need things repaired. We experienced the brutality of the summer heat and smelled cigarette smoke in places I haven’t smelled it since I was a child. We have been immersed in extreme overtourism. We haven’t eaten more than a handful of non-Italian (mostly terrible-tasting) meals in more than six months. We are experiencing the systems behind the scenery.

Two opposing things can both be true, and that is the part I didn’t understand until I lived here. That is what living somewhere does by forcing you outside the frame.

The morning after that dinner and Daren’s question, while the ideas about work, Italy and truthfulness continued to linger; I walked Koji along the same path we had walked him the prior evening. Along the promenade the night before, the water was glowing, and people were everywhere—walking, eating, drinking, talking and laughing. Lights from restaurants, cafés and amusement park rides reflected off the water.

Even though Koji and I walked that very same route, in the light of the morning it looked and felt different. I noticed the trash, the broken glass, the tall grass that hadn’t been cut, and all the things that darkness and twinkling lights had made invisible the night before.

When I ran into the same old city even earlier the following morning, I noticed the overflowing trash, the street sweepers who were distracted and hardly paying attention to what they were missing, the broken cobblestones that I tripped over and all kinds of things I initially filtered out. Same run, just a different set of eyes. Neither experience was untrue. It’s the same city, same walk, same run. So why or how do I see it differently at times? And what am I sharing that gives people an impression that isn’t the whole story and might leave them with a false impression of what something is all about?

Daren and I are intentionally spending much of our time talking, reflecting and thinking about how to live intentional, meaningful lives going forward. Between our conversations and the book Michele and I are working on, I am thinking a lot about what happens when all our individual selections and the things we leave out or don’t say accumulate into a story. How much of a story did I buy into about a people, places and things in my life and how did my experience measure up?

How does what I chose to show leave someone with an honest understanding? Because that was precisely what bothered me about maybe: it wasn’t a lie, it just wasn’t the whole truth.

The opposite of romanticizing a place isn’t criticizing it (which is my first instinct, to be honest!), but perhaps we need to allow things to be whole and full of the nuance they inherently have. Our Italy story doesn’t become less beautiful when I include what has disappointed me. It becomes more honest.

Italy does have spectacular hilltop towns and overflowing garbage bins. There are extraordinary meals, food fatigue and some really terrible overpriced meals. Universal healthcare exists, but so do truly frustrating healthcare experiences. There are absolutely gorgeous places and lots of unkempt public areas. There is truly remarkable history, UNESCO sites and maddening bureaucracy steeped in that same history. Warmth, beauty, neglect, generosity, inefficiency, tradition and contradiction all exist side by side.

None of those things cancels the others out. My photos are not untrue, but they are not giving anyone the full picture of what goes unseen. What part of that is Satya and being truthful? Am I/ are we misleading anyone?

I try via the blog to tell a bigger story, but some people may scroll past the words to look at the pictures. Why do we do that? Why at work did we tell people maybe and lead them to have hope about something that had a small chance? Why didn’t we tell them what the chances were? Do people want to have hope that something better is out there? Daren and I always wanted to live in Europe. Why? What impressions did we have that were not entirely true?

As I try to share that I am no longer loving the ideal of Italy, but getting to know the actual place, I see people almost defending their own idea of what it is. Wanting to keep the hope alive that there is something better out there, that the grass is greener, that the “maybe” could be true.

While I don’t have answers to these questions, these are the kinds of conversations we spend our days having while doing laundry in the sinks of hotels, sitting in traffic, shopping in grocery stores with nearly empty shelves and coughing on cigarette smoke. We also have these conversations by pools, on gorgeous scenic drives throughout the country and over long meals that extend long past sundown while lights come on and illuminate the town like a gorgeous painting.

Countries are nuanced. Workplaces are nuanced. People are nuanced too. Don’t we do this with people too? We meet someone, fall in love or have a hero, and then that person disappoints us by being human. We feel shocked that they don’t meet the ideal that was only in our head due to the filter, the partial picture they showed us, or the one we were willing to see. Is it human nature to have something be all or nothing? Why are we not just looking at and accepting the full picture without attaching to or longing to put it in a category that we either like or don’t like?

This is what living in Italy rather than visiting it is like for me, and it is expanding my understanding of life and, of course, travel. When we travel somewhere we’ve romanticized, especially as tourists, much of what we experience has already been framed for us. We visit the historic center, eat at the recommended restaurant, photograph the piazza at sunset, walk the beautiful streets and leave a few days later. We don’t usually stay long enough to need much from the place beyond what it was already very good at giving us.

When we spend enough time to see past that, like when we spend enough time with a loved one or an idolized hero, we see the whole picture. While it might not be what we expected, it is the truth, and I want to be someone who is honest in following the Satya principle.

We don’t have to pretend the flaws aren’t there, nor do we have to abandon our affection the moment we see them. We can admire someone without requiring them to be perfect, be disappointed by something without rejecting the whole, and acknowledge what is difficult or ugly without somehow betraying what is beautiful. When something finally comes down from its pedestal, we don’t necessarily love it less; we get the chance to know what we’ve actually been loving and love it more.

As for this halfway point in Italy now… There are things I adore, things that make me crazy, things I expected, things I completely misunderstood and things I still don’t understand. It’s a wildly less romantic story, but a more loving, honest and truthful one.

Thanks for reading! The feature image is a dog park at a rest stop.

We’d also love to hear from you! Any of you. Tell me what you think or what experiences like this you can relate to. You can comment here in the blog or email or text either one of us.

Namaste.

The Downtime

Posted on 08/02/2026 by Esterina Anderson

By Esterina Anderson

When Daren and I first got here to Italy five months ago, and Daren got the blogging bug (I’ve been blogging for over 10 years), we reframed my WordPress site around our Italy experience and created three areas on that page: My Experience/Posts, Daren’s Experience/Posts, and Our Travelogue.

If you haven’t seen it because you get the blog in your email, it’s EsterinaAnderson.com.

At first we did post separate things, but for a long time now we’ve pretty much only used the joint Travelogue section.

Why am I saying all this? Because this post is from me (Esterina) and belongs completely under the Esterina’s Posts button. This isn’t one of the posts we both edited together, so I don’t want to rope him into this.

We came to Italy to take a break from life and see how other people live.

When we first started tossing around the idea we are now living, the main goal was to step away after retirement, work on my citizenship, and see what happened. And that break is happening.

Our mornings are slow to start. Yoga, then coffee and the New York Times games together. Then often some exercise and computer work. We talk—a lot. Most of the day. We talk during meals, during errands, and on our many long car rides as we travel. This was the goal. To connect, ponder, and explore.

The conversation has shifted and changed since we got here. Initially we thought we might want to do NGO work, maybe in Africa or the EU. Citizenship certainly would open more doors for us to do those things. We also initially considered really ramping up and expanding our small consulting company. Those talks have now evolved into different conversations.

We talk about deep and spiritual things. We talk about how we want to spend the rest of our lives, who we want to be, and how much, if any, work we want to do for profit. We are doing a lot of reading for fun, but also a lot of reading about Life Part II and spirituality. The books we both read, whether novels or not, we talk about often for hours—how the characters behave, who or what they remind us of, and things the other person might not have considered. We talk about experiences we’ve had, both together and separately, and what we’d do differently now. We talk about the similarities and differences between the U.S. and Italy, what we like about each, and what we don’t like about each. We fuss over Koji. We talk about how we want to show up for the people we love.

These conversations have become really important and might just be a keystone of how, in years to come (assuming I’m lucky enough to have years to live), I look back on this time here.

I know from our blogs it probably looks like all fun, games, traveling, and bliss. But there is another side to what we’re doing. It’s not as glamorous, it’s hard to explain, and it has nothing to do with frescoes, churches, or sightseeing. It’s what happens in between, while we are shopping and going to the comune and to the veterinarian.

While I love traveling, the glitz and writing about it have fallen to the back burner for me. We’re mostly going to tourist cities, and for the most part they are very similar. Walled cities with souvenir shops, gelato, and churches. These places are indisputably beautiful, but they’re honestly starting to feel like a lot of the same. Luckily, our next few planned trips are a little more off the beaten path, and the places that aren’t will be with friends who are coming to visit.

In case I haven’t said it before (if you’ve talked to me, you’ve heard it!), I am really tired of Italian food, and it’s almost all we can get while traveling. Daren keeps writing that we eat different things whenever we go to cities, but we don’t go to cities very often. We used to eat Indian food at least once a week, and I think we’ve had it four times since we’ve been here. We can cook different things at home, but even that’s limited. The grocery stores are very large, but not as diverse as I expected.

I’m also really struggling with the cadence of life. The riposo is a bit of whiplash for me. From a non-Italian or non-Spanish perspective, it initially sounds cozy, romantic, relaxing, and family-oriented. Riposo (like a Spanish siesta) is the afternoon break when many businesses close for a few hours. It wasn’t created to inconvenience anyone. It grew out of a culture that values a long midday meal with family, stepping away during the hottest part of the day, and then returning to work later into the evening. It’s a rhythm that made a lot of sense long before air conditioning, supermarkets, and 24-hour convenience became normal in the U.S. and other European countries. But I’m finding it a little depressing. The streets are empty. Stores look like they’ve been closed since the Dark Ages, with metal gates over the doors. The piazzas empty out. It feels like a deserted ghost town.

The riposo and lack of air conditioning go hand in hand. The buildings are made of heavy stone with small windows, so many places are naturally dark. The shutters stay closed to keep the heat out, which means even less natural light. I’m used to bright, open, airy spaces with lots of sunshine, so this doesn’t fit with my natural circadian rhythm, and I find it difficult. I know what I need to do, and I do it. But I haven’t gotten used to it, and I’m struggling a bit.

I’ve been feeling a little off. We were up until 2:00 in the morning Friday night at the opera, and I slept terribly that night. Then I slept poorly again last night because I was overtired. After a mid-afternoon nap, I had a nice break to reflect on how I’d like to say this (which I am doing now).

When I woke up, I just lay there and thought about nothing… in the heat, with the sound of a fan blowing. It reminded me of when I was a kid in Brooklyn and later on Long Island, before we had air conditioning, or when we would only turn it on for a little while during the day. There was nothing to do and nowhere to go. The days felt so long. It felt free. Someone else took care of dinner and the bills. The day would be ahead of me. I’d wake up, lie in bed, and just think about nothing in particular while I listened to the fan blowing.

Today was like that. I need this in my life. Everyone should be fortunate enough to take a (what Daren is calling) sabbatical in their mid-life at some point.

I wanted time to reflect, to think, to decide what to keep and what to let go of—in what I think, what I own, what I do, and what I want to do. While riposo isn’t my cup of tea, it is helping me not “go, go, go” all day and instead take an afternoon break.

Retirement adjustment is a real thing. I knew it wouldn’t be some kind of amazing transition. I wasn’t sure what to expect and this is all part of it.

I’m not sure exactly what I’m trying to say, except that there is much more going on here than what shows up in our Travelogue. While this kind of sounds like a Seinfeld show (in that it’s about nothing), there is so much more than the eye can see in the nothing. There’s been a lot of soul-searching, a lot of downtime, and a lot of adjusting to a different way of life. Some parts of it I think I’ll carry home with me. Other parts I’ll happily leave behind. I don’t think the grass is greener anywhere else, but I do think it’s worth seeing that there are other ways to do things, even in two first world kind of similar countries. I feel blessed to have this experience even though most days do not look like the blogs you read! And I have to say I’m gladder than you would think that the actual experience is not exactly as it may seem in our posts. The nothingness is really where the treasure is for me. And that is something I will always carry with me no matter where I am standing in the world.

Namaste,

Esterina

What Italy is Teaching Me: What Remains

Posted on 06/23/2026 by Esterina Anderson

By Esterina Anderson

A few weeks ago when we were in Chiavari, we walked the promenade there over and over. Drinks for aperitivo were advertised all over the place, and next to the usual Aperol Spritz I kept seeing something called a Hugo Spritz.

Last night I finally decided to look up what it was and make a non-alcoholic version at home. We happened to have the right ingredients, and Oh My Gosh, it was delicious – Light, refreshing, and perfect for sitting outside on a hot summer evening!

We were out on our back balcony enjoying the drinks and the view when I noticed my glass was halfway gone. My immediate thought was that I should go inside and make another.

But I caught myself. That thought felt very familiar. For a long time, I thought this was just part of my drinking problem. But I’ve come to realize it’s bigger than alcohol. The deeper issue is scarcity.

If I love the taste of something, the moment I notice it’s running out my mind shifts. Instead of enjoying what is still there, I start thinking about how it’s going to be gone and how I can replace it. If it’s replaceable, half full becomes a signal to refill.

What’s interesting is that this didn’t disappear when I stopped drinking alcohol. I noticed the same pattern with seltzer, soda, and other NA drinks. The object changes, but the thought pattern stays the same.

As I sat there looking at my glass, I thought about the saying: glass half full or glass half empty.

I’ve always kind of thought of myself as a glass-half-empty person, though that never fully made sense. People who know me often describe me as optimistic, sunny, and positive. So why have I always identified more with half empty? I think I finally understand.

This isn’t really about optimism or pessimism. It’s about how quickly my mind shifts from enjoyment to scarcity. The moment something reaches halfway, I stop experiencing what’s still there and start focusing on what’s disappearing. And that mindset can insidiously steal joy.

Way back in 1992, someone told me something that left a deep impression on me. Her grandfather always said to think of the gas tank as empty once it hits halfway. If you fill it before it drops below half, and you’ll never risk running out. That idea embedded itself in me.

I developed this strong need to prevent depletion. Refill early. Stay ahead. Don’t run out. In many ways, that mindset has served me well. I’m organized and prepared. I rarely get caught off guard. But it doesn’t work everywhere. Especially not with life.

When it comes to personal consumption—food, drink, time, energy, even joy—constantly trying to refill or stay topped off can actually rob me of the experience itself. Instead of enjoying what’s here, I’m focused on what’s going to be gone.

Turning 50 and moving to Italy has shown me how much my thought patterns are changing. I know I retired young. And if I live to be 100, I still have half of my life left. That feels very different from thinking half is gone.

I am seeing this now a lot in the recovery community or in conversations with younger people who feel like they’ve messed everything up. They get stuck in thoughts like: I wasted so much time. I’m behind. I ruined things. That’s half-empty thinking.

But the shift happens when you start looking at what remains instead of what’s gone. You still have time. You can still change direction. You can still create something meaningful with what is ahead of you, whether you are 30, 60, or 90. Why not live the remaining years with purpose and be proud of every minute of it?

I’ve spent much of my life focused on avoiding depletion—refilling before things run low, staying ahead, making sure nothing runs out. That mindset can be useful in some areas, but it has also robbed me of presence and joy because I was hyper-focused on what was disappearing instead of appreciating what remains.

The Hugo Spritz ended up being a reminder. Half empty doesn’t always mean lacking. It can also mean there is still plenty left.

Maybe the better question isn’t what’s gone. Maybe the better question is what remains, and whether we can appreciate it before reaching for more or mourning what was lost.

So I sat there and enjoyed the remainder of this Hugo Spritz slowly, savoring it and reminding myself that I still had half left. And when I reached the end, I didn’t want more. It was just right. It was enough.

Home Can Be More Than a Place

Posted on 04/26/2026 by Esterina Anderson

This week was all about family.

Long before our move to Italy, we had planned a trip to Rocca di Neto for April of 2026. I turned 50 in February and wanted to go to Italy to see where my father grew up and connect with my relatives. At the time, I was even hoping my father would be able to come too.

My father hadn’t been back to Italy in about 20 years. For his 70th birthday, my brother Mario and I helped him renew his green card so he could get his passport and travel again. This April would have been the perfect time.

Running in the background of all of this since 2018 was my effort to obtain Italian citizenship.

I had worked with a lawyer for a few years who suggested that the fastest path might be to move to Italy temporarily and apply from here. At the time, that didn’t feel realistic. We had kids still in school and jobs that wouldn’t allow for that kind of move. Who has the luxury of just packing up and heading to Italy “for a while”?

So I gathered all the paperwork and began the process through the Italian consulate in the United States. Because we live in Connecticut, that meant going through the New York City consulate. The wait time for an appointment there is several years long. After years of gathering and translating the correct documents, I added my name to the list in June of 2022 and still haven’t received an appointment.

Then last year, everything shifted in ways we couldn’t imagine.

I unexpectedly retired. Not long after, my father passed away in August. The months surrounding that were a whirlwind of family chaos and change. Daren was still working full time, but we started talking about what we really wanted next.

We both wanted to keep working—but in a way that allowed for more flexibility, less stress, and more control over our time.

And suddenly, moving to Italy for a year didn’t feel unrealistic anymore. It felt right.

After my father passed, the three of us—his children—made the decision that Pops would still go to Rocca in April. We cleared it with the family in Italy, who thought it was a great idea. This week, we carried that plan out.

Before moving to Italy, we had even considered settling in Calabria to be closer to family. We visited the area last October. I had met many of my relatives before in the United States when they visited.

When we arrived last fall, we were welcomed at the small airport in Crotone by my uncle and two aunts. The airport is so small they were practically at the gate. Even though it had been many years since we had seen one another, we all recognized each other right away.

And then came the welcome.

It was like the movies—one long table, full of food, constant conversation, introductions, laughter. We spent a few days with them, fully immersed in it all.

For me, it truly felt like home.

I lost my mom when she was 49, and my dad last summer. For the past 15 years or so, my father didn’t really have a place of his own, so “going home” meant going to newer places that were fine, but didn’t have a deep connection to me.

But in Italy—even having not been there since I was very little—it felt familiar.

My relatives’ homes were decorated the same way my parents decorated. The same types of frames, candy dishes, the same overall feel and aesthetic.

My uncle Joe and his wife even had the same dishes my parents had. My aunt said it was because she and my mom bought them at the same time.

My aunt Sarah’s food tastes just like my mom’s did. It’s uncanny—especially the rabbit sauce. When I told her this, she said it was because her mom (my grandmother, and my mom’s mother-in-law) taught them both how to make it.

We don’t know each other well, but my cousins—especially the men—have the same mannerisms as my father and brothers. The same humor, the same playful energy. They laugh and carry on with the same joy we had when my father was alive.

The language barrier was there, but it was also strangely fun to navigate. We made it work.

When we visited last fall, we seriously considered moving closer to them.

There are real benefits. It’s much easier to practice Italian when people are patient and willing to wait while you find the words or look them up. Learning feels more natural that way.

But Calabria is far south and not close to major international travel routes. With four adult children and family back home, we felt more at ease staying connected and accessible. Being that far away made us feel just a little too vulnerable.

And even though we didn’t move here, we are driving away, having carried out the plan to bring Pops back to his hometown on Rocca.

Thursday we packed into few cars and made the short trip up the road to local town cemetery where the family has a mausoleum. We placed my father’s ashes amongst the other relatives that have passed alongside his parents (my grandparents).

My brother Frankie and his partner Mary were with us this time, and Daren and I took immense joy in seeing how quickly they were welcomed and made to feel at home—that they were with family.

It was special to see the experience we had before through their eyes, and to be back in it ourselves—this time understanding just a little bit more of the rhythm and the sounds around us.

Calabria feels like home. Not because I had been there before—but because so much of it already lived in me. The way people gather, the way meals are shared, the way homes are filled with the same small details I grew up with.

It made me realize that home isn’t always a place you return to. Sometimes it’s something that travels quietly through generations—carried in traditions, in mannerisms, in the way people connect with each other.

Being with people I barely know, in a place I had never lived, somehow—and truly—feels like home. It All Clicks.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Please feel free to leave a comment or subscribe for future updates.

Not Everything Is a Postcard

Posted on 04/19/202605/06/2026 by Esterina Anderson

I can’t believe it, but today marks 7 weeks in Italy. It feels longer than that, but also shorter than that!

There’s something that has been building for a long time, but being here has finally brought it into focus.

When choosing destinations or lodging, we’ve been fooled by photos more times than I can count. Places that look beautiful online—carefully staged, thoughtfully cropped, filtered just right—often don’t match the experience of being there. Once you’re at a location, you can picture where the photographer stood and what was intentionally left out, and even why.

The reviews have been just as confusing. I’ve struggled to understand how so many places end up with five stars when my experience would be nowhere near that. It’s made travel harder than I expected. At least one in every three places has been a real disappointment, and it’s not just accommodations—it’s entire locations. People we know and trust say a place is beautiful, blogs rave about it, and then we arrive and it just doesn’t land the same way.

Daren and I have been traveling together as a couple for 16 years now, since crowd-sourced reviews first became popular. We were early adopters, but over time it’s become clear that something doesn’t quite translate.

A winding path through a lush garden lined with trees bearing yellow fruit, leading to a green wooden gate in the background.

Italy has brought this into even sharper focus for me. Before we started looking seriously for a place to live here, my experience of Italy was limited to places like Milan, Venice, Lake Como, and Siena. In my mind, everything was beautiful, everyone spoke English, and the food was always incredible.

Last fall, when we came back to explore more deeply, that image started to shift. Italy isn’t a postcard. It’s where people live. It’s normal in the way any place is normal. There are stores, trash, things that are broken. Some people take care of their surroundings beautifully, others don’t. There are pockets that are stunning, and long stretches that are just average. It felt surprisingly familiar.

A train station platform with tracks, featuring a sign for 'Pompei Scavi Villa Misteri', surrounding greenery, and a tall tree under a clear blue sky.

We chose Tuscany for practical reasons, mainly access to Florence and Rome if we needed to get home quickly. And it has been wonderful. When we visit places like San Gimignano, Lucca, Portofino, Chianti, or Pienza, they are every bit as beautiful as the photos suggest.

But they are also just one version of reality.

Right now, we’re staying outside of Sorrento, and it’s been a very different experience. Sorrento itself is a step up, but only slightly. Pompeii felt chaotic and overwhelming. Even parts of the Amalfi Coast, which people rave about, felt more worn than I expected.

And yet, I can still take a beautiful photo almost anywhere. I might be able to find the right angle, the right light, the right frame. I can create something that looks magical, even when the broader surroundings aren’t.

Someone commented on Facebook recently that they never thought Italy was beautiful until they saw my pictures, and that really stayed with me.

A scenic view of Positano, Italy, showcasing colorful hillside buildings, a beach area, and the Mediterranean Sea under a blue sky.

It made me realize that beauty isn’t just about what’s there—it’s also about what we notice and how we frame it. That’s where crowd-sourcing starts to fall apart. We all have different baselines. Where we live, what we’re used to, and what we value shape how we experience a place.

Back home, we live in a shoreline town with both beautiful and less appealing areas. Our neighborhood happens to be one of the nicer ones, and we take pride in keeping our home clean and comfortable. So when I see a five-star rating, that’s what I’m expecting. But I can see now that not everyone is measuring against the same standard.

Historic red brick church with a tall white steeple and clock, surrounded by bare trees and greenery.

Lately, I’ve started taking different kinds of photos. Not just the beautiful ones, but the honest ones too—the train stations, the trash, the lemon groves covered in worn green mesh along the highway. Not to be negative, but to capture a fuller picture of what we’re actually seeing.

A view of traffic on a winding road next to a rocky hillside, with various cars and a white van visible alongside lush greenery and a stone wall. — Traffic

Interior view of a crowded train with passengers standing and sitting, holding onto handrails. Several individuals are engaged in conversation, while others are looking at their phones. The walls are lined with windows and red railings. — Traffic

Where I’ve landed with all of this is pretty simple. The world is beautiful, but not always in the way we expect. It isn’t constant, and it isn’t evenly distributed, but it is there. Sometimes it’s obvious, and sometimes you have to look a little harder for it.

This experience hasn’t made me appreciate Italy any less. If anything, it’s made me appreciate it more. Seeing it as a real place—not just an ideal—has made it feel more honest and more human.

And maybe that’s the point. Not to chase perfect beauty, but to learn how to recognize it wherever you are.

There is beauty everywhere in Italy. But the truth is, there is beauty everywhere when you look for it—even in a flowering weed growing up through the rubble.

A close-up view of an ancient stone wall with a large archway, featuring vibrant yellow wildflowers growing from the top.

A large crowd of tourists gathered at the entrance of ancient stone ruins under a clear blue sky.

On Easter

Posted on 04/06/2026 by Esterina Anderson

Happy Easter – Buona Pasqua
(in Italian, if you couldn’t deduce that ☺)

We are in Italy and alone. I feel like I should feel sad or lonely, but I don’t. And that in itself has me reflecting, because Easter hasn’t felt like much of a holiday to me for a long time.

And yet here I am, in the hills of Tuscany on Easter morning.

When I was a kid, I went to Catholic school—St. Brendan’s in Brooklyn, New York. I loved Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday all the way through Easter and the vacation week that followed.

It wasn’t because of Jesus, exactly, or even religion. I loved the tradition, the pomp, the feeling that spring was on its way, the dressing up.

Being in Catholic school made it all feel special. The church was right next to the school, and for religion class we were often inside—looking around, practicing music, getting familiar with it. I knew what it looked like during Mass and in between. I loved how, in preparation for Easter, everything got cleaned and polished. The priests, who lived in the rectory on the block and were always kind and involved, would bring out their special robes. I had a crush on one of the younger priests—Father Michael.

Starting on Palm Sunday, the church was all dolled up. There were special Masses all week that were different and, to me, kind of fun—even if the topic was somber. For the short time I was in the youth choir, there were lots of practices and lots of reasons to go to church and hang out with my friends. By Wednesday of Holy Week we had a half day, and then were off for the next week and a half. As a kid, that felt magical.

Easter itself was always a little anticlimactic. The build-up was over. But there were egg hunts around the apartment, Easter baskets, and those gigantic Italian chocolate eggs my dad always found for my brothers and me—each with a toy inside. The toy was never anything special, but as a kid, any toy lit up my heart.

When we moved from Brooklyn to Long Island in middle school, Easter and Holy Week were never quite the same. I went to public school and didn’t spend time around church anymore. We still went to Mass on Easter, but we became the kind of Catholics who mostly showed up on Christmas and Easter. Going to church now required a car instead of a three-block walk, and we didn’t know anyone there.

Still, Easter was fun. We colored eggs, got baskets, received those chocolate eggs from my dad, gathered with extended family, and had a special meal that included rabbit—yes, rabbit, like the Easter bunny.

Years went by. I grew up and had children young. Until then, I hadn’t really experienced Easter without kids involved—either being one or having them. It was always about eggs, bread, a great meal, and extended family. Holy Week still carried that feeling of something special, even though I was no longer part of church festivities and rarely attended them.

And even though I no longer got those giant, mostly hollow chocolate eggs, my father always made sure my kids and their cousins did. I’m not even sure if the toy was still inside—my kids might know. What I do remember is trying to get the egg home intact and usually finding it cracked from the car ride. It always felt like too much chocolate, so I’d break it into smaller pieces, freeze it, and use it later for cookies or some other dessert in the spring.

It wasn’t until I got divorced and the family split up that Easter really started to lose its shape. Different traditions. Not always having the kids. The standard divorce agreement doesn’t even count Easter as a holiday.

And as I got older, I started to notice that Easter isn’t really considered a holiday at all. It falls on a Sunday, so there’s no time off from work. Even people who work that day don’t get special pay like they do on actual holidays. In the United States, Easter comes with plenty of fun—egg hunts, baskets, the Easter bunny—but the day itself doesn’t carry the same weight. It feels more like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.

Over time, it started to feel less special. Holy Week stopped registering, the kids never really loved it, and somewhere along the way it became just another Sunday—one where I might text people, but didn’t make plans or go to church. Not because I didn’t want to, exactly, but because I’d feel like a total hypocrite showing up.

My father, who passed away last August, always loved Easter. Being here now, in his mother country, I can see it from his perspective. It feels like a bigger deal here—no Easter bunny, no egg hunts—but the bakeries are full, and those giant hollow eggs he always brought us are everywhere.

I can’t help but look at them and tear up a bit. He wasn’t always my favorite person, but once he was just a young boy excited about chocolate and toys like the rest of us. That’s what he passed on.

Those eggs feel different to me now.

And yet this morning, I sit far from family in the hills of Tuscany. An Italian sauce simmers on the stove. I hear birds outside. Soon we’ll pack up lunch and head down to the pool to celebrate Pasqua with other expats who also have no family here.

Today—between the sauce simmering, the quiet hills, and sharing pranzo with others who are also far from home—I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time.

Not the old version of Easter.
But something just as real.

Happy Easter to my pops in heaven.

A young girl in a pink and black jacket stands smiling on the grass, while a man holding a colorful basket stands next to her. In the background, another man in a black hoodie leans against a tree, overlooking the scene.

A close-up of an orange Easter egg labeled 'Koji' next to a decorated mug featuring a black dog. In the background, a bowl of colorful Easter eggs is visible.

Beef Stew

Posted on 03/29/202603/29/2026 by Esterina Anderson

By Esterina Anderson

A week or so ago, I was on an email string with an amazing group of women back home who meet semi-often—sometimes with a question or a theme to contemplate so we can keep the conversation flowing, expand our minds, and get to know one another on a deeper level. One of the women who will be hosting soon asked the group to bring their favorite childhood recipe.

I can’t attend (you know, being in Italy and all), but I did consider contributing to the conversation from afar with my own favorite childhood recipe. Two came to mind, and if I had responded, the other likely would have won out—but this week, Beef Stew is what I would choose today.

Let me backtrack to Thursday.

I woke up as happy as I have been almost every day since we arrived in Italy. It had been nearly four weeks.

One of my less healthy habits is checking my phone first thing in the morning. Thursday, there was a routine email from our realtor—but something about it didn’t feel routine after everything that had happened with renting our home in Connecticut. For some reason, it set me off. It felt jarring. My body reacted instantly, and I could feel myself mentally spiraling.

I tried to sit and meditate, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t focus on anything useful. My mind was off to the races, my throat tight.

At the same time, I realized we had planned to bring the dog to the vet, and a plumber was supposed to be coming. Daren was out walking the dog and had been gone for a while—with no phone. I started to worry: What if he forgot about the vet? What if he didn’t realize the overlap with the plumber? (I barely realized it myself since we hadn’t scheduled it—the landlord had casually mentioned it, which somehow made it feel even more chaotic.)

Then my mind went further—visions of the dog chasing a wild boar (which is actually a thing here), or Daren falling somewhere in the woods with no way to call because he left his phone at home.

Yeah, as I write this it sounds ridiculous, but it was where my mind was at the time, when suddenly, everything felt like too much all at once and I felt like I was coming undone.

Nothing is actually new or different just because we’re in Italy. The same patterns of panic and spiraling—triggered by big or small things—are still here. But underneath it all, I realized that morning that I was really missing home.

The first few weeks here were busy—setting up the house, figuring things out, getting settled. But now that things are quieter, the absence is louder. I realized I miss my friends. I miss seeing people. I miss having conversations that aren’t just between my husband and me.I haven’t had any real time to myself. I haven’t watched a show. I haven’t done anything creative. At home, I had built-in space for that—my weekly craft group, walks with friends, book talks, dinners or coffee with girlfriends, meeting up with other couples. Just going outside into the garden and getting my hands in the dirt. Connecting with people as I got mail from the mailbox. Those things grounded me. They gave me connection and a sense of rhythm. That morning I felt lonely.

Don’t get me wrong—I LOVE what we are doing. I love shaking things up. But in that moment of panic, I was craving the ability to kvetch with friends, take a long hot bath, and prepare something that feels like home.

I have been anxious most of my life. It wasn’t until 10 years ago [this month actually] that I even realized it, and that awareness only came because it escalated into panic attacks. Ten years later—after experimenting with medication and lifestyle changes—I’ve never been more in touch with myself or more content. But anxiety still exists.

When I get anxious to the level I did on Thursday morning, I start to fear there’s something wrong with me. I worry that I’ll never be happy. I mean—how can I be in Italy, in this beautiful place, and feel anxious? It must be me. I must be the problem.

But it’s not me. It’s life.

This is life. It’s a fluctuating feeling that will pass. An old blog on this topic: On The Fluctuating Gunas.

It’s not about where you are physically, or where you are in life. Trying to change the world around me so I feel less anxious isn’t the solution—it’s not sustainable, and quite frankly, it would be exhausting. The only sustainable solution is learning how to live with what comes up in a way that isn’t harmful, and sitting through the discomfort knowing it will pass.

I had to figuratively slap myself out of feeling like a failure—or fearing writing about this because someone who knows me might feel disappointed that every moment in a new country with a beautiful view isn’t bliss. I want to wear my heart on my sleeve and let the world know that I love my life—but I’m human. And human emotions don’t disappear just because we change our circumstances.

When I see other people being human, it gives me permission to be human too. I want to offer that same permission.

Daren got home safe. No wild boars attacked Koji, and Daren was standing upright. The plumber came early. We made it to the vet and communicated in a bumbling but ultimately successful way with our broken Italian.

I couldn’t help but think of something I’ve said just recently to a friend (and can never remember when I need it): most of what we worry about never actually happens.

Everything was fine—but the emotional flooding lingered. I still didn’t feel right.

By about halfway through the day—after the vet, some rest, petting the dog, and a fair amount of complaining—I found myself craving comfort. Food, scent, shelter. It was a windy, rainy day—the perfect setting for comfort food.

I pulled out a piece of beef I had bought earlier in the week, intending to make beef stew at some point (thanks to my friend’s prompt about childhood recipes). The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

As I started browning the beef and the scent rose from the pot, I felt my stress begin to melt away. I chopped carrots, onions and celery, remembering how I used to feel as a kid when those same smells filled the kitchen while my mother cooked. We didn’t have beef stew often, but when we did, it was usually on a cold, unpleasant day—when the warmth and smell inside felt like a protective, loving blanket.

With each ingredient I added, I felt better. By the time everything was in the pot and simmering, I felt lighter—like the heaviness was leaving my body.

Chocolate felt necessary too. I converted an American brownie recipe into the European measurements and pans we had, and made a tray of warm, gooey brownies to go with it.

As everything cooked, I felt so much better that I was able to sit down with Daren and talk through one of our consulting projects. I even went upstairs, wrapped myself in my weighted blanket (another reliable stress reliever), and got some focused work done.

Later, one of the kids called and really needed to talk. By that point, I felt clear again—steady, present. I closed my computer and was able to give my full attention to the conversation.

Somewhere in there, I had pulled myself back together. Not perfectly, not magically, not with grace! – but enough. And it felt really good.

Later, we sat down to eat the stew and brownies, which turned out amazing—and were exactly what I needed.

Nothing had been fixed. It had just been felt… and it passed. Sometimes that’s all it is.
You sit with it… and let something warm simmer until you come back to yourself.

A thank you to my friend who knows who she is. I’m calling this Beef Stew.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Please feel free to leave a comment or subscribe for future updates.

When You’re the Stranger

Posted on 03/21/202603/21/2026 by Esterina Anderson

By Esterina Anderson

When I went for a morning run today along the path that follows the water from Santa Margherita to Portofino in Liguria, I felt so alive. So happy. So free.

My body was thanking me for running. The sun felt amazing on the few parts of my skin that were bare. I felt the thread of life all around me and deeply connected to my surroundings.

I’ve often felt this way while running or walking. Most often, it happened at home—in my neighborhood or during the lunch break walks I took nearly every working day since 2003. During those walks, I’d pass people and smile—sometimes say hello or good morning. If I was too out of breath, I’d just smile. If the other person noticed, there was almost always a small, lovely connection. Just human to human. A brief moment.

Smiling begets smiling. I always think of the line: “A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.”

Today, on this particular run—alone in a new place, but along the same path Daren and I walked yesterday—I felt that same connection for the first time here in Italy. And for the first time, it felt normal to run by people and say, ciao, buongiorno, scusi, grazie, permesso…

People smiled. People greeted me back. Some were lost in their own thoughts and didn’t notice. It was no different from my lifelong experience at home in the United States.

This simple, beautiful act got me thinking: we are all the same. Everywhere. Humans are the same.

But a day or two earlier, I don’t think I would have had this experience. I would have been looking down at my phone, trying to figure out the route. I thought at first it was just that—being in an unfamiliar place.

But it’s more than that. Just a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t have enough words under my belt to greet strangers or make a passing comment, like “what a beautiful day.” Not that I’m any expert now—but having even a few phrases that I know I’m saying correctly creates connection.

And then, somewhere along the run, The Doors’ People Are Strange started playing in my head—and that sent me down another path of thought.

People really are strange when you are the stranger.

I am new to this land. Definitely a stranger. A foreigner. The one who doesn’t quite fit. So, of course, people feel strange. But as I get more comfortable—as I learn the paths—people become less strange. And I start to see how similar we all are, how people respond to me the same way whether I’m running here in Italy or on the familiar roads outside my home.

My mind then made a further leap—to all the things friends and family back home have told us or asked us, based on their assumptions about Italy and Europe in general.

I have to say… a lot of it just isn’t true.

Our lives, our stores, our people, our systems—love, power, corruption, generosity—you name it… they are far more similar than different.

There are three assumptions I’ve heard over and over again—one of which even showed up in my husband’s blog this week. There are more, but for brevity, I’ll stick with these:

The food is better
People are more put together and always well dressed
The roads are strange and driving is more difficult

These are often shared as facts—based on a single trip or experience.

So what’s actually true?

Food: Some food is better. But I’ve also had some really bad meals here, to be honest—especially outside of tourist areas.

Grocery store food? Hit or miss. I’ve bought the same items from Lidl or Coop and had completely different experiences—likely depending on delivery or the crop. Tomatoes and lettuce have ranged from absolutely incredible to completely tasteless.

Well-dressed people: On past trips to Italy, I noticed how put together everyone seemed. But now that I’m living here, I see plenty of pajama pants, yoga pants, joggers, sneakers, messy buns, and chipped nail polish. Sound familiar?

Driving: The roads are smaller, yes—but so are the cars. It actually feels pretty similar. The signs are slightly different, but very understandable if you’ve driven in the U.S. And the drivers? Same story. Tailgaters, slow drivers, unexpected moves… different place, same cast of characters.

So why do we think it’s all so different—and better?

Because most of us experience Italy as tourists.

And in tourist areas, the food is better. People are more dressed up. Everything is curated.

Think about major U.S. destinations—New York, D.C., Las Vegas, Orlando, New Orleans, Chicago, Miami, Seattle, San Diego, San Francisco. When I’ve visited those places, I’ve had the same experience: great food, well-dressed people, chaotic driving that feels totally different.

But what’s actually different in those moments?

Me.

And what’s the same?

They’re all tourist destinations.

Tourist destinations are designed to impress—better food, cleaner streets, people dressed for work or presentation.

Step outside those areas—whether in Italy or back home—and it’s the same story. Food is hit or miss. Roads are wider and quieter. And people are out living their lives in whatever is comfortable… sometimes not exactly stylish.

So back to my run. I realized that when I feel comfortable—when I know what to say—I connect more easily with people, and in turn feel more connected to that thread of life around me.

People aren’t all that different. They respond in much the same ways, no matter where I am.

And when I take that a step further, I see how this extends beyond just brief interactions. It challenges the assumptions we carry about entire cultures—about how friendly people are, how they live, what they value. Even the things we romanticize most—the beauty, the clothing, the food.

It’s not that these things aren’t special.
It’s just that they’re not as different as we imagine—and maybe neither are we.